“Have you had any dreams lately?” he asks finally.
“Everyone has dreams.”
“Yes, but any you remember?”
“No.”
Silence again.
“What would you like to talk about today, Mr. Wilkes?” Mr. Wakefield asks tentatively.
“I don’t really know.”
“That’s fine,” he says. “Perfectly all right. Sometimes, we simply need to be in the presence of another person. Someone who understands.”
“Actually, there is something,” I say, because I’m not cool with Mr. Wakefield thinking we’re sharing a comfortable silence.
“That’s OK too. It’s great, in fact. Go on.”
He leans forward, anticipating some huge revelation, I guess. My mind flashes to Penelope, prancing around and getting ready to wish for some important cause or another.
“I’m concerned about underage sex workers,” I blurt out.
Mr. Wakefield pauses and tilts his head. “Ah, I see… Do you know an underage sex worker, Eldon?”
Is he freaking kidding me? We live in Madison. Of course I don’t know any underage sex workers. And Mr. Wakefield must be aware of that but is giving me the benefit of the doubt anyway.
Which makes me feel guilty.
“I really shouldn’t say,” I reply vaguely.
He leans in even closer. If he scoots forward any farther, he’ll fall out of his chair. “Eldon, these are very serious allegations. If you’re not certain about this…”
What have I done? I start to sweat. Surely, Mr. Wakefield knows I’m lying. Is he going to call me on it?
“Yeah, I know,” I mumble. “Maybe we should forget this conversation?”
“No, no,” Mr. Wakefield says quickly. “If there’s something you need to talk about, by all means, do so. This room is a safe place.”
I want to groan and bury my head in my hands. Instead, I say, “It’s cool, really. The situation is under control.”
Mr. Wakefield stands up and walks to the window. Gets into his thinker pose. When he turns, his face is set, like he’s made a decision.
Apparently, that decision was to trust me. Because that’s the kind of guy Mr. Wakefield is. He has faith in everyone, even selfish jerks like me, who take that trust and use it against him.
“Eldon, sometimes, we think we can handle a situation on our own. Sometimes, we think that’s the adult thing to do. And it’s admirable, it is. But if you know that someone is in pain, you need to share. You can’t place the entire burden on yourself.”
“It’s really not my place to talk about this.”
“Whatever you say here will be kept in the strictest confidence.” Mr. Wakefield walks back and sits in the chair next to me. “Is it one of your friends?”
I shrug, because I can’t think of how to respond.
No, that’s not true.
I know exactly what I should say. Look, Mr. Wakefield, I was trying to get out of class, and this sex worker thing was the first excuse that came to mind. I’m a dick, yeah? But I promise, there’s no secret prostitution ring in Madison.
I can’t make the words come out though. I imagine the disappointment on his face. The realization that all his suspicions about me are correct. That I’m an awful person.
“OK,” Mr. Wakefield goes on, his brows knitting. “Let’s come at it from a different angle. The demands that society places on young women can be very damaging. Your friend is female, correct?”
I cringe at the thought of Mr. Wakefield calling every girl in the school to his office to ask if she’s a prostitute. I have to put a stop to this.
“Uh, no, it’s actually not.” What is coming out of my mouth?
His eyes widen. That look comes across his face again, the one that says deep down, he suspects this is bullshit. “It’s not? Well. OK. I suppose it was presumptuous of me to think so. Of course young men face challenges too.”
“They do,” I agree.
“Is this person on the football team with you?” Mr. Wakefield asks.
“No.”
“Eldon…you’re not talking about yourself, are you?”
I almost laugh.
“Sometimes, we say something is happening to a friend because it’s easier than—”
“Mr. Wakefield, I promise, no one’s paying me to have sex with them.”
He nods earnestly and opens his mouth to ask another question, but the bell rings.
I jump up. “Thanks for the chat. This was really helpful.”
“But—”
“Talk to you later.”
I hurry out of his office, guilt churning in my gut.
Sometimes, you do something bad without realizing you’re doing it. And that sucks, but can you really be blamed? Other times, you know you’re being terrible. You know it, and you do it anyway.
What’s wrong with me, that I didn’t put a stop to this? What’s wrong with me?
• • •
Merrill and I leave campus for lunch. As soon as we get back to school, I know we missed something. No one’s in class. The entirety of Madison High School seems to be packed in the hall whispering to each other. A few girls are crying.
For a second, I have the horrified thought that Mr. Wakefield went overboard trying to solve the case of the teenage sex workers. But I quickly decide that’s unlikely. That wouldn’t be dramatic enough for people to act like wishing was outlawed.
Merrill and I glance at each other.
“I must admit,” he says, “I’m feeling a little out of the loop.”
Norie is down the hall at her locker, one of the few people not clustered in a group. Merrill and I start toward her, but I get distracted.
Juniper.
She catches my eye and heads in my direction. Which is how I know something big is happening. It’s been a while since Juniper willingly approached me.
“Have you heard?” she asks.
“No.”
“It’s Fletcher Hale. He tried to kill himself last night.”
I don’t know what I was expecting. Certainly not this. I glance at Merrill, but he’s still making his way toward Norie. I look back at Juniper’s worried face.
“Tried?”
“He’s alive. For now. He’s at the doctor’s office, and they’re doing what they can. But people are saying he won’t make it.”
I wish I had something to hold onto. The ground beneath me doesn’t feel stable anymore. “What happened?”
“It’s gruesome,” Juniper says.
“If you can handle it, I’m pretty sure I can.”
Even then, even in the middle of the hall, with a kid nearly dying, with us having been broken up for months, Juniper takes the time to roll her eyes at me. “Don’t be arrogant.”
“Tell me,” I say.
“He jumped off a cliff near the hot springs.”
“Jesus. And he’s alive?”
“Like I said, barely. Some stoner kids skipped class and went down there to smoke this morning. That’s how they found him. People are saying it’s a miracle he lasted the night.”
“A miracle?” It has to be the shittiest miracle ever. Dude tries to kill himself, fails, and ends up lying outside all night, completely messed up. To me, that doesn’t sound like a miracle so much as a punishment.
“Are you OK?” Juniper looks at me with her perfect golden eyes.
I’m not OK. I don’t know what I am. Shocked. Horrified.
“Why wouldn’t I be OK?” I try to sound casual but fail.
“Eldon.”
Just that. Just my name. But in her voice, there’s so much more. She knows me so well. It’s as if all the feelings running through me are appearing in thought bubbles above my head, and only Juniper can see them.
And yeah, let’s no
t pretend here. I’m thinking about what I said to Fletcher yesterday. Thinking about how cruel I was. Wondering if maybe I’m what made him do this. I feel lightheaded. I have no idea what to do.
Suddenly, Merrill’s back at my side.
“Dude,” he says.
“Juniper told me,” I tell him.
“They canceled classes for the rest of the day,” Juniper says. “Everyone’s going to the community center.”
“Why? That’s not gonna do Fletcher any good,” I reply.
She shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s something to do.”
People gather in the community center anytime something goes wrong. Anytime someone dies. It isn’t usually someone so young though. And I can’t remember a suicide.
“You wanna go?” I ask Merrill.
He looks at me closely. “Are you OK?”
“You guys can stop asking me that.”
“All right,” Merrill says.
But I see the way he and Juniper glance at each other. Neither of them believe it. I’m not the one who needs their concern though. I’m not the one on the verge of dying.
• • •
The last time the whole town gathered at the community center was after Ebba’s accident. Which sort of makes me feel like I should be glad we’re here because of Fletcher. Because of justice, or vengeance, or whatever. I’m not glad though. I hate the guy, but I don’t want him to die.
All the wishers—past, present, and future—are crammed together. Penelope runs around handing out tissues and offering words of comfort. The Samson sisters are in the back of the room, watching the goings-on but not participating. I pass Archie Kildare giving a speech to his thuggish friends, saying if he ever tried to off himself, no way would he fail.
I nod to my dad, who’s talking to Gil Badgley, but I don’t go over to him. Instead, I sit on the floor in a back corner with Merrill and Norie and pull out my phone.
I text my mom, Are you still at the doctor’s office?
Yes, she responds.
How’s Fletcher?
Her response comes fast. Not good.
I’m typing out another meaningless question when Ma texts again.
I love you, the message says.
I stare at my phone. Three short words, unrelated to the current situation, but they tell me everything I need to know.
They say, The situation is bad.
They say, Fletcher is going to die.
They say, Now is the time to remember how fragile life is, to pull your loved ones close and remind them how much they mean to you.
My eyes sting, and breathing becomes harder. I text my mom back. Love you too.
The conversation I had with Fletcher yesterday races through my mind, no matter how hard I push it away. If he tried to kill himself because of it, because of me, doesn’t that make me a murderer?
“Dude, this is intense,” Merrill says, scanning the room.
Norie’s watching me. “It’s not your fault,” she says again. She and Merrill have been repeating that since we drove over and I admitted I’d torn into Fletcher the day before.
“You know how many times I wished something bad would happen to him?” I ask. “I hated him.”
Norie squeezes my hand. “You could never hate Fletcher as much as he hated himself.”
I don’t respond, because what could I possibly say?
“He was miserable, Eldon,” Norie goes on. “He never stopped thinking about the accident.”
I frown. “Did you talk with him about it?”
“Yeah, sometimes.”
I look at her for a long moment.
“We weren’t close,” she says. “Just a few classes together. Honestly, I think he would’ve talked to anyone who listened.”
The old bitterness creeps up on me. Why should Fletcher Hale have someone to listen to his thoughts? His situation is his own fault. I’m the one who’s needed someone to talk to these past few months.
But I try to push away that resentment, because the situation has changed. It doesn’t feel right to be bitter, to be pissed off, when Fletcher is broken in pieces. And whatever I feel toward him, I really, really don’t want the kid to die.
There’s a murmur in the crowd, and I look over to see that Mayor Fontaine’s arrived. He has some of his men with him, the guys Merrill calls goons. Which I guess is as accurate as any other description. They’re regular guys from town, but they’re big and mean, and they strut around like they’ve got something to prove.
Sheriff Crawford bumbles along two steps behind the mayor, as always trying—and failing—to look like he’s in control. I wonder if he knew when he took the job that being sheriff in Madison is only show.
I assume the mayor will make a speech, but instead, he goes around talking to people quietly. Trying to score points, probably. No matter what time of year it is, he’s always focused on the next election. He starts campaigning the day after a win. Like it matters. He’s going to be reelected no matter what.
“If we lived in another place, everyone would be praying right now,” Norie says.
“What good would that do?” I ask.
“It would make people feel like they were helping.”
“But they wouldn’t actually be helping. So what would it matter?”
Norie squeezes my hand again. “Prayer does help, Eldon. You might not be able to see it working or know how it works, but it does.”
“You pray then. You can do the praying for all of us.”
And Norie does. The rest of us wait. We wait and wait, and hours later, there’s still no news.
• • •
Madison doesn’t have a hospital. Not a real one anyway. There are some rooms at the doctor’s office that get used as a makeshift hospital when it’s needed. Mostly though, people go to Vegas when they’re really sick or hurt. But there’s no time to get Fletcher there. His injuries are too bad to move him.
At least, that’s what people say. That’s what the mayor says.
“It’s bullshit,” Merrill whispers. “They don’t want Fletch to go to Vegas, because then people will start asking questions, and maybe they’ll realize something is off about this town, and maybe they’ll even connect Fletcher to Ebba and wonder what the hell—”
“Give it a rest,” I say, and I’m shocked when he does.
The three of us are still in the corner, keeping tabs on the action but staying out of it. Every half an hour, I text my mom, and she texts back that there’s no improvement.
I’m having flashbacks to Ebba’s accident, and it’s making me slightly hysterical. I count to ten, then to twenty, then thirty, but it doesn’t calm my racing heart or take away the feeling that I need to do something. I give up counting and watch the room.
Mayor Fontaine makes his rounds. Uncle Jasper sneaks out his flask when he thinks no one’s looking. Juniper blots her eyes with a tissue while her dad comforts her. Barnabas Fairley, drawn by all the action, stalks around the room like he has someone whispering marching orders in his ear. It’s a freaking circus.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out and read the message from my mom. He’s fading fast. The Hales are saying their goodbyes.
My breath catches in my throat. I can’t bring myself to repeat the message, so I pass the phone to Merrill and Norie and let them read it for themselves. None of us speak.
A few minutes later, Mr. Wakefield comes over, more somber than I’ve ever seen him. “Mr. Wilkes, could I speak to you for a moment?”
I don’t have the energy to roll my eyes at him. I stand and follow him away from my friends.
“It’s very important you answer me honestly,” he whispers.
“OK.”
“Was Mr. Hale the student you were talking about earlier?”
“What?” I ask, baffled.
/> “With the, ah, sexual abuse.”
Shit.
I study Mr. Wakefield’s face. The doubt from earlier is gone. He’s no longer questioning my trustworthiness. Sometime between this morning and now, he’s accepted that someone in Madison is being taken advantage of.
Which is true. He just doesn’t get that it’s him.
“No,” I say emphatically. “I wasn’t talking about Fletcher.”
“Because if you were, you need to tell me. It’s important that we prevent this from—”
“I promise, Mr. Wakefield. Seriously. I wasn’t talking about him.”
He doesn’t seem entirely convinced, but he lets me retreat back to the corner.
Outside, the sun is sinking. Inside, everyone is afraid to speak louder than a whisper. As if our voices might give Fletcher that final push over the edge.
“It sucks that this is happening,” Merrill says. “But honestly, can you blame the guy?”
Neither Norie or I respond. For once, Merrill’s being serious, not trying to shock us. Besides, I don’t know what to think. I understand why Fletcher did it, but at the same time, I disagree with his choice. I feel conflicted about a million different things.
I’m about to suggest that we get out of here. We aren’t doing Fletcher any good by sitting around. But then I see something that gives me pause.
Penelope Rowe and Mayor Fontaine. They’re off to the side of the room, and from the way Penelope is talking and gesturing, she probably pulled him over there. The mayor shakes his head, but every time he starts to speak, Penelope plows ahead.
I nudge Merrill and nod in their direction.
They argue for a bit longer. Or Penelope argues anyway. Sheriff Crawford tries to step into the conversation, but the mayor holds up a hand and gives him a sharp look. The sheriff backs off, resigned. Finally, Mayor Fontaine nods. He whispers something to one of his entourage. Then he and Penelope leave the community center together.
“What the hell was that about?” I ask.
Norie doesn’t even have to think about it. “Penelope’s wish.”
“Seriously? You think she’s concerned about her wish right now? How selfish is that?”
“I wonder…” Norie says thoughtfully.
As You Wish Page 14