He turned his glass in lazy circles, slowly enough that I could study the tattoo on his arm. The leaves of some bristly plant climbed up his skin. “I already told you, I spent some time in the system. Missed a few classes.”
The waitress arrived, balancing two large plates and a basket of fries. Reece slammed the book shut as she set the food on the table between us, his interest in studying overshadowed by a mountain of patties with melted cheese. I supposed in this way he was like every other normal high school guy. My stomach growled again and I scarfed down a handful of fries, scalding my tongue and making my eyes water. I’d had trouble eating since Friday night, and that hollow feeling had finally caught up with me.
Reece watched with a curious smile and I almost shrank under the table.
“Guess I was hungrier than I thought.” I hoped I didn’t have ketchup on my chin and I was desperate for a subject change, anything to take the focus off me. “So, what were you in the system for?”
His eyes drifted down to his own plate. “Nothing I’m proud of.”
“Assault and battery” rippled in my memory. I wondered how many times he’d been locked up, and for how long? Looking at his face, it was hard to guess his age. The shadow of his beard was dark and full, broken by a faint white line where an old scar cut across his chin. He was at least as old I was. Maybe older. But basic chemistry was freshman year curriculum. Sophomore year for the really slow kids. He must have missed at least a year of school. He was hard, but there was nothing slow about him.
“Why didn’t you go back to your old school?” I asked.
He chewed more slowly, thoughtfully. I got the distinct impression he was stalling, weighing his words. “Got kicked out of North Hampton. They wouldn’t let me back in, so I got sent to West River.”
“Sent by who? Your parents?”
Reece’s brow furrowed. “Parole officer.”
Nicholson had said Reece was involved in a shooting, but a shooting was bad. Very bad. And yet they let him free. Something didn’t add up. “If they let you out of juvie, it couldn’t have been that bad, could it?” I kept prodding. I don’t know why I needed to hear him say it. That Anh was wrong and he hadn’t done anything too terrible. After all, the charges were only assault. Assault wasn’t the same as manslaughter. “I mean . . . it’s not like you killed someone, right?”
Reece didn’t answer.
The hamburger gelled in my throat. No, he was probably just trying to screw with me. The cops never would have sent a known killer to follow me around . . . unless maybe they knew as little about Reece Whelan as I did.
I shoved my plate aside, my appetite gone, and reached for his textbook. “Aren’t we supposed to be studying or something?” I flipped the pages clumsily. The spine gaped where chapter one had been ripped out. I buried my head in my hands. “We’re not going to get very far—”
“Relax.” Reece pulled the missing pages from the pocket of his jacket and smoothed them across the table. The edges of the periodic table were curled and webbed with crinkle marks.
I stared at it. “Where’d you get that?”
“I found it on the floor in front of your locker.”
“But I could have sworn I’d tossed it inside my locker.”
“Must have slipped out,” he said, answering the question on my face. He raised an eyebrow. “You’re supposed to teach me how to balance equations,” he offered, as if I were waiting for some direction. When I didn’t answer, he pointed to the handwritten note on the first page.
I NEED YOU . . . PLEASE.—RW
“Please.” He dipped low, that uneven smile back on his lips.
“Fine.” I scowled at the mess on the table, remembering the pink slip that landed me in this situation to begin with. “You’ve got one hour, so pay attention. I’m only doing this once.” I reached into my backpack for a spiral notebook, a calculator, and a pencil. The waitress came by and cleared away the plates, refilling our water glasses while I scrawled out a simple equation.
Al + O2→ Al2 O3
I turned the paper toward Reece. “This is a chemical equation. Aluminum and oxygen are the reactants. The product is aluminum oxide. Your job is to balance it.”
Reece nodded and watched, like maybe he was actually interested.
“We need the same amount of aluminum and oxygen on both sides. So how would you do that?”
“Easy.” He grabbed my pencil and drew a two in front of the symbol for aluminum. Then slapped the pencil down, triumphant.
“Okay, hotshot. So you’ve got two aluminums on the reactant side. Now how do you balance your oxygen?”
He frowned over the notebook. Then he scratched 1.5 in front of the oxygen, but held on to the pencil this time, a little less sure of himself.
I’d seen that coming. It was a common mistake. It was human nature to look for the quick fix, not necessarily the right one, and Reece was no exception. “That would work if you could have half of an atom, but you can’t. Atoms are indivisible. You can’t cut an atom to make it fit into an equation.”