Unmaking Hunter Kennedy by Anne Eliot

other two belongings he treated more carefully. He placed his iPhone on top of the flattened hair-color box, making sure the smiling, brown-eyed model was face up as he zipped her into the front pocket.
    He handed over the white and silver, HK encrusted backpack without meeting Martin’s gaze.
    He was done talking.
    “Flight’s in two hours. Gate A36. Don’t leave the Airline Club for at least one hour. Don’t talk to anyone who comes in here after we leave. Eat some more food. Looks like you could use it.” Martin scanned him up and down. “Maybe lift some weights while you’re there, huh? Your Aunt Nan will be waiting at passenger pick up in the Denver airport. I’ll communicate as soon as I can. Promise.”
    And that had been it—for him anyhow.
    Within seconds the entire group rushed out the door.
    Martin forged ahead, drawing the attention with his booming voice and pushing Adam and Royce ahead. His mom trailed behind the fake Hunter Kennedy, messing with his hat, hair and sunglasses.
    She’d glanced back once, her expression still unreadable, before being swallowed up in the camera flashes and noise of a new crowd forming in the terminal.
    Hunter floated just outside his body, and very deep into his own head as the opaque, glass door whispered shut.
    Finally he’d sat, staring first at the points of blue, black and grey in the tightly bound carpet. And then at his toes flexing in his new flip-flops.
    Exactly one hour later, he’d walked unnoticed to his gate and boarded his plane.

6: howie rutherford sucks

    VERE

    “Okay. Quiet!” Mr. Peterson, the chemistry teacher, barreled into the crowded lab holding reams of paper. “I said, quiet .”
    He sounded as hot and as irritated as Vere felt. “I want the new Concussion Management Form on top of your piles. They have to get entered into the office database today or you aren’t allowed to participate in the assembly. Football team! This means you! Or no scrimmage this afternoon. Concussion Management Forms ON TOP. Now stop fooling around in here and get your packets completed.”
    Vere turned toward the wall to take off the hoodie. Instead of the graceful move she’d told her arms to create, she got tangled up and trapped by her double-weighted bun.
    The hoodie wouldn’t budge up or down.
    With her face completely wrapped in black cotton, she scoured her melting brain, trying to take stock of the situation.
    All is not lost.
    My cami is at least cute, and from the feel of things, it hasn’t ridden up. THANK GOD.
    She struggled harder. At least twenty baby hairs at the base of her neck pulled out from her efforts.
    “Ow. Uuuf.”
    Her head spun more. It was either her or the bun.
    Fine. The bun.
    She yanked as hard as she could. More hairs popped out.
    “Ow! Jenna, help. Please. Help! Help!”
    Within seconds her hoodie came up, then off.
    Vere gasped in two long breaths. “Another minute and a new, epic-fail-moment would top my list. Thanks,” she said, turning with a smile.
    “No problem. I can’t resist when cute girls ask for help.”
    Curtis Wishford stood in front of her, holding her crumpled hoodie.
    “Um,” Vere managed, choking back the remaining syllables: bla-durd-yah-bla.
    Curtis seemed to be biting back a grin as he handed over the hoodie. “Vere, I’m kidding. I knew it was you under there.”
    What is he kidding about?
    Am I cute or not?
    Maybe I’m so low totem pole, he doesn’t consider me a real girl?
    Bla. Bla. Bla. Dug-bla.
    Curtis went on, “And don’t worry. No one saw you stuck in the hoodie. You won’t have to update that list .” He chuckled. “Do you really have a list?” he added.
    Vere blinked. And blinked. And blinked. And blinked.
    OMG. Try to speak. Try.
    “Uh...yeah. I mean, no. I don’t. Joking. Thought you were Jenna.” Vere felt the back of her neck burn. Her stomach had started to twist and roll.
    “Oh.” He shifted his feet. “I wouldn’t put a list like that past you, though. You always seem