“Run…?” is all I can say before my throat completely clamps down.
“She’s our fastest sprinter—I’m surprised if she didn’t say that. She usually tells everyone who’ll listen. I talked to her Saturday about being your guide and she said she wanted to find out about you first. I think she talked to Jason and some others, I don’t know who. I thought when you texted me this morning it was because she asked you. She didn’t?”
I can’t speak. I shake my head but it’s so fast it probably looks more like a seizure than an answer.
“Oh. Maybe she was getting to know you but didn’t bring it up yet, or maybe she decided not to… Sorry, Parker, I… uh…” He exhales loudly. “Shit.”
I can’t breathe. I can’t… fucking… breathe…
“We gotta go—get her stuff,” Molly says quickly. She grabs me from behind by both shoulders and pushes me through the room and I let her, walking mostly without stumbling and trusting her to steer me right.
“Hey—”
“No Scott, you stay. She’ll be fine.”
We’re out the door, lurching down the hall, turning into the bathroom, and I barely manage to hold it together until the door closes.
I’m sitting on a toilet lid, Molly outside at the sinks. I haven’t made a sound for at least five minutes, after twenty solid minutes of crying, and she doesn’t ask if I’m okay. I’m grateful. This girl’s a mind reader and after only a few weeks I hope she’ll be my friend for life.
I finally leave the stall. “We’d better get to class.”
“We’ll catch the next one.”
I hold out my hand. When she takes it I pull her in and hug her tightly.
“Thank you.”
She squeezes.
“You didn’t know what you were getting into with me. Any regrets?”
“Nope. Don’t take that as a challenge, though.”
“No promises!” I let her go. “What the fuck am I going to do now?”
“What do you want to do?”
“To get a braille tattoo on my arm that says Don’t jump to conclusions! Just so I can remind myself ten times a day. God, I’m such an idiot!”
“Whatever it was you did, he’ll forgive you.”
“I know, but…”
“And he still loves you. I can tell every time I see him.”
“Well, he doesn’t. Trish told me this morning.”
“Oh…” Molly laughs. “Trish told you. Is that what this is about?”
“You know her?”
“Trish the Oberlander? The overachiever, the overdoer, the overreactor, the over-everything? She said Scott doesn’t love you? And you believe her?”
“She said Scott told her.”
“What does your tattoo tell you?”
“Jesus, Molly, I’m not up for this right now.”
“You and Trish have a lot in common; you throw yourselves into everything a hundred and ten percent, leaping without looking. You’ll either become great friends or mortal enemies.”
“I’m nothing like her. I don’t talk to anyone that way. Ever.”
“What’d she say?”
“That she’d cut me with a beer bottle if I got back with Scott and broke his heart again.”
“Hmmm. If some guy broke Sarah’s heart and then came back holding flowers? What would you tell him?”
After a moment I say, “Molly, I don’t think we can be friends anymore.”
She laughs. “If that’s how it’s got to be. Are we done here?”
“Where’s my stuff?”
“Oh… Stockley had it. He was following us…”
We walk to the door and Molly opens it.
“Hey, she okay?”
His voice comes from down near the floor—he must have been sitting in the hall. He stands and says, “Here’s your… whatever it is. I didn’t want to just leave it.”
I put out my arms and I feel my bag brush against my right hand. I don’t take it.
“She wants a hug, dummy,” Molly says.
“Oh…” he says, but he doesn’t.
“Put… the bag… down…” she says.
I hear rustling and then he hugs me gently. He’s even taller than I guessed from where his voice comes from, and he’s football-player bulky.
“Okay,” Molly says. “If you ever hug someone breakable like Faith, that’s how you should do it, but I think Parker can take more than that.”
When I don’t contradict this he squeezes and lifts me off the ground. I let out a small shriek and he sets me down again.
I say, “Thanks, Kent.”
“Heh, nobody calls me Kent.” But it sounds like he likes it.
TWENTY-SEVEN
“You should at least eat your sandwich,” Molly says.
“Yeah.” But I don’t. I’d sooner go out and lift a school bus than take a bite of turkey and Swiss and chew and chew and swallow and then do it again twenty more times.
“You want a soda? A… C-6?”
I shake my head. If she didn’t see it, she’ll ask again. She doesn’t.
Sarah’s still in the lunch line. I don’t remember much about the past couple hours. I know I’m letting myself stay in this stupor, letting time pass, as if it will solve my problems, erase my stupidity. It’s strange being aware of it, and how ridiculous it is, but still to keep doing it.