He stepped up to the receptionist’s desk, knowing he’d likely be fourth on that bench by the end of this conversation.
She held a finger up as she spoke into the phone in an already exhausted voice. He slid his hands into his back pockets. The room smelled like hot printer ink and cheap coffee. Chemical and poisonous. There was paper everywhere, bright sticky notes, plastic folders, shitty carpet, artificial light. What a place to work.
To his left, past the high counter, he could see the frosted-glass door of the principal’s office. Behind it, dark shapes moved like things in murky water. Like the wolves in his dreams, licking their teeth. He closed his eyes. He imagined that he could hear what they were saying about him right now.
Same things everybody said.
Psycho. Sick. Dangerous.
Beni would have to take over being big brother, feeding the kids, making sure they didn’t turn out like him. Would he disappear? Would his parents even acknowledge that he’d once existed? Would Sunny, or Alex, or Evie, once they knew? Fuck.
The receptionist cradled the phone between her shoulder and ear, swiveling in her chair to reach for something on the floor beside her. When she sat back up again, she had a stack of books in her hands. She held the bundle out to him across her desk, nodding for him to take them. He blinked. His hands reached of their own accord, taking them but not understanding. They were his own.
The receptionist put her hand over the receiver. “You left these in Ms. Markell’s class on Friday.”
He looked at her, then back down at the books. Was this a joke? What good were these now? He didn’t thank her, just tucked them under his arm and kept on standing in front of her desk, waiting.
A second later the principal’s door creaked open, and Ré’s heart skittered off at a gallop. One blue uniform hovered in the doorway, still in conversation with the others in the room. Réal raised his chin, squared his shoulders, ready for it.
“Réal!” the receptionist snapped, putting the phone back in its cradle. “What are you doing? Get back to class.”
Startled, he looked at her again.
“Go,” she said, waving him away. “I’ve got enough to do today without you hanging around.”
She took a plastic folder from her desk and went to the high counter. He looked from her to the blue uniform and stepped backward, squeezing the books to his side.
The door behind him opened, bumping him, and someone scuttled out of his way. “Oh, sorry, Ré!” said another round-eyed puppy. Réal barely heard him. He stumbled backward out the open door, into the hallway, breathing hard.
What the hell just happened? Why hadn’t they seen him? He looked down at his hands, his books, to be sure this wasn’t just another strange dream.
He could hear voices through the office door, and as it opened, he bolted, squeaking around a corner into the closest stairwell and up to the next landing two steps at a time. The officers walked past the foot of the stairs, turning left and away, clicks of their boots getting smaller as they headed for the exit.
Ré crouched against the wall on the landing, heart racing, watching them go.
E
“You seen Sunny today?” Alex sat down across from Evie in the cafeteria. He’d turned the chair backward and was leaning over the backrest, stuffing potato chips into his mouth.
“No,” said Evie. “You seen Réal?”
“Nah,” he said past a mouthful. They both looked down at the open textbook in front of her. “Studying?”
“Exams,” she said, shrugging. He nodded, but she could tell he wasn’t the slightest bit interested.
He tossed the empty chip bag down on the table, licking his fingers and wiping them on his filthy, sleeveless jean jacket. “Where the hell is everyone?” he asked.
Evie looked up at him again, then around at the lunch crowd. “I don’t know,” she said. “Last I saw anyone was Saturday. Everyone is being strange.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” he said quietly.
He was pensive for a moment, like he didn’t want to say what he was about to say. Then he muttered, “I miss Shaun.”
Evie swallowed and put down her pen. “Yeah. Me too.”
“Things are so messed around here without him,” Alex said, grasping the chairback and leaning his elbows on the table, arms crossed in an X. “Everyone’s acting like such a freak since he died.”
“I know,” Evie agreed, thinking only of herself.
“I can’t talk to Sunny anymore without her yelling at me,” he said. “I don’t even know what I’m doing wrong. She’s just pissed all the time. But what the fuck did I do? I didn’t kill the guy. I didn’t want him dead.”
Evie cocked her head a little as she looked at him. He was talking down into his arms, long hair falling forward. He had a fine dusting of orange cheese powder at the edge of his lips. She said, “Nobody wanted him to be dead, Alex.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said. “But Sunny’s acting like I did it myself or something. Like I had anything to do with it. That guy was my bro, y’know? He was…” His voice trailed off, choked.
“Maybe Sunny’s just mad generally? Not at you, but, like, at everything?”
“I don’t see her yelling at anybody else.”
Evie almost laughed. “Really? She seemed pretty pissed at Ré the other day.”
He screwed up his lips but said nothing. She could see by his eyes that he was thinking about that, but he didn’t look up. Instead he said, “So many other people deserve to die way more than Shaun did.” His voice was small and hard.
Then he said, “He was only eighteen. That’s way too young.” He took a deep breath. When he blew it out, Evie could smell his chip breath. Then he laughed, a short, hard laugh, and shook his head. “Know what I’m getting for my eighteenth birthday?”
She didn’t
