Except that email.
I pull out my school supplies and focus on my English assignment until my eyes start to cross.
Jenny’s bus rumbles up at quarter to four. Mom’s home half an hour later, and we sit down for a dinner of salted roast pork and beans. The whole time my heart beats a staccato rhythm in my chest. Eight p.m. Four hours until midnight. Energy hums through my body.
“How was your day today?” Mom glances up from sawing into her meat. The knife scrapes loudly on china.
“Great,” I say, and hope she doesn’t notice the tension in my voice.
“I had something interesting happen today,” Jenny says.
I tune out their conversation. It’s not that far to the warehouse. I could just go and check it out, except that, no, I really, really can’t. I imagine horrible things happening to me, so I come to my senses. But it doesn’t get the thought off my mind, as it should. The horrible thing is already happening to me. I’m dying. How much worse could it get?
And suddenly I know. I’m not just thinking about it anymore.
When dinner is over, it’s an effort not to run to my room.
I text Ethan, because someone should know what I’m about to do. I’m not that stupid.
I’m going to go.
He responds right away.
Go where?
The warehouse.
My phone rings.
“You’re joking, right?” he says.
“I need to do this,” I answer.
“Hope, don’t be stupid. Do you realize how dangerous this is? What if you get murdered? This is a textbook slasher-movie strategy. Just because these kinds of things make awesome horror movies doesn’t mean they make good life.”
“Don’t be dramatic,” I say, even though the thought has crossed my mind. Many times. “You said it yourself that you think it’s a joke. Why are you so concerned now?”
“Because you’re my best friend and I care about you and I don’t want you to get bludgeoned to death.”
Best friend. Exactly what I don’t want to be anymore.
“How’s Savannah?” I ask.
“Savannah?” There’s a horrible pause, and I regret opening my stupid mouth. Regret texting him at all. “Is that what this is about?”
“No, God—what’s that supposed to mean?” I jump to my feet, pacing nervously to the window and fidgeting with the lock.
“Are you mad at me or something?” he asks.
“No!”
“Okay…,” he says.
Someone calls to him in the background. A young voice. A girl voice. A Savannah voice.
“One sec.” He covers the phone. There’s a murmured exchange. “Sorry,” he says a moment later. “What were you saying?”
“I wasn’t.”
He sighs. “Hope, just promise me you won’t go. If you want to get out of the house that badly, I can ask your mom if I can take you to the movies tomorrow.”
“Oh, you would do that?”
“I’m trying to help.” He says it as if I’m some sort of unreasonable charity case. “This whole thing—it’s stupid, Hope.”
I shake my head. Of course he would think it was stupid. He’s got a million great things to do at any given hour of the day. Adventure comes to him all the time. I’m just the silly little sick girl shut up in her bedroom, feeling jealous and left out, getting excited over nothing.
Well, I’m tired of living life with one foot already in the grave.
That voice is calling him again.
“Have fun at your party tonight.” As I’m ending the call, Ethan cries, “You didn’t promise—”
And then the line is dead.
The house is dark and still. Even the other apartments in our complex are strangely silent, no loud arguments or slamming doors or sirens wailing in the distance, the usual background noise of Iberville Rentals. It makes my racing heart feel like a stampede of elephants by comparison.