Almost like it’s calculated.

  Aiden searched the other boy’s movements, checking for the blatant curation of hand gestures, eyes glancing, and trained smiles everyone in his family partook in.

  But Brendan’s blue eyes that sparkled of enthusiasm were the same eyes that Aiden first saw. They hid nothing.

  “All right, now that the boring speech is out of the way, thank you Mr. President, let’s get to the fun part,” Christina stepped forward to laughter. “We’re doing a photo scavenger hunt. We’re all participating. Oh, and whoever gets all of them first gets free ice cream coupons!”

  The atmosphere instantly shifted to jolting bodies, eager head bobs, and louder talking.

  “Scavenger list on the board! Take a photo and scram!”

  Phones flashed around Aiden, and by the time he finally took a photo of the list, the room was already empty. Blinking in the silence, he couldn’t help lightly laughing. “People really want their free ice cream.” He left the classroom smiling.

  The first item on the scavenger checklist was a photo of a statue, so Aiden took a quick photo of the school building statue outside. He looked at the next item. “Common…” He laughed again. “I wouldn’t even know what that means.”

  Leisurely, he wandered the campus. Buildings were common to see when walking to classes. Groups of friends eating together was a common sight to behold. Squirrels and birds, completely unafraid of the people walking around, became a common incident after the initial surprise of their lack of fear wore off. I guess so many things can be common. A small jump entered his step. Common butterflies, the grassy fields, and the public busses driving around the tiny streets of campus. The list continued in his head, and he added more with every small thing he looked at.

  It was fun to decide on his own.

  Aiden finally settled on taking a photo of an ancient tree with a trunk so wide that it took several people holding hands to circle around it.

  Animal. It would be nice if I can find a different animal than the grackles and pigeons. Perhaps one with bright colors. He looked toward the nearest chirping and started jogging toward the unafraid birds.

  “Stop him!”

  He jumped at the frantic demand. Scurrying like its entire life depended on it, an albino squirrel skirted around Aiden’s legs and toward the giant, ancient tree. Hot on the albino squirrel’s heels was none other than the president of the photography club.

  “Ah, watch out!” Brendan was running downhill in his pursuit, but gravity had taken control from the president’s long legs.

  Calmly, Aiden danced around the unstoppable president. He watched with wide eyes as Brendan dug his heels into the ground, failed to come to a reasonable stop, and tripped over his own feet.

  “Ah.” Aiden reached over, but it was too late. The venerable president’s face planted hard to unforgivable concrete, because the boy refused to sacrifice a large camera hugged in his hands. Instead, his arms raised triumphantly to the sky, holding the camera safe from the ground.

  “Damn it!” Aiden jumped again when Brendan leapt back to his feet, not even bothered by his scratched-up nose. “I wanted to take a photo of that albino squirrel.”

  Aiden looked to the tree, where the albino squirrel was nowhere to be found. “Maybe you can find it again?”

  “No, there’s only one on campus. It’s considered lucky if you can take a photo of it.” Only then did Brendan slightly take note of his wounded nose by lightly touching it with a hiss. His attention, however, quickly returned to the large camera in his hands. He cuddled it to his chest. “This is okay, so that’s all that matters.”

  The jiggle inside Aiden’s throat couldn’t stop. “Pfft.” Tears sprung to Aiden’s eyes. He rested his hands on his knees in a slight attempt to still stand, but the laughter couldn’t stop. Mortified, he tried to rein his voice in, but his mind constantly replayed the squirrel running around him and Brendan’s face changing from frustration to horror to relief to panic and back to relief all in a matter of seconds. “I’m sorry,” he managed to choke out between his tears, wiping them away from his eyes.

  “Yeah, yeah, go on. I got too into it. I know. What human thinks they can outrun a squirrel? You don’t need to tell me.”

  “Show some respect,” his stepmother’s voice echoed.

  Gasping, Aiden snapped his head back up, already forming words of apologies, but instead, Brendan was smiling before bursting into laughter himself. The laughter finally died down, leaving a weightlessness in Aiden that he never experienced. He stepped closer to Brendan. “Are you on the third point as well?”

  “I’ve actually been jumping around on the scavenger list.” Brendan inched even closer, showing his camera to Aiden.

  This is too close. It was dangerous to let strangers within a certain space, but Aiden stopped himself from stepping back upon seeing the photo reflected in Brendan’s camera. “Wow…” A circle of white mushrooms sprouted from the dark grass, while sunlight angled in through the branches of the tree above, lending a heavenly aura to the entire photo.

  “Yeah, that’s my photo for ‘religion.’ It’s like cult worship.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “What photos have you taken?”

  Weird angles, shaking hands, and blurred corners flashed before his eyes. Face flushed, Aiden stepped back, immediately dropping his phone back into his pocket. “Not a lot. Just two.”

  “Can I see?” Brendan stepped forward.

  “They’re really bad.”

  “I’m sure they’re not.”

  “Compared to yours, they definitely are.”

  “Just let me see.” Brendan peered at Aiden. “Please?”

  Please… The magical and foreign word compelled him to move without thinking. He pulled his phone back out and opened the gallery photo. The ancient tree was crooked. Worse, the photo was blurry.

  “Oh! This isn’t bad.”

  “You don’t need to be nice.”

  “No, no, I’m serious. Is it amateur? Of course. It’s not bad though. You see how you managed to capture the light?” Brendan shifted into his space again, using his finger to trace the rays. “It’s leading you toward the subject of your photo, so my eyes automatically gravitate toward the trunk first. It’s the trunk you wanted, right?”

  He blinked, looking at the photo anew. It wasn’t just the trunk. The markings of people left behind on its old bark from people’s love of circling and hugging the ancient tree caught his eye before anything else in the photo. He breathed in wonder. “Yeah. That’s what I wanted.”

  “I told you. It’s not bad.” With that final conclusion, Brendan returned his phone. “What do you think?”

  “About what?”

  “About the scavenger hunt. You like it?”

  “I think so.” A small bird with blue feathers landed in the corner of his eye. He turned around as slowly as possible, snapping a crooked photo of the chirping animal. The feet were cut off, but it still captured its beady eyes looking at Aiden. He smiled. “Yeah, it’s fun. I like how there’s no right answer.”

  “That’s what we were going for. And uh…” Brendan paused. “You’re feeling better, right?”

  Was he? He still hadn’t found the courage to tell his stepmother that he would accept his position within the Hui family business inside Infinite. His brother was still dead. Yet strangely, for a second, Aiden forgot about them. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I’m feeling okay right now though.”

  Brendan beamed. “That’s good to hear.”

  “Your friends…”

  “Christina and Javier?”

  Aiden nodded. “They were really nice. Javier didn’t need to offer his water, and Christina didn’t need to pick up the stuff I dropped.”

  “Oh, they’re the best. You know how sometimes you just meet people, and you know that you’re meant to be friends? That’s how it was with them.”

  “And it was kind of you to check on me that day.” Aiden squeezed his hands. “I don’t think anyone else would’ve.”

  For whatever reason, sorrow passed through Brendan’s eyes. However, the warmth quickly returned to the other boy’s full smile. “Yeah, it’s no problem at all. Anyway, what are you studying here?”

  He didn’t question the sudden shift in conversation. “Education.”

  “Oh, that’s cool! What kind of teacher do you want to be?”

  They talked.

  The scavenger list forgotten, they walked around campus. Brendan asked many questions, and Aiden answered all of them. Sometimes the president took out his camera to capture a gorgeous shot that he saw with eyes no one else saw: a bench that looked romantic in the lens, two squirrels fighting over acorns, and a cloud that was nothing more than a blob that transformed into a puppy at a specific angle. Aiden marveled at the photos, and stranger than everything else, his heart calmed at the attention.

  Attention was never good in the world of the mafia. However, when the sky darkened, when Brendan exclaimed about the overlooked time, when they ran back to the classroom where all the other students had already returned, Aiden found himself yearning for that sweet, gentle attention that siphoned him away from his reality and placed him in the hands of kind, fun people.

  “Thank you everyone for coming! I hope you guys had fun today, but please let me know if you have any questions about the membership fee or just any other question you might have.”

  Aiden avoided the stampeding students who rushed toward Brendan. Instead, he turned around and scanned the room to find the one other person alone and busy with cleaning up a table. He walked over to him. “Javier?”

  Javier whirled around. “Yeah—what’s up?”

  “Do you guys have any tutorials I can look up online? I want to get better at taking pictures.”

  “Yup—we have a list of links on our site. One sec…” Javier tapped into his phone. “Here’s our website. Click this page. We have a whole list of things you can do. These are good YouTube tutorials. This article breaks down the types of cameras really well, and you can also compare them to the photographs in our club’s gallery.” A satisfied Cheshire cat grin spread across Javier’s face. “The beautiful architecture photographs are mine by the way.”

  Aiden chuckled. “Got it. I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you for today.” He glanced back to see that Brendan was still busy talking.

  Javier glanced at him. “Do you want to talk to Brendan?”

  “He’s busy right now. I’ll talk to him another time.”

  Javier waved. “Yo Brendan!”

  Brendan’s face perked up.

  Aiden snapped his head around to Javier with wide eyes.

  “Come over here real quick!”

  Wait—I don’t actually know what I want to say to him! Aiden’s mind reeled at the surprise.

  “You got a question?” The president popped up in front of his eyes, while his mind still raced.

  Aiden’s heart shot to his mouth, and with a yelp, leapt several steps back, quickly putting space between the two. His feet stumbled against each other, his body started to fall backward, and his arms flailed.

  “Oh shit—sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you.” Brendan grabbed his arms and helped pull him forward. “Sorry.”

  Breaths came short. Aiden grabbed at his shirt in an attempt to breathe easier, but his heart only pounded louder. Stop it! This isn’t a shootout. No one is dying.

  He tried to rebuild the world around him. He focused on the mundane topics that floated through the air of conversation: Christina’s sigh of exhaustion, Javier’s fake busying about in the background, and the students slowly filing out of the room like they did in every class he took.

  It was normal, it was safe, and he had nothing to worry about.

  Yet, his heart refused to calm. He kept his face down. “I…” he breathed. “I’m sorry to interrupt you.”

  “You didn’t. Javier did.”

  “Well, if it wasn’t for me.”

  “Did you have a question?”

  Aiden kept his eyes lowered, grasping at straws for anything to say. Finally, he could only tell the truth. “No. I just wanted to say I had fun today.”

  “Christina—is this yours?” Javier’s blaring voice was distracting enough for him to glance up, catching Brendan’s face.

  The widest grin Aiden ever saw stretched across the other boy’s face. The excitement simmered out of the top of his head like steam, and a childish tilt struck Brendan’s vocals. He bounced forward. “You’re joining, right? This club.”

  Aiden caught himself smiling. “Yeah. I thought I would thank you anyway.”

  “Then, as the newest official joined member, you get to choose the next outing.”

  “Outing?”

  “Yeah. We always pick a place to take pictures for the next meeting.”

  “What are the criteria?”

  “There aren’t any. As long as it’s something we can all afford, so not hopping on a plane and going to Disney World. But anywhere you’d like to go to take pictures.”

  Whatever you want, I can give to you.

  Aiden squeezed his wallet. “Maybe a garden? They’re usually pretty. If that’s okay?”

  “You don’t need to ask.” Brendan gave a thumbs up. “We’ll go to a garden.” He turned back toward Christina and Javier. “I have to lock up the room, but I’ll see you next week!”

  “Bye…”

  Aiden walked out of the room, but for no reason at all, decided to stop. He looked back inside where the three friends were busy returning decorations into boxes, checking their backpacks, and picking up trash from the floor.

  His body tensed in anticipation at the idea of seeing them again. The creeping happiness of realization forced an uncontrolled smile on his face. He quickly walked down the hallway. “Javier is easy to talk,” he said out loud. “Christina is super cool and always chill.” His feet glided down the stairs. “Brendan is…” He stopped at the base of the stairs. “Brendan is warm.” Upon saying those words aloud, his body shifted. He felt no sorrow and no anger. He felt no fear. Yet, he still could not calm the beating of his heart as he imagined Brendan’s glowing smile fall into the distance.

  Chapter Five

  Not a single text from his stepmother arrived after a full week. Aiden stared at his own unfinished text to her, still labeled as draft, and his mind whirled from relief to fear until the two blended together. The text remained unsent.

  His finger hovered above the call button of his stepmother’s number. What if I make it worse by calling her? Back and forth, he paced in his living room, praying to the universe to hand him the right answer.

  The universe chose by refusing to stop time. Glancing at the top corner of his phone, Aiden shoved it into his pocket, grabbed his shoes, and dashed out the door.

  He was late for the photography club.

  “I’ll call her tonight,” he mumbled. “I’m not being irresponsible. I’m still thinking about her. She’s the weird one for not calling or texting me.” He zoomed past streets and buildings on campus. “What if something’s wrong…?”

  He slowed his pace in time to see a small circle of waiting students already gathered and talking amongst themselves. Despite the bodies packed together, he picked out Brendan’s voice, then his golden hair, and met his eyes. Instinctively, Aiden raised his hand slightly to wave, and Brendan returned the favor with a wide smile and an even wider wave.

  He picked up his pace to join them. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “Yes, I’m not the last one this time!” Javier shouted in victory.

  “We’ve got two cars. I’m driving one of them, and Amanda’s volunteered to drive the other,” Brendan explained, “so pick who you want to ride with.”

  Aiden fell naturally beside Brendan and followed him to his car. As he reached for the back door, Christina quickly nudged him over to sit shotgun. “You’ll need to watch the traffic lights for him,” she said, throwing Brendan a glare. “He gets too caught up in his car karaoke and forgets to pay attention to the actual traffic.”

  “I heard that, and I’m not playing a musical this time.” Brendan settled into the driver’s seat.

  “Good luck,” Christina whispered. She filed into the back with Javier and another club member.

  I’ve never sat in the front. Aiden stared.

  People died in the front.

  When he was younger, Aiden's father forced him to watch videos of a driver getting shot from various angles. The explosion of the head from behind, the splattering of blood, and the eyes that rolled backward. He didn’t know a head could open the same way a watermelon did when someone hit it with a hammer. His father showed him the bullet from that shooting, and he stayed awake at night tormented by the fact that something so small could rip through the hard, protective dome of a human skull. In the video, the car veered over the edge of the road, and the passengers mangled themselves on sharp glass and twisted metal.

  Then again, perhaps it didn’t matter where one sat. His brother died in the back.

  “You coming?”

  Aiden flinched as Brendan’s voice pulled him back. He nodded. “Yeah.”

  He slid into the passenger seat.

  “Tell me, why is it harder to study in college than it is in high school?”

  “Really? I think it’s easier!”

  “Why are grades even necessary in the first place? We should just ban the concept of grades altogether.”

  “Hey, I like it when I score well!”

  “You, Javier, are crazy, so your opinions do not count!”

  Aiden glanced back, opening his mouth in the spaces between the passengers’ conversations but closed it permanently after the third failed attempt to join in. Skin flushing, he clenched his hand and stared down at his lap.

  “Brendan, the light!” Javier cried. Everyone lurched forward at the abrupt stop. “Aiden, watch out for him! I’m telling you—this guy is the definition of a distracted driver.”

  “I saw that. I was just testing you all,” Brendan argued.