*This is a fanfic set loosely in the Whateley Academy series. That series is great. I'll edit this to add the real disclaimer that's supposed to be here when my internet is faster. This is going to move slowly and there is cursing. You have been warned.*

Chapter 1: The more you ask, the more I say
I woke up to darkness. It was Saturday. Through the night I'd felt as though there was something going wrong but I couldn't place it, quite. My head felt funny, like it had expanded. The soft glow of my computer's monitor could still be seen over my immobile feet from my vantage point at the head of the bed. It was a Saturday. I was sleeping in: it was around ten o'clock, though I normally woke up much later, closer to 12 or 1. I wish I remembered more ... it's really a blur what happened next. I have a tendency to block out my emotions. There was a knock at the door. I was crying and I couldn't understand why. The knock was soft and quailing. Through my sobs I couldn't hear the other person crying, but I knew they were, somehow. They entered the door. It was my aunt Lily, who lived four states away and was the most caring and least rational person I knew in my family, simultaneously. She believed in Wicca, though my own blasphemous atheist thoughts were tolerated nicely. Dabbing at her eyes she seemed almost like she couldn't talk, and choked before letting go with a single sentence:
"Rick and Gloria are dead."

-----
I am a writer, a fabricator, a creator. I was, before, but I've gotten a bit better at it. Let me give you a picture of what I thought in the hours afterwards, without knowledge, just blind intuition and the growing of an other that I hadn't realized was there, but which was starting to consume me.
I don't remember and didn't remember what they were doing the day before. My memory is tragically suspect: one flip of a switch and I start to forget everything I've known about something. I assume they were doing something nice, something that fit into their personalities, which were always kind. I was an only child mainly because of their belief that they couldn't afford another child. They left me at home for the night: I am twelve but I demonstrate a mastery of toadying and calmness, always hiding from others, subsisting under the covers of my bed and behind the door of my room. On the Internet. Ostrasization occurs there, but it is so much easier to pretend - to pass as anything you want. I wrote elaborate personas with uncompromising profiles, and lived through them. A twenty-nine year old banker who lived in Boston and who was in the middle of obtaining a PhD in law. A twenty-four year old woman in graduate school, studying English. A nineteen year old sophomore who would sketch out 'undecided' on any question you would ask of them. A forty-five year old doctor with a practice somewhere in Cedar Rapids, using several composite addresses. The backup stories usually weren't needed, but if they did I was more than ready. Initially there were a few screw-ups: I typed in a thick Boston accent, eliciting chuckles and guffaws from the few who saw it. I changed my username. There were no more laughs - at least, not ones I wasn't in on. I try to be in on everything. I want to know everything. Bookshelves line my walls and eBooks line my computer's hard drive. I had begun to wear glasses - the neon glow invites squinting. "It wasn't helpful," my mom used to say.
But I was going to tell you about how my parents died. It is so hard to concentrate when death is so close to you. If you can understand it, it's like a leaf blowing off of a tree, falling slower and slower as it draws closer to the ground, buffeted by storms, until it finally settles on the ground into acceptance. My mind is in a storm. I assume, given the circumstances, that my parents were as well.
-----
It had rained last night - now I remember, though I don't. The roads were slick with it. Our car - an old Ford Taurus, a singeing lime green that turned me off whenever I looked at it - was not equipped to handle the weather, though it sufficed in normal situations. They had reached the place, a well-known restaurant called Dinovo's with its own parking lot and a well-earned reputation for cheap and plentiful food that didn't taste half bad, either. The check only approached the mid-twenties and was paid for quickly. They had had a romantic dinner, I assume, looking at each other with the fluorescent lights shining brightly, twirling strands of spaghetti over forks, possibly having a 'lady and the tramp' moment. It felt right. By the time they got out it was late, it was dark, it was still slick. My father, driving because of testosterone's odd demands, was driving slowly, because despite those demands he still had a bit of common sense. His lights were on. It was, let's say, eleven - people were still on the streets, though it was beginning to thin out a bit as the odd lull between people getting to clubs and leaving them hit. The two-lane(one each way) street that was the closest to their - our, sorry - house was spectacularly busy most times, here more than usual. They were both tired. It had been an early day - she woke up at 6 to clean the house and worked a part-time job between my school hours, and he woke up at the same time, so they would be synchronized, as if there was any chance of them becoming unsynchronized. A trucker had gotten drunk and ignored a few red lights, including the one in question at one of the larger cross-streets. We'll say 32nd. As my parents' car was crossing the divider the trucker's cab unwillingly towed a few tons of some object, perhaps building materials, through the intersection. The truck hit the car: in these situations the truck wins. A curse as he saw it, perhaps, at the last second from the corner of his eye: she was on the wrong side and could not have seen it before, it was blocked by him, until he was not strong enough to block it, and it went clean through.
-----
We had been crying together, me and Lily, for half an hour. Tears were not good enough. I could sense too much. It had been a long time since I'd held somebody like that, or cried, or hugged ... in any fashion. I'd been too distant. I withdrew from my hug and fell backwards onto my bed, thinking with silent gears, my every movement and action a marionette's.
"Thank you so much," I said. "Thank you for being here."
"I had no other choice," she said, with feeling. "I couldn't not come. You need somebody to look after you."
"Can we ..." I asked, thinking, my face still fairly wet. "Can we see the bodies?"
"Why?" asked Lily. "No. No, in this condition? You've been through enough."
"I need to know," I said. "I need to know."
"Not yet," she said.
"How did it happen?" I asked.
"A car crash," she said. "They identified the bodies with their ID's. A truck hit them as they were going through an intersection."
"Oh, god," I said, even though I already knew, somehow, even though I'd guessed. I clutched my arms close and would have cried again if I could.
"It's all right," she said, "It's all right. I'm here for you."
"I knew it," I said, rocking. "I knew it. Maybe I caused it."
"What?" Lily said, alternately confused and outraged. She drew closer, sitting next to me. "You can't think that. You won't think that! This - was - not - your fault, There was nothing you could do. We'll get through this. We will."
And through the tears, I could almost believe her.
-----
A policeman came by, and asked some questions I forgot immediately. He also verified the identity of the two unfortunate people in the car. He gave my aunt papers, and sat in the living room humming contentedly while she read over them. After a short time, she drew closer.
"Would you want to live with me, Max?" she asked. "We would move after getting everything from here. There isn't much of our family here, and this place makes me feel ... haunted."
"What choice do I have?" I asked. "But I'm sure it will work out all right."
"That's the spirit, trooper!" she said, smiling, and hugged me again. While she hugged me, I had a thought. Perhaps there was one or two other people I could turn to.
"I'd really like to see Chuck," I said.
"Who's Chuck?" Lily asked.
"Just my best friend!" I said, glaring.
"Do you know his phone number?" Lily asked.
"Yeah," I said. "It's 555-5555." (Sorry, my friends - no matter how old and forgotten - are confidential.) Lily called the number and listened for a second, waiting. The phone rang for what seemed like an eternity. She gave me the phone, and I thanked her silently. The line picked up.
'Hey, Chuck," I said, trying and failing to disguise a tremor in my throat.
"Oh," he said, sounding a bit distant. "Hey, Max. What's up?"
"Well, I didn't know who else to talk to about this, but did you watch the news last night?"
"Who watches the news anymore?" he said, mystified.
"Well, apparently, I'm going to be moving. To Florida."
"Why?" Chuck asked.
"My parents died last night."
"WHAT?"
"My aunt is here," I said before he could get a word in edgewise, blowing my speech forward as wind.
"She's adopted me. We were renting this house, and she can't afford two, so I'm going to register in Florida and go to school there."
"You're not joking, are you?" he asked. "This would be a really shitty joke."
"I'll see you in school tomorrow, OK?" I said. "We can talk bat it more then. I guess I just wanted to warn you a bit. I'm sure the announcements will talk about it, so ... so."
"That's awful, man," Chuck said, and it sounded like he meant it. "Look, I'll come over right now if you want, I'm sure my mom would drive -"
"We'll have time," I said. "I need to ... Be alone for a while."
"Take all the time you need, man." I hung the phone up, rudely I knew, and stared at the ceiling. At least my spring break would be in Florida. I could pick up all the chicks. ... I wouldn't, but I could. Theoretically. Positive thoughts.
-----
Sunday, my aunt made plans for the funeral - a dual-casket one, with my parents buried together. We weren't a rich family but had bought several plots thirty years ago, back when cemetery land was, relatively speaking, cheap. My parents would be sitting, I was assured, under a large tower, next to a beautiful spring. Upon Aunt Lily's insistence I took the Monday and Tuesday off in order to "grieve". She would have held me out of the class for the rest of the week, giving me no chance to see my schoolmates, but I pled my case and battered down her weak defenses - eventually we compromised on that Friday. I didn't want to be the one who disappeared, soundless, without a trace. Without knowing where I was and how I got there, what was I? When I went back to class - the day before Spring Break, two before the funeral, three before the plane ticket to Florida that would change my life forever again, and eight before we discovered the full extent of this situation - there was the usual big hubbub over some change. Only, in this case, the change was entirely sad, and was entirely about me. The only thing I could think of that was similar was the one time that a girl in the class below me - Penny, I think - found out her mother had cancer. We held drives, and her mother was getting better, supposedly, but she moved away. To this day I still don't know what happened. I like to think they were all right, after all. There are some things one does not want to know.
On the approach to the school campus I had multiple people recognize me and turn away. The school had obviously heard of the situation, and acted accordingly: I understood, now, why Penny hadn't come 'just one more day'. Homeroom was much quieter than I'd remembered. People were staring at me. My homeroom teacher, Mrs. Fitzpatrick, looked into my eyes, which were as deep as ever, and said, "Max, if there's anything I can do, don't hesitate to call. Do you have my number?" she asked, grabbing a piece of paper.
"Yes, Mrs. Fitzpatrick," I said, resignedly. She'd given her phone number out to the entire homeroom at the beginning of the year - something about fostering connectedness and a communal spirit. I guessed I was the only one who still had the paper, but I was meticulous, sometimes.
"Great!" she said. "Now we're going to go around in a circle and talk about some horrible things that happened to us, OK?"
I spoke up again. "Please don't. Look. I know everyone knows what's happened to me. I just wanted to see everyone one last time. I'm moving to Florida, not entirely by choice, in a couple days. Why does this have to be such a big deal? Can't I just sit in a corner and write like I always do without everyone staring at me with fake pity?"
"Fake pity?!?" yelled Mrs. Fitzpatrick. I had fallen silent. "You listen to me. None of this is fake. We all care deeply about you."
"Because," I said, "my parents are dead. And would you care about me otherwise? I just want everything to be normal again. To be how it was. Being pitied for things out of my control - singled out and bared naked to the world - that's not what I want." This is an approximation. I find I always become more elocute in the retelling.
"But this happened," Mrs Fitzpatrick said, softly. "you can't ignore it." At this point I gave up, and, having nothing better to do, buried my head in my hands for a second before realizing that was the classic posture of grief and pulling myself back out of it, though my head was still not looking directly at people. The respective people in homeroom paid their respects with sympathetic utterances. Of them, I was really only close to Amanda, and I told her we would talk later.
The first period was English, at least on Wednesdays. I deposited my body in the chair and wandered around, my brain following the focus of my eyes. The teacher seemed to not know what to do with my predicament, and so he ignored me, thankfully. And despite my usual false optimism, I began to feel a sort of dream I'd normally only reserved for doctor's visits, completely ignoring the lecture and unable to pay attention to it any longer. It seemed like an eternity passed before somebody nudged me from the side, hard. It HURT in a way that nothing that had hit me in a long while hurt, and I gasped.
"SO, Mr. Williams. ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?!?" he yelled at me. I was furious, on a level that I'd never been before, basically uncontrollable.
"OF COURSE I'M NOT, YOU SHIT! THIS CLASS IS WORTHLESS AND MY PARENTS ARE FUCKING DEAD! WHO CARES ABOUT THESE FUCKING STORIES. I'M LIVING IN REAL FUCKING LIFE!" And with that, I threw my desk down and started to walk out of the building, both my survival instinct and some shred of my remaining sanity preventing me from assaulting the teacher, though from the hubbub and subsequent police reports, I could tell he was trying to get me. Not that I cared: I wanted a fight at this point. I walked out the school doors, my head held high, staring angrily at everyone around me - there were a few students in the hall, and, as I walked down its serpentine length, one or two security guards. They all stared back, equally angry. I walked through the metal detector in a rage, and when I tried to push the door open, I broke it with the force - the door's glass shattered on the outside wall of the school, though the door itself was still somehow functional. I remember seeing a lot of anger all around, though at the time I only saw red auras surrounding the people, very faint, with a massive obfuscating cloud of red surrounding me.
I got on a city bus and went straight home. My aunt was waiting at the door of the house. I'd dressed like a proper man today, button-down shirt and dress shoes; I'd wanted to leave a classy impression, at least.
As these things go, I immediately started to sniffle when I saw aunt Lily, the trickling of tears becoming a steady stream. I hadn't made a habit of crying before the accident, but it was quickly becoming one.
"What happened?" Lily asked, sounding worried and sad at once. She looked like she was about to leave. "I heard on the news that there was a big fight at the school -"
"Really?" I asked, wiping a remaining tear out of my eye. "I left right before it, then ..." I said. "I was so angry that I probably could have killed somebody, but I ran away before that could happen. I was so angry. My god."
"The news report said that there were no casualties, and the fight ended fairly soon after it started, but there were a lot of participants and injuries. Several Teachers were in the fight, as well, and most of the security guards. It was just on the news, I was going to leave and find you."
"Good thing I have the timing I have," I said, and smiled, earning a reciprocal, though slightly confused, smile back. "We wouldn't want to be ships passing each other in the dead of night without a sound."
"What?" she said.
"Well, if I was coming and you were going it would've been bad," I said.
"Oh."
"But it didn't happen!" I said, and smiled. "Everything worked out for the best."
"Yes," she said.
"You know," I said, looking at her, "that still happens, sometimes."
-----
I spent the next two days in a state of suspended animation, waiting for a finality that, I eventually came to realize, would never come. It was slow to be accepted.
The funeral, meanwhile, was a funeral. People were raised and lowered. Some even talked. I remember the sun, high in the morning breeze, bringing light both into the day and into the hole that was going to be filled. It was, for reasons we've already covered, closed-casket. I was in no condition to pay attention, but I was anyways, which made it all the more infuriatingly cloying. It was a hallowed and well-tended field, given special significance for reasons beyond me. I love my relatives, and they love me, and at least, this day, I received, even through my constant defenses, a bit of that love.
It was not the best of times.
-----
Later that night, the last night I would be here, I settled into my bed, same as always, except for the realization that the house was filled with different people. And the old ones weren't coming back. I'd cried, more than I normally did about anything, and I felt like crying again, but at the same time I felt a touch of steely resolve to never be touched again. I didn't know why this had happened. Laying in bed, the computer forgotten for far too long - how worried everyone would be! - but it was packed, so I couldn't use it now, anyways - I couldn't make any sense of things. Nothing added up. And yet I could not cry. It was as though there was a force seizing me, shaking me violently until the caring left me dry, and I turned, unwillingly, into an automaton. I was used to being able to rationalize things. It dawned on me that this was one of the reasons that I wrote - to put the world in order. But it was hopelessly lost, now. What could I say? What could I pretend?
There was another thing I'd noticed that I hadn't told my aunt - my penis was shrinking, somehow. I didn't understand it. With all the other changes, it didn't fit. I wouldn't have noticed except that my aim in the bathroom, never good, was slightly hampered by this recent development. It was inconvenient, but I filed it away for later use, somewhere in my brain, to be lost until it was needed - which would likely be never. At any rate, I was preoccupied. There was a slight issue or two taking precedence, even in hindsight. My aunt had packed for me, and I didn't much care what she had chosen. I was ready to start over.