Stones and Spark by Sibella Giorello

around the pushed-up bleachers. Even from over here, even in the dark, I can see them.
    Couples.
    Couples everywhere. So close they merge into one. I push away the pang in my heart, needling me. I remind myself that these couples have no idea. Love isn't a corsage and a limo ride and a shiny dress. It's not even a love song. In fact, if these couples knew the truth, they might avoid the whole thing altogether. I mean, look at my dad. He's vowed to love my mother and what does he get in return? Pain. Suffering. Grief.
    And yet, if I know all that, why does it feel like an invisible hand is squeezing my heart?
    But when I step outside, the feeling evaporates.
    “Where is Miss Parson?” Mr. Ellis says.
    “I don’t know.”
    “She went inside to retrieve you.”
    “Really? I didn't see her.” This statement is true. I heard her, while locked in the stall.
    “Ah, there you are!” he calls out, as Parsnip barges from the gym.
    The woman always looks one degree from boiling over, but her temperature rises as she informs Ellis that Mr. Sandbag "caught" me "running through the halls."
    “Neither you nor Miss Levinson have permission to sneak into this school after hours,” Parsnip says. “There will be consequences.”
    Before she can count those out to me, the doors burst open again. The couples start pouring out.
    “Form a line!” Ellis shouts. “All rides must be accounted for!”
    I walk away, feeling a deep stab of resentment. But the chattering crowd seems to fade when I reach the bike rack. Drew’s purple Schwinn is here. Now. I stare at it, trying to figure things out. Maybe she moved the bike after the plumbing truck left? But that still doesn't explain why she didn't come to dinner. I touch the metal frame, glancing around, hoping to see her step from the darkness, a huge smile on her face. The frame feels cold under my fingers. When I look down at the lock, the black cable snakes through the front spokes.
    Once.
    I lean down.
    The lock circles the wheel and the bike rack. But only once.
    I stand up. My heart is pounding again. Drew maintains more compulsive habits than I can count, and one of them is twisting that cable through her bike spokes twice. She always makes a figure eight: the sign of infinity.
    And another habit: the combination's numbers.
    I lift the black bar, reading the five numbers: 5-8-3-9-2.
    My heart is rioting.
    Never. She would never lock her bike like this. Like that white arrow on her locker must point at zero, Drew always sets this combination back to 0-0-0-0-0.
    Always.
    I stare at it, feeling like I must be going crazy.
    “Raleigh?”
    I glance up. My heart kicks again. But this time for a totally different reason. I shake the hair from my eyes, look away.
    “I thought that was you,” he says.
    Unlike all these other rent-a-tux guys, DeMott Fielding's tuxedo looks like every seam was stitched to fit his body. And it’s a very nice body. My heart does another flip.
    “Why were you running through the gym?” he asks.
    I keep telling myself he's not my type. But if that's really true, how come I always find myself looking for him in church? And how come right now I'm trying to find some really cool reason to explain why, dressed in baggy sweats, I bolted through the dance?
    As usual, no great words come in time.
    “What's wrong?” he asks.
    “Nothing.”
    “You don't look like nothing's wrong. No offense.”
    I glance down at the bike. It sits there, waiting like some Exhibit A to prove I'm really not a total dork.
    “I'm looking for my friend.” I even pat the bike frame. As if this proves something. “This is her bike.”
    He nods. But it's vague, some gesture of politeness. Which makes me feel like an even bigger dork.
    I don't want to sound crazy, since everyone knows my mother is completely nuts. But I really don't have a lot of options right now. Tell him the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Yeah. I snuck out of my house, ran all the way here, in the