01

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The day I found out that Archer Morales killed himself, I didn't know what to think.

I stared up at Mrs. Anderson, the slightly batty and graying-haired German teacher, with a blank look on my face, not really believing what I'd just heard.

"Come again?" one of the girls sitting beside me – Kayla Bradfield – said in a light, airy voice as she sat upright in her chair.

Mrs. Anderson sighed heavily as she took off her glasses and polished them on the front of her polyester suit. "Archer Morales committed suicide yesterday evening."

I swallowed hard as I slouched backwards in my seat, feeling the color draining from my face. That's what I thought Mrs. Anderson had said. Normally the woman was so lost in her own little world and babbling things in German that I thought I could've passed off what she'd said as another bit of nonsense.

But I knew that this time that wasn't exactly the case.

The more I thought about what she'd said, the more I realized that it sort of did make sense.

When I'd first walked into the school not twenty minutes ago, I couldn't help but feel like something had gone wrong, like there was this massive cloud of depression hovering over the place. I'd even seen bits of the staff clustered together in the hallway, their heads together as they talked quickly and quietly in furious whisperings.

At first I'd just assumed that maybe there was a leaked pipe in the building or something. But did a leaked pipe really cause looks of sorrow and horror to be on teachers' faces?

"Who's Archer Morales?" another kid from the back of the classroom shouted, sounding duped.

Mrs. Anderson's tired looking eyes sparked with anger as she glared at the offender in the back of the room. "A very important member of this student body, Mr. Rosedale, and I do suggest you refrain from speaking like that again."

The entire class sucked in collective breaths of air.

Mrs. Anderson never talked like that.

I listened only halfheartedly to what our homeroom teacher said next, explaining how psychologists from town offices would be coming to school every day for the next two weeks to help people cope with what they were feeling. She kept talking about how it wasn't good that we should bottle up our emotions and how we should remember Archer with glad, happy memories instead of what he'd done.

Well, I had enough trouble sharing my emotions, and I wasn't about to change that anytime soon.

When the first period bell rang, piercing through the tense atmosphere in the room like a knife, I leapt up out of my chair, grabbed my things, and bolted from the room before anyone else had even realized it was time to leave.

I really didn't know why I was feeling like a complete and utter mess. It wasn't like I'd been best friends with Archer Morales or anything. On the contrary, the guy is – was – the school's social pariah.

He was insanely tall and had dark, unmanageable hair, along with a pale, sharply defined face that would have looked highly aristocratic on anybody else. Actually, Archer Morales was a pretty damn handsome guy, which made it all the more confusing as to why he was such an antisocial outcast.

Maybe it was because he just didn't like anybody. Or maybe it was because everyone else just didn't like him.

It had always been so hard to tell what the guy was thinking because he usually always had his head down and his hair was so wavy it nearly always fell into his eyes. Oh, God, his eyes.

The one time I'd actually gotten a good look at Archer's face had been in Freshman year, in English 1. I sat in the desk across the aisle from him and he'd accidentally knocked his notebook off his desk at my feet sometime later on in the year. When he'd leaned over to grab it, I couldn't help but look at him as he moved and was more than surprised when I actually saw his face, and more importantly, his eyes. God, his eyes were amazing. They weren't exactly blue or green, but they weren't hazel, either. I really didn't think the color of his eyes had a name, but I'd instantly fallen in love with them.

Archer Morales had the eyes of angel.

When Archer had caught me watching him, his eyes had narrowed as he sat up straight, his lips pursing into a tight line. I'd quickly flushed bright red and ducked my head, trying to keep myself from hiding my face in my textbook out of embarrassment.

Needless to say, I hadn't ever told anyone that story before. And I really didn't think that I was going to, either.

But now? Now Archer Morales had killed himself?

I was starting to freak myself out since my heart kept pounding erratically against my chest anytime I even so much of thought that sentence and it felt like I was in the throes of some horrible asthma attack and couldn't breathe.

What the hell was happening to me?

"Oh, my God, Hadley!"

I let out a squeak of shock and turned on my heel to see my best friend Taelor Lewis sprinting her way down the hallway towards me, her stylishly highlighted hair a complete mess. I didn't even bother myself with a "hello" because Taelor instantly started going off about what she'd just heard in homeroom.

"Did you hear what happened?" Taelor babbled, waving her perfectly manicured hands around for emphasis.

I didn't even bother asking her what she was talking about. I just kept my head down and continued walking down the hallway with purposeful strides. My face was getting hot and I so didn't want to be talking about this right now.

I was going to be sick.

"I can't believe it!" she kept babbling, her silvery blue eyes wide. "I mean, I knew Archer Morales was really weird, but I didn't think that he'd - "

"Just...just shut up, Taelor," I snapped before I could stop myself. "I don't want to talk to you about this."

Taelor stared at me as if I'd just slapped her across the face, her mouth dropping open. I couldn't exactly blame her for looking so shocked, because I never talked back to anybody.

"What's the big deal, Hadley?" Taelor wanted to know, going hand on hip.

A guy we knew had just killed himself. That was the big deal.

"I'll see you later," I muttered, turning away from her and continuing on down the hallway towards my first period class.

If I knew Taelor like I thought I did, she'd probably make me go and see one of those shrinks that were going to be here at school for the next two weeks because I was acting "weird". This was typical Taelor behavior, because she pretty much always had to have things go her way.

I made a mental note to avoid Taelor as much as possible for the next few days.

The only thing the student body seemed to be able to talk about the entire day was Archer Morales' suicide. Anywhere I went there were teens grouped about in the hallways and in the cafeteria during lunch, their heads together, no doubt talking about what had happened last night.

I couldn't exactly blame everyone for being so distracted, but that didn't mean I had to like it.

All I really wanted to do was go home, curl up underneath the covers on my bed, and pretend like this day had never happened. That was wishful thinking, though, because I knew it was entirely impossible.