deodorant rules), I walked to Becca’s locker. Her full-sized one, not the gym-class one, where she forgot about a pair of socks last year and discovered that the locker room smell had, indeed, been her fault.
The administration at our high school was too lazy to reassign lockers each year, thus we retained the same locker, combination and all, the entire four years of high school. Perhaps that’s why our school was rife with locker crime, although I blamed the idiots for leaving iPads and Kindles in their lockers. Becca and I had lockers nowhere near each other for alphabetical reasons. My locker section was filled with benign classmates (“benign” meant so much more than it used to) with whom I had shared three years of birthdays, breakups, breakdowns, and break- ins. Jenna Brown, of cancer announcement and weight loss fame, was particularly entertaining. If only I had thought to take a picture of her every day since freshman year. It would have made for a viral sensation, watching her shrink down.
Becca’s locker section was a tangled pit of pompoms and sports gear, and I nearly missed thrusting my foot through the strings of Sean Shelby’s tennis racket. He sneered at me, and I sneered right back. Nothing like an unpredictable, five-foot-two-inch chick to scare the sneer off a jackass jock’s face. Maybe Sean remembered the time at Beth Sidell’s Bat Mitzvah when I smacked him across the face after he tried to kiss me during the snowball dance.
He wasn’t my type.
The electronic beep of the school bell cleared Becca’s locker section relatively quickly, and I sunk down on the floor next to locker 353. I reached up and spun Becca’s locker combination, then yanked open the locker to find it empty. Even though we kept the same lockers, the powers that be insisted we cleaned them out before we left for the summer. In case we moved.
Or died.
I hooked my finger through the lock hole and dangled my arm above my head, leaning against it as support.
Maybe it was nothing. Maybe she didn’t even have cancer. Maybe it was just some ploy to get me to call her. She did love drama in all forms.
I yanked myself up by my finger and slunk through the quiet hallways to my own locker. The hall monitors were usually busy at major intersections on the first day of school, ushering frazzled freshmen to and from their big kid classes. The combination on my locker wasn’t even a series of numbers in my head at this point, just a memorized, measured distance between spins. I could do it with my eyes closed and had. Inside my sagging, empty, first day of school backpack was my phone, off-limits during school hours or guaranteed confiscation, a rule solidified by last year’s infamous Trig Texting Scandal. Even if I got caught, what could I possibly be texting the answers to on the first day of school? My gym locker combination? Someone’s What I Did Over the Summer essay?
As I dialed Becca’s cell, my entire body tensed at the prospect of speaking to her after two months of silence. And not just speaking to her, but speaking to her about having cancer.
To my sort-of relief, she didn’t answer. I hung up, having too much to say in a message. I thought about calling her home line, but the possibility of talking to her mom about her daughter having cancer felt too meltdown-inducing for a hallway on the first day of school.
Footsteps from somewhere down the hall forced me to toss my phone back into my locker. I was jumpy as hell, with no answers and no inspiration for an excuse as to why I wasn’t in class. When the feet that were stepping finally made their physical appearance, I saw the worn, black Chucks of Leo Dietz, a senior with rusty red hair who wore the same tattered tan army jacket come sun or snow. Leo intrigued me ever since I saw him leaving a midnight showing of Evil Dead 2. Horror movies were my one thing, my grotesque passion and pastime, especially classically gory yet hilarious ones like Evil Dead 2. I spent the entire summer poring through online collections of brilliantly titled movies like Rabid Grannies and Frankenhooker. They were the things that helped keep me sane when everything was so insane. Leo and I made eye contact that night, but I was with Doug Dunhill, another ex, tongue permanently affixed to my ear. It pissed me off that Leo thought that was the company I kept. If he thought about me at all. I dumped Doug later that evening (morning, really) after he touched my boob one too many times without my blessing.
When Leo passed me at my locker, I caught a hint of his green eyes. I couldn’t tell if they were looking at me. Then he walked completely out of sight, and I sagged a little at my inappropriate hope. What had I hoped for anyway? Thinking about Leo and horror movies was wrong at a time when I was supposed to be consoling or assisting or mourning my best friend who may or may not have cancer.
The footsteps that should have been getting fainter became louder again. And then Leo reappeared, looking at me with that intense, serious look he always had. As many scary movies as I watched, Leo’s gaze made my heart beat harder than any of them. He must have been at least six foot three, maybe four. At five two, I was petite but not dainty, at least I liked to think. Still, it helped his imposing presence. He stuck his left hand into his jacket pocket and with two fingers pulled out a cigarette. “Smoke?” he asked, and I almost looked around me to see who he was talking to. Since it had never been me.
My brain Jell-O, all I managed to say was, “No. I don’t smoke.”
He shrugged, tucked the cigarette behind his ear, and walked away. For good that time.
If things were different, would I have thought more clearly to accept his offer? Not that I smoked. Or liked when other people smoked. Or normally ditched class.
I wasn’t going to allow myself to think any further about Leo. Not until I could get to Becca. Wherever or however she was.
CHAPTER 4
AFTER SCHOOL I CAUGHT JENNA in the hall. She wasn’t easy to find, with her dwindling size and her always-abuzz social persona. I discovered her in a locker section one over from mine, regaling with woe what I assumed was Becca’s story—my story to hear, and certainly not hers to tell. When she saw me, she actually let out a “Ssshhh!” to the gathered crowd, and the people sea parted to allow me by. “Jenna.” I glanced around at the group she had amassed, mostly drama club folk who I only knew from visits to Becca backstage. Freshman year I joined stage crew, but when I learned about the long hours required I quit. I already had my time-sucker of horror movies, whether it was watching or attempting to write my own. Spending my weeknights in the catwalk with a bunch of people dressed in all black versus splayed across my bed watching Basket Case was a no-brainer.
I never knocked Becca for her acting aspirations, nor did she knock me for my filmmaking dreams. It actually worked out perfectly, seeing as I always had an actress for my movies and she then had experience for her college applications. Or her resume. Sometimes Becca spoke grandiosely about her dream to skip college altogether and make it straight to Hollywood, do not pass go, do not even wait tables until her big break. Becca strictly believed in becoming famous instantly, and I never for a moment doubted she could manage it.
If she made it that long.
“Can we talk away from your mob scene, please?” I looked directly at Jenna, not wanting to inadvertently make eye contact with any of her gang. Looks of pity weren’t helpful. I needed facts, of which I had approximately none. She excused her entourage with a flick of her wrist. It made me smile. Two years and six jean sizes ago, Jenna was the chubby girl who only landed the supporting cast roles of mother, grandmother, or, once, uncle. Here she was, thirty pounds lighter, leading a group of underclassmen around like baby pull toys.
When we were relatively alone, aside from the people whose actual lockers were housed in that section, Jenna placed her hand on my shoulder and assured me, “Anything you need, Alex, I’m here for you.”
Gag. “What I don’t need is this bullshit pity party you’re throwing me. I need details, Jenna. What do you actually know?”
She straightened herself up, a little insulted, but still the Keeper of Information. Then she transitioned into gossip mode, complete with hand held next to her mouth as if she were hiding the news from those only on one side of her. Drama divas. “My mom takes pilates with Becca’s mom, and she told her that at the beginning of the summer Becca started to get sick. Like, sick all the time. They thought it was all sorts of things, like a pulled muscle and the flu and asthma, and finally she was in so much pain and they ended up in the hospital, draining fluid from her chest.”
