I felt him again. Like I was in his lap, driving. Or huddled behind him, warm but freezing in the night air on the motorcycle. Or wrapped tightly in his arms, hidden in a closet, a world within a world.
I wished he was close. I wished he was watching me. Always watching me. I tucked my hair behind my ear, turning my head toward the direction where I would imagine he was, and reveled in the feeling of his eyes being on me.
“Are you okay?” Rika asked.
The music cut off, and I heard a teacher scolding someone—probably Will—and I nodded. “Yeah.” I dropped my plastic fork and wiped my fingers on a napkin. “When you’re done, would you mind pointing me to the library? I’m going to hang out and listen to some of the readings until class. I’ll have the librarian’s assistant help me to the next class.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m done now. Let’s go.”
We picked up our bags, tossed out our lunches, and headed for the doors. But as we went, I smiled to myself, the feeling of him still in my head and his eyes watching me, following me and never leaving me as I exited the cafeteria.
“How about right here?” Rika asked me. “It’s empty and quiet.”
I nodded, reaching the third floor of the library and feeling for the chairs nearby. I found a cushy couch instead and dropped my bag, taking a seat and digging out my phone and earbuds.
“I need to run to the office and get some fliers printed for the Math Club,” she explained. “I can swing by as soon as I’m done and get you for English.”
“Oh, no, it’s fine,” I told her, plugging in my earbuds and relaxing into the corner of the couch. “I’ll find someone. Or…maybe I’ll go wild and find class myself.”
“Don’t do that,” she scolded.
I smiled, half-joking and half not. English One was the first door across the hall from the stairwell upstairs, and the stairwell was right outside the library to the left. I was sure I could make it. And after driving an actual car last night, I kind of wanted to try. It would be the extent of my fun for the day.
But I put her at ease anyway, knowing she still felt guilty about me getting shoved into the locker room. “I’m kidding,” I told her. “I’ll be fine. Someone will help me. I promise.”
“Okay,” she acquiesced. “I’ll see you in class.”
I gave a little wave and stuck in my earbuds, starting the audiobook chapter on Native American tribes and early colonization. I made sure not to put the volume too high, though, so I could hear the first bell alerting me that lunch was over, and I had five minutes to get to class.
I leaned my head back, closed my eyes, and listened to the woman’s voice go over tribes of eastern America and Canada and trade with European settlers. Out of all the audiobooks for my classes, I enjoyed this one the most. Her voice was sweet and soft with lots of inflection like she was telling a bedtime story.
Except for Algebra, which was always hard and I had little care for, since I knew I wouldn’t have a career where it would be useful, all my classes were going surprisingly well. My teachers were helpful, and it was getting less awkward to have conversations with them and be open about what I needed. I mean, schools accommodated for learning disabilities, poverty, illness, and severe behavioral problems. By comparison, I couldn’t be that great of a burden, right?
My parents—and Arion—had really done a number on me. While it was the psycho-stalker-sicko who made me smile and gave me confidence. Go figure.
Life was weird.
I needed to ask him questions when I met him again. If I met him again. He wouldn’t answer just because I wanted him to, though. I’d have to pry it out of him, like dancing the entire Nutcracker Suite in exchange for his frickin’ name.
I snorted but quickly got rid of my smile just in case anyone was watching me and wondered what my deal was.
And then I noticed it. A sound piercing the air, loud and cutting the quiet with a sharp ring that made me wince.
“What the hell?” I said to myself.
I yanked out my earbuds, finally realizing what it must be.
Was that…?
A fire alarm sliced into my ears like nails across a chalkboard tenfold, and I sat up, trying to listen for voices to hear if this was real or a drill or what.
“Don’t run!” the librarian, I would assume, called out. “Walk and exit the building like you’ve been taught.” And then a shout. “No running!”
“Wait,” I said, clutching my phone and gathering up my backpack. “Wait!”
I knew how to get to the stairwell, but I wasn’t sure about the exit. It was one floor down, but after that, I thought it was down the hall and to the right at the end of the lockers? Maybe?
I heard the heavy library doors open and close repeatedly, and I yelled, “Wait!”
Hugging my backpack to me, I grabbed hold of the railing and barreled down the stairs as fast as I could, but the earbud cord dangling from my phone caught under my step, and it was yanked out of my hand, pummeling to the end of the first landing. It tumbled off somewhere, and I fell to my knees, dropping my bag as I pawed the ceramic tile, trying to look for it.
There wasn’t a real fire, right? It was just a drill.
Waving my hands all over, I found the cord and yanked it to me, but the phone wasn’t attached anymore. I slammed my palm onto my thigh in frustration. “Dammit.”
Screw it. It was replaceable, and if anyone found it, it had a lock code, so they couldn’t get in.
I left my shit on the floor and made my way down the rest of the stairs, the alarm still blaringly loud.
But I didn’t hear anything else. There were no voices, no movement, no doors being slammed… Was everyone already gone?
My heart started to thump harder. What do I do? Shit!
Half the school was in the lunchroom. They would’ve just gotten out through the exit in there. The rest of the school—everyone in classes or the auditorium—wouldn’t be gone yet. Right?
“Hello?” I called out.
I waved my hands in front of me, trying to veer in the direction the doors were in, but I walked right into something hard and hissed at the pain in my shin. I grabbed hold of a wooden chair that had been left untucked from the table in the rush to get out.
My hands finally found the wall, and I scaled them down until I found the doors that led into the rest of the school. Opening one, I stepped through.
“Hello!” I shouted again. “Can someone help me? I don’t know my way out!”
The alarm pinged again and again down the hallway, and I inhaled through my nose, smelling smoke.
No. I paused. Not smoke.
It was a cigarette.
Had someone been smoking in the school?
But then my face fell as I breathed in the faint scent that reminded me of the last time I smelled that.
My heart started to race, and not in a good way.
Finding the stairwell, I descended one flight and found my way through the entrance to the main floor.
“Hey!” I called out again. “Anyone?”
I inched to the right side of the hall, the locker doors clanking against their frames as I moved from one to the other.
Even if it was a real fire, firefighters would be here soon. I couldn’t be completely alone.
“Hello?” I demanded. “Hello! Anybody there? I need help!”
I followed the path of the lockers, trailing down the right side of the hallway. When I came to the end, I rounded the corner and pawed the wall until another row of lockers began.
Okay, okay, okay… If I followed this, and kept going straight, it should lead me to the doors leading to the front of the school.
“Hello?” I called again.
My hands shook.
I should’ve told Rika to come back for me. Why was I so stubborn? Even if she was forced to exit the building by the teachers, she would’ve known to tell them that I was in the library waiting for her, and they would’ve sent someone to get me.
“Hello?”
Then, all of a sudden, there was a pounding on the lockers ahead.
I paused for a split-second, listening.
“Hey,” I said to whoever was down there. “Can you help me? Is everyone outside? Can you help me get out?”
But there was no answer.