All Chapters of If You Ever Find Me: Chapter 1 - Chapter 5

“Scrhhh! Scrhh!” The alarm starts screaming at exactly 5:00 AM, I groan, stretching my hands so far I nearly rolled off the bed. Oh come on, I was having such a good dream. For a moment, I just lie there staring at the ceiling, following the water stains on my ceiling and convincing myself that today is just a day, just another building, just another set of people who will look at my scuffed shoes before they look at my face. I laid there a moment longer, listening to the apartment wake up around me. The pipes groaning in the walls, my mom's slippers shuffling against the cracked kitchen tile. Then comes the smell of burnt toast—she always sets the dial too high when she's distracted.And I know without looking that she's distracted today, she's been that way all week, ever since the acceptance letter arrived in that thick, heavy cream envelope, which had the gold Sterling crest stamped on the front like a death wish. “Leo.” two soft knocks landed against my bedroom door “You're g

Leo's PovBy the time fifth period rolled around, I'd realized that trying to be a ‘normal boy’ at Sterling Academy was like trying to blend in while wearing a neon sign. The morning classes had been an exercise in psychological warfare. I sat at the back of AP Art History, staring at the slide presentation of Renaissance sculptures, but i couldn't focus. All I could see was Damien Sterling's frozen grey eyes staring down at me. Eveytime a student whispered in the hallway, I was convinced they were counting down the minutes until my scholarship got revoked. “Don't let them get to you,” I muttered to myself, aggressively stabbing a fork into my homemade chicken salad. Mom had promised me she would make them for me today, not for showoff but I just really loved to have them. The other students sat at pristine white tables under the shade of manicured willow trees, laughing over catered meals. I kept my head down, pulling out my phone to check the only one place where I actually felt

Leo's povIf I thought yesterday was brutal, today was a whole new level of psychological torture. By third period AP Calculus, I was sitting near the back of the lecture hall, trying to block out the low hum of the air conditioner and focus on the derivatives the teacher was scribbling across the white board.But it was impossible to concentrate when I could literally feel the eyes boring into the back of my neck, like I was the answer to the equation on the board.‘Fwump’ A tightly folded piece of notebook paper landed directly on top of my table, tossed from somewhere three rows back. I stiffened, trying to understand what just happened. A muffled burst of giggles erupted from the rows behind me. Keeping my face completely blank, I pulled the note down under my table so the teacher wouldn't see it.I unfolded the paper just to see a crude, mocking drawing of a stick figure wearing a t-shirt with a massive 'S' for scholarship stamped on it, bowing flat on its face in front of a sti