No one has tried to kill me yet today.
I add a tally in my journal. If I can go another seven hours, it’ll officially be three days since the last attack.
My pen hovers over the page. I cross outattack.What do you call a gas station attendant who douses you in gasoline and raises a lighter?
Luck alone kept me from becoming Mina flambé. The attendant had already emptied his lighter before the thing possessed him. It never produced a spark. I managed to get in my car and screech out of the parking lot before the orange-eyed man could find another way to burn me alive.
It’s getting creative. Too creative.
People stream around my tree, their backpacks slung over their shoulders and laughter ringing in the quad. It’s a beautiful day in a town where beautiful days are one in a hundred. Sunshine promises a weekend of bonfires by Lake Lasem, and the prospect of spending time outdoors has put everyone in a good mood.
Lake Lasem. If I close my eyes, I can hear shrieks as someone squeezes the twelve-dollar bottle of charcoal lighter fluid—likely sold out by now at the general store—and accidentally sends the fire roaring to twice its size. I can smell bits of paper and wood burning. Feel the warmth against my toes. Taste the gooey, half-charred marshmallow melting on my tongue.
I exhale, tracing the edge of the journal.
The problem is that I can’t close my eyes. I can’t lose myself to imagination, because although no one has tried to kill me yet today, it’s only noon.
A gaggle of freshmen emerge from the admin hall. I recognize one of the girls from the dance team. Yesenia. I approved her membership to the team myself. Someone nudges Yesenia, and she glances over. I lift my hand in a wave.
She gives me a cool once-over and keeps walking.
Right.I lower my arm, swallowing my sigh. To avoid drowning in my own self-pity, I’ve devised a couple of non-negotiable rules. One of them includes not sighing more than four times a day. I’ve already used up three. I need to save number four for a special occasion, and Yesenia brushing me off isn’t special. In fact, it is exactly what I expected. I should count myself lucky she didn’t hurl her backpack at my head.
Three weeks ago, a beautiful morning like this would have sent me on a picnic-planning craze. I would have been sprinting to the general store to beg for the last bottle of lighter fluid the second the bell rang. With my Polaroid in hand, I’d cajole my friends into taking at least fifteen photos by the lake in increasingly ridiculous poses. Despite the crowd, we would claim the best spot, right under the big maple tree, because Rainie would cut one path with her glare and Alex another with his smile. Charcuterie boards, little baskets of grapes, glass bottles of juice with condensation running down the sides … yeah. It would have been a great day.
Across the quad, my friends sneak glances over at me from our—their—table. Rainie catches me staring and flips me off. Lucia looks sad, and Aida squints like she’s not sure where she’s seen me before.
Alex is the only one who keeps his gaze averted. My heart aches, and Sigh #4 nearly breaks free. Breaking up with my boyfriend of three years was bad enough, but not even being able to explain why?
I’d learned the hard way that guilt, if given something to latch onto, can chew you to the bone.
I try to force my mind away from Alex and my friends. It won’t do any good—I’ve already worn the tracks thin running around the same mental circles.
For now, it has to be this way.
A platoon of ants march in the grass, lining up to lay siege to my untouched mayo and egg sandwich.
“Lay down your arms, soldiers.” I break off a piece of the pita and place it near the ant army. Someone should get to enjoy my meal, since I won’t.
I’m startled from my silent conversation with the lead ant when shouts erupt by the theater building. Two of the theater kids wrestle on the stairs, cursing and crying as the others try to break them apart. The lunch monitors ignore them. Unless someone draws blood, those squabbles are usually a marketing maneuver to get us intrigued enough to buy tickets to their plays.Antigonethis time, I think, continuing fromOedipuslast week. I only know that because Miss Diaz offered ten points of extra credit to anyone who went, so I chose the busiest time and watched it from a seat in the back row, wedged between a couple enthusiastically making out and a guy who fell asleep in the first fifteen minutes.
One of the drama kids is flailing his arm around like a snake getting electrocuted, and he clocks the other guy across the jaw. Indignation breaks out on the injured guy’s face, and the fight takes a turn for the ugly. Uh-oh. The monitors remain occupied with a red-eyed, giggling freshman.
Me and the ants are watching with concern—one of them has the other in a headlock—when a figure materializes between the brawling duo. A figure with broad shoulders encased in a leather jacket a size too big, a lean, corded frame covered in a T-shirt with the name of a band nobody recognizes, and a pair of black work boots with the flap turned out.
Jesse Talbot grabs the back of the drama kids’ shirts and yanks them apart.
The school’s resident loner looms over the boys with his patented doomsday scowl. He says something I can’t make out, and the theater guys go still. They probably hadn’t expected toactuallyget beat up, and with Jesse, it is a much higher possibility. After a minute, he releases them, returning to his table at the edge of the quad. The theater group elbows each other, and I can’t help but share their surprise.
Jesse Talbot is notorious for keeping to himself. Aggressively solitary doesn’t even begin to cover it. He hangs in the shadows of every room he walks into, like each moment is a new debate about whether it’s worth stepping into the light. Dark crescents curve under eyes blacker than an eclipse, framed beneath wavy black hair a few inches past his ears. An undeniably attractive guy. Not that it matters—most girls brave enough to venture his way run straight into the barbed wire of his hostility.
Eventually, the theater kids retreat to their building. Jesse’s stiff shoulders loosen.
Ah.“They got too close to his table.” I share my revelation with the ants, only remembering I’m audible to more than just my army when a teacher glances over.
Her proximity startles me. Way too close. Killing close.
Dropping the last of my lunch for the ants, I hoist my backpack over my shoulder and follow a large group of lacrosse players into the building.
