There’s especially never been a slower last thirty seconds of seventh period on a Thursday. The second hand creeps sluggishly along its path, millimeter by millimeter, and when it hits 12 and the bell rings, I’m the first one out of my seat, bolting for the door.
I forge down the hall, against the tide of people surging toward the stairwell, and as I cross the arch where the old wing intersects the new wing, the halls empty little by little, leaving a few people standing at lockers, a few others heading into classrooms for after-school meetings, and one tall girl standing at the plate-glass windows looking out over the green. The light makes her eyes glint like rhinestones. The long rays of afternoon sun wash her profile in sharp relief, casting shadows from her arched eyebrows down over her eyes, and as she looks at me, she smiles, and the sight of it does something awful to the inside of my stomach.
I stop in front of her. She doesn’t look anywhere near as nervous as I feel, with that easy smile playing across her lips. Unable to hold her eyes, I glance out the wide window. Paloma High is one of the tallest buildings for miles, and from here, I can see halfway across town. It seems minuscule, roads twining like veins through green little enclosures, each tiny house somebody’s unknown world, and if I squint, I swear I could see my own.
“Hey,” Olivia says, and I’m like, “Hi,” wishing we’d picked somewhere we could be alone instead of the middle of the hall. Bit by bit, her attention erases the world around me altogether.
“Is Juniper doing okay?” I ask, once I remember that Olivia’s smile isn’t the only thing that exists.
“Yeah. She had to deal with the police, but she’s got her head on her shoulders.”
“And you’re all right?”
“I . . . yeah.” She twists a lock of hair around her finger. “I talked to my sister and my dad last night. Talked-talked,” and I say, “Yeah?” and she says, “We’re trying to work things out. I think it’s going to happen this time.”
“Your sister’s in the play, right?” I say, remembering the lunchtime announcements. Kat’s voice drawled out of the intercom, inviting us to The Hidden Things, by some Russian guy.
“She’s the lead,” Olivia says proudly. “And she found them a new faculty advisor last-minute.” Her smile fades. “How about—how’d your parent talk go?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I told them I was freaked out about Russ. And they were all, yeah, us, too, which . . . I never thought about that, dumb as that sounds, thought about them being worried. They seem so angry all the time, it sort of drowns out the rest.” I shrug. “I asked if they’d thought about trying again, but it’s not happening. I got to the game too late.”
My voice drops. “It’s just . . . I thought if I tried, for once, I could fix something, you know?” I glance out the window at the horizon, at the fast-moving clouds that glide like swans across the flat countryside. “I don’t know. Change is the worst. With everything happening around you, and you can’t slow it down or correct it and you can’t even get a hold of it, like, why it’s happening, and it all feels like . . . you know, what the hell can you do?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “But just because you can’t fix everything, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give a shit, and it sure doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.”
“I know,” I say, counting the inches between us. The world is disappearing again, patch by patch, leaving only her.
“Hey, I want to show you something,” she says. “Come on.” She leads me down the hall. We turn a corner into a side hall, and she opens a door. I peer inside. It’s a storage closet filled with old textbooks and stacks of yellowing paper, and I’m like, “What—” and then her hand grabs mine, warm and tight, and she tugs me inside and shuts the door. Darkness drops, and her other hand lands on my chest. She presses me back into the door, her head tilted up, and her lips are half an inch from mine in the dark. I feel her breath. I can hardly see her anymore. Some part of her body brushes my hip, and my body’s electrified. Her hand trails over mine—fingers to palm, palm to wrist, up my forearm with torturous slowness—and fastens around my biceps.
“Hey,” she whispers, and the tiny exhalation darts over my lips. “So . . . yeah? Are we . . .”
I lean forward, and the gap between us vanishes.