“Read it again to yourselves,” says Mrs. Hillard. She taps on Elijah Walker’s textbook and whispers, “Put your phone away.”
He gives a heavy sigh and shoves his phone into his bag.
“Read it again.” She stops beside my desk and barely gives me a glance, her fingers tapping the textbook absently before she moves on. Teachers never expect much from me. “Read it again and tell me what this poem is really about.”
Someone coughs. Someone shifts.
Silence.
She turns at the back of the room, and for the first time her composure cracks. “Someone must have an idea. Someone. Anyone. There are no wrong answers here.”
Says the woman who just told two people they were wrong.
“What is this poem about?” she demands.
My eyes skip to the page to see what the big deal is. Do not go gentle into that good night.
Before I know it, I’ve read the whole thing. It’s not about nighttime or darkness at all.
Mrs. Hillard is still pacing the aisles. “He says, ‘Rage, rage against the dying of the light.’ What is Dylan Thomas feeling?”
“Desperation.”
The word is out of my mouth before I can stop it. My voice is rough with misuse—I haven’t talked to anyone since I split a bagel with Rev in the cafeteria three hours ago. I’ve drawn some focus, too. Half these people have probably never heard me speak.
Mrs. Hillard comes back up the aisle and stops beside my desk.
I don’t look at her. I should have kept my mouth shut. I doodle on my notebook like someone else said it, but she’s not an idiot.
“Desperation,” she says quietly. “Why?”
“I guessed.”
“You didn’t guess. Why desperation?”
My hand goes still, and now I glare at her. You could hear a pin drop in the classroom. I don’t like being the center of attention, and I want her to move on. “I said it’s a guess.”
“Okay, guess again,” she says equably. “Why desperation?”
I slam my book closed, and two kids near me jump. “Maybe he’s afraid of the damn dark.”
She doesn’t flinch. “Maybe he is. What kind of darkness?”
The wrong kind. Sudden emotion clocks me upside the head. My shoulders tense, and I want to rip this book to shreds. My breathing is so loud I sound like a trapped wild horse.
“Give it a shot,” she says. “What kind of darkness?”
Her voice is encouraging. I’m about to rattle apart, but she thinks she’s somehow going to get through to me, to find shiny silver under a little bit of tarnish. I’ve seen this look before: in social workers, in school psychologists, in other teachers.
What they fail to understand is that there’s no point in trying.
Keith Mason snorts under his breath a few rows over. “They probably don’t read much poetry in juvie.”
I push out of my chair so hard it scrapes the floor.
Mrs. Hillard is quicker than I’d give her credit for. Braver, too. I’ve got six inches on her, but she blocks my path.
“Prove him wrong,” she says quickly. “Answer my question. What kind of darkness?”
It takes me a moment to filter intelligent thoughts. I tear my eyes away from Keith and look down at her. My head is spinning with emotion from the girl’s note and the memories the poem evoked and the humiliation from another reminder of what I am. Of how these people see me.
“He’s not wrong,” I say, and my voice is rough again. I drop into my chair and keep my eyes on my book. I find my pencil and take up the same doodle.
She inhales to say something more, and my fingers threaten to snap my pencil. Without meaning to, I start digging a hole through the paper.
The bell rings, and the students around me explode into a flurry of activity. The teacher begins calling instructions about our homework assignment, some paragraph I’ll probably write between classes.
I slip the girl’s note into the textbook and shove it into my backpack. I have a clear path to the door. Everyone avoids me.
Except Mrs. Hillard. She steps in front of me again. “Do you have a minute?”
I’m tempted to ignore her. Students are streaming out of the room around us, and it would be simple to glance away and slip into the flow. If she looked like she was going to write me a detention or otherwise hassle me, I wouldn’t hesitate.
She doesn’t look like that, so I stop.
“Are you going to be late for your next class?” she says.
I shake my head. “I have lunch.” Then I realize I could have lied and gotten out of here without too much trouble.
She nods at a desk in the front row. “Sit down for a minute.”
I inhale and hesitate—but then I let it out in a sigh, and I slide into the seat. It’s the first time I’ve sat in the front row of any classroom in this school.
“I want to talk to you about what you said,” she begins solemnly.
Oh. Oh. I’m such an idiot. I begin to rise from the chair, and a familiar bitterness settles in my chest. “Whatever. Just write me a detention so I can get the hell out of here.”
She blinks, startled. “I don’t want to write you a detention.”
I frown. “Then what do you want?”
“I want to know why you said desperation.”
“It was a stupid guess! Maybe you should have asked—”
“Are you really so afraid to appear smart?” She leans back against her desk and folds her arms across her chest.
I scowl, but I don’t say anything.
She doesn’t say anything, either.
The weight of her words pins me in this chair. My pride picks them apart. Afraid. Are you really so afraid? To appear smart?
I’m not a bad student—that’s a good way to get hassled, and I don’t need to give these people any more reason to get in my face. There was a time when I was a good student, when my mother would pin my report cards on the refrigerator. Now I only bother with enough work to scrape by, making sure I don’t fail anything.
Her words are a dare.
We sit there for the longest time.
“I’m missing lunch,” I finally say.
Her shoulders fall. A little. Enough. “Okay,” she sighs. She nods toward the door. “Go ahead.”
I’m halfway down the hallway when her voice catches me. “Declan. Wait. Your assignment.”
I turn, and she’s coming down the hallway, a folded slip of paper between her fingers. “I heard it in class.”
“No, I want you to write me something else.” She holds out the paper. “Write me as little or as much of an answer as you want.”
I take the paper, and her eyes light up.
Then I crumple it in my fist and turn away.
I skip the line in the cafeteria because Rev will have enough food to feed an army. Kristin always packs something extra for me.
I can’t remember the last time my mother packed me a lunch. Not like I deserve it.
I drop the crumpled piece of paper on the table, then slide onto the bench across from Rev. We have the table to ourselves. Rain rattles the windows and the place is packed, but no one bothers us.
“You look like the grim reaper,” I say, because he does. His hoodie has a skeleton silk-screened on the chest and arms, and as usual, the hood is up.
“I think that’s the point.” He uncrumples the paper and reads. “‘Why is Dylan Thomas desperate?’ What is this?”
“English homework. That’s not the note I want to show you.”
He pulls a sandwich bag out of his lunch sack and slides it across the table. “More from your girl?”
My girl. I shouldn’t like that. But I do.
He knows we’ve kept up the communication, but I haven’t shown him any of her notes since the night I told him about her. Our conversations have turned too personal, and I don’t like the idea of her sharing my secrets with others. This note is short and vague, and I have to tell him.
He stares
at the words while I unwrap two slices of banana bread. Each slice is spread with cream cheese and topped with raisins and walnuts. I’m instantly starving. I want to shove all of it in my face at once.
“She’s our age,” says Rev.
“Yeah.”
He glances around, as if she could be watching us. Instead of the same glee I felt, his expression is serious. “Are you sure someone’s not messing with you somehow?”
“Messing with me how?”
“She doesn’t want to meet you. You don’t know she’s seventeen. She could be a fifty-year-old guy getting off on this whole thing.”
I grab the letter out of his hands and jam it back into my backpack. “Shut up, Rev.”
He watches me eat for a moment. “Let me see it again.”
“No.”
“Okay.” He pulls a can of carbonated water out of his backpack and pops the lid.
Sometimes I want to punch him. I find the letter and slide it across the table.
He reads it again. It makes me feel all jittery inside.
His eyes flick up. “She likes you.”
I shrug and steal his drink. It tastes like someone drowned an orange in a bottle of Perrier, and I cough.
Rev smiles. “You like her.”
“How can you drink this crap?”
His smile widens. “Is it making you crazy that she won’t reveal herself?”
“Seriously, Rev, do you have any regular water?”
He’s no fool. “What do you want to do?”
I take a long breath and blow it out. I run a hand through my hair. “I don’t know.”
“You know.”
“I want to stake out the grave. This waiting between letters is killing me.”
“Suggest email.”
“She doesn’t want to tell me anything more than her age. She’s not going to give me her email address.”
“Maybe not her real email. But you could set up a private account and give her the address. See if she writes you.”
It’s so simple it’s brilliant. I hate that I didn’t think of it. “Rev, I could kiss you.”
“Brush your teeth first.” He reclaims his bizarre can of water.
“What if she doesn’t write back?”
He puts down her note and taps the words And that’s what I like so much about it. “She will, Dec. She will.”
CHAPTER TEN
I don’t want to lose this, either.
But maybe we could take this digital, so we’re not at the mercy of the elements? I set up an anonymous account.
[email protected] Your move, Cemetery Girl.
Wow.
The morning breeze is chilly, and it ruffles the paper. I read it again.
Wow. Wow.
Suddenly, I need to move.
I kiss my palm and slap it to the gravestone. “Sorry, Mom. I need to go.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
From: Cemetery Girl
To: The Dark
Date: Wednesday, October 2 7:17:00 AM
Subject: Going digital
The Dark? Don’t you think that’s kind of ghoulish?
She actually sent me an email.
She sent me an email.
I’m sitting in the school library and grinning like an idiot. I haven’t linked this account to my phone yet, because I really didn’t think she’d respond. I almost didn’t leave the note last night. Melonhead—Frank—kept asking why I was so jumpy.
I told him it was all the drugs, and he gave me a shove and told me I shouldn’t joke about those things.
My eyes flick up to the time stamp. Wednesday. Today.
Not just today, but twenty minutes ago. My heart rate doubles. She could be here. She could be in the library right this instant. I cast a furtive glance around, trying to be inconspicuous about it. Most of the computers are occupied, but I have no way of knowing what anyone is doing. The monitors have those screen protectors that only allow someone to read the screen if they’re looking straight at it. The students run the gamut from the freshman boy with leaking acne to an Asian girl with pink streaks in her hair who looks like she might be wearing pajamas.
Rev’s voice echoes in my head. She could be a fifty-year-old guy getting off on this whole thing.
I shove the thought out of my mind and look around again. Everyone seems to be actively doing something, typing or clicking or reading. No one is sneaking glances the way I am.
I’m such an idiot. Why would she be sneaking glances? She could have sent the email from home anyway. It’s not like the email came with a label like, Sent from Hamilton High School Library.
The librarian walks over to the computer bank. I have no idea what her name is, but she looks like she’s pushing seventy. “Three minutes to the bell. Start saving your work if you haven’t already.”
I can’t compose a reply in three minutes. Especially not a reply to something criticizing my email address.
I shut down the computer and sling my backpack over my shoulder. The hallways are packed with students on their way to class, but I let myself fall into the flow. I pull out my phone and start linking the email address so I’ll get a notification when she writes again.
Then I stop. I don’t like the idea of her emails being dumped into the same inbox with notices about court appearances and school detentions. It’s too much of a reminder of who and what I really am.
I look to see if Freemail has its own app.
Bingo. Not only does the service have its own application, but there’s also a chat feature and a customizable notification.
I should not be this excited about a chat feature. I don’t even know this girl.
That doesn’t stop me from looking to see if she’s on. She’s not. Maybe she doesn’t have the app.
My homeroom teacher is trying to get everyone to take their seats when I walk into the classroom. It’s louder than a pep rally in here.
They all ignore me. I don’t care. I slouch into my seat at the back and start typing.
CHAPTER TWELVE
From: The Dark
To: Cemetery Girl
Date: Wednesday, October 2 8:16:00 AM
Subject: Ghoulish
We met by exchanging letters in a cemetery. I don’t think either of us is in a position to call the other ghoulish.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said your father did, about how he was going to get rid of your mother’s equipment. When my sister died, my mother didn’t want to get rid of anything. She refused to touch anything Kerry had touched. Before she walked out of the house, Kerry had eaten a grilled cheese sandwich, and she’d left a plate by the sink with all the crusts sitting there. She loved grilled cheese and made one just about every day—which meant she left a stupid plate sitting there every day. My mom used to lay into her about it.
“The dishwasher is right there, Kerry! You’re not going to have someone cleaning up after you for the rest of your life, you know!”
After she died, Mom couldn’t touch the plate. It sat there for weeks, until mold grew on the crusts. It drew ants. It was disgusting. Once I tried to clean it up. I thought it would help, I guess—so she wouldn’t have to do it.
She screamed at me and told me to never touch anything of Kerry’s, ever again. She was so upset I almost couldn’t understand her.
I ran. I hid.
It’s embarrassing to type that out. I almost deleted it. But that’s the point of all the cloak-and-dagger, isn’t it?
I’ve never really been scared of my mother, but that day I was. I wasn’t really afraid of her hurting me, though that was part of it. She’s not a big woman, but that day she seemed huge.
I was scared of her grief. It seemed so much bigger than mine, and I worried it would overtake me. My father was in jail, my sister was dead, and my mother was trapped in her own private pain.
I was responsible for all of it.
/>
I was scared she would do something irreparable.
I was scared I would lose her.
I didn’t stay hidden for long. She came looking for me, and I didn’t really have anywhere to go. I was thirteen. She found me in my closet. Her eyes were red, but she wasn’t crying, and her voice was soft, so soft. When I came out of the closet, she put her hands on my cheeks and apologized. She kept stroking my hair, telling me that we only had each other now, and we had to help take care of each other. Then she said I could start by helping her with something in the kitchen.
The dish with the crusts was gone, and the counter smelled of bleach. Mom wanted me to box up all the dishes. She said she couldn’t touch them anymore. I remember placing each dish in a box, so carefully, because I didn’t want to do anything to set her off again.
I shouldn’t have bothered. We took them all to the dump.
She made me throw them into the Dumpster while she stood there smoking a cigarette. I’d never seen my mother smoke, but there she was, staring down at the box of shattered dishes, a cigarette shaking between her fingers.
I’d never seen anyone do something like that. I thought she was losing her mind. A part of me wanted to run again, but a bigger part of me was scared to leave her alone.
After two drags, she stomped on the cigarette and said, “Let’s go buy some dishes. You can pick them out.”
I don’t know what the point of this story is, except maybe to say that sometimes you get to a point where it hurts too much, and you’ll do anything to get rid of the pain.
Even if it means doing something that hurts someone else.
I feel like I need a cigarette.
No. That’s not true. I hate smoking. It’s disgusting.
But still. I need something.
I love the feel of his words. I’m supposed to be on my way to meet Rowan for lunch, but my steps are slow. The hallway is packed with people desperate for something other than class time, and they jostle me along. My thoughts aren’t focused on any destination; they’re trapped in time with a thirteen-year-old boy watching his mother lose her marbles.
“Juliet! What perfect timing.”
Mr. Gerardi stands in front of me, leaning against the door to his classroom.