Jason got in sometime around midmorning that Monday. He greeted familiar students in the hallways, slapping hands, stopping to have a quick chat, while making his way to the teacher's lounge. He was pretty well liked by the faculty as well, who treated him almost as one of their own, and he could get better coffee there. It was a smallish room, painted pea green, with a kitchenette, a round table that sat four, a couch against the wall under the window, and smelling perpetually of coffee and disinfectant. Walking into the room, Jason greeted the teachers already there.

"Ready for the game on Friday, Travis?" asked Mr. Crowley, the History teacher, sitting on the couch reading a newspaper. He was middle aged, with closely cropped hair and a slight paunch.

"Sorry," replied Jason, going to the coffee pot to fill his thermos. "I don't really follow sports."

"What?" Crowley's brows rose almost into his hairline. "Don't follow sports? But you're an Army man!"

Jason replied with a smile and shrug.

"It's the biggest game of the season," pressed Crowley. "We're going up against our fated rivals, and we're going to crush them."

"Here's to crushing them, then," Jason said, lifting his thermos in a toast. "Mrs. Martinez, did you make these muffins?"

The science teacher, sitting at the table with a mug of tea and a crossword, looked up over her round framed spectacles and smiled at him. "Oh, yes, I did. They're gluten, sugar, dairy, and nut free."

"And taste free," added Crowley.

She shot the man a scowl while Jason picked up one of the palm sized muffins and bit into it, tasting raisins and cranberries. "Hmm," he said, chewing. "I like it."

She smiled. Just then Mr. Baily, the English teacher, walked in. A tall man with a taste for brightly colored cardigans, he was almost retirement age, with a fringe of gray hair around a bald patch and small, perpetually squinting eyes, even though he swore he didn't need glasses. Spotting Jason, he said, "I saw you with the Otto boy last week. Is he joining up?"

"Oh, no," Jason said. "We were just both on our way out."

"No?" Baily said, going to the sink to wash his hands. "I think it would do him good. Give him some structure and order."

"Does he need it?" asked Jason, pulling a chair out and taking a seat at the table.

"He needs something," Crowley huffed from behind his newspaper. "That boy has a real problem with authority. Do you see his clothes? He dresses like every day is Halloween!"

"He's never been a problem for me," Mrs. Martines said with a shrug. "When he shows up to class."

"That's another thing," Crowley said. "Didn't he miss a while week of classes just last week?"

"He did," Baily said. "I'm giving him detention for it this week." He sighed afterwards, as if regretting doing so.

"The kid kind of reminds me of myself at that age," said Jason, taking another bite of the muffin.

"Kid?" Crowley said. "You're still a kid yourself."

Jason laughed good naturedly.

"No, you're more like Drew Boutan. He's a real stand-up guy. Star quarterback, popular. Nothing like that outcast Otto."

"Who's an outcast?"

They all looked up as Ms. Davis, the principle, came walking into the lounge. She was a petite older woman, with dark brown skin, hair in fine braids and twisted up into an elegant high bun, dressed in a grey skirt suit and white blouse. While the other teachers balked, Jason replied, "Apparently, David Otto."

"David?" she said, going to the coffee machine and pouring a cup. "He does have a smart mouth and doesn't back down easily. That makes him more of a target than anything."

"He provokes," said Crowley. "If he would keep a lower profile, no one would bother him."

"He's allowed to express himself, Mr. Crowley, and not be harassed for doing so by his classmates. Or," Ms. Davis added, looking at the man over the rim of her coffee cup, "by his teachers."

Crowley went pink and clamped his mouth shut.

Jason hid a smile. "You sound fond of him, Ms. Davis."

"He used to babysit my grandchildren," she said, leaning against the counter.

"He babysits?" Jason asked, brows raised not in surprise, but interest.

"Used to," Ms. Davis said. She titled her head pensively. "He stopped about three years ago, when he was a sophomore, after..."

"After what?"

She glanced at him, then at the other teachers and back. "Hm? I lost my train of thought."

"You said he stopped 'after'."

"Oh. After doing it for years," she said.

Jason looked at her. She held his gaze. There was more there, but he didn't pursue it; instead, he asked: "How is he as a student?"

"Actually," chimed in Mr. Baily, "During detention he's making up for the work he missed, and he's not a bad student."

Crowley humphed! but no one paid him any attention.

"He's quiet," Mr. Baily went on, "but he's got a good mind. Quick, and even curious. If he applied himself, he could be one of our top students."

"Why do you think he doesn't apply himself?" asked Jason.

"Well, that's hard to say," Mr. Baily said, glancing surreptitiously at the principle. "There could be so many reasons. Who knows what's really going on in that head of his?"

Jason looked up at the principle, who met his gaze evenly, giving nothing away. The teachers changed the subject to that weekends' football game, and the star player, Drew Boutan, chatting almost a little too forcibly about the subject. The bell signaling afternoon classes rang not long after, and as the others left, Mr. Baily hung back.

"Ms. Davis does have a soft spot for David," he told Jason in a lowered voice. "She thinks of him almost as one of her own grandchildren, so it upsets her when anyone talks about his troubles."

"You mean with his classmates?" Jason asked.

"No," Mr. Baily said. "Look, I'm not one to gossip, or speculate about a student's home life. If you want to know, you have the finest source of information around you."

Mr. Baily swept his hand outward, and Jason followed his gesture—to the mass of students streaming pass the open door.

**

David left the school building around six that afternoon after his detention. It was already getting dark, the sun not even visible anymore on the horizon, and the only ones still there were the janitors and the football team. He went out the back exit, intending to cut through the parking lot, which was closed in on three sides by the science building, and from the field in the distance he could hear the whistles and shouts of practice. He paid it no attention, and was already across the almost deserted lot, approaching the corner of the building, when he spotted a figure leaning against the wall, silhouetted by the light from the road.

Going closer, David recognized the figure. He hesitated, then stopped about ten feet away. "That's bad for you, you know," he said.

His voice wasn't loud, but it surprised the figure, who jumped and swore as something dropped from their fingers to the ground. Stepping into the light cast by the parking lot lights, dressed in jeans and a dark green, military style jacket, was Jason.

"Sorry," David said. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"What did you mean to do, then?" Jason asked, brushing down the front of his shirt.

Adjusting the bag strap on his shoulder, David said nothing.

Looking up at him, Jason sighed. "Sorry. I thought it was one of the coaches. Four years in the Army, and my PTSD is from getting caught smoking in school."

He nodded at the ground. "It's still lit."

"Oh—" Stepping on the cigarette, Jason pressed it into the dirt with the toe of his boot.

David looked down at the ground, then back up. "You're not a very good role model."

"Hey, to be fair, you're not supposed to see this," Jason said. "You're supposed to see the other me, the one during school hours."

"You mean the guy who let me run away last week?"

Jason paused. "Touché."

David smiled, a thin, brief stretch of his lips.

"Sometimes the version of ourselves we put out for others to see, and the real version gets mixed up," Jason said.

"Are you saying your 'Nice Guy Recruiter' persona is fake?"

"Fake is a strong word. I prefer 'armor'."

"Do you often hide behind your armor?"

"Do you?" Jason asked, looking pointedly at David's clothes. He was dressed in a black hooded sweatshirt that dwarfed his petite frame, black pants with more zippers than was functional, that fitted to his slender legs, and heavy black combat boots. His hair was inky under the sodium lights, fringing over his ears and forehead.

David opened his mouth, then closed it and looked away.

"I believe the word you're looking for is 'touché'," said Jason.

David gave a forced exhale through his nose.

Jason smiled. "Would you judge me if I have another one?"

David glanced up to see him wave a half full pack of cigarettes. "No," he said. "Rough day?"

"Long day." Putting a slim white roll between his lips, he flicked his lighter open, put the small flame to the end of the cigarette and inhaled until it was glowing with embers. The smoke drifted towards David, and Jason waved it way. "Stand on the other side of me. Don't breath this in."

"Now you think of me?" David said, moving to the other side, towards the exit and away from the buildings.

Jason laughed. "Ms. Davis was right: you do have a smart mouth. But I knew that already."

David shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Ms. Davis talked about me?"

"You came up in conversation in the teacher's lounge." Jason cast a sidelong look at the teenager. "Does that surprise you?"

"No." David looked away, out towards the road. "I'm used to being talked about." He stopped, but his tone felt like he wanted to add more.

"But not to?" Jason asked, taking a guess.

Dark eyes glanced up at him, looking faintly surprised and impressed. David did not answer, but he didn't have to.

"Not just your teachers, you know," Jason said, after a while. "Your classmates also had a lot to say about you."

David looked up at him. "Why were you talking about me?"

Looking into the keep dark eyes, Jason shrugged. "You see a guy about to bolt, you get a little curious about him, I guess."

The eyes stayed on him. "And?" David asked. "What did you learn?"

"Hmm," Jason said, taking a pull of his cigarette and breathing out the smoke into the light so that it looked almost angelic. "I learned a lot," he finally said. "Mostly about your classmates."

The dark head bowed again, but not before Jason saw the smile on the thin, pale lips.

"There was one thing," Jason said. When David looked up at him, he continued. "Are you friends with Drew Boutan? About yay tall, big guy, popular, star quarterback?"

"I know who he is," David said. "No, we're not friends. Why?"

"It's just, when the talk about you got a little out of hand, Drew stepped in and pretty much shut everyone up."

David said nothing, but what peeked Jason's interest was that David did not even look surprised at the revelation.

"He seemed to take offense on your behalf," Jason added, nudging for a response.

David glanced towards the exit and the road. "I have to go."

Jason nodded. "Sure. Of course. Get home safe."

David turned to leave. A few steps away he turned back. "If you want to smoke without getting caught, go to the smaller parking lot behind the gym," he called, his voice barely above normal speaking levels. "No one goes there, and those that do won't care."

Jason smiled. "Thanks for the tip."

David nodded. Moving away, he pulled his hood up over his head and walked down the slightly curved driveway to the road, where he turned right. Only later would Jason learn that that was not the direction of his house. He watched until the teenager moved out of sight, then, moving back to lean against the wall, he finished smoking his cigarette to the sounds of distant football practice.