by Abigail Boyd
"Quiet down now," he said without pleasantries, waiting until everyone was silent. "Although most of you were here last Friday, let me give you a reminder. We had a serious incident. Several fires were set on school properties, causing minor damage. The staff and I have discussed this matter. We will not rest until whoever responsible is punished."
"Some of you may be wondering who among you is to blame. We know of several people of interest that I will be interviewing."
"Do you think he's talking about you and Henry?" Theo whispered.
"Of course he is." Although it was impossible, I felt like McPherson was looking directly at me.
The assembly lasted for fifteen minutes, the whole time McPherson going on and on about personal responsibility and the limits of freedom in the school being in our best interests. Sure, I thought.
When we were finally dismissed, our class filed back out into the hall with everyone else. I started to follow the herd back towards the gymnasium. But Coach Fletcher stood in front of me, stopping me from going further.
"Donovan, you need to go to the office," she said. She had gone back to treating me like any other kid, broken nose all but forgotten.
I sighed. Theo smiled sympathetically as me, raising her crossed fingers for emphasis.
Nerves took me over. I had never really been in much trouble before, save for the time I drew with crayons instead of chalk on the sidewalk in elementary school and had to wash it off for an hour with a garden hose.
I headed to the front offices and walked into the inner sanctum. Carnation bouquets were wilting on the counter, the school colors they'd been dyed with fading. I had been here too often lately.
"I was told to come to the office. My name is Ariel Donovan," I told the secretary. I couldn't tell if she recognized me when I wasn't bathed in my own blood. She pointed with her pen back to McPherson's office. I shuffled across the brown carpet and to my doom.
I knocked on the door, but no one answered. When I opened it, Henry was already sitting, rather casually, in one of the chairs in front of McPherson's tidy desk. His office was just as organized and sparse as his house had looked.
"Hi," I said meekly to Henry.
"We meet again," he replied, brushing dirt off of his shoe onto the floor.
"What's going on?" I asked him, sitting in the chair next to him. He was as aloof as he had been last week. He simply shrugged.
I wanted desperately to ask him why he was being so evasive. Had I done something to stop him from liking me? After how close it had seemed we had gotten...and the kiss at the dance...
"I just want to get this over with," he said. "I have things to do." Fire burned behind his usual energy. He seemed far more pissed off than anxious or worried. He kept shifting in his seat, and his eyes were lit with some unspoken passion.
"This is serious, at least to me," I whispered harshly. "I don't have lawyers for parents." I couldn't understand what had happened to my Henry, the one who was always kind and had a joke for every occasion. The one with the amazingly clever, fast-paced brain that kept me on my toes. The one that I loved, I realized at the worst moment.
The office door opened, and we both turned. McPherson entered with a stack of papers and walked to his desk, setting down the bundle.
He sat down in the wingback chair, resting his elbows on the desktop. Tenting his fingers, he looked down his nose at us. Henry snorted with derisive laughter, making it known that he thought McPherson was a joke. I looked at him like he was crazy. I had no pressing interest in getting in trouble.
Then all the humor washed out of Henry's face. "Is all this really necessary?" he spat.
"I assure you it is, son," McPherson said calmly. Then his head snapped to me.
I was scared, not only because I knew I was not McPherson's favorite, but also because of how he demonstrated it when Lainey hurt my nose. Not to mention what I knew about his weird living quarters.
"Why were you still inside the school after the alarm went off?" McPherson interrogated me. "Why didn't you go out one of the fire exits?"
I paused, mouth open, unsure of what to say. Honesty seemed like the best defense. But at the same time, I would embarrass myself to Henry.
"I need an answer," McPherson snapped.
"I went to find Henry," I admitted, hoping I wasn't getting him in more trouble than he was getting in himself. "He left during class and he didn't come back, so I wanted to make sure that he got out safely." I didn't look at Henry, too humiliated by my revelation.
"Basically, her behavior was stupid, but well-intentioned," Henry said coldly.
Anger filled me.
"No more stupid than whatever you were involved with," I countered.
"You have no idea what I was doing. Stop pretending like you do," he said, glaring at me and sitting up in his seat.
"What I do know is that I did nothing to you to make you act this way towards me. So why the change?" I said, matching his posture.
"Enough bickering," McPherson said, interrupting us. For a moment, McPherson and Henry just looked at each other. I wondered what I was missing.
"I believe you've already spoken with my father," Henry said. "He'll give you any answers that you need."
McPherson sat still, debating what to do with us.
He scribbled two hall passes. "Go back to class for now. But this isn't over." He leaned back in his chair, looking smug. "Don't get too comfortable."
After we left McPherson's office, I walked out of central office, with Henry trailing behind me.
"What is it?" I asked again, when we were alone. Henry wouldn't even look at me, finding everywhere else to train his eyes. He made me furious, treating me like an idiot in McPherson's office. After all the time we had spent together, I deserved better.
"I don't always have to explain everything to you," he said.
The familiar sensation of having someone I cared about turn on me was too much to handle. Maybe there was something wrong with me that caused it to happen. "What would you suggest I do? I can't get in trouble."
"You're not going to get in trouble," he snapped, glowering at me. He leaned in close and said, "You will be fine."
"How can you possibly know that?" I asked, looking into his eyes. He stood for a moment, biting the inside of his cheek.
"Just leave me alone from now on," he said, starting to walk away. "You'll stay out of danger that way."
For once I was happy as hell that I was immune from crying as I watched him go.
Chapter 21
Ms. Vore lobbed my sketchbook on my desk when I arrived in Art. Her eyes met mine, a paler green than Theo's, but just as full of emotion.
"I want you to know that I vouched for you being in class when the fire alarm went off," she said. That surprised me.
"Thank you," I replied genuinely. "I'm really sorry if I caused you any trouble..."
"You should be," she continued. "The school could have brought disciplinary action against me if anything happened to you. It's very disappointing." She ran her hand through her hair. "It just proves to me that I shouldn't try to be your friend. I'm your teacher."
"Please don't think that way," I started, but she just shook her head, and resumed handing out sketchbooks.
"She'll move on," Theo said after Ms. Vore had walked back up to her desk. "Give her time."
I felt really horrible, and the twisted thing was, my thoughtless actions weren't even worth it. Nothing but bad had come from them.
Hugh was reading the paper at the dining room table when I arrived home.
"Why didn't you tell me about the fire at your school?" he asked the minute I walked in. Claire had driven me home since she had taken a vacation day, and dropped me off on her way to the store. I wasn't ready for another ambush.
"I thought I did," I said, shutting the sliding glass door. "It was on Friday, when I was sick. My head was a little wonky. But I need to talk to you about it now."
He folded the paper back up in a messy lum
p and tossed it on the table.
"I think there's a possibility I might get in trouble," I started. "But I didn't really do anything wrong."
He was starting to look angry, which was exceedingly rare for Hugh. I stood on the opposing side of the table, twisting the hem of my shirt in my hands. The familiar surroundings of our house suddenly felt like a courtroom, with me presenting my case.
"What happened?" he demanded.
I explained, but left out the part about Henry. Claire would ban him from the house if she thought he was getting me in trouble. Not that I thought he would be back any time soon.
"That was incredibly foolish of you," he said once I was done. "You get indignant that your mother and I are worried about you, and then you put yourself in danger."
I had no reply for that.
"Jenna's disappearance is affecting your judgment, whether you see it or not."
Yeah, and he didn't know the worst of it. Sneaking out and having possible seizures in abandoned buildings. Seeing dead little girls hanging out at school.
"There is still the matter of what happened with the Ford girl," he said, getting up and going for more coffee. "McPherson knows I will bring it up if he dares press anything with this. So don't worry."
"Are you sure?" I asked. Ever since he had caught up to us on Friday, I had been apprehensive McPherson would kick me out of school, but I had been trying not to think about it.
"I'm sure," he said. "But that doesn't by any stretch mean that you're off the hook. Now go downstairs and work on your homework."
Not only was I grounded, but I had to fork over my phone for the week. I begged him not to tell Claire, but he said he couldn't keep secrets from her, because they were in a relationship, and relationships meant honesty. If only I had the same courtesy with Henry.
Despite my hope that things would change, I soon discovered that Henry wouldn't talk to me in school. In fact, the person he had been disappeared, replaced by a specter that shuffled down the halls and never smiled. Every time I saw him I wanted to reach out, to talk to him, to shake him and ask him what was going on. But I didn't know how.
"What is up with your boy?" Theo asked one day as November chugged on. She had finally gotten around to putting together a set of sketches for my dad, and they were going up in the gallery in a few weeks. It had seemed to fill her with a sense of self-confidence I hadn't seen before.
"He's not my boy," I said emphatically. "And your guess is as good as mine."
Henry laid his head down on his desk. He was wearing the sweatshirt with the blackbirds inside the hood, pulled over his head. I clenched my fingers, ignoring the strong impulse to go over and stroke the back of his head.
"Maybe he got sick like us," Theo suggested, but I knew it was more than that.
For the next week, he acted distant. He brought his thick fantasy books to class, kept them open on his lap under his desk, reading. He sent me a text on Tuesday to let me know that he couldn't do tutoring anymore. It interfered with his schedule, he claimed. Although it shouldn't have been a surprise, it felt like the final blow.
I got the picture. It was a bleak one.
A loud banging noise woke me up. I began to panic before I even opened my eyes.
"Not again," I whispered, sitting up on my bed in the dark. My room had been peaceful for weeks, with no strange occurrences or vanishing lights. But the sound wasn't coming from my room, it was coming from out in the hall. Pulling my door open gently, I stepped out into the hallway. It was pitch black and chilly. The furnace groaned gently at my back.
The noise again came again. A fist on the glass door was my best guess. I crouched and grabbed a weight from Claire's still-untouched exercise room, sitting just inside the door. I made my way through boxes and around the pool table with its canvas cover, to where I could see outside.
The motion detector light was activated and someone lurked just outside the door. A dark figure like in an alarm company commercial. I stifled the urge to scream. As my eyes focused, I recognized Henry's face, peering in and using his hands as binoculars.
I sped over to the door, unlocked it, and pushed it open.
"What in the hell are you doing here?" I hissed, wrapping my arms around myself to keep out the frigid night air.
"Are you going to hit me with that?" Henry asked, gesturing to the hand weight and leaning back.
I tossed the weight on a nearby chair. "I needed to talk to you," he said urgently. His cheeks were flushed from the cold.
"And you couldn't find a better time than three in the morning?" I asked skeptically.
"Well, I knew you would be free," he said, in a shadow of his old good humor. He rubbed his arms through his sweatshirt and complained, "It's cold out here. Are you going to invite me in or am I walking the long walk home?"
I hesitated. This was so against the rules. But the pleading look in his eyes and the thrill of having him here for me won out.
I stepped aside and swept my arm out. I was suddenly acutely aware of my cupcake pajama pants and frizzy bed hair.
"Thanks," he breathed, the air expelled from his lungs like vaporous ghosts. He stepped in and I pulled the door shut as quietly as I could.
"You have to be really quiet," I whispered. "If my parents knew..."
"Understood," he whispered back, holding his hands up like stop signs.
I couldn't believe this was real. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was just another dream. And that made me remember my long ago dream that wound up in my room, and I blushed in the shadows. We were right by the same couch.
"Follow me," I whispered, and led him down the hall. Being out in the main basement felt too open, like we were just waiting to get caught, but when I stepped into my room and turned on the lamp, it felt too intimate.
"Have a seat," I said.
Henry sat down in my desk chair. I sat on the bed, aware that the floor was my only other option, and that would put me in an even more awkward position.
"What was so important that you needed to walk to my house in the middle of the night?" I asked.
As he dropped his hood, I noticed that his hair was disheveled, like he had been lying down, tossing and turning while trying to sleep. He stared at the floor before speaking. "Do you trust me?"
That was out of left field. "Should I?" I was beginning to have reasons not to, but I didn't speak them aloud.
He worried his full bottom lip with his teeth.
"Do you trust me?" he repeated, more emphatic.
"I don't know," I said automatically. "I used to."
I remembered how soft his lips felt on mine when we kissed for the briefest moment at the dance, his hands on the small of my back. I looked away.
"I want to be able to prove to you that you can," he said.
"Why? To start with, you haven't spoken a word to me in weeks," I said, the hurt that I felt bubbling to the surface. "You were the one going on about how we were friends, and then you just ignored me like I was invisible."
"I know." He looked down again.
I quickly scanned my room to make sure I had no embarrassing personal effects sitting out. He was twisting his key ring around his thumb, the keys jingling softly. "I found out some things and...there's a lot going on in my life right now."
"Yeah, well, mine too." I was uncomfortable, thinking that it was a mistake to let him in. Not just into my room, but to let him in to my life at all. There was a moment of loaded silence.
"I pulled the fire alarm."
"What?" I asked, my eyes widening. But I had heard him fine.
He squeezed his eyes shut tightly. "I pulled the fire alarm."
I opened my mouth to speak, and shut it again. In my shock I had no words, no clever response.
"But I didn't start the fire," he said, and now he was looking at me, his eyes begging me to believe him.
"What are you talking about?" I asked. I stood up, suddenly wide awake and alert. And very aware that I could be in the room with an arsonist.
I stood silent, my look conveying that he should continue.
"When we moved here, I started getting emails from an address I didn't recognize. The person presented evidence that he had something bad on my father, something that would destroy him professionally and maybe even destroy his marriage to my mother."
I sat back on my bed, legs crossed as I held my ankles for support.
"The last email that I received told me to go up to the top floor of the school, and pull the fire alarm. It didn't say why, it just gave me a time and a location. I figured they needed to clear the school for some reason, but now I'm thinking I was being set up. And I think I know who's behind it. McPherson."
"I just felt like I had to talk to someone," he continued. "And you're the closest person to me right now. I avoided you before because I didn't want to pull you into this with me. When I'm stressed out, I'm a bastard. I can't deal with anything. I told you I care about you and I meant it. That's why I had to come here tonight."
That admission made my heart swoop, at the same time that my head was reeling.
"I wasn't supposed to ask questions," he said, rubbing his face with his hands and then looking up at me. "So I tried not to."
I could tell he was sure I didn't believe him. "I swear, I'm telling you the truth. I have no reason to lie."
"Do you have any idea what the blackmail itself is?" I asked, pushing my hair back.
"I'm guessing it has something to do with his work," he said thoughtfully. "In the profession he's in, there are all kinds of situations he could get himself into. Lying for a client, stealing..."
"Is your father capable of that?" It was a hard question, but I felt that I had to ask it.
"Yes," he said without hesitation.
"What do you suggest we do about it?" I asked, my shoulders slumping as I tried to process what he told me. The surrealism of the night, having my real life crush sitting in my bedroom, unloading all of his secrets to me. A month, even a few weeks, ago I would have welcomed it. Now it felt like I was being handed a slice of an incredible burden.