I pick at a spot on the table. The room is too bright, and it reminds me of the holding cell at the police station. Now that I’ve had some distance from it, I can’t re-create the fury that drove me out of her classroom. “I don’t know.”
“What was so upsetting?”
Everything. “Nothing.”
“Lord Byron just sets you off?”
Her voice is dry, which takes me by surprise. Luckily, I’m fluent in sarcasm. “Something like that, yeah.”
She sits back in her chair, then pulls a book from her bag. “Would you read it now? Tell me what you think?”
Sweat is collecting between my shoulder blades again. “It’s a stupid poem.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Then it shouldn’t be a big deal.”
She’s right. They’re just words. They have no power over me. I can do this. I pull the book closer to me, then read the first line again.
There’s not a joy the world can give like that it takes away.
I slam the book closed. Breath rushes in and out of my lungs like I’ve won a race.
Mrs. Hillard doesn’t say a word. She’s patient, and she doesn’t react.
I sit without moving for the longest time. My hands are slick on the edge of the table.
She waits.
Eventually, my breathing slows, but I can’t look at her. My voice is so low that it’s a miracle she can hear me. “My mother read that at my sister’s funeral. I don’t—I don’t want to read it again.”
“Okay.” She’s quiet for a moment, and she slides the book away from me. Then she shifts her chair closer and puts her hand over mine. “You’re a smart kid, Declan, so I’m about to tell you something that’s going to sound pretty obvious.”
I’m frozen in place, trapped by her words. You’re a smart kid, Declan.
And she didn’t make me talk about Kerry.
“Next time,” she says, “if you’re having a problem, you can just tell me.”
I snort and pull my hand away. And here I thought she had something meaningful to say. “Yeah. Okay.”
“You think you can’t?” Her expression is challenging. “It worked just now, didn’t it?”
Well. There’s that.
I think of Juliet in the car, telling me how I could have just asked her to delete that picture.
Mrs. Hillard is still sitting patiently, but the intensity in the room is almost tangible. She’s not going to let this go. “You don’t need to give me details, but you don’t need to run out of the classroom, either. If there’s a problem, you can just tell me.”
I don’t say anything to that. I don’t know what to say to that.
“Do you trust me?” she says.
No. Yes. Maybe. “I don’t know.”
“Fair enough.” She turns to her bag again and starts rifling through a folder packed with worksheets and student compositions. “If you want to stay away from Lord Byron, I’m going to give you something else to work with.”
I hold very still. If she pulls another poem about death out of her bag, I’m out of here.
She slaps a photocopied piece of paper on the table in front of me.
Invictus, it reads. By William Ernest Henley.
“My AP students are reading it,” she says, “but I think you can handle it.”
I’m scared to read the first stanza. I want to crumple it up and bolt out of here.
I’m such a wuss. I look at the corner of the paper so I don’t have to read any more. “You want me to read it now?”
“No. Take it home. Write me two paragraphs about what he’s going through.” She pauses. “I think you’ll identify with it.”
“Sure.” I shove it into my bag. “Whatever.”
“Declan.”
My name is weighted, but not with warning. It makes me hesitate. “What?”
“Give me a chance. Okay?”
“Sure.” Then I yank the zipper on the bag, throw it over my shoulder, and walk out of the room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
From: The Dark
To: Cemetery Girl
Date: Monday, October 7 2:15:44 PM
Subject: Poetry
Have you ever read “Youth and Age” by Lord Byron? It’s the worst poem in the world. It’s all about the decay of death.
My mother read it at my sister’s funeral.
I wanted to rip it out of her hands. I mean, who reads something like that at a funeral? I would have preferred a passage from the Bible, and if you know me, that’s saying something.
We read the poem in English this morning. Well, I didn’t read it. I walked out.
So I can relate to your near miss with detention.
You asked if anyone else knows the whole truth about what happened with my family. My best friend knows most of it. I don’t think he knows how long it all went on, but that doesn’t really matter now, does it?
I appreciate all the vehemence on my behalf, but you’re wrong. It might not have been all my fault, but some of it was.
It’s absolutely killing me that I don’t know who he is. I take AP English, but we’re not reading Byron, so that only eliminates about fifteen guys.
I try to think of who in the senior class could use a word like “vehemence” but still be defiant enough to walk out of class. The obvious answer is right in front of me: I could just ask him. But that would mean ending this. I don’t know if I’m ready for that. Maybe the mystery is part of what’s so attractive about him. Maybe I’d meet him and he’d be horrible.
He wouldn’t be. I just know.
But still.
He said once that Mom probably wouldn’t like him much, but he’s wrong about that. I think she’d like him a whole lot. She’d find him fascinating.
I find him fascinating.
Mr. Gerardi has a group of students at his desk when I find him after the final bell. I linger in the back of the classroom, looking at the photographs stapled to the wall. These must be from the beginner photography elective, because I remember the assignment. The photographs are all simple shots of nature, but a few stand out with creative use of light. One in particular, a shot of an ant crawling through grains of sugar on wood, catches my eye. I love the composition, with a torn-open sugar packet blurred in the background.
“I love that one, too,” says Mr. Gerardi behind me. “I hope she sticks with it.”
“Freshman?” I ask.
“Junior. She was trying to fill an elective, and discovered she has a flair for it.” He pauses, and I keep my eyes on the photography exhibit. I don’t want to look at him, because I’m still so uncertain about what I’m doing here. He speaks to my shoulder. “Did you want to see the photo I had in mind for the yearbook cover wrap?”
Being here after staying away for so long feels like I’m somehow betraying my mother’s memory, but curiosity keeps driving me forward. I wet my lips. “Sure.”
He turns, leaving me to follow him, and I do. At his desk, he turns the monitor around so I can see.
I stop breathing. There on the screen is the first photograph I took on Thursday. Declan and Rev sitting on the quad on one side, the cheerleaders practicing a routine on the other.
I knew. Somewhere inside me, I knew it would be this one.
“I love it,” Mr. Gerardi says in a rush. “I think it’ll make a perfect cover, because of the negative space in between. The cheerleaders symbolize school spirit and togetherness, and their half of the photo could be on the front, while the boys could be on the back, symbolic of friendship, of the isolation everyone occasionally feels in high school—”
“I don’t know.” My voice comes out as a croak.
“You don’t know?”
“I’ll have to ask them.”
“The girls? Do you know them? Parents sign a disclaimer at the beginning of each school year. We don’t need individual permission for yearbook shots—”
“No.” My voice cracks again. Rev said I didn’t need to delete the p
hotograph, but that doesn’t mean he’d be okay with it splashed across the cover of the yearbook for our graduating year. I have no idea how many yearbooks are produced on an annual basis, but there are over eight hundred graduating seniors alone. “No, the boys.”
“Okay.” He sounds puzzled. “Do you think it would be a problem?”
I keep thinking of my conversations with The Dark about our roads in life and whether they’re predestined. Fate seems determined to send me careening through the paths of Declan Murphy and Rev Fletcher. “I don’t . . . I have no idea.”
Mr. Gerardi hesitates. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
His words are guarded, and it pulls my attention off the screen. “What?”
“This seems like it’s a big deal. I’m trying to figure out why.”
“I just . . . I want to make sure it’s okay.”
He studies me. “Do you want me to ask them?”
I let that scenario play out in my mind. A strange teacher asking if a photo they didn’t want taken could be used as the cover for the yearbook.
I imagine Declan’s reaction after the way he acted Thursday afternoon.
“No,” I say quickly. “I’ll ask.”
He gives me an encouraging look. “And then you’ll edit the photo yourself?”
“Yes. Sure.” I suddenly need to get out of here. “Later this week, okay?”
I don’t even wait for an answer. I flee the room like a bomb is counting down.
The parking lot is only half full by the time I make it out of the school. The only cars left are students with sport or club obligations, of which I have none.
Oh, and Rev and Declan.
They’re standing behind Declan’s car, which is exactly as I remember it, only in more need of a paint job now that I’m looking at it in the sunlight. They’re leaning on the tailgate, and Declan has a cigarette between his fingers.
I stop under a small copse of trees in the middle of the parking lot. I didn’t anticipate seeing them right now, but I’m not surprised that they’re still here, just like they were still here last Thursday, when I took the picture in question. I have to walk past them to get to my car, and the look in Declan’s eyes reminds me of his temper, so different from his attitude when he approached me in the cafeteria this morning.
Hey, I wanted to ask you something.
What?
“Stalker much?” Declan calls.
But his voice isn’t cruel. Is he teasing?
I sheepishly step out from under the tree but stop in the middle of the parking lot, about fifteen feet away from them. “I didn’t want to get in the middle of . . . whatever.”
“Whatever?” Declan takes a drag on his cigarette. “We’re killing time.”
“You know you’re not allowed to smoke on school property.”
He takes another drag and blows smoke rings. “You seem awfully concerned about my smoking habit.”
“I hate it. It’s disgusting.”
The words are out of my mouth before I really consider them, and I brace myself for him to launch into nastiness—or to flick the cigarette at me.
He does neither. If anything, he looks startled, and he tosses it to the ground, then stomps it out. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”
He could sprout wings and I’d be less shocked right now. I mock-gasp to cover my surprise. “But however will you maintain your badass façade?”
“I’ll manage.”
Rev does a slow clap, then bows his head in my direction. “Thank you. I hate them, too.”
Declan shoots him a glare. “Shut up, Rev.” His eyes return to me, and he gives me a look up and down. “Still afraid of me?”
“No.”
“Then why are you standing way over there?”
I don’t know if that’s an invitation to join them or what, but I take a few steps closer. “Why are you killing time?”
Declan shrugs and leans back against his car. “There are maybe three places I’m allowed to be. This one isn’t within shouting distance of my stepfather.”
I can’t stop looking at him, and it’s almost to the point where I can’t even listen to what he’s saying. He looks good in the sunlight because it brings out red in his hair and brightens his face no matter what expression he’s wearing. I could study him all day and not get bored. “And here I thought you were posing with your vintage Mustang.”
Declan’s face goes still, and I can tell I’ve said the wrong thing.
Rev lets out a low whistle. “Those are fighting words.”
“This is not a Mustang,” Declan says. He sounds more offended about the car than he did about the cigarette.
“Okay, then what is it?”
“It’s a Dodge Charger.” He snorts. “I don’t know why I’m surprised.”
“They all look the same to me.”
He points across the parking lot at my late-model Honda. “That doesn’t look like this”—he jerks a thumb at his own car— “any more than those two cars look alike.” He points at two cars across the row, one a minivan, one a four-door sedan.
“If you say so.”
He pulls his phone out of his pocket and unlocks it. “Here. I’ll show you what a Mustang looks like.”
Rev grabs the phone. “No. We’re not starting this.” Then he looks at the screen and must notice the time, because he says, “We have to go anyway.”
I take another step forward. “Where are you going?”
I don’t know what made me ask, but I know I don’t want him to leave. Like every time life throws us together, this moment seems destined to end before I’m ready.
Rev exchanges a glance with Declan, then smiles at me from under his hoodie. “Babysitting. Want to come?”
“For Babydoll?”
He nods.
“Scared?” taunts Declan, his eyes challenging.
“Not at all,” I lie. “Let’s go.”
Rev’s house is the mirror image of Rowan’s: a modified split-level with a sprawling lower half, and a long stretch of grass leading to the street. His house features blue siding with white trim instead of beige siding with brown trim, but it’s a pretty generic middle-class neighborhood. I could walk into half the homes on this street and know my way around. Nothing about his house is surprising.
No, what throws me for a loop is that I see his mother and realize Rev must be adopted.
Facts about Rev click into place in rapid succession, like my brain needs to connect all the dots before I’ll be coherent. Declan said something about Rev being taken away from his father. I just hadn’t played that out all the way.
Rev said his mother would be working for the afternoon, and this, combined with the knowledge that she’s an accountant, had me imagining someone harried and wearing a pencil skirt. Not a woman with short-cropped hair and voluptuous curves, dressed in a flour-speckled red T-shirt and jeans. She has a bright, welcoming smile, radiating so much warmth that I feel lucky to be invited inside.
She whispers hellos and embraces each of us like we’ve all been coming here after school for years. It’s kind of weird, but also kind of nice to be welcomed so openly. She smells like vanilla and sugar and baby powder. When she gets to me, she whispers, “It’s so nice to meet you. Call me Kristin,” and ushers me into the house.
I’m confused by all the whispering, but I whisper back, feeling foolish. “Hi. I’m Juliet.”
Declan leans close enough to speak low. “The baby must be sleeping.”
“Oh.” His breath brushes against my ear, and heat flares on my cheeks. “I’ll be quiet,” I say.
“Nonsense,” whispers Kristin. “Just go downstairs if you’re going to make any noise.” She presses a baby monitor into Rev’s hand. “I’ll bring some cookies down, but then I need to go into my office.”
“Thanks, Mom.” He glances at me, and his voice is dry. “Want to come downstairs and make some noise?”
I know he’s teasing, but my cheeks practically catch on fire bec
ause it just sounds suggestive.
Kristin swats him. “Go on downstairs, you. I have work to do.”
It’s so normal, so unassuming. My mother was never like this—she wasn’t around enough to see my friends come over all that often. Regret seeps into my chest, but the boys are going down the steps, leaving me to follow.
The lower level is covered by hardwood floors, and the entire space is wide open. One corner has a television mounted on the wall and a sectional sofa. Another corner has two doors that probably lead to a laundry room and a bathroom. The third corner has colorful mats, a play chalkboard, and boxes of toys stacked neatly along the wall. The final corner, half enclosed by the stairs, has thick black mats on the floor, a weight bench, and some kind of punching bag suspended from the ceiling. Free weights sit racked along the wall, under a row of mirrors.
Rev glances at Declan, and some kind of unspoken message passes between them, but I can’t identify it before he looks back at me. “Do you want something to drink?”
I inhale to answer—but my throat catches. Being in the presence of a loving mother reminds me of how much I’ve lost. My brain locks up as grief tangles up the gears inside my head.
I should be at the cemetery—I haven’t visited her in days. Not since I ran from the dance. And now I’m . . . what? Hiding?
Yes. I’m hiding. Hiding behind their normalcy, their lack of sorrow.
They’re not even my friends.
Guilt punches me in the chest. Hard. I feel myself caving in from the force of it.
What would I tell her? Sorry, Mom. I was intrigued by a boy.
Kristin comes down the stairs, and the pressure on my chest snaps. I take a moment to turn away, inhaling deeply, blinking away tears. She sets the plate on a table behind the couch, and half tiptoes back up the stairs.
Thank god. I don’t think I could have handled maternal attention right this second. My body feels like it’s on a hair trigger.
I need to get it together. This is why people avoid me. Someone asks if I want a drink and I have a panic attack.
“You’re okay.” Declan is beside me, and his voice is low and soft, the way it was in the foyer. He’s so hard all the time, and that softness takes me by surprise. I blink up at him.