I stood up and walked farther down the path, weeds popping up with more frequency, until I wasn’t sure I was on the path anymore.
I spun around, and all I saw were trees. My breath caught, and I spun around in a full circle. The ground all looked the same, clusters of weeds breaking up the rocks and dirt. Trees everywhere. I put my hand on the nearest trunk, the one I had stopped at, and oriented myself in the direction I had been walking, then took two huge, deliberate steps backward. I looked down and saw the difference. A faint path, a little more worn than where I had just been. I stepped backward again. Then I turned around, kept my eyes down on the ground, and started moving, following the weeds as they became sparser and sparser and I was back on the path again. Until I was next to the broken cross.
My heart beat fast. I had almost gotten lost. I saw how the woods could’ve swallowed him up so easily. They could’ve swallowed me up like that. I wondered how long it would be before someone would’ve noticed I was missing and come looking. How long it would take for me to go from Gone but not forgotten to Forgotten but not gone.
Chapter 8
I returned to campus for the rest of classes, stopping by Dr. Arnold’s classroom beforehand to pick up my work. “Did you see the nurse?” she asked.
“Oh no, I think it was just something I ate.”
“Usually you can only be excused by a note from the nurse. I’ll let it slide this time, but you need to make up the lab. I’ll be here this afternoon, if you’re feeling up to it.”
“Sure,” I said. Not like I had any other plans. There was a pep rally tonight, but I wasn’t exactly feeling peppy, or like rallying.
That afternoon, Dr. Arnold stayed in the room with me while I completed the experiment. I had to build a list of circuits and answer some math questions that went along with it. Dr. Arnold looked over my shoulder at the completed circuits, and I stopped writing. “Nice work, Mallory. You’re a natural.”
I wondered if I would’ve been a natural at chemistry, too, if I had actually done my homework at night and not with Dylan during study hall. If I had paid more attention to the book and less attention to him. Or if I hadn’t been watching him instead of the beakers during class. If I would’ve given Brian a second glance if Dylan hadn’t been my lab partner. If he would’ve caught me staring on the boardwalk.
A long line of ifs that didn’t matter anyway because it was done.
That evening, I could hear the pep rally cheers all the way across campus. But there were no sounds coming from the dorm itself. I lay on my bed catching up on the rest of the summer reading, even though I’d already read the basic plot in Chloe’s study books. Turns out I wasn’t half bad as a student after all. I flipped the page and something caught my eye outside.
Smoke rose up from below my window. My stomach knotted, and I debated just running out the door, calling for help, something. But I didn’t need any more rumors about me circulating campus. I kept the window closed but placed my forehead against it, looking down. Expecting the worst. I let out my breath and watched as it fogged the window.
Bree was down there, leaning against the bricks, sucking on a cigarette and blowing smoke toward the trees. I thought about opening the window, telling her to go somewhere else, leave her discarded cigarette butts under her own window, but I didn’t. Her left hand was shaking, just the slightest tremor. Someone called her name—I could hear it through my window pane. A girl’s voice. Krista, I thought. Bree looked in the direction of the voice, and very slowly pressed herself farther against the bricks.
Apparently, soccer was big here. Like, really big. Saturday after lunch, the whole student body abandoned center campus and swarmed past the athletic center to the biggest of three soccer fields. I heard the buzz at the cafeteria as I grabbed a bagel to go—apparently, this was a big rivalry. Us versus some prep school from Vermont. I pushed back to my dorm as a sea of red T-shirts flew by me.
The dorm was nearly empty by the time I got back. Except for some guy I didn’t know sneaking into the room of some girl I didn’t know, taking advantage of the fact that no one was around. I fed dollar bills into the coin machine in the basement, went back upstairs to the pay phone, and tried calling Colleen. Her cell went straight to voice mail, and I lost the money. I tried her home phone, even though I knew the chances of her picking up were nearly zero, but I was desperate. It just rang and rang and rang. It didn’t go to the answering machine, which meant someone was on the phone. Her mom, probably. Maybe she saw our New Hampshire number on the Caller ID and chose not to pick up. I was sure she was glad I was gone. Gone, and hopefully forgotten.
I hung up and my coins came pouring back out, overflowing the coin dispenser and scattering along the floor. The giggling in the room down the hall stopped, like they thought I was a teacher or something.
And I hated silence.
So I called that stupid 800 number my dad had set up for me.
“Mallory!” Mom said as soon as she picked up. “And it’s not even Sunday!”
Sunday being the day I was supposed to call.
Then, after processing the information—daughter calling when daughter did not need to call—she added, “Is everything okay?”
“Sure, Mom. Just calling to say hi.”
After a beat of silence: “I’m so glad you did! I’ve missed you. I miss you.”
“Me too,” I said, because that’s what you say when someone says it first. Except as soon as the words escaped my mouth, I realized they were true. I sunk into the plastic chair beside the pay phone.
“Well, tell me what you’ve been up to, love. Tell me everything.”
But her voice through the phone had this effect, tightening my airway, so I couldn’t get any words out without everything coming pouring out, like the coins. “I’m good,” I whispered.
Mom’s voice dropped lower as she said, “Do you want to come home?”
Yes. “No,” I said. Because it wasn’t just my mom at home. It was a whole life, a whole horrifying mistake, and it was terrible. And she sounded so much better with me gone. She sounded like her old self again. Like the mom I missed. She hadn’t been that person since the night Brian bled out on our kitchen floor. “I was just calling to say hi,” I said again. “But I gotta go.”
“All right,” she said. “Tomorrow, then?”
“Tomorrow.”
The silence was back. I walked to my room and opened the door, and as it squeaked open, I felt that fullness to the room, like my kitchen at home. The room felt charged, like it was waiting for some spark. Like it was waiting for me. And it craved. Oh, how I could feel it, deep in my bones, wanting me.
I pulled the door closed again, turned my key in the lock, and ran out the lounge door. I ran to that soccer game like I was the biggest fan this school had ever seen.
The alley had been dark as I walked home from Brian’s house. And Colleen had the pepper spray, back at the party. I heard these footsteps, faintly, over the sound of my breathing, and I started moving faster.
I kept my eyes on the light at the other end. The moon was low in the sky, and there was this halo around it, from the clouds. The air was thick, about to burst. Humidity and something else crawled along my skin.
“Mallory,” I heard.
And I started to run.
I dug my fingernails into my clenched fists and pumped my arms harder as I sprinted through the grass toward the roar of the crowd. To the sea of red. Where I joined the mob.