“I am going. With you.”
I shook my head. I wasn’t budging on this one. It was one thing to be Maddy at school where I could escape to the bathroom or the library to regain my sanity. It was something completely different to be put on display, to have to walk in heels and make small talk about who was wearing what, or more accurately, who was doing who. It was only a matter of time before Jenna, Alex, and this entire school figured out what Josh already had—I was no Maddy Lawton.
“You are the one who told me to avoid Josh and Molly. I think not going is the perfect idea,” I told Alex.
He laughed and started walking away, then turned around when he was a few feet from me and held out his hand. Apparently, I was supposed to follow. “Last I checked, Josh wasn’t going,” he said. “And I doubt Molly will go without a date, so you are good there, too.”
I couldn’t help the sudden joy that filled me. I knew Kim wanted to go; she’d been talking about it since they started dating. How cool it was going to be to go to the Snow Ball with a senior. She went so far as to try to set me up with someone, figuring I could double with them. I didn’t have to put a stop to that; Josh did it for me, warning her that setting me up was nearly as horrible an idea as him going to the dance in the first place. I’d assumed by now she had worn him down.
“Josh isn’t going?”
Alex gave me a cursory glance, no doubt wondering why I cared. “Last I checked, he doesn’t do much of anything. Since the night of the accident, I’ve seen him at school and at your sister’s burial service but that’s it. Outside of school, he is a virtual shut-in.”
I yanked Alex to a stop and pulled my hand free. “Wait. Him and Kim.”
Alex shook his head. “How should I know? And besides, why do you care?”
“I don’t,” I said, hoping he’d believe me. “It would suck if he didn’t go because of—”
“Don’t worry about him. He needs some time, Maddy. Everyone does.”
*
Alex threaded his fingers through mine and tugged me the few remaining feet to the girls’ locker room. He knocked once before opening the door a crack and yelled in to see if it was empty. School had ended over a half hour ago. Anybody still in there was going to get chewed out for being late for practice.
When no one answered, he pushed the door all the way open and peeked inside. Seeing nothing, he pulled me in. “I figured you hadn’t seen this yet.”
With the exception of gym, which my broken wrist had blessedly excused me from, I never set foot in the girls’ locker room. I didn’t play a sport and saw no need to shower at school. But I knew exactly where Maddy’s locker was. There was an entire block of them set aside for the field hockey team. Maddy’s was smack in the middle, her name artfully etched into the metal.
Tucked in the corner of the locker room was a roll of paper, not unlike the ones Josh and I used when we were sketching out murals. Alex handed me the edge and motioned for me to lay it flat on the floor. I did, using one of the field hockey sticks sitting on the bench to anchor it.
It was huge, easily spanning the length of seven lockers. WELCOME BACK, MADDY. Names of people I didn’t know covered the entire surface. Alex’s was there, Jenna’s, too. Keith, Molly, Hannah, and a couple of other kids I recognized from Maddy’s lunch table. The rest …
I gave up trying to place faces with the names and started counting. Seventy-three total.