It looked serious. They’ll need to rebuild a lot of the buildings.
I shrug. “Could have been anything,” I say.
“Does this mean it’ll be closed down?” Terrell asks.
“Probably,” Chiamaka says.
We sit in a somber silence for a few moments.
My mind turns over what might happen to everyone now… What happens to Mr. Ward…Aces. Whether this will all get buried in the aftermath.
As if Chiamaka is reading my mind, she murmurs, “Well, I’m tired. Going to head to bed… Where is your bathroom, please?”
“Down the hall, to the left,” Terrell says.
She steps out of the fort, leaving us alone.
Silence.
“Can we talk?” Terrell asks.
I nod, because with Terrell there is no getting out of talks. He’sup front and likes to confront everything in the moment. Or so I thought. Because he hid this well, for weeks.
“I’m sorry. The last thing I’d want to do is hurt you. I was never going to completely go through with it. I would never hurt you, ever. I told the guy that.”
“Okay,” I say.
He looks nervous. “Do you hate me?”
I look at him. As much as I want to be mad, it’s like there’s something about Terrell that prevents me from being mad at him. I feel hurt, but I don’t hate him. I don’t think I could.
I shake my head. “I don’t hate you,” I say.
“Thank you for not hating me,” he says.
“It’s okay,” I reply.
I don’t know if things will be okay right away, but I can tell they will be eventually.
There’s a weird sound in the distance and at first I think it’s Chiamaka, but then Terrell pushes himself up.
“I need to feed Bullshit, he gets cranky when I delay his meals.”
“I don’t think your cat likes me,” I say, leaning back a little.
Terrell raises an eyebrow. “I think he doesn’t like sharing me. He’ll warm up to you.”
I find that hard to believe. His cat looks at me like it wants me dead. If it wasn’t completely impossible, I’d be convinced that Bullshit was in on the whole Aces thing too.
“Doubt that,” I mutter.
Terrell smiles, which makes me smile back, and then we just stare at each other in silence for a few moments. Terrell breaks eye contact first, pushing his glasses up as he stands and moves out of the fort. Ican hear him speaking to Bullshit, scolding him for interrupting his conversation.
I take out my phone, searching for reports of the fire, worried about who might have been caught up in it. I wonder if Jack came.
I scroll. The reports don’t say much. Just that there was a fire at the school; an unknown cause.
I look up again, at Terrell in the hallway pouring food into a bowl. I watch him, stroking his cat as it eats the food.
