Page 136 of 72 Hours of You

Well, shit.

Twelve

THE WEEKEND PASSES IN THIS WEIRDLY QUIET and calm way. My thumb autopilots to Insta more times than I would like, but aside from a handful of messages from Noah begging me to meet up at “grief group,” my comms are pretty much silent.

Peter is off making pencil rubbings of rare leaves and pocketing special rocks by a babbling brook (or whatever people like him do on camping trips). Jules is off with Elise again (don’t ask). Dad is cloistered in his study as usual. And Ms. Jegstrup is … not dead.

Well, she’s definitely dead. The clocks don’t lie. But no one has said anything about her dying, which is weird as hell. I keep refreshing my feeds, waiting, but there’s nothing.

Still, when I walk on to campus Monday morning, I’m ready. I figure by now the senior class will have heard about Ms. Jegstrup and descended into chaos—the Emmas and Sophias of Chapswell High lobbying the administration to let us skip school for a week under the guise of mourning, the witchy kids pulling tarot cards in the hallway to see who’s going to be the next to die, the lit kids writing overly sentimental poetry under the oak tree, and the Christian freaks offering (so selflessly, #PraiseBe) to save the rest of us dirty sinners before it’s too late . … But none of that is happening.

It’s just a regular Monday morning. People are bitching about tests, frantically texting their moms to bring in lunches they forgot, slapping each other in the dicks … the same old bullshit. It feels weird. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to the chaos, but I was prepared for it. What I was not prepared for was this aggressive level of normalcy.

I head into first period and Peter is already there, leaning on his desk in a plain green shirt and jeans (not khakis). He looks happy. Which, like … why? I slide into my seat and he does too. He opens his mouth but then closes it and pulls out his phone.

PETERBECKETT1984:Figured it was best not to say out loud but

PETERBECKETT1984:It looks like maybe everything is okay???

Oh. Yeah, not a fucking chance. The clocks don’t miss. Not ever.

SYD_IS_NOT_HERE: no

PETERBECKETT1984: No???

SYD_IS_NOT_HERE: no

Peter frowns at his phone and then looks at me. “Are you sure?”

“As sure as a heart attack.” Which might be what took her out. Or who knows? Maybe something worse happened. Maybe she got jumped and assaulted and her body has been tossed into a dumpster in the city, her thin gray sweater covered in yesterday’s rotting banana peels and used bags of dog shit. Or maybe—

“Are you all right?” Peter’s eyebrows pull together in a concerned little V. His eyes look extra green today. It must be his shirt.

“Yeah. I was just …” Spiraling? Indulging in a cute li’l intrusive thought? “Thinking.”

Peter nods, but he turns his eyes back to the door. I know what he’s thinking, because I’ve been there. He’s thinking if he can just will it hard enough, visualize it in the right way, he can manifest Ms. Jegstrup walking through that door.

He can’t.

Seeing him all nervous like this gives me a sharp stab of guilt to the stomach. I should’ve kept this clock shit to myself. I should’ve learned after what happened before … but no. I went ahead and ran my mouth like an asshole just because some tall boy with wavy hair put a Band-Aid on my forehead. God, he looks so hopeful. It makes me want to vomit.

The bell rings and the door stays shut.

A ripple of excitement spreads through the rows of seats. “Yooooo,” Ethan says. “Looks like Jegstrup abandoned us. You know what that means, right?”

“A sub will be here soon?” Emma says. “God, I hope it’s not Thompson. That guy’s lazy eye freaks me out.”

This other kid, Tennessee, looks up from their book. “You can’t say lazy eye.”

“God, whatever,” Emma huffs. “His differently abled eye freaks me out. Better?”

“No … you—”

“Guys,” Ethan cuts in. “Who gives a shit? The point is—Jegstrup isn’t here, which means we can bounce.”

“I’m pretty sure that only applies to college classes,” Tennessee says.

“No way.” Ethan zips up his backpack. “If the teacher doesn’t show, it means you can go.”