“I should get back to the auditorium before they start wondering,” I say.
“What you should really be doing is looking for Baxter’s way in,” he says, and he’s right. That’s what I should be doing. That’s what all of us should be doing. “Don’t forget to lock the door on your way out.”
I do and then I just stand there in the hall.
What she told me: it was us two, nobody else. Our future was our freedom. She was the one who tied and knotted us together, made escape with her the only thing I wanted, convinced me there was nothing else to want.
But I knew she hated it.
I can’t do this anymore, I’m so sorry.
Just because she said it to Cary first—
I wrap my arms around myself and circle the school. Trace’s, Harrison’s, and Grace’s voices sound from the gym. When I step inside, the basketball is in Harrison’s hands and everything about this moment is something I want to kill.
“We should be looking for how Baxter got in,” I say.
“Don’t start,” Trace says. “Already got this lecture from Moreno.”
“Yeah, for good reason. It’s important we find it.”
“So important he’s all hopped up on Benadryl and passed out in the auditorium, right? Hey, have you seen Cary? Has he turned? Let me know as soon as it happens.”
I guess the sparkle of how I went outside for him has faded, all for not wanting him to kill Cary, for voting against him about the gun. I head back into the hall.
Baxter’s way in is also a way out.
If I find it, I can leave.
I comb classrooms and closets, push against walls absurdly, like they might move. I cannot find it. I go back to the auditorium. Rhys is still in a coma. I hook the keys back onto his jeans and then, impulsively, press my hand against his face. He stirs a little. Leans into my palm. I run my fingers over his skin for the longest time and he never wakes up.
Hopeless.
Grace insists on taking Cary breakfast.
“No way.” Trace tries to take the tray from her hands.
“I wasn’t asking you,” she says. “I’m telling you.”
“No,” Trace says slowly. “I’m telling you. I don’t want you anywhere near him when he’s like this. Stop being stupid, Grace.”
“Last I checked him—like an hour ago—he was fine,” Rhys says. “I doubt anything is going to happen to her if she goes in there right now.”
“Moreno can give Chen his breakfast,” Trace says. “Why are you doing this?”
“As student government president, I had to deal with people I didn’t like all the time,” she snaps. “I had to listen to them and then I had to advocate for them if they needed it—”
“News flash: you’re not student government president anymore.”
“And you’re not the boss of me!” Trace laughs at how childish she sounds and that makes her angrier. When he sees the look on her face, he stops laughing.
“Grace.” He’s full-on patronizing now. “Don’t be like this—”
“I told you we had to let it go.” She raises her trembling chin. “This is me letting it go.”
Something in her face tells him he’s not going to win this. He steps aside and Grace hurries out of the room and Trace glares after her and then transfers that glare to me, to Rhys.
“I put the gun down,” he says. “That’s as much as I’m letting it go.”
“You’re a great man, Trace,” Rhys says.
Trace shoots Rhys a dirty look and then heads out of the auditorium. A second later, he pokes his head back in and calls for Harrison. Harrison actually goes running to him.
I stare after them. “How did that even happen?”
“Trace has the gun,” Rhys says. “Harrison has joined his army.”
“This isn’t war.”
“Maybe we can convince Grace to become a double agent or something,” Rhys says thoughtfully. He catches my eye and laughs a little at the ridiculousness of what he’s just said and then he looks away. “She’s got the right idea, though. Grace.”
“What’s that?”
“That this isn’t a good time or place to hold on to things.”
I think I know what he’s going to say next and I don’t think I want to hear it, so I get to my feet, searching for some excuse to leave the room.
But Rhys says, “Sloane,” before I can find one.
“What?”
“I don’t want…” he trails off, and tries to figure out a way to put it. “I don’t want how I feel about you to get in the way.” I don’t say anything, just leave him hanging, which is cruel. “I mean I don’t want to hate you so much that—I’m like how Trace is with Cary because that’s going to fuck him over in the end. I want to forget about what happened outside.”
He keeps waiting for me to say something.
“I forgive you,” he says.
“Okay.”
“That’s all you have to say?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Thank you?”
“I didn’t ask you to forgive me.”
Rhys stares at the ceiling for a second and then he leaves the auditorium and since I have the room to myself, I go back to sleep until a slow roll of thunder wakes me up. By the time my eyes are open, a loud clap of it sounds overhead.
And then the rain, tapping against the skylights.
I am so sad.
I am so sad it makes me heavier than the sum of my parts. I shift, restless, but it doesn’t help. It’s like—time. All this time in here is on me, has its hooks in me. Maybe if I sleep more, I’ll wake up and I’ll feel different, but I can’t. The storm is really happening now and it makes the room feel emptier. Makes me feel emptier.
I get up. I want to see Cary. I want to talk to him about Lily again. I need him to make everything he told me about her hurt less somehow. The walk to him takes forever. It’s hard to breathe around how badly I feel right now. I round the corner and when the nurse’s office comes into sight, I’m grateful.
And then I remember I don’t have the key.
And then I want to break things.
But—the door is open. A little.
It stops me cold. Not right. That’s not right. I back up, think about finding Rhys, but there might not be time. I tiptoe over cautiously.
Grace’s voice.
“Stop talking, stop talking,” she’s saying over Cary, who is mumbling something at her. “Just stop talking. Shut up. Stop. Stop. Talking—”
Their voices cut off abruptly. I step into the room and peer around the door, past the desk and supply cabinets and posters about knowing your body.
The cot is empty and they’re beside it.
Cary has Grace up against the wall.
Cary has Grace pressed against the wall.
I process this like a two-year-old with no life beyond Disney movies: he’s hurting her. Then I realize, no—not hurting.
Kissing.
Cary and Grace.
I feel a little Norman Bates standing there, watching it happen between them. The way their hands fumble and grope all over each other, the way he kisses her mouth and her throat and how when he kisses her throat she leans her head back, all the way back, like nothing feels better than his lips against her skin. And then she lowers her head. She puts her palms against his face and makes him look at her and my throat tightens for what’s in her eyes. I don’t think she forgives him but it’s like her heart is a little more open than it was.
It would be so easy for them to catch me spying, but they can only see each other. Grace kisses Cary and suddenly everything is just slow and tender in a way it wasn’t before. The energy in the room shifts. They’re kissing still, but now they’re really kissing. It’s so open and so honest and so end-of-the-world and I can feel it from where I’m standing. I feel the absence of it from where I’m standing. I don’t know how much longer I can go on like this.
Still here. Still here. Still here.
Cary and Grace.
I hear them breathing.
I move away from the scene slowly and then I’m in the hall, tears in my eyes. I run past LaVallee’s office, past the auditorium where Trace and Harrison’s voices now float out. I push through the doors to the gym and Rhys is there, smoking. The first thing I want to say is Cary and Grace have paired off but I can’t because it will make the thing I’m about to do worse, wrong. I calm down. Walk across the gym slowly.