to a whole ’nother level. I had to stop haunting myself this way. If I kept it up any longer, I was genuinely going to doubt my sanity.
“Come again?” Vee said.
“Uh, parking,” I covered up quickly. “All the good spots are taken.”
“Guess who has PE first hour? This is so unfair. I start the day off perspiring like an elephant in heat. Don’t the people who make up our schedules understand body odor? Don’t they understand frizzy hair?”
“Why didn’t you tell me about Scott Parnell?” I asked evenly. We’d start there and work our way forward.
Vee’s silence hung sharp between us, only confirming my suspicions: She hadn’t given me the whole story.
“Oh, yeah, Scott,” she faltered at last. “About that.”
“The night I disappeared, he dropped an old Volkswagen off at my house. That detail slipped your mind last night, did it? Or maybe you didn’t think it qualified as
I heard her chewing her lip. “I might have omitted a few things.”
“Like the fact that I was shot?”
“I didn’t want to hurt you,” she said in a rush. “What you went through was traumatic. More than traumatic. A million times worse. What kind of friend am I if I just heap it on higher?”
“And?”
“Okay, okay. I heard Scott gave you the car. Probably to apologize for being a chauvinistic pig.”
“Explain.”
“Remember in middle school how our moms always taught us that if a boy teases you, it means he likes you? Well, when it came to relationships, Scott never outgrew seventh grade.”
“He liked me.” I sounded doubtful. I didn’t think she’d lie to me again, not when I’d just confronted her, but clearly my mom had gotten to her first and brainwashed her into thinking I was too fragile for the truth. This sounded like a beat-around-the-bush answer if I’d ever heard one.
“Enough to buy you a car, yeah.”
“Did I have any contact with Scott the week before I was kidnapped?”
“The night before you disappeared, you snooped around in his bedroom. But you didn’t find anything more interesting than a wilted marijuana plant.”
Finally we were getting somewhere. “What was I looking for?”
“I never asked. You told me Scott was a whack job. That was all the evidence I needed to help you bust in.”
I didn’t doubt it. Vee never needed a reason to do something stupid. Sad thing was, most of the time I didn’t either.
“That’s all I know,” Vee insisted. “I swear it, up and down.”
“Don’t hold out on me again.”
“Does this mean you forgive me?”
I was irritated, but much to my dismay, I could see Vee’s point in wanting to protect me.
Inside the main office, I expected to have to talk myself out of a tardy slip, so I was surprised when the secretary saw me approaching and, after completing a double take, said, “Oh! Nora. How
Ignoring the buttery sympathy in her tone, I said, “I’m here to pick up my class schedule.”
“Oh. Oh, my. So soon? Nobody expects you to jump right back into things, you know, hon. Some of the staff and I were just talking this morning about how we thought you should take a couple of weeks to—” She struggled for an acceptable word, since there was no right word for what I had ahead of me. Recover? Adapt? Hardly. “Acclimate.” She was practically flashing a neon sign that read,
I propped an elbow on the counter and leaned close. “I’m ready to be back. And that’s what matters, right?” Because I was already in a bad mood, I tacked on, “I’m so glad this school has taught me not to value any other opinion but my own.”
She opened her mouth, closed it. Then she went to work paging through several manila folders on her desk. “Let me see, I know I’ve got you in here somewhere…. Ah! Here we are.” She pulled a sheet of paper from one of the folders and passed it over to me. “Everything look okay?”
I scanned my schedule. AP U.S. history, honors English, health, journalism, anatomy and physiology, orchestra, and trig. Clearly I’d had a death wish for my future self when I’d registered for classes last year.
“Looks good,” I said, throwing my backpack over my shoulder and pushing through the office door.
The hall outside was dim, the overhead fluorescent lights casting a dull gleam on the waxed floors. In my head, I told myself this was my school. I belonged here. And even though it was jarring every time I reminded myself I was now a junior, despite the fact that I couldn’t remember finishing sophomore year, eventually the strangeness would wear off. It had to.
The bell rang. In an instant doors everywhere opened and the hall flooded with the student body. I fell into step with the current of students fighting their way to the restrooms, locker bays, and soda machines. I kept my chin tilted slightly up and leveled my gaze straight ahead. But I felt the eyes of my classmates when they looked my way. Everyone took a surprised second look. They had to know I was back by now — my story was the highlight of local news. But I supposed seeing me in the flesh cemented the fact. Their questions danced front and center in their curious stares.
And the biggest speculation by far:
I fingered through the notebook I’d been hugging to my chest, pretending to search for something highly important.
Pushing my way inside the girls’ bathroom, I locked myself in the last stall. I dragged my back down the wall until I was sitting on my bottom. I could taste bile rising in my throat. My arms and legs felt numb. My lips felt numb. Tears dripped off my chin, but I couldn’t move my hand to wipe them away.
No matter how hard I squeezed my eyes shut, no matter how dark I forced my vision, I could still see their leering, judgmental faces. I wasn’t one of them anymore. Somehow, without any effort on my own, I’d become an outsider.
I sat in the stall several minutes longer, until my breathing calmed and the urge to cry faded. I didn’t want to go to class, and I didn’t want to go home. What I really wanted was the impossible. To travel back in time and get a second chance. A do-over, starting with the night I disappeared.
I’d just climbed to my feet when I heard a voice whisper past my ear like a cold current of air.
The voice was so small, I almost didn’t hear it. I even considered the possibility that I’d invented it. After all, imagining things was all I was good for lately.
At my name, goose bumps popped out on my arms. Holding still, I strained to hear the voice again. The sound hadn’t come from inside the stall — I was alone in here — but it didn’t appear to have come from the larger area of the bathroom either.
This time the voice sounded much stronger and more urgent. I looked up. It seemed to have floated down from the ceiling vent.
“Who’s there?” I called up warily.
At the lack of a reply, I knew this had to be the start of another hallucination. Dr. Howlett had predicted it.