Reid kept waiting, like he thought I was going to spell it all out for him. And when he finally realized I was done, he said, “Is that your apology?”
“Is this yours?” I asked, and this time I couldn’t really stop the smile.
He stood up so he was taller than me, and I rolled his chair back a little farther, until it was pressed up against his desk. He stuck his hand out. “Friends?”
He didn’t lower his hand just because I kept staring at it. Not like when he found me at the old student center. He held out his hand like we had no history. Like we were starting over. Which was really the entire point of my coming here after all.
I stood up and put my hand in his. I expected us to shake, but neither of us did. We just held on for a few seconds until I pulled my hand back.
I slung my bag over my shoulder.
“Are you coming to our game Saturday?”
“Um, not really my thing,” I said, moving toward the door.
“What’s not your thing? Soccer? Or me?”
I paused because there was really no right answer to that question. “Sitting on the bleachers.”
He smiled. “Fair enough.” I walked out the doorway, and when I was in the hall, he said, “So what is your thing?”
I thought of Colleen and the boardwalk, the beach and the sun, none of which were here, and I kept moving, because the truth was, without her, I had no idea.
After study hall I took a sleeping pill and raced the feeling to sleep. I wasn’t fast enough. Like running away last night had flipped some switch. Almost as soon as I swallowed, I heard the noise. The boom, boom, boom coming closer. I closed my eyes, but I heard the voice. Mallory, it whispered. Wait.
And that’s when the hand reached out and grabbed me.
Then came the dream, same as every night. I saw the choice, like the very first time: the knife, the door. Life, death. Choose. Choose different. But I didn’t. I made the same choice every time. Even in my dream.
Reid fell into stride with me on the way to science class. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I said. “Were you waiting for me?” Bold.
“Just heading in the same direction.” Half-truth.
“I didn’t know you had science this period.” Lie.
Silence as we weaved through the crowded hall.
“Word on the street is that you slid down the downspout.”
“No!”
“There’s a smaller faction who say you crawled through the ventilation shaft, but my class knows that’s not possible.”
“How do they know?”
“We tried that my year.”
I stopped walking. “Hey, I thought you said being locked on the roof was fun?”
“It was fun trying to escape together.” He smiled and shook his head to himself, then put a hand on my back for half a second as he started walking again. “Turns out ventilation shafts aren’t big like they seem in movies. Or sturdy. At all. Jason got both his legs stuck. The orientation group had to get oil to get him unstuck. Almost got caught because of it . . .”
I stopped just inside the Science Center, leaning toward him to hear more. The warning bell chimed. “I have to go,” I said.
He stepped closer, and people brushed past us, rushing to beat the bell. “So do I,” he said. Then he raised his hand almost to my face, then dropped it to my shoulder instead, like he had patted his friend on the shoulder as they parted a few mornings ago. I winced.
He pulled back his hand and stared at it, like he didn’t know what it was capable of. “What?” he asked. “I hurt you?”
“No, it’s my shoulder . . . I don’t know . . .” And I pressed myself farther into the wall.
He leaned closer, put his fingers on the collar of my shirt, like he was waiting for some sign from me before he pulled it aside. And I felt hot and cold at once, yes and no, trapping me in indecision.
“Ho-ly shit.”
Reid dropped his hand and I stepped back.
Jason stood in the middle of the hall, half a grin on his face. He stood too close to Bree, but Bree didn’t seem to mind. And Krista just looked, unblinking. Jason shook his head and smirked. “Always with the rebounds, Reid.” Then he looked to me. “It’s his thing. Go for the girl when she’s down. Makes you feel special, doesn’t it?”
I looked to Reid for explanation, but I couldn’t see anything under the anger. But before Reid could even open his mouth, Krista put her hands up, palm out. “Well, boys, this sure has been enlightening. But I believe we’re all late for class.”
The overhead speakers buzzed and Krista and Bree slipped into the classroom.
Jason smirked again and took off running for the end of the hall. And I stood there, feeling like I was missing the pieces to some puzzle—like I could only see the upper corner and had no idea what pieces I even needed to complete the rest of the picture.
“I’m late,” Reid said.
“Me too.” I stepped toward the doorway of the classroom and heard Reid’s footsteps echo down the hall. My shoulder throbbed every time I moved it.
“Ms. Murphy.” Dr. Arnold raised her pen into the air and jabbed it in my direction. “Are you planning to join us this morning?”
I felt the throb in my shoulder again, and the blood draining from my face. “Mallory? Are you okay?”
“I’m going to be sick,” I said, bracing myself against the door frame.
“Go,” she said.
I backed out of the doorway and ran down the hall toward the bathroom. I leaned over the sink and pulled my shirt down over my left shoulder, where Reid had touched me. Underneath, the faint red marks had turned dark. Bruised. I turned around and looked at my back. There was another bruise, like from a thumb.
I squeezed my eyes shut and thought it’s only real if I let it be.
I opened my eyes, but the marks were still there. I really was going to be sick. Air. I needed air. I ran down the empty hallway, out into the bright late-morning sun, and took a deep breath. Two teachers were walking up the path from the other direction—they’d see me any second, so I kept moving. I ran through campus, out the side gate, across the street, down the path. To the old student center, where there was nothing but the remains of what used to be.
I sat on a half-wall, trying to think of nothing, and listened to the wind. I watched the leaves move with the breeze.
Everything shifted a little to the left with a strong gust. And I saw something past the student center, farther into the woods. A path. This wasn’t the end of campus. I stood, brushed the dirt from my khaki pants, and crept over the bricks to the far corner. The path was narrow, but it was a definite path. It wound through the trunks, and as I followed, it narrowed.
A pile of rocks stood just off the side of the path with a small wooden cross standing in the middle, nearly overgrown with weeds now. There was something carved into the wood, in boxy letters. I pushed the weeds down. danvers jack. gone but not forgotten. The cross split under the weight of my hands, bringing ruin, like usual. I tried to prop it back up, and I felt an engraving on the other side. I flipped the piece over and read the other side, jagged letters etched into the rotting wood. forgotten but not gone.
Wind rustled the leaves, and a few scattered down to the ground, a burnt orange, turning early. I wondered if Jack Danvers or Danvers Jack or whatever his name was haunted these woods. If he was tied to them now. If others could feel him, if they believed he wasn’t truly gone.