“In a sense,” Dr. Palmer said. “I think he’s growing, maybe. Evolving. The point is, it’s impossible to stay static, no matter what happens to us. We’re always changing. We’re always growing. And we’re always healing.”
She held Claire’s gaze for a long moment, before smiling one last time.
“You’re going to be late,” she said. “I’ll write you a pass, okay?”
Claire nodded, standing up and following Dr. Palmer to her desk. The kids in the class were buzzing behind her and it made Claire nervous (breathing, breathing) to stand with her back to them. Dr. Palmer handed the pass to her. Claire took it and stood there, thinking.
“What do you think the Monster would be like today?” she asked quietly. “If he got the chance to live happily ever after?”
Dr. Palmer didn’t hesitate.
“He would do the best he could, every day.”
Claire spent most of her trigonometry class thinking about Dr. Palmer’s statement, a decision that submarined her on multiple fronts. First, her teacher—a squat man with an impressive braided ponytail—said her name three times before she shook herself out of her own brain and, as the class tried to muffle its laughter, had to admit that she wasn’t listening.
But perhaps more importantly, the Monster had once again taken up residence in her imagination. Before, she empathized with its struggle—constantly reacting to a world that never felt safe. It had been an intellectual exercise, something that would keep her up at night. But now it pushed too close to her own life.
If that wasn’t bad enough, she couldn’t separate that Monster from the menacing monsters of Dark’s notebooks. He’d given shape to something that, until now, had been formless. And while Dr. Palmer’s statement—he would try his best—made her feel hopeful, she couldn’t keep herself from focusing on the sharp hands and reaching eyes that seemed to crawl out of her subconscious until every part of her body was humming with anxiety.
The rational explanation was that Dark simply connected with the book—probably the movie, but maybe the book—in not quite the same way she had, but in some way. And if she wanted to be stereotypical, she could point to the evidence—black clothes, pale skin, dyed black hair. He looked the type.
But the fury of his drawings. The lines that seemed to come from a different, almost needful place. It didn’t look like passion. It looked like anger.
And that’s what worried her. That’s what tied her in knots and had teachers calling her name, period after period, until she was coming down the stairs for lunch, stuck in that same fog.
God was standing against the wall, waiting for her. When he saw her, he jumped forward and matched her pace.
“Hey, can we talk for a minute? Like, in private?”
Claire looked around the hallway. There wasn’t a private place in this entire school, a fact that routinely laid her low. The hallways were eternally clogged, forcing Claire to press herself against the walls just to keep moving against the constant traffic jam. She couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if they all had to move fast.
“We can go to the choir room. The teacher hates me, but I’m sure she’s forgotten about the incident.”
“The incident?” Claire asked, forgetting the hallway for a moment. She laughed nervously.
“Freshman year. I sang a solo and . . . it didn’t go well. Just leave it at that.”
Claire tried to imagine God in choir, dressed in a matching outfit with his hair just so. Singing and pantomiming for parents and grandparents. The smile that appeared on her face disappeared when she saw the look on God’s face.
“Yeah, sure,” she said.
The choir room was only a few steps down the hallway, on the other side of the main entrance to the school. And like God promised, it was mostly quiet other than a couple of boys who were working their way through a piece of music on the piano. They ignored God and Claire, save a cursory glance when the door opened.
“Okay, I don’t know how to say this.”
Claire could feel her heart rate climbing as he spoke. She’d never been good with conflict, not even before. She always wanted to control the situation, no matter how small. And now, after, she couldn’t tell how much was control and how much was simple fear.
“About Dark—”
“I didn’t open his door. The cat did it. But I’m not sure what to think about that drawing or the notebooks and . . . help. Please.”
She had to take a breath after she finished talking, and God closed his eyes for a second before he spoke.
“I understand. I do.”
God paused again and Claire recognized the look on his face. It was hesitation mixed with the need to say something really important. Her brother. Those early therapists. Teachers. She’d seen it plenty of times before.
“They’re fucking scary, okay? And I don’t know why he draws them. And I don’t particularly care because . . . those drawings? They keep him balanced somehow. Before he started drawing them, I literally worried about him all the time.”
God shook his head, like he was trying to get rid of a bad dream.
“Leg and I have spent a lot of time protecting him from, well, everybody. From their assumptions. Their accusations. All of it. And, if I’m being honest, I don’t want to have to protect him from you, too.”
“What are you protecting him from exactly?” Claire asked.
God looked over at the two boys, who were really starting to amp up their volume—their enthusiasm.
“If there’s a problem in this school, they always look at Dark. Doesn’t matter what it is. All people see are the clothes and how aloof he is”—God smiled here, as if he was remembering something—“and it makes me tired. It pisses me off. And I just want people to see him the way I see him.”
“And how’s that?” Claire asked.
She studied every muscle twitch, every blink of his eyes—looking for even the slightest tell. The slightest evidence that God was trying to hide something.
He looked her straight in the eye and said, “He’s the best person I know.”
Whatever sincerity had powered his response quickly turned to embarrassment. God rubbed the back of his neck, as if he could massage the redness away.
“Look. I just wanted to clear this up, you know? We think you’re cool. Hell, Dark thinks you’re cool—and that dude hates everybody.”
God patted Claire on her knee, which seemed a little too familiar while also being oddly formal at the same time. And then he stood up, stretching his back and giving the two boys a brief look that, for a moment, bordered on panic. A distant memory, rearing its head. He reached a hand down to Claire.
“So, what do you think? Lunch? Maybe we start all over?”
Chapter Eight
WHEN CLAIRE GOT HOME FROM SCHOOL, DERRICK HAD all of his boards out in the living room and he was meticulously checking the grip tape, adjusting the trucks, inspecting every part of every board. She fell down onto the couch behind him and closed her eyes.
“How was school?” he asked, using a knife to work some grime from the inside of a wheel. When Claire didn’t answer, he turned around so he could see her. “Hey—you good?”