”
I laughed. “Their season ended a month ago. They didn’t even make the playoffs.”
Courtney rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
Tyler set his tray down on a table. Could I really go over and sit with him without seeming too pushy or just completely awkward? Why couldn’t it just be something friendly to do? Was it because I knew I was interested in being more than just friends?
As Tyler sat down, he suddenly turned his head. Before I could look away, his eyes met mine. I froze, then forced a smile onto my lips. The smile Tyler responded with seemed sharp and knowing. Perhaps it was my imagination, but that smile seemed to say,
“Busted,” Courtney said.
I turned away, my face feeling hot.
“It’s not the end of the world,” she said. “It just means maybe you’re interested.”
“I feel so stupid.”
“You know you’re making way too much out of this. Like, look at it from his point of view? He’s new at school, doesn’t know anybody, sits alone at lunch every day. He’s probably dying to become pals with someone like you who’s near the red-hot center of the social universe. He’d be crazy not to.”
“I don’t think he cares. Not everyone does, you know.”
Courtney waved her hand dismissively, as if anyone who didn’t care didn’t count. But it made me think of what PBleeker had written two nights before:
Courtney glanced at me and then her gaze rose over my shoulder. She stopped chewing, dabbed the corners of her mouth with a napkin, and smiled as widely as she could without parting her lips. It was the sort of self- conscious smile of someone worried that there might be something caught in her teeth. I wondered who she could be so concerned about her appearance for.
The answer came in the darkly ringed pale hazel eyes of Adam Pinter. He stopped beside Courtney, who swept some dark hair from her face and continued to give him that peculiar no-teeth smile. Adam’s lips were pursed and the corners of his mouth turned down.
“Can we talk?” he asked me with unusual bluntness.
The question seemed to jar Courtney, as if it was the opposite of what she’d expected. At first she seemed startled, then a frown appeared. As I rose and followed Adam to an empty table, there was little doubt in my mind that there
We sat down. Adam leaned his elbows on the lunch table and interlocked his fingers. He was stocky and broad-shouldered with a five-o’clock shadow that usually began to show up around two. Now, with two days’ worth of dark stubble covering his jaw, and his hair uncombed, he looked ragged and bleary.
“You were the last one to see Lucy,” he said, gazing steadily at me. “Did she say anything?”
“Nothing that, you know, left any hint that she planned to do anything except go home.”
Adam hung his head and ran his fingers through his hair. I’d known him for as long as I’d known Lucy, and in many ways we’d been closer friends, something that had always bothered Lucy. Adam, she, and I had been in school together since kindergarten, but Lucy’s relentless competitiveness had always made her harder to trust. You could never be certain that she wouldn’t betray you if it meant winning something she wanted. Adam and I had always felt more naturally comfortable and easy together. We’d shared secrets.
“Why would she run away? Where would she go? It doesn’t make sense.” The questions were rhetorical. No one was in a better position to answer them than Adam himself.
“Is it true that about the police, not looking for her right away?”
Adam shrugged. “They
I reached across the table and placed my hand over his. Adam blinked hard and looked away. After a moment he turned back. His eyes were watery and red-rimmed. I could not remember the last time I’d seen him with tears in his eyes. Certainly never after second grade.
“Maybe there was something she said,” he almost pleaded. “Something that sounded totally innocent at the time.”
“There wasn’t, Adam,” I said. “I wish I could say there was, but I’ve thought really hard about it, and there isn’t.”
Adam pressed his lips into a hard, flat line. “I feel awful for her parents. This is the kind of thing they’ve probably been afraid of for years.”
“She could still turn up at any moment,” I said. “For all we know, she just showed up at her front door.” I squeezed his hand reassuringly.
At the same time, I glanced out of the corner of my eye at Courtney, a few tables away, watching us. When our eyes met, she quickly looked away. I turned back to Adam. “I heard there were some guys from FCC at the party?”
Fairchester Community College wasn’t a place many kids from Soundview went to, unless they couldn’t get into a four-year school. The lines between Adam’s eyes wrinkled. “Yeah, but … I don’t think Lucy said a word to them. We were pretty much in sight of each other the whole night … I mean, until the argument.”
I kept my hand firmly on his. Strangely, Adam was the one boy my age I felt completely comfortable with physically. Maybe because we’d always been friends and nothing more. “If I can do anything …”
Adam nodded. “Thanks, Mads, I appreciate it.”
Mads was his private nickname for me. I glanced again at Courtney. She was staring at my hand on Adam’s, a look of dismay on her face.
* * *
Str-S-d #7
At school today everyone was talking about how Lucy Cunningham has disappeared. Some people think Lucy ran away and some people think she was kidnapped. I just think, who cares? Good riddance. It’s a relief to walk down the hall without seeing her look at me like I don’t deserve to live. God, I hate her. I’m glad she’s gone and I hope she never comes back.
4 Comments
Luuucky you! I wish I could make some of the kids around heeere disappeeear.
People get what they deserve.
Why be sorry? She sounds like a real bee-ach.
Don’t you feel a little weird? I mean, isn’t it kind of like your wish really came true?
chapter 5
