Kelsey smiled in spite of nerves. “You want me to feed you another one?”
“Feed me another one.” He opened his mouth.
She laughed. “What are you in the mood for?”
“How about the Flint Hills? Oh, I know. You could paint them! Paint them.”
Kelsey cleared her throat again. “Nah,” she finally said. “That will take too long. Let me tell you about them, instead.”
This she could do. Her family had made the drive from Lawrence through the hills a million times, to Seneca, to Manhattan, to Wichita.
Michelle was always in the backseat next to her, watching out the window. The Flint Hills were one of the few things, their parents said, that would keep them from punching each other.
Kelsey settled into the rug on her floor, resting her chin in her hands.
Peter leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
“So you’re on 70,” Kelsey began, “heading west, and there’s nothing but overcast sky and fence and prairie. Until all of a sudden, you see this wrinkle in the flat lines. It’s almost a hallucination. Until you see another wrinkle, and another one, and the land is moving like the ocean. And each hill is spilling into the next. The grass is a color you’ve never seen before and you’ll never see again. It’s orange, gold, white, green, brown.…”
“Mmm,” Peter said, his eyes still closed.
Suddenly, a man’s voice filled the speakers. “Let’s move, Petey!”
Peter clutched his gun again, turning away from Kelsey toward the man who had just entered. He left the screen for a moment, and she could only hear patches of their sentences. Raid, she heard. Found something.
Peter returned to the frame, along with a stocky man slightly older than himself, with red hair.
He smiled, tense. “This is Rooster,” he said.
“Sam,” the guy said, touching his chest.
“Nice to meet you,” Kelsey said.
“Pleasure, ma’am.”
“I hate to go, but we have to,” Peter said.
In the background, Kelsey heard what she could recognize as an Islamic call to prayer.
Another soldier screamed blurry, angry words.
Peter looked at her, and she could see his eyes moving back and forth, memorizing her face. Just in case. His mouth was a thin line.
“Soon?” he said.
“Soon,” she replied.
He took a deep breath. He smiled. He held his hand up to his lips and put them to her screen, and the call ended.
Kelsey snapped the laptop shut and flipped to lie on her back, staring at the ceiling.
From the living room, she could hear someone in the support group weeping. Animal, gut-wrenching sounds that echoed the moment of knowing all over again. She knew how the woman felt, whoever she was. There was no reason to bring that sound into the world again. There was no reason to open another wound.
Now that she had conjured Michelle as she spoke to Peter, her own hurt felt smaller. Her sister was back in the room with her, stepping over her as she lay on the floor, digging through her drawers, asking to borrow a scarf.
Is this okay? she asked silently as Michelle wove around her.
But memories don’t answer back.
As long as Peter saw Michelle, she would not have to be ripped away. As long as Kelsey could keep Michelle’s death to herself, Peter would not have to know that kind of pain.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The next morning’s winter sun was shining through the red paper pasted on the windows of Lawrence High School, casting everyone in the hallways in an amber glow. Kelsey was in position with her team, waiting for a signal. When they heard the bloodthirsty cries coming from the gymnasium lobby, they started to run. Kelsey filled her lungs with air and expelled it to make the loudest scream she could muster. Her girls did the same. Through the halls, they formed a stampede, belting out the Lions battle cry, dodging bodies and bookshelves.
Soon, they were joined by the cheerleaders and the basketball team, everyone calling the school to war with Topeka High. The posters read GET FIRED UP! and MAUL THE TROJANS! and LION VICTORY! Kelsey zipped past kids who wouldn’t even go to the game—the smokers, the gamers, the drama kids—and they all joined in, yelling just for the hell of it. Soon, the whole school was a cacophony, friends and enemies forgotten, mouths wide open and wild, fists banging on lockers and classroom doors.
As tradition mandated, after exactly one minute, the noise stopped.
This was the drill on game day. Faces returned to normal, except for the occasional sly look. Homework was extracted and shuffled. It was time to go to first period.
The Lions Dance Team had made it to the southeast side of the cafeteria, to the other end of the school, panting.
“Good one, dudes,” Kelsey told her team, placing loose strands of her hair back into her ponytail as they walked to class.
Ingrid was the color of an eggplant, as usual. She looked worried. “I think I made that kid Frankie pee his pants.”
Kelsey and Gillian laughed. “How did you manage that?” Kelsey asked.
“I banged open the door to the boys’ bathroom just as he was unbuttoning.”
Kelsey closed her eyes and folded her hands with faux wisdom. “A small price to pay in the spirit of victory.”
“Poor Frankie,” Gillian said. “And poor anyone who has to sit next to him.”
Ingrid peeled off to go to Comp Lit. “No one tell him it was me,” she called.
As she left, Gillian tucked another loose strand of Kelsey’s ponytail behind her ear. “You seem good today.”
“I feel good,” Kelsey said, putting her arm around her friend.
“What’s different?” Gillian asked. “Because I’ve been trying to cheer you up for three freaking months now, and I’d kind of like to know.”
They paused in front of Gillian’s AP Euro class. Kelsey did her best to look like she was thinking, but she knew. Last night was the first night in several weeks that she hadn’t cried herself to sleep.
“I mean, I know it doesn’t happen just like that—” Gillian snapped her fingers. “But if there’s anything I can do so that you’re like this all the time, I want to do it. You know?”
She couldn’t tell Gillian about Peter. She wished she could but she couldn’t.
“It’s probably just time,” Kelsey said, smiling. “Don’t read too much into it.”
At that, she was alone, on her way to Geography. She was late, but it didn’t matter. She took her time, basking in the red, in the quiet of the main staircase. As she sidled down the first two stairs, she felt the air on her back change, a little colder, a little clearer.
Someone must have opened a window. She turned to look.
The air came from the art wing. Kelsey had only been to this section of the school once, for Michelle’s junior art show, but she could barely remember it. On impulse, she went back up the stairs.
Four classrooms bordered the small gallery. Inside, two short pedestals holding student sculptures stood in the center: one, a hand made out of clay; the other, a ceramic vase. The walls were lined with portraits in dark pencil, and Kelsey recognized some of the students. Most of them had eraser marks streaked across their faces, noses off-center, hands twisted into too many lines. Michelle had done this assignment, too, back when she had her mermaid hair.
In the corner, Kelsey found it. Unlike the others, it was framed, with a plaque, and it was perfect. Michelle had drawn herself curled up on her side of the porch, sitting on a chair, looking out onto the yard. Sun shone on her face. Tiny hairs, lines that could almost be mistaken for stray pencil, lifted in a light breeze.