peers.
All around her, people gathered in various levels of distress. Many students sat, staring straight ahead in the stadium seating with phones lighting up their faces. Another group sat huddled in a semi-circle, hugging and crying into each other. Lucy watched a girl with a long streak of red in her hair stroke the head of a boy bawling in her lap; she shushed him and rocked back and forth, her eyes closed tight.
Many students cried out, but most sat in stoic silence, waiting and waiting for someone to tell them what to do. In the back of the room, several teachers stood around the glow of a television. The old newscaster was still talking, his face drawn in a perpetual frown. The crowd spoke intensely, like a wave rolling from the back to the front, and Lucy just stood, planted firm, eyes wandering for a familiar face. She was desperate to see Salem.
But Salem wasn’t there.
Stepping away from the doors and up the first aisle, Lucy meandered. She looked at every face and tried to find a friendly one among them. There was a girl from science class, a boy she used to know in elementary school, a boy in her math class, a girl in yearbook. This one was in band. That one was a cheerleader. She used to talk to those three girls her freshman year at lunchtime—during the year that Salem’s family moved themselves to Texas and she found herself bereft of friendship—but they had all fallen out of touch. Lucy chose to distance herself from the crowd of “fakers,” as she labeled them, brilliantly loyal to your face and the quickest to sell you out to anyone who would listen. Lucy responded to their hurt by eating lunch in her math teacher’s room for two whole months, before, she assumed, that teacher tattled on her and Ethan came and rescued her by dragging her off to eat with his upperclassmen friends. Her entire freshman year was marred with navigating the murky waters of varying degrees of social ostracism. Then Salem’s family decided that they hated Texas and they found their way back to Portland. A move that Lucy credited with saving her life.
Lucy made eye contact with one of her former friends on accident, and as if she had conveyed some social cue that she needed to talk, the girl lurched forward from her seat, stumbling over the back of the chair in front of her.
“Lucy!” the girl screamed and then wrapped her arms around Lucy’s shoulders.
She had forgotten the first girl’s name. Under different circumstances she might have remembered, but her brain was a mess, a total fog. The name slipped away before she could grab ahold. It was Kylee. Or Keeley. Kyra. Kiyah. There it was just hiding in the back of her brain, pushed to the side and momentarily irretrievable. “I am so glad you’re here. I’m so glad to see you. I’m so glad you’re okay .” The other girls stood up from their seats and wandered over, their heads nodding in agreement, eyes wide.
“We saw you walk in. What happened ? Were you hiding?”
“I got to school late,” Lucy mumbled and then tried to extricate herself from them by walking backward. She stumbled on a backpack without an owner.
The girls exchanged glances.
“You weren’t locked out?” one whispered conspiratorially. Maddy or Molly, McKenzie. Michaela.
“Found an open door near the cafeteria,” she lied. It was a silly lie. Who cared now about the secret passageway in the pool? Who cared about any of it?
“Wow,” one girl said.
“Unlucky, I guess,” said another. “Been better if you never got inside.”
Everyone paused and then sighed in unison.
“But it’s chaos outside too,” Lucy replied. “Maybe we really are safer here.” She regretted it as soon as it left her mouth because it aligned her with their common enemy—the girls turned on her; all but baring their teeth under throaty growls.
“We’re hostages,” one of the Kylees said.
“They have us locked in this room.”
“My parents must be worried sick, I just want to get
All around her, people gathered in various levels of distress. Many students sat, staring straight ahead in the stadium seating with phones lighting up their faces. Another group sat huddled in a semi-circle, hugging and crying into each other. Lucy watched a girl with a long streak of red in her hair stroke the head of a boy bawling in her lap; she shushed him and rocked back and forth, her eyes closed tight.
Many students cried out, but most sat in stoic silence, waiting and waiting for someone to tell them what to do. In the back of the room, several teachers stood around the glow of a television. The old newscaster was still talking, his face drawn in a perpetual frown. The crowd spoke intensely, like a wave rolling from the back to the front, and Lucy just stood, planted firm, eyes wandering for a familiar face. She was desperate to see Salem.
But Salem wasn’t there.
Stepping away from the doors and up the first aisle, Lucy meandered. She looked at every face and tried to find a friendly one among them. There was a girl from science class, a boy she used to know in elementary school, a boy in her math class, a girl in yearbook. This one was in band. That one was a cheerleader. She used to talk to those three girls her freshman year at lunchtime—during the year that Salem’s family moved themselves to Texas and she found herself bereft of friendship—but they had all fallen out of touch. Lucy chose to distance herself from the crowd of “fakers,” as she labeled them, brilliantly loyal to your face and the quickest to sell you out to anyone who would listen. Lucy responded to their hurt by eating lunch in her math teacher’s room for two whole months, before, she assumed, that teacher tattled on her and Ethan came and rescued her by dragging her off to eat with his upperclassmen friends. Her entire freshman year was marred with navigating the murky waters of varying degrees of social ostracism. Then Salem’s family decided that they hated Texas and they found their way back to Portland. A move that Lucy credited with saving her life.
Lucy made eye contact with one of her former friends on accident, and as if she had conveyed some social cue that she needed to talk, the girl lurched forward from her seat, stumbling over the back of the chair in front of her.
“Lucy!” the girl screamed and then wrapped her arms around Lucy’s shoulders.
She had forgotten the first girl’s name. Under different circumstances she might have remembered, but her brain was a mess, a total fog. The name slipped away before she could grab ahold. It was Kylee. Or Keeley. Kyra. Kiyah. There it was just hiding in the back of her brain, pushed to the side and momentarily irretrievable. “I am so glad you’re here. I’m so glad to see you. I’m so glad you’re okay .” The other girls stood up from their seats and wandered over, their heads nodding in agreement, eyes wide.
“We saw you walk in. What happened ? Were you hiding?”
“I got to school late,” Lucy mumbled and then tried to extricate herself from them by walking backward. She stumbled on a backpack without an owner.
The girls exchanged glances.
“You weren’t locked out?” one whispered conspiratorially. Maddy or Molly, McKenzie. Michaela.
“Found an open door near the cafeteria,” she lied. It was a silly lie. Who cared now about the secret passageway in the pool? Who cared about any of it?
“Wow,” one girl said.
“Unlucky, I guess,” said another. “Been better if you never got inside.”
Everyone paused and then sighed in unison.
“But it’s chaos outside too,” Lucy replied. “Maybe we really are safer here.” She regretted it as soon as it left her mouth because it aligned her with their common enemy—the girls turned on her; all but baring their teeth under throaty growls.
“We’re hostages,” one of the Kylees said.
“They have us locked in this room.”
“My parents must be worried sick, I just want to get
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