My breaths are tightening. I’m so itchy it’s as if an army of ants is launching an assault on my body. I want to scream, but I’m in the library, the place of mandatory silence, a freak-out-free zone. It’s one more thing I can’t control. I try and keep calm by scratching my palm, but the whole thing is ridiculous. I can’t bury my anxiety deep in my hand, like a dog and his used-up bone in a backyard.
I thought this seat was a better spot than the other last seat available, which is to the left of Wade. I don’t know the guy next to me, but the more and more I try to avoid Wade’s eyes as he peeks at me from across the room, the more and more I get to know the guy a little better, like how he hums songs I don’t know and nibbles on his pen cap. These little facts are enough to turn him into a capital p Person, a Person who’s on my left, a Person who should be on my right.
I have to ask him to switch seats. It’s what I should’ve done in the first place. I know myself. I should’ve known that the more and more I push thoughts about Wade and his own grief aside and how guilty I feel he’s suffering alone, the more and more I was going to zoom in on someone else. I lean over, which feels bizarre. I really wish you or Jackson were here right now to distract me from all of this.
“Hey. Can we switch seats?”
The pen cap falls out of the guy’s mouth. “What?”
“Can we trade seats?” I’m eager to get this resolved, eager to be where I belong, eager to get these antlike itches off of me, eager to get my temperature back down, eager to be out of Wade’s sight, eager to be invisible.
He points to a phone connected to an outlet. “My phone is charging.”
“You can leave it there.”
“Yeah, right.”
“No one’s trying to steal your phone.”
“Says you.”
“Are you a freshman?”
“Sophomore.”
That explains his arrogance. “Just give me your seat.”
“Why?”
I shouldn’t have to explain my compulsion to him. But he has what I want. But he’s a stranger who knows nothing about me. But maybe he won’t be such an asshole if I gave him the chance to understand. But maybe people should be kind without reason.
“It’s personal,” I say.
“I personally want to keep an eye on my phone,” he says.
I stand and kick my seat back, losing control of myself in this controlled environment. “You’re not even supposed to have your phone on you!”
The sophomore leans back, surprised, maybe a little frightened. The new librarian approaches with caution. She doesn’t know I’m not normally some troublemaker, and I doubt she’s going to know how to handle me, either.
“See, now we’re both going to get written up,” I tell the sophomore. I bet you anything I’m sitting to his left in detention.
Then I see Wade rushing toward me, his backpack and textbooks abandoned at his desk. I’m catching fire. The librarian is about to say something, but Wade jumps in between us.
“I’m sorry about him,” Wade says, and his apology makes it sound like he’s sorry for my entire existence. “He’s grieving right now.”
The librarian’s eyes widen. She nods in understanding about who I am. I wonder how she knows. I’m not close with her, but on the other hand, I would’ve bet everything that for the past few days, I’ve stunk of grief and looked like a poster boy for depression.
“I understand and I’m sorry for your loss, but you have to keep it down in the library or—”
“We’re going right now.” Wade grabs me by the shoulders and steers me out into the hall. I take a deep breath, ready to cry.
I shake him off. “Don’t touch me.”
“How are you doing? You don’t answer any texts or calls.”
“Take a hint then.”
“I’m not going to back off, knowing the state you’re in,” Wade says. He rubs his eyes. “I knew Theo, too—for longer than you—but okay. You’re not being fair treating me like I fucking held Theo’s head underwater and—”
I turn left and run. If I don’t run, this hallway will become a crime scene. He shouts his apology for that unbelievably dick-headed thing he just said, but I keep going. Wade has never been good with words, but now I can’t get this visual out of my head of you, out in the ocean, being drowned by the person you trusted the most before I came around.
I’m getting the hell out of here—off this floor, out of this building. I almost trip going down the stairs, and I half-wish I did and broke my neck. I’m sorry; that’s not okay to say. You know I would never give up on life like that, especially knowing yours was stolen. I would never just press a button and power myself down.
I run to my locker.
Remembering my combination is hard, but my fingers turn the dial and do their thing. I grab my coat and slam the locker shut, charging to a side entrance. The dean is coming down the stairs.
“No running, Griffin!”
I don’t stop. I rush past her and push open the door. She calls for me, chasing after me with no jacket or sweater, but I lose her quickly. I run through the street, almost slipping because of the slush, and I run into the train station and text my dad to let him know I’m coming home and never going back to that place.