Fourteen-year-old Thorn ignored the stares as he accompanied Austin, his half-brother and guardian, down the wide, generic beige school corridor. Yet again, he was the new kid. For the moment, at least, the stares were only curious and not tainted with fear or revulsion.

Austin threw open the door and moved into the office.

Thorn drew up short, staring into the most amazing eyes he’d ever seen. They were beautiful--bright, baby blue, set off by long, black lashes--but it was the expression in them that held him.

Thorn had heard, all his life, that eyes were windows to the soul. He’d never really known what it meant. Now he understood. In that moment he felt as if he knew the owner of those eyes, because what was in them was so much like what was in him. He felt as if those eyes could see all the way to the center of who he was. It was as if he had suddenly come face-to-face with a feminine version of… him. Those eyes were in the most beautiful face Thorn had ever seen and he felt an aching he’d never known. That was Thorn’s first impression.

His second impression--and the one that made his heart stop--was the realization that it wasn’t a girl. It was a boy.

In that instant something happened to Thorn, but he wasn’t sure exactly what. The boy was still beautiful to him. No other male had ever been beautiful to Thorn, but this one was--beautiful and alluring--and Thorn was still aching for him.

The boy sent a tiny half-smile his way before turning his attention to the beige floor tiles.

Thorn quickly looked away, wondering what the hell was wrong with him. He swallowed and made his way to the counter. As he went, he saw in his peripheral vision that there wasn’t a damned thing feminine about the boy, except those remarkable eyes. He had a baby face, a beautiful one, but by no means feminine. He was bored belligerence personified, slumped in the chair outside the principal’s office.

"May I help you, sir?" the middle-aged, red-haired woman behind the counter asked Austin.

"Yeah," Austin said. "We need to get him registered."

She fixed her eyes on Thorn and smiled. "Welcome to Hilldale."

"Thank you, ma’am," Thorn said, moving forward and setting the folder he’d brought onto the counter. Hilldale was the name of the school as well as the town, which lay south of Baltimore.

Thorn remained far more conscious of the boy’s presence than he wanted to be. He thought the boy was probably about seventeen, maybe even eighteen. A senior. Thorn tried not to look as young and awkward as he felt.

"And what's your name?"

"Thorn MacDonnell."

The woman turned to Austin. "And are you the parent?"

"No," Austin answered, annoyance obvious in his tone. He was thirteen years older than Thorn and hated to be mistaken for his father.

The two of them looked nothing alike. They’d had different mothers. Austin had straight, light hair and pale, blue eyes, and was fair-skinned. Thorn’s hair was wavy and dark brown, and his eyes were a darker blue with black flecks. His mother’s Native American blood had given him a dark complexion. Austin was six-foot-three, a mountain of a man, just like their father had been. Thorn was only five-foot-five and much slighter of frame. He was still growing, but knew already he’d never attain Austin’s size.

About the only thing they had in common was the current length of their hair. Austin wore his in a crew cut. Thorn hated his own hair short. He’d lost it earlier in the year from cancer treatments. Now he was in remission and only on a maintenance regimen, and finally his hair was starting to come back.

"He’s my guardian," Thorn explained. "My brother, Austin."

"Close enough," the woman said, smiling as she pulled out a huge stack of forms.

"I can speak for myself," Austin said.

"We already sent in forms," Thorn told the woman. "To the county. They said they’d send them here." He’d brought copies, just in case.

"I see," she said, looking at him as if he’d insulted her, and then continuing with a tight smile. "Well, that should streamline the process." She looked over her shoulder to address the other woman behind the counter, who was busily pecking at a computer keyboard. "Mrs. Plankett?" The gray-haired woman stopped typing and turned, looking a little disoriented. "Did we receive paperwork for a Thorn MacDonnell?"

The woman named Mrs. Plankett was as plump and short as the other was tall and thin. "Yes, Mrs. Restern," she said, casting a smile in Thorn’s direction. "Let me just get them."

Austin shifted on his feet impatiently, complaining as she shuffled about, trying to find the paperwork.

"Perhaps we should just do them again," Mrs. Restern said after Mrs. Plankett had opened, scanned, and closed a third cabinet drawer.

"I have copies," Thorn offered.

"No, no," Mrs. Plankett said. "I’ve got them around here somewhere. And it would be best to find the ones from the county, so you could start classes right away."

"Well, clearly you are not finding them," Mrs. Restern said in the kind of voice someone might use on a troublesome child. It was obvious she didn’t think much of the way Mrs. Plankett did her job, but Thorn thought it wasn’t very professional for her to talk to Mrs. Plankett that way, especially in front of strangers.

"I already put him into the computer," Mrs. Plankett said. "But since he hadn’t arrived, I must not have filed him." Her brow furrowed and she tapped a finger against her bottom lip. "Where would I have put him?"

A minute later, Austin was making angry noises and Mrs. Restern reached for the stack of blank forms she'd first planned to use. Poor Mrs. Plankett looked close to tears. Thorn felt sorry for her, hating that he was the cause of her trouble.

"Oh, this just isn’t like me," Mrs. Plankett said, wringing her hands.

"Can I talk to you for a second, Mrs. Plankett?" asked a soft masculine voice. It was a well-modulated voice, without any real hint of an accent. It reminded Thorn of the voice of a DJ on a late-night, love-song radio program. The voice was behind Thorn but grew closer, until the boy with beautiful eyes was standing a couple feet away from him at the counter. Thorn felt his nearness like innumerable electrical impulses firing within his body. It was sort of like what Pop Rocks did in his mouth, only all inside him. He’d never felt anything like that. He took a step sideways, closer to Austin, but that did little to mitigate the effect. It was unsettling. After the initial shock wore off, though, he realized he kind of liked it.

"She’s a little busy right now," Mrs. Restern said, fixing the boy with a less-than-pleased expression.

"Of course," Mrs. Plankett said, smiling as she moved to stand across from him. The boy was shorter than Thorn had realized. He couldn’t be more than five-foot-two. Mrs. Plankett was about the same. He put his hands to the counter and lifted himself onto his forearms to lean closer to her, and she giggled and leaned toward him. Mrs. Restern made an impatient sound.

The boy put his mouth to Mrs. Plankett’s ear and whispered. Thorn heard it because he always left the hospital with better-than-normal hearing; it came from being stuck in a bed with no real tie to the greater world, beyond what he could hear. "Did you check your top left drawer yet?" the boy asked. Thorn knew from his angle, slumped in the chair, he’d had no view of Mrs. Plankett’s search.

"Yes," Mrs. Plankett said on a forlorn sigh. Then she remembered to whisper. "I remember I kept it there until I had him put into the computer."

"Then it’s prob’ly in the bottom right one," the boy whispered. "With your pending issues."

Mrs. Plankett’s smile was wrinkled radiance as the boy slid down from the counter. He returned to his chair and Mrs. Plankett went to her desk, where she opened the bottom right drawer. She rifled there for a moment and then her eyes lit up. "Here it is!" She raised the folder triumphantly and marched to the counter, plunking it down in front of Mrs. Restern. "There!" She chuckled as she returned to her computer.

Mrs. Restern opened the folder and began perusing Thorn’s life. She typed something into the computer in front of her. After that, her eyes moved back and forth between the forms and the computer monitor. Thorn suspected she was checking Mrs. Plankett’s entries. She commented on things she saw and now and then asked for clarification.

Mrs. Restern smiled when she got to Thorn's transcript from the previous school year, when he’d still been in South Carolina. "A straight-A student." She raised her eyes to Thorn’s. "And where have you been attending school this year?"

"He’s just starting," Austin supplied.

The woman raised her eyes to Austin. "It’s the middle of September, sir. According to these papers, we were expecting him at the start of the year. August Twenty-fifth."

"He’s been in the hospital," Austin said.

Thorn produced the discharge papers and the notes the doctors had written for the school.

"Pneumonia," the woman said. She fixed her eyes on Thorn. "I hope you’re feeling better."

"Yes, ma’am, thank you." He handed Mrs. Restern another paper from his folder. "I had a teacher at the hospital, through the county office. They said they would send you a copy of this."

"Mrs. Plankett?" Mrs. Restern said, studying the form. "Did we receive notification of Thorn’s instruction under Mr. Gelfert?"

"There’s a paper in there that said it would happen," Mrs. Plankett said, turning to look at her. "We haven’t received the final report yet."

"I just got out of the hospital Friday," Thorn said.

"Then I’m sure they’ll be sending it today," Mrs. Plankett said, smiling as she turned back to her computer.

Mrs. Restern came to a form and stopped. "Mrs. Plankett?"

"Yes, Mrs. Restern?"

"It says here his guidance counselor is Mrs. Rush."

"That’s right."

Mrs. Restern twisted her lips. "His last name is MacDonnell. He should have Mr. Blanchett."

"It came from the superintendent’s office to assign him to Mrs. Rush," Mrs. Plankett said. "You should have that form there."

Mrs. Restern raised her eyes to study Thorn. He didn’t know what it meant to be assigned to Mrs. Rush instead of Mr. Blanchett, but clearly Mrs. Restern thought it meant something. He wondered if he’d been assigned to Mrs. Rush because of the HIV. Maybe she got the problem cases. Thorn had met Mrs. Rush that summer, along with the school’s principal and nurse.

"Perhaps they felt Mrs. Rush could best provide him the extra assistance he might need, getting settled in late into the year," Mrs. Plankett offered. "She has fewer students than the others."

Mrs. Restern found the relevant form. "Mrs. Rush it is," she said, setting the form aside. Finally she worked her way through the forms in her stack. She asked for identification for both of them and they provided it. "Only one more form," she said, reaching beneath the counter. Thorn had an upside-down view of the form she produced. He didn’t recognize it. Mrs. Restern filled out Thorn’s name, grade, and other details at the top of the form. "Any nicknames?"

"T.J.", Austin supplied.

"No," Thorn said before the woman could write that. "Just Thorn." Austin knew Thorn hated being called ‘T.J.’. He always had. As Thorn rejected the hated name, he couldn’t help but be aware of the boy slumped in the corner. He’d never wanted to be a ‘T.J.’--but especially not now.

More innocuous questions followed, but then Mrs. Restern got to the one Thorn had dreaded since he saw it on the form.

"Are there any health concerns?" she asked, looking at Austin.

Thorn prayed he wouldn’t say it. He said it. "Yeah," Austin answered. "He’s got leukemia. And HIV."

The woman blinked and it was clear she was hoping she’d heard him wrong. "Did you say HIV?"

"Yeah," Austin said, then repeated it slowly. "H-I-V."

The woman turned her eyes to Thorn. He wished he could melt into the floor. It wasn’t the first time he’d suffered that humiliation, but having it happen in front of someone fascinating made it worse. At least there were only those five people in the office, at that moment--Thorn and Austin, the two women, and the beautiful, belligerent boy. The woman lowered her head to write.

"HIV status doesn’t go in the records here."

The words were spoken quietly but with an air of authority that surprised Thorn. He turned to the boy and felt the same sense of kinship he’d felt the first time he looked at him.

The woman spoke and Thorn looked at her again. Her expression, as she regarded the boy, conveyed her displeasure at his interruption. "Office matters are not your concern, Mr. Fetters."

Mr. Fetters? He was an adult?

Thorn turned to look at him again. He didn’t want him to be a grown-up. He wanted him to be young, like Thorn. But the baby-blue eyes had changed and the face hardened, and Mr. Fetters didn’t look like a kid anymore.

"I just made this my concern," he said. "Before you make a mistake and jeopardize that student’s right to privacy, you need to call the superintendent’s office. That’s the only place authorized to hold records concerning a student’s HIV status."

"I assure you, I am much more familiar with administrative policies and procedures than you are," the woman said, lowering her head to write some more. "I don't go in your classroom and tell you how to teach, do I?"

"I believe he’s right, Mrs. Restern," Mrs. Plankett said, turning to look at her back.

Bolstered by Mr. Fetters’s and Mrs. Plankett’s words, Thorn found the courage to speak. "That’s what they told me," he said. "The superintendent’s office said it only goes in their records, not here." They'd told Austin the same thing, but he was an asshole and enjoyed opportunities to disrupt Thorn’s life.

When Thorn and Austin had met with the education officials early that summer, Thorn was amazed by their plan to keep his secret. He’d never gone to school without people knowing he was HIV-positive. Could he really do that? Did he have the right to do that? He must, or else there wouldn’t be a policy saying he could. They’d convinced him that it was the thing to do. They’d even had a follow-up meeting with Mrs. Rush, Principal Hallock and the school nurse, who were supposed to be the only people at the school who knew about the HIV. They’d led Thorn to believe he could be at school like a normal person. He might even get to have friends. All through his years at school there’d been kids who were almost friends, but not quite. A lot of people were nice to him. They just kept a distance. For the first time, he’d hoped to have a real school life, the way other people did.

"How long has he had HIV?" Mrs. Restern asked Austin.

"He was born that way," Austin answered.

"Obviously, you’re busy," Mr. Fetters said as he swung to his feet and moved behind the counter. "I’ll just call ‘em for you."

He didn’t even look up the number. He just dialed. Since he was in front of Thorn now, Thorn had a chance to study him without being too obvious.

Mr. Fetters looked almost too attractive to be real. He had thick, long, blond hair, cut in layers. It wasn’t one color, but instead the strands revealed a spectrum of gold and yellow. Unlike most long-haired professionals Thorn had encountered, he didn’t have it pulled back. He wore it loose, framing his face. It made Thorn miss his own hair, which had been well past his shoulders when he lost it. Mr. Fetters had golden skin. He looked like he spent a lot of time in the sun. He had a thin, straight nose that turned up a little on the end. He had generous lips. Thorn didn’t allow himself too much time to look at them. He had angular cheekbones and a square jaw, and a hint of a cleft in his strong chin.

If Thorn had to say what that too-attractive man reminded him of, he would have said an archangel, walking the earth. Angels didn’t have to be big. They had power.

"Fetters here," Mr. Fetters said into the phone. "Got a situation." He was quiet for a moment, evidently waiting while the person on the other end of the line spoke, and then gave a quiet laugh. "Think so?" He talked into the phone for a few minutes, explaining what was happening in the office. Then he was quiet while the person on the other end of the line spoke. "Right now?" he said. "The only ones are Geraldine Restern, Sadie Plankett, and me." He was quiet again. "Yeah, that’s what I figured." He held the phone toward Mrs. Restern with a beatific smile. "It’s for you." After she took the phone, he went back to his chair beside the principal’s door and slumped into it, looking for all the world like a student again.

Mrs. Plankett approached the counter. She put her age-speckled hand up and patted Thorn’s. "It will all work out," she promised, smiling up at him.

Thorn returned the smile though he had to work to make it reach his eyes. It was always hard to smile in the face of pity, but he knew the old woman meant well, and he appreciated that she was still willing to touch him, knowing what she knew.

Mrs. Restern’s face went red as she listened. She spoke little. Finally she passed the phone to Mrs. Plankett. "He wants to talk to you."

"Who is it?" Mrs. Plankett asked.

"The superintendent." Mrs. Restern shot an angry glance toward Mr. Fetters. "He dialed his direct number."

"Oh," Mrs. Plankett said, giggling as she took the phone.

It was clear from Mrs. Restern’s demeanor she was none too pleased as she began transcribing all that she’d written on the first form onto a blank one.

Shane Fetters was sorry he'd added to Thorn's embarrassment by making an issue of it, but he hadn't known a better way to handle things.

He'd tried to keep his mind occupied with math equations while Thorn and Austin took care of their business with Geraldine. He hadn’t wanted to eavesdrop but it was impossible not to hear, when it was all taking place only a few feet from him, and he couldn't just let things go after they got to the subject of Thorn's HIV.

If it had only been the forms that concerned him, he could have waited until Thorn was gone and then talked to Geraldine--but it was more than the forms. Geraldine was a talker. If she’d forgotten the part of her training that mandated against putting HIV status in the forms, she very well may disregard the related instruction not to discuss a student’s status, and there was no telling who might hear. Maybe fear of losing her job would keep her mouth shut. Just as importantly, Thorn needed confirmation that he had rights and that the superintendent's office would keep its promises to him.

The kid had enough problems without Geraldine adding to them.

Guidance counselor Faith Rush had told Shane and a few other teachers about Thorn over the summer; she'd wanted to make sure they were prepared to accommodate him because of the health issues. She'd told them about the leukemia but not the HIV. She'd handled it well, Shane thought. She'd given them an update when Thorn didn't arrive at the start of the year, as expected, letting them know he was in the hospital.

HIV and leukemia would be a lot for anyone to handle. On top of all that, though, Thorn evidently had an asshole for a guardian. Shane couldn't help but wonder about Thorn's parents.

Clearly Thorn had already known more than his share of hardship. His blue eyes--hauntingly beautiful, deep and dark--weren't the eyes of a boy.

Thorn turned to Mr. Fetters. Though the man was looking down, he raised his eyes at the movement. Thorn was glad to see neither pity nor disgust in his clear, blue eyes. "Thank you," he mouthed.

Mr. Fetters grinned, the expression of a co-conspirator, and Thorn couldn’t help but smile back. Mr. Fetters suddenly looked shy. He lowered his eyes, the hint of a blush staining his cheeks.

There was something about him that Thorn found infinitely endearing. He felt a sudden rush of physical desire and saw, in his mind, an extremely unsettling visual. He quickly turned away, frightened by the intensity. His heart pounded.

"We don’t have time for this shit!" Austin said. He’d continued giving the woman additional information while Mr. Fetters was on the phone, and now it would all have to be redone. "I’m already late for work!"

"I’m sorry, sir, it will only take a few minutes," Mrs. Restern said.

Austin complained the whole time.

Shane wished Hallock would hurry. He felt on edge, being in the office with Thorn.

He knew he would never forget that moment when his eyes first met Thorn’s. He'd felt as if he were seeing forever, through the eyes of a long-lost friend who'd finally come home.

What he'd felt… it was the same kind of rhapsody that sometimes came with prayer or with creating an especially good bit of music, only better. It was the elusive kind of moment that people wished they could summon at will and then hold onto. God knew Shane had tried with drugs, when he was young, but they always fell short.

He'd come to his senses, realizing he was staring--even worse, staring at a kid--and turned his attention elsewhere.

In the aftermath, he'd blamed that dazed moment on a combination of lack of sleep the night before and the fist that had connected with his head as he pushed apart two fighting students that morning in the hall. That excuse had worked--until Thorn smiled at him, putting the feeling into him all over again.

It was there and it was real. He didn't know what it was or what to blame it on, but he hoped with a little time and distance, he could get himself in the right frame of mind to never get it again.

The principal’s door opened and junior Benji Ostrom emerged. He went still when he saw Shane.

"Fetters!" Hallock bellowed from inside.

Benji gave Shane a repeat of the ‘I’m sorry’ look he'd given when Shane pulled him off Caleb Johnson almost an hour before and Shane reprised his ‘We are going to talk about this’ look. Benji had promised not to fight anymore. He had too much at stake to get himself expelled.

Shane could feel Thorn's eyes on him as he got to his feet. He sent Thorn a final smile for moral support, taking care not to look into his eyes, and turned toward the principal's door.

"He started it," Benji mouthed as he and Shane passed.

Mr. Fetters disappeared behind the door and it closed, and Thorn suddenly felt very alone.

Just before Mrs. Plankett hung up, she asked the superintendent to ensure that his office sent a copy of the record from Mr. Gelfert. She put the phone down and went back to her computer.

Mrs. Restern finally went to the shredder and disposed of the form on which she’d written Thorn’s HIV status. As she turned away, Mrs. Plankett took the newly arrived form off the fax machine and handed it to her.

Finally the forms were all done and Mrs. Restern said she would call Mrs. Rush.

"That mean I can go?" Austin asked.

"I’m sorry, sir," she answered. "You’ll need to remain just in case there are forms to be signed. Why don’t you have a seat? It should only be a few minutes."

Austin made a disgusted sound and threw himself into the nearest chair, where he grumbled and cursed under his breath.

Thorn took the seat farthest from Austin’s, the one recently vacated by Mr. Fetters. It was silly, he knew, but it made him feel a little less alone.