Page 4 of Manhattan Tormentor

I say it over and over before I climb out of my car and slam the door closed, locking it with an electronic click.

Time to get this shit over with for another day.

I rush a hand through my floppy blond hair, pushing it out of my eyes, then sling the messenger bag over my head. It was my mistake wearing contacts today instead of my glasses, because my eyeballs hurt.

At exactly six feet tall, I see over most heads as I amble inside. I’m an old seventeen as my mom says. I don’t act like a regular kid should. Maybe that’s why I stand out so much. All us Fierro kids were born in December, and I’m hoping to get an early acceptance into college before my next birthday.

School work isn’t a chore when I like what I do.

Science and engineering make more sense to me than people do.

And most of them give me a wide berth.

Unlike Theo or Lachie, I don’t have a gang of friends or rule the school through popularity. My lane is singular. Richmond Academy is thin on the ground for queers too. So my dating life exists outside of school, and even that is sparse.

I know the teachers better than I do the students.

For instance. The economics teacher, Mister Cabel, is banging the cafeteria lady in the math department every night before he goes home to his wife.

If I had my brother’s cunning way for blackmail, I could have made big bucks with that, but it’s not in me, because I don’t care.

Apathetic. A therapist once diagnosed me as being.

I’m not quite at genius level—that sucks. Instead, I work at it; I hone my skills and I don’t give up. I see a problem and I figure a way to make it work.

If that means I become indifferent to the world around me. Meh, who cares?

There isn’t time to invest in other people and their shower of neediness.

Would it be nice to be popular like Lachlan is? Perhaps. He controls the school, but not in a jerk way. Everyone either loves Lachlan or is afraid of him.

Theo is the sports junkie. Lachlan the majestic hacker, Raene is our drama queen and I’m the forgotten Fierro.Thank god.

“Sage, glad to see you’re not late.” I swerve my head around to the male voice and meet the eyes of a teacher. “Am I good to head into the lab now?”

“You know you don’t have to ask.”

I know that, but I always ask anyway. Mom instilled manners in me before I could hold my first screwdriver. It’s why I don’t put my fist in a certain smug face every day.

Oh, it’s difficult to hold off.

I’m not a fighter. I’d lose, but I want to do it more than ever.

Being in the advanced classes secures me free time to work on my engineering projects. If I’m king of anything, it’s the science department. The teachers there love me because I earn grants for the school by winning competitions.

I don’t ask to be singled out.

All I want is to be left alone so I can pass my tests and kick around with my inventions.

I want to build and invent something so fucking magnificent that my name will be here long after I am.

Some might say it’s ambitious for a kid my age.

I’d say I’m empty noise without my ambition.

Being the way I am has put a halo of indifference around me. It isolates me as someone unlike everyone else. I’m not a cookie cutter teen and thatbothersother people.

I don’t fit in.

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