I shivered at the thought. “Good to know.”
“Yeah. I recommend turtlenecks around that guy. Or chain mail if you have any.” She tucked her legs up against the seat and put her headphones back on.
I leaned back and tried to read my book, only to find myself rereading the same sentence over and over. I wondered if it had been a bad call to say I’d join track. Maybe Lauren didn’t know what the hell she was talking about and I’d be stuck taking part in an exhausting, sweaty sport for absolutely no reason. It would be awkward, but I could still go for debate or something else less physically taxing instead. Before I signed up for track, I should see if there was any other reason to think something might have been going on between Mr. Matthews and Anna. Anything tangible.
—
WHEN I TRIED THE DOOR of Mr. Matthews’s classroom, it eased right on open.
The walls were plastered with large posters of literary figures with inspirational quotes about the power of the written word, and the air smelled like dry-erase markers and peppermint, a strange but not entirely unpleasant combination. The whiteboard was covered with notes from his last class, his handwriting displaying the kind of perfectly formed letters typically associated with kindergarten teachers or amateur calligraphers.
The precision of his handwriting was in notable contrast to the complete shambles of his desk. His ancient PC monitor barely peered above the surrounding piles of paper, and his keyboard was swamped on all sides.
I carefully opened the shallow drawer underneath his keyboard, hoping there’d be something personal and enlightening inside, but there were only three pens, a mechanical pencil, and a pack of Mentos with the foil partially peeled back.
I shut the drawer and opened the deeper one underneath it.
Here there were stapled papers sorted into hanging files. Not labeled, unfortunately. I took the papers out of the first file and began to look through them, curious to see if there was anything left from last quarter, anything from Anna. Flipping through them, I noticed that Mr. Matthews kept his comments brief, almost clipped:
Good job!
Nice work—a real improvement from last year!
Decent start, but needs a good edit.
After looking through the stack, I returned the papers to the file. In the back of the drawer was a thin file. I pulled the whole file out this time. There were only four papers in it, all from the fall. Two of them were Anna’s. One she’d only turned in the day before she died. It was unmarked. I held on to it briefly, wondering if he’d held it in his hands after learning what had happened to her. Did you read it? I wondered. Did you want to? Or was it too hard to look at? I slipped it back into the file and pulled out her second paper. This one had been graded; she’d received an A. That, in and of itself, was hardly suspicious—while her science grades had been mediocre, she’d typically done well in humanities.
I flipped the pages until I reached his comment at the back.
Beautiful work, Anna—you really captured the heart of the issues at play here. You are growing into a wonderful writer. I’m so very glad to have a student like you in my class.
I stood there quietly, looking at his words.
So very glad.
Student like you.
Like you.
You.
I slipped the paper back into the folder, holding it by the cold metal of the staple, the paper itself feeling too personal all of a sudden, an object they’d both touched.
I don’t want to believe, I thought. But I do want to know.
“I’M THINKING OF BUYING A new table,” Mom announced at breakfast the next day, throwing the words down like a gauntlet.
Dad lowered his newspaper, and I tried to refocus my thoughts, which had been trained on planning when to ask Mr. Matthews about signing up for track. Lunch, I’d thought, might work best.
“A new table for the living room?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “Although maybe we should replace that one too. I meant this one.” She tapped her finger on the square kitchen table we were all sitting at. “A round one might be nice.”
All three of us looked over at the empty fourth side of the table, where Anna had always sat. Where none of us had been able to bring ourselves to sit since.
“Right,” Dad said. “Sure. A round one sounds good.”
—
I’D PLANNED TO EAT MY sandwich quickly in the bathroom at lunch, as usual, and then try to find Mr. Matthews in his classroom. At 12:01, I was about to turn into the bathroom when I heard someone call out, “You heading to the cafeteria?”
I turned to see Sarah close behind me.
“Yes,” I said, conscious of the weight of my lunch bag in my hand. “Just heading to the bathroom first.”
“Okay,” she said. “I need to grab my lunch from my locker, but could you save me a seat?”
“In the cafeteria?” I hoped there was some other interpretation for what she was saying. Not that one really sprang to mind.
“No, in the bathroom,” she said, with a laugh. “I’ve been eating backstage so I can listen to my music in peace and not smell like the caf for the rest of the day, but now the drama kids are doing rehearsals there during lunch. Anyway, it feels like maybe I should just suck it up and eat at a table, you know?”
I thought about how I’d been eating, cross-legged on a closed toilet seat, balancing my lunch on my lap.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll save you a seat.”
—
IN MY HEAD, I’D BUILT up the cafeteria as this huge, imposing space, loud and intimidating. In reality, it really wasn’t that big or that loud. I did wish Sarah hadn’t mentioned the smell, though. I’d never noticed it before, but now the weird meaty smell assaulted my nose, leaving me a
