When Henry gets up and has to clutch onto the wall, my stomach lurches. I pull myself up too, grabbing him by the sleeve as he sways. My eyes take in the edge, which is only a few steps away.
Henry tries to pull himself free.
“Henry.” You can hear the effort I’m making to keep my voice calm. “Stop this shit.”
“I just wanna be left in peace, all right?” he snaps at me.
I want to say something. Henry tries to sidestep. His foot connects with one of the bottles, glass clinking on glass. Sinclair has the presence of mind to take a step toward us and grab Henry by his jacket collar.
“Time for bed, Bennington.”
All I can do is watch the bottle as it rolls in slow motion over the edge and disappears into the darkness. A moment later, we hear the crash. From up here, it was fairly quiet, but I still hold my breath.
The others stand thunderstruck beside me. I’ve only just dared to breathe again when a light goes on down in the courtyard.
“Fuck,” mumbles Tori, ducking down. “You lads are so stupid, you know that?”
I’m in total agreement with her, but I bite my tongue as I help her and Omar to gather up the bottles at lightning speed. Sinclair’s already pushing Henry toward the stairs. I’m sure Henry knows the way better than I do, but it would be easy enough to miss one of the narrow steps in the darkness, even stone-cold sober. I only uncross my fingers once he’s made it to the bottom.
Gideon shuts the door behind us, and I stand there. Our rooms are in opposite directions, and it would definitely be better for me and Tori to be in bed if Ms.Barnett’s going to be checking up on us at any minute. And I’m pissed off with Henry. But all the same, I’d rather turn to the left and make sure he gets safely back to his room.
Sinclair glances over his shoulder like he’s read my mind. He opens his mouth, but before he gets a chance to say anything, the light goes on.
“Nobody move.”
I close my eyes.
28
Henry
It must have been humiliating to have to blow into that breathalyzer in front of Mr.Acevedo and Ms.Barnett, as if they were the police. So I suppose it’s lucky that I can’t remember much about it. To be precise, I don’t even remember how I got down off that roof. The only thing that’s burned onto my memory is the moment when Mr.Ward suddenly came around the corner. He caught us red-handed.
Ms.Barnett was annoyed. Mr.Acevedo was disappointed, which is actually way worse, although there was so much alcohol in my bloodstream that I didn’t really take it in. Mr.Acevedo forced me to spend the night in the sick bay, where I puked up my soul a few hours later. My guilty conscience didn’t strike until this morning, hand in hand with the droning headache that’s making me only too aware of how badly I overdid things last night. I don’t even know what I was thinking when I forced Sinclair to come and drink with me. I just wanted not to feel anything, and this time, it actually worked. For a few hours at least. But it’s turned into an utter catastrophe.
Emma, Tori, Sinclair, Omar, Gideon, and I have been summoned to Mrs.Sinclair’s office instead of lessons. My whole body is fighting against stepping through the door and lining up with the others. Standing upright is enough of an effort, and the light is too bright. Mrs.Sinclair is standing in front of her desk. She’s as mad as hell, you can see that. She’s trying to keep calm, but her eyes are spraying sparks as she walks up and down in front of us. Because we broke three school rules in one. We were drinking, we were out after wing time, and we were up on the roof, which is totally out of bounds. So yeah, we’ve genuinely screwed up.
“You can count yourselves lucky that nobody was injured by that bottle.” Mrs.Sinclair eyes each of us in turn. “Such large quantities of alcohol, I really would have thought you’d have more sense.”
“It’s my fault,” I say. My head aches. “I talked Sinclair—uh, Charles—and Gideon into it. It was me who started it all. And Omar, Tori, and Emma didn’t drink anything.”
“That may well be so, Henry, but they were still caught out of their rooms after quiet time.” I open my mouth, but she doesn’t let me speak. Sinclair glances warningly at me; Emma’s standing stock-still beside me. “And you all know what that means.”
“Mum,” Sinclair breathes, barely audibly, but she shakes her head.
“And I’m sorry, but there are rules at this school, and you have broken them. You will have to take the consequences of that. So I’m giving all of you a warning. You are all aware of what that means?”
I swallow hard. Breaking the rules again this term will mean big trouble. I’d never have dreamed that those words would ever be said to me. And even so, it doesn’t bother me half as much as I suppose it ought to.
“On top of which, each of you is to take on an extra cleaning or kitchen duty from now until the end of the month. Report to your houseparents at break time and they will allocate them.”
I ought to be punished harder than the others. I drank the most, and I’m aware that Mrs.Sinclair is only going easy on me because she can see that I wasn’t boozing for fun.
“Very well. That will be all.” She straightens her shoulders. “Go back to class now.” I’m about to turn away when she continues. “Apart from Henry.”
I don’t want anything more. I just want peace and quiet; I want to sleep and never wake up again.
Emma’s eyes meet mine. She looks worried, but I just nod toward the door.
