BETWEEN WORLDS - Chapter 3
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The Buick shuddered at every red light like it might just give up and die. Azeil slumped lower in the passenger seat, trying to disappear into the ripped fabric. Rain came down steady outside, making everything look gray and wet. The buildings looked slick, the sidewalks were all cracked up, and the morning sun couldn't get through the clouds.
"They take our money and can't even fix the damn roads," his dad Jackson said as they hit another pothole. The whole car bounced and squeaked. He gripped the steering wheel tighter. "All the taxes I pay, you'd think they could fill a few holes."
Azeil didn't respond. Instead, he watched three men huddled under the broken awning of a liquor store, making quick exchanges he could see even through the fogged windows. Highland Prep had its problems too. Pills passed in bathrooms, flasks hidden in expensive cars, but those came with lawyers and private rehab when things went wrong. Here, everything was out in the open.
"Yeah, keep staring," his father said, reading Azeil's attention wrong. "That's where you end up when you drop out. Remember that." He acted like he'd suddenly decided to start giving fatherly advice.
The Buick backfired like a gunshot, startling a group of middle-school kids at a bus stop. Several looked up, surprised for a moment before going back to ignoring everything around them. Azeil felt his face burn as he slid even lower, pulling his hood up more like armor than style.
Six weeks ago, he'd ridden in his mother's sedan, a meticulously maintained despite their budget, navigating Highland Prep's circular drive with practiced ease. Six weeks ago, everything had been different. Her secondhand blazers hung in perfect order, case files stacked on their dining table like blueprints for the future she'd mapped out for him. Six weeks ago, he'd been a Highland Prep scholarship student with a path as clear as his mother's courtroom arguments.
Now he was cargo in a car that announced his arrival like a air raid siren.
"You nervous?" Jackson asked, the first personal question he'd bothered with since they'd left the apartment fifteen minutes ago.
"No." Azeil's stomach knotted tighter with each passing block. Nervous didn't touch the cold dread spreading through his chest, the feeling of being cut loose from everything that mattered.
"You should be fine," Jackson said, tapping the steering wheel. "You're smart like your mom. Got her brains. And after what you did on that court, they'll want you on their squad."
Azeil's jaw clenched. His father hadn't been at the championship game. Hadn't seen the triumph or the aftermath. Probably caught the highlights online and thought he understood the whole story from a ten-second clip.
"Yeah," Azeil said, the word carrying everything he couldn't say. How could he explain that walking into Langston Hughes felt like walking to his execution? That this wasn't just changing schools but stripping away an identity built with the same precision as his mother's legal briefs? That every mile erased another piece of the life Elise Carter had sacrificed everything to give him?
The rain hammered harder, drowning the wipers in a losing battle. Through the blur, Langston Hughes High School emerged, red brick scarred by decades of budget cuts and broken promises. Students bunched near the entrance, gray hoodies and worn jackets dotted with flashes of color. Some pressed against the concrete overhang; others let the rain soak them like they'd given up caring.
Jackson yanked the car to the curb. The engine shuddered dead.
Azeil stared up at the weathered stone arch, at those carved letters that felt like a slap: LANGSTON HUGHES HIGH SCHOOL. Six months ago, he'd crushed their championship dreams. Now he was walking through their front door.
Rain drummed the roof. Cars hissed past through puddles. Someone's bass thumped from oversized headphones.
"Your principal's expecting you." Jackson fished a crumpled paper from his jacket. "Mr. Peterson. Main office." He paused. "I'd walk you in, but my shift starts in twenty and Stanley's already riding my ass about being late."
Azeil took the paper without smoothing the wrinkles. His mother would've had transfer documents in a leather portfolio, would've marched him to the office herself, would've locked eyes with every administrator until they understood her son mattered. His father couldn't even turn off the weather report droning about weekend rain.
"I'm good," Azeil said, grabbing his backpack.
"Text if you need something," Jackson said, the offer as hollow as his promises usually were.
Azeil stepped into the rain. Cold bit through his sweatshirt instantly. He pulled up his hood; against the weather, against the stares already finding him. Students cataloged everything: how he stood, how he moved, the careful posture his mother had drilled into him. Every detail screaming outsider.
"Azeil," his father called through the passenger window. "Have a good one, man."
Before Azeil could respond, the window was back up, and the Buick pulled away with a backfire that made several nearby students turn. Their eyes tracked from the retreating car to him with undisguised curiosity. He felt their assessment, his outsider status written in the clean edges of his sweatshirt against their worn ones, the dreadlocks his mother had helped him maintain with Sunday afternoon rituals of patience and precision.
The concrete steps up to the school felt huge. Each one was harder to climb, taking him further from everything he knew. What had his dad said? "After what you did in that game..." The championship game that made him a hero at Highland Prep would make him the enemy here, the kid who crushed their dreams with a last-second shot. Great.
The heavy doors groaned when he pushed them open. The smell hit him first, cleaner mixed with whatever they were serving for lunch. Fluorescent lights made everyone look sick and pale. Kids filled the hallway, weaving around each other without crashing somehow, all talking at once so loud it echoed off the lockers and shiny floors.
Azeil unfolded the crumpled paper, the principal's name and office number his only lifeline in this foreign landscape. Mr. Peterson, Room 112. He drew in a steadying breath, rainwater trickling cold beneath his hood, and pressed on through the maze.
The transition had begun. As he moved through the churning hallway, scanning room numbers and dodging students who barely registered his presence, Azeil felt the weight of what lay ahead. Somewhere in this maze of lockers and fluorescent lights, past the stares and whispers that would inevitably follow, waited the man who would determine exactly what kind of fresh start, or fresh punishment, Langston Hughes had in store for him.
The hallway seemed to stretch and contract like a living thing, students materializing and dissolving around him as he navigated by the room numbers mounted beside each door. People talked around him, but it all sounded different here. Kids laughed at things he didn't get. He didn't know how to fit in yet. He kept looking straight ahead, remembering what his mom always said: "Don't slouch. People think you're guilty or weak if you look down. You don't want either."
So he held his spine straight despite the instinct to curl inward, to make himself smaller against the tide of unfamiliar faces. Most students paid him no attention, too absorbed in their morning rituals to notice one more body in the crowd. The few who did glance his way did so with casual indifference, noted briefly, then dismissed.
The hallway narrowed as students clustered around lockers, forcing Azeil to navigate a tighter path. He sidled past them, catching fragments of conversation about weekend plans, makeup assignments, and basketball tryouts before pressing on. No one called out to him. No one pointed or whispered. The anonymity was both relief and strange new weight, he'd never been invisible before.
He'd found Room 111 when someone called out behind him. "Young man!"
Azeil turned around. A tall Black man in a charcoal suit walked toward him, the suit was old but pressed neat. Gray streaked his short hair at the temples, and his eyes looked tired in the way teachers get after dealing with teenagers for years.
"Azeil Carter?" the man asked, holding out his hand. His voice was deeper than Azeil expected, cutting through all the hallway noise.
"Yes, sir," Azeil said, shaking hands. The guy had a solid grip, callused palms like he did more than just sit behind a desk.
"I'm Daniel Peterson, the principal here at Langston Hughes. I've been looking for you." He nodded toward the door Azeil had been heading for. "I see you found my office."
"My father gave me your room number," Azeil said. Students kept looking over at them. Great. Being personally escorted by the principal on his first day, exactly what he needed.
"Let's talk inside," Mr. Peterson said. "Come on."
Walking down the hall, Azeil watched how kids acted around the principal. Nothing like Highland Prep, where you basically hid when administrators showed up. Here, Mr. Peterson got casual waves, a couple "morning, Mr. P"s, even fist-bumped some freshman who lit up like Christmas.
The principal's office was quieter than the hallway chaos. Books covered one wall. Not the fancy leather-bound stuff Highland Prep loved showing off, but beat-up paperbacks and hardcovers with broken spines that looked actually read. Coffee smell mixed with something citrusy from a bowl of oranges behind the desk.
"Sit wherever," Mr. Peterson said.
Azeil took one of the chairs facing the desk. It creaked. The plastic had been worn smooth by who knows how many kids, nervous ones like him, angry ones, broken ones. Nothing like Highland Prep's leather chairs that cost more than most people's cars.
Mr. Peterson didn't sit right away. He went to a mini-fridge by the filing cabinet and grabbed two water bottles, set one in front of Azeil without asking, then sat down.
"I'm guessing this morning's been rough," he said, opening his water.
Azeil reached for his bottle. Something to do with his hands. "It's okay."
"That sounds like code for it's not okay, which makes sense to me."
Azeil drank his water instead of answering.
"Look, Azeil, I know this isn't Highland Prep. Our gym's older. Half our computers are ancient. The cafeteria serves pizza every day because that's what we can afford." He smiled a little. "But we've got something they don't."
"What's that?"
"People who actually give a damn about each other."
Azeil wanted to say he wasn't comparing schools, but of course he was. How could he not?
"Your grades are solid," Mr. Peterson said, tapping a folder. "Track record speaks for itself. But that only tells me part of who you are."
"Such as?"
"Who you really want to be, now that everything's changed."
The question hit him hard. Who did he want to be? Six weeks ago, he'd known exactly where his life was headed. His mom had it all planned out. Now everything was a mess, and he had no clue what came next.
"I just want to make it through the day," Azeil said. The words were more honest than he intended.
Except, Mr. Peterson nodded as if he expected that very response. "One day at a time works." He opened the folder on his desk. "Your class schedule. Mrs. Henderson's expecting you in Honors English this period."
He pushed the paper across the desk, then stopped. "Our basketball coach, Mr. Booker, knows you transferred here. He wants to talk when you're ready."
When you're ready. Not assuming Azeil would jump right into basketball, but giving him space to figure it out. That meant something.
"Thanks," Azeil said, taking the schedule. He looked at the room numbers and teacher names he didn't recognize, then something made him ask, "Why did you come find me in the hallway? Don't principals have better things to do than meet transfer students?"
Mr. Peterson looked at him for a moment. "Most principals, maybe." He seemed to think about what to say next. "But I make exceptions for kids whose parents I respect."
Azeil frowned. "You knew my father?"
A quick smile crossed the principal's face. "I knew your mother."
The words hit like a punch. Azeil just stared.
"Elise Carter was..." Mr. Peterson paused. "She was something else here before she became the lawyer you saw, the mother you knew. We were classmates. She was a couple years ahead of me. Everyone knew she was going places."
Azeil tried to make sense of this. There was no mention from his mother about where she went to high school, her eyes always towards the future and not interested in the past.
"My mother went here?" He sounded like a little kid.
Mr. Peterson nodded. "Class of 2000. Valedictorian." He pointed at the wall behind Azeil. "Third from the left, top row."
Azeil turned around. A bunch of framed photos covered the wall, graduation classes by year. He found the one marked "2000" and looked at the top row. There she was. Younger, different hair, but definitely his mom. Elise Carter, looking serious even then, staring at something he couldn't see.
"She never told me," Azeil said. He couldn't hide how much that hurt.
"Parents don't really tell their kids everything about their past," Mr. Peterson said, placing his elbows on the desk. "Your mom included. I'm not trying to make things weird. I just thought you should know, this place meant something to her once."
Conflicted didn't begin to describe how Azeil felt.
"I don't know what's going on at home," Mr. Peterson said. "Why you're living with your dad now, all that. But if you need to talk sometime, come find me. Not because I'm the principal. Because I knew your mom back when she was figuring things out too."
The bell rang and startled both of them.
"Mrs. Henderson isn't a fan of tardiness," Mr. Peterson said, getting up. "Come on, I'll take you over there and give you a pass. "
Walking back into the hallway, Azeil noticed kids weren't just wandering around anymore, they actually had somewhere to go. Something felt different in his chest too. Still weird being the new kid, but maybe not completely alone. His mom had been here. Walked these same halls, sat in these same desks. Maybe she'd felt out of place once too.
Mr. Peterson stopped at a classroom door. Through the window, Azeil saw students taking their seats while a woman with streaky gray hair wrote on the board.
"Mrs. Henderson," Mr. Peterson said. "She's tough, but also fair."
Azeil nodded. He didn't really want to leave Mr. Peterson for another room full of people he didn't know.
"Remember," Mr. Peterson said quietly, "one day at a time."
He opened the door and everyone inside went quiet. "Mrs. Henderson, this is Azeil Carter, your new student." Mr. Peterson's hand touched his shoulder for just a second.
Twenty kids looked at him. Some seemed curious. Others looked bored. Most just had that look you get when something interrupts class. But then some guy in the back row sat up straighter. Azeil recognized him. Rashaad, number 23. He'd come off the bench in the championship game when their point guard fouled out.
They looked at each other. Rashaad seemed surprised, then something else crossed his face. Not angry exactly, but like he was trying to figure out what this meant.
Azeil straightened up and walked into the room. So much for flying under the radar. By lunch, everyone would know the Highland Prep kid who helped beat them was now going to their school.
What happens next? The next chapter posts on Monday, June 9th 2025. You can subscribe below.
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Between Worlds is a fiction novel by Craig Griffin. New chapters post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Subscribe to get them delivered to your inbox.