Opposite of gray, p.1
Opposite of Gray, page 1
Shay Ray Stevens
Opposite of Gray
Copyright © 2022 by Shay Ray Stevens
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
First edition
Editing by Todd Barselow
Cover art by James, GoOnWrite.com
This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy
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CONTENT WARNING
** This book contains disturbing, graphic, and violent scenes
that could make some readers uncomfortable. **
Contents
Prologue: Sixth Grade
Lily
I. PART ONE: ANGELS OF MERCY CARE CENTER
Chapter 1: Lily
Chapter 2: Lily
Chapter 3: Lily
Chapter 4: Lily
Chapter 5: Lily
Chapter 6: Cooper
Chapter 7: Lily
Chapter 8: Lily
Chapter 9: Cooper
Chapter 10: Cooper
Chapter 11: Lily
Chapter 12: Lily
Chapter 13: Lily
II. PART TWO: THE ROAD TRIP
Chapter 14: Lily
Chapter 15: Lily
Chapter 16: Lily
Chapter 17: Cooper
Chapter 18: Lily
Chapter 19: Cooper
Chapter 20: Lily
Chapter 21: Cooper
Chapter 22: Cooper
Chapter 23: Cooper
III. PART THREE: THE CABIN
Chapter 24: Lily
Chapter 25: Cooper
Chapter 26: Cooper
Chapter 27: Lily
Chapter 28: Lily
Chapter 29: Cooper
Chapter 30: Lily
Chapter 31: Lily
Chapter 32: Cooper
Chapter 33: Lily
Chapter 34: Lily
Chapter 35: Cooper
Chapter 36: Cooper
Chapter 37: Lily
Chapter 38: Cooper
Chapter 39: Lily
Chapter 40: Cooper
Chapter 41: Lily
Chapter 42: Cooper
About the Author
Also by Shay Ray Stevens
Prologue: Sixth Grade
Lily
They looked like miniature shards of glass.
Lily poured the chunky silver glitter carefully, making sure the sparkles only fell on the sticky rubber cement.
It would be a masterpiece! No one had ever brought anything like this to The Great Egg Drop of Sixth Grade.
The end-of-the-year project was the same for every sixth-grade student at Symerton Elementary, every year. And now that Lily was days away from completing sixth grade, she could finally make her contraption. She had carefully folded the instructions and stuck them in the zippered pocket of her backpack—too important to risk losing!—and showed them to Mom a week ago.
The instructions said:
Use one (1) cardboard half gallon milk carton to create a contraption that will protect/support/cushion a raw egg placed inside. Contraptions will be dropped from the roof of Symerton Elementary in the Great Egg Drop of Sixth Grade. Raw eggs will be placed in contraptions by staff prior to the Drop. Successful completion of project is determined by condition of raw egg after the Drop.
Lily’s mom had brought home a cardboard half gallon of milk, just for the project, and Lily had never drank milk so fast in her life! Then she planted herself at the bench in the garage, painting and gluing and glittering, creating a masterpiece to be dropped from the roof of Symerton Elementary—three stories up!
She’d painted the surface of the cardboard the brightest blue she could find (even brighter than the blue of the robin’s eggs she’d found two years ago), then covered most of it with silver glitter. She knew the more glitter she used, the easier the sunlight would catch and her masterpiece would sparkle
all
the way
to the ground.
When everything was dry, she stuck cotton balls around the top and bottom so it looked like miniature clouds. When it was complete, she stepped back to admire her creation.
It’s perfect! It’s a masterpiece! It’s one in a million!
A million pieces of glitter.
A million shards of glass.
* * *
The first thing Lily noticed when she arrived at school the morning of the Great Egg Drop of Sixth Grade was that Charlotte Brenner had also painted her milk carton blue.
And covered it with glitter.
And glued puffy cotton balls to the outside.
The second thing Lily noticed was it was unseasonably humid for the end of May. The tar in front of the school was hot, and its sealant-filled cracks were a gooey mess that some sixth-grade boys stuck pens and pencils into.
A bead of sweat tickled the front of her neck, and she rubbed it away. Her skin was slippery in the humidity.
But never you mind, thought Lily. Even though the day was already gooeyslipperyhot, and even though someone had copied her masterpiece, it didn’t matter. Because the thing she liked best about the Egg Drop was that her favorite teacher, Mr. Tillson, was in charge of the festivities.
Mr. Tillson, with his skinny jeans and tie-dyed shirt and aviator sunglasses.
Mr. Tillson, standing there on the roof of Symerton Elementary—three stories up!
Mr. Tillson, who would (gasp) put his fingers on (gasp) her glittery, sparkly masterpiece.
She maybe had a little crush on Mr. Tillson.
Even if Mr. Tillson wasn’t all perfect in his skinny jeans and tie-dyed shirt and aviator sunglasses—pick my masterpiece first, Mr. Tillson!—Lily would have still thought he was the best teacher in the entire school.
Maybe in the entire universe.
Science was not Lily’s favorite subject, but Mr. Tillson made it more than bearable because he was kind and hilarious—as much an entertainer as an educator. He’d once helped the class write a jingle about the periodic table to the tune of whatever song someone punched up first on iTunes.
And because of that, Lily knew she would never forget the atomic number for cesium (55, thank you very much, Mr. Tillson). Never!
But it was more than just school stuff that made Lily think Mr. Tillson was the best teacher. Most other teachers shut down when conversation reached beyond the explanation of grammar (ahem, Mr. Nobine) or the dates of some historic battle (ahem, Mr. Yosef), but Mr. Tillson seemed to understand kids on a whole different level. He was involved in a way the other teachers didn’t care to be.
He could explain the states of matter, sure. And he could talk about why you were better off being burned with water than steam. But he could also (and had) talked to Lily’s friend about an eating disorder. And he could also (and had) secretly left Christmas gifts in front of a student’s locker after her dog was hit by a car.
And he could (and had) done a tribillion other things.
Mr. Tillson cared more than they paid him to.
And that’s why he was the favorite.
“Let’s get this started!” Mr. Tillson announced into his megaphone from the roof. All the boys stopped jabbing their pencils into the tar sealant and all the other teachers looked up and all the entire sea of everybody beneath him cheered.
Cartons—most of them not masterpieces—were lined up on the roof, divided by homeroom class. Excitement and tension surged like a wave through the crowd as Mr. Tillson held up his fingers to prod the group into a countdown.
“3…2…1!” The students yelled and then cheered as they watched the cartons drop from three stories up.
Except they weren’t just dropped. Tossed was more like it. Lily watched milk cartons decorated as bunnies and horses and robots sail to the ground below to meet certain death and destruction. The entire affair couldn’t have been less gentle if they had been drop-kicked.
One thing was for certain—there would be no questions in this project. No in-between. Your egg was in one piece at the end or not. You either passed or failed.
Carton 6 went sailing off the roof.
Carton 7.
8.
But never you mind, Lily thought. It’s the Great Egg Drop of Sixth Grade! It’s finally here!
Lily could see her masterpiece now on the roof. The sun caught the glitter as Mr. Tillson shifted things around.
Pick mine next, Mr. Tillson!
21
22
23
She had waited all year for this project, and for this day, and it was here!
Pick mine next, Mr. Tillson!
The mass of kids craned their necks, trying to see where their cartons had landed. No one could check their carton until all cartons had been tossed, but the more cartons that were tossed, the more the kids turned to each other with their accounts of which cartons had hit the pavement hardest and whose egg was probably smashed and whose parents had helped way too much with the project and whose parents flat out did the whole thing.
Pick mine next, Mr. Tillson!
43
44
45
The chatter swelled as more cartons were tossed and Lily knew it was too hard to see when she couldn’t hear, so she pushed her way through the tangle of kids until she got to the edge of the crowd. It was quieter there. It made her eyes work better.
Her masterpiece was still on the roof.
Pick mine next, Mr Tillson!
Carton after carton—reds and purples and whites.
And Lily’s was still on the roof.
78
79
80
And then Lily had a thought. What if Mr. Tillson was keeping hers for the end? Like a grand finale?
Save the best for last!
Carton after carton—streamers and balloons and flags. Carton after carton—raw eggs jostling and cracking because how many students had actually paid attention to the insulation and padding inside the carton?
102
103
104
Lily had another thought (a weird thought to think) but what if the eggs were raw but also fertilized and incubated and if your egg cracked you actually helped a chick hatch?
That wouldn’t work, Lily. If you didn’t cushion your fertilized and incubated egg, the force of the drop would kill the chick.
Splat.
It was weird that she thought of that.
Wasn’t it?
Cartons catapulted off the roof of the school and she wondered if this was going to take all day. How many kids were there in the sixth grade?
125
126
127
Pick mine next, Mr. Tillson.
And then
he did.
He (gasp!) touched her masterpiece and then (gasp) lifted her masterpiece and it sparkled and twinkled as the hot sun hit the face of a million pieces of glitter. He tossed the carton, and it
barreled
through the air
tumbling
cartwheeling
spinning and dipping and dropping quicker and faster
Like a missile shooting through a gooeyslipperyheat and it
hit
the
ground
with a
Boom
Thud
Splat.
Her masterpiece exhaled on the hot pavement, a dented blue carton missing some of its glitter and most of its cotton balls.
Let me see! she wanted to yell. She wanted to see the egg inside.
Mr. Tillson tossed three more cartons off the roof and then stood up straight with a flourish, posing like a star, and grabbed his megaphone again.
“That’s all! That’s the end of the Great Egg Drop!” Mr. Tillson announced and then took a sweeping bow. He always had a flair for the dramatics. Reason number ten tribillion that Lily and everyone else loved him.
The students erupted into cheers and whoops and high fives—because they had completed the Great Egg Drop of Sixth Grade!—and ran to retrieve their cartons to mark the eggs inside as a pass or fail.
Lily carefully grabbed for her own carton, turning away from the rest of the kids to rip into its side and grab the egg.
The egg was cracked.
It was leaking yolk.
And the yolk
was streaked
with blood.
A sharp scream stabbed through the crowd’s chatter. Lily swung her head to see Mr. Tillson standing on the very edge of the roof he’d tossed cartons from just moments before. Except this time, he stood with his face up to the sky, arms spread out to the side, like a majestic eagle basking in the unusually hot May sun.
Then he stepped forward.
Off the edge of the roof.
And plummeted in an ungraceful dive to the tar below.
And Lily, her jaw falling open and her eyes wide with disbelief, couldn’t look away.
Boom
Thud
Splat.
It was his face that hit the pavement first, smashing flat when the bones cracked. He didn’t tumble like the milk cartons had. He didn’t bounce or roll a few feet from where he landed. He didn’t curl up in a ball, wincing in pain. He didn’t cry out in agony.
He hit the ground.
And he didn’t move.
The cracked egg Lily held in her hand slipped away and hit the pavement.
Yolk splattering.
Yolk with streaks of blood.
Boom
Thud.
Splat.
And Lily had a thought, a horrible, terrible thought, and her head bulged with a realization. She had not seen Mr. Tillson fall or get pushed off that roof.
She saw Mr. Tillson step off that roof. On purpose.
Lily’s head swirled, and the threat of vomit clawed at the back of her throat.
Oh, my God. Is he dead?
There were so many screams. It started small and then built into a roar, like wildfire in a bone-dry field. And because of the noise, the students ran like a bunch of caged animals that knew something had happened but didn’t yet know what. A running and screaming, fueled by chaos and panic, not knowing what they were running from or screaming about.
But you could tell when the kids saw it. You knew the exact moment they caught sight of Mr. Tillson’s crumpled frame, his blank eyes, the unnatural set of his jaw.
Because their screaming changed.
Instead of high-pitched shrieks, the sound came from the gut—an unbelieving, frightened place from deep within. And their running shifted from something a crowd did together to the running that happens when you’re trying to get away from the crowd.
But Lily couldn’t scream.
And Lily couldn’t move.
And as the teachers tried to calm the crying and screaming and chaos and panic that ensued, Lily couldn’t take her eyes off of Mr. Tillson’s limp body.
Those blank eyes.
The stillness of his face.
“Class, please go to the gym!” a teacher shouted over the crowd.
But no one was listening. They were running and screaming.
And screaming.
And running.
“Please stay calm and follow me to the gym!” the teacher repeated.
And for Lily, time slowed down. Shapes and shadows crawled by, writhing like they were stuck in the air. Every breath she sucked in took years and every exhale was a decade. She tried to move, to take a step in any direction—towards Mr. Tillson or towards the gym, but she couldn’t. She was stuck in place.
Like Mr. Tillson’s face.
Boom.
Thud.
Splat.
She couldn’t look away.
Not because the cage of his body was limp and tangled like a wet spaghetti noodle.
Not because of the growing red pool of blood he was soaking in.
No.
It was because as soon as Mr. Tillson hit the ground,
his
skin
turned
completely
gray.
I
Part One: Angels of Mercy Care Center
9 years later
Chapter 1: Lily
Mr. Donner was ready to go. He folded his hands and placed them on his chest like Snow White.
“Okay,” he said, confidently. “I’m ready to die.”
Then he smiled, closed his eyes, and waited.
Lily stood in the corner of Room 216, trying not to be a distraction. But his garbage can was full, and she’d snapped open a fresh bag at the exact moment Mr. Donner’s voice fell silent.
Crack.
Lily had an awkward, too late thought: I shouldn’t be here right now.
“Damn it!” Mr. Donner suddenly jerked open his eyes in exasperation. They darted around the room and stopped on Lily. “Why can’t I just die?”
Lily had only been a nursing assistant for a single itty bitty month and wasn’t ready to answer questions like why can’t I die. Her nervous hands played with the edge of the new garbage bag she still held.
“I’m not sure, Mr. Donner,” she said. “Maybe it’s… just not time yet?”
It seemed like an acceptable answer. Mr. Donner closed his eyes again. Everyone else in the room stopped staring at Lily, and she quickly put the new bag in the trash can.
But Mr. Donner’s time was close, and everyone in the room knew it. His family had been notified earlier that morning through a chain of phone calls and text messages that Dad or Grandpa or Uncle Donner didn’t have long.
