And for a split second, her brain turned itself off and functioned normally. She was sore, end of story. There were no other messages, no low-grade terror.
For a single moment, she felt fine.
Derrick was dressed and sitting at the kitchen table when she came into the room. As she was pouring cereal into a bowl, he casually suggested that he could drive her to school, no big deal.
Claire stopped pouring and swallowed once. The bus yesterday. The train a few weeks ago. He was trying to protect her. He didn’t think she was fine.
“That sounds good,” she managed, keeping her back to him as she ate her cereal—so he couldn’t see how hard she was working to fight off the tears of frustration.
They drove slowly through the snow-covered streets.
Derrick turned up a song on the radio, nodding his head thoughtfully with the beat as they waited for the cars in front of them to pull forward in the drop-off lane, every other kid getting out of their car and rushing through the cold without a second thought.
“Well, shit. Look at this.”
At first she thought Derrick was pointing to the school resource officer huddled in the concrete crook of the main building, slowly bringing a steaming cup of coffee to his lips. But just above him were three boys mimicking and mocking every movement the man made.
“Maybe the community college comment got to them,” Derrick said, just as the resource officer looked up and Dark, God, and Leg pushed away from the railing, laughing.
Claire didn’t understand the urge to get out of the car. And maybe it was because she hadn’t moved that fast in months, but when she reached for the door, she couldn’t get it open. Derrick took in the whole sad struggle with the handle.
Then he laughed and unlocked the door with a push of a button. Claire shot him a dirty look.
“What?” Derrick said, still smiling. “Go to school already.”
Once she was out of the car, she tried to walk normally. Not fast, not slow. Just normal. She was so focused, she nearly jumped when she reached the top of the stairs and Leg called out her name.
He held his arms out like he wanted to give her a hug. At first Claire mistook God and Dark’s obvious shock for coldness, the distant way people seemed to treat everybody who hadn’t lived in Minnesota for generations. But then God smiled and, finally, so did Dark.
“So. You go here.” Dark looked even more uncomfortable than he had at the skate park.
“Nah,” Leg said, “she’s stalking you.”
“No . . . I go here,” Claire confirmed, just as the first warning bell rang above them. None of them moved, even though Claire instinctively took a half step toward the door.
“Did you bring your board?” God asked. Claire shook her head. “We’re taking the bus to the Lair after school. You should come.”
Claire was about to say something when the school resource officer came huffing up the stairs.
“The—bell—rang,” he managed.
Leg looked at his wrist, where there was no watch. “Is it that time already?”
Dark smiled and mumbled something to God, who laughed.
“You guys think this is a joke?”
“Not this,” Dark said, nodding at the security guard. “More like, you.”
The cop must’ve thought Claire was an easier target, because even though the three of them were nearly doubled over with laughter, he took Claire by the arm (breathing, breathing) and started pulling her toward the door.
“Bro, let go of her,” God said.
“You need to get to class,” the cop said, ignoring God, Leg, all of them.
Claire was dive-bombing to the bottom of the ocean, unable to speak or do anything other than be dragged to the front door.
“Don’t you see what you’re doing?” Dark asked, wrenching her arm away from the cop.
As soon as he did, Claire shot up to the top of the water, gasping. She ran to class and didn’t look back, didn’t acknowledge the teacher (breathing, breathing) who told her to slow down.
She could barely see when she sat in the too-small desk, trying to pretend that everything was fine.
She was fine.
Dr. Palmer, her language arts teacher, was up at the front of the room trying to keep a large stack of books from falling from her hands, which they did almost immediately.
“Okay, okay . . .” She gave the class a shrug and then swept her hands across the books that now littered her desk, the floor. “Behold the tools for your summative project!”
There were a couple of stereotypical groans, which Dr. Palmer ignored with such completeness they died immediately. She picked up one of the novels and showed the cover to the group.
“Lord of the Flies. Who wants it?”
Nobody raised their hand. And for good reason, Claire thought. She’d read the book as a freshman, writing a paper about Piggie and how he was essentially the only female character, as he was always quoting his aunt.
Dr. Palmer tossed the book toward a kid in the front row. “Okay, Argus. You probably need to read that one.” Claire didn’t know Argus or whether he knew the plot of the novel, but the look of shock on his face was enough for Dr. Palmer to crack a smile. Before he had a chance to respond, complain—anything—Palmer picked up another book.
“The Bluest Eye. Toni Morrison. Never heard of it? Well, now your life is about to be changed.” She threw the book to a girl in the corner, who gave a legitimate shriek when it landed on her desk. “I know. Wait until you read it.”
Dr. Palmer continued throwing books across the room, one by one, until it was just Claire and a kid who was somewhat sleeping in the back of the classroom, despite all the flying literature.
Dr. Palmer held up two more books—Frankenstein and Leaves of Grass. Claire didn’t hesitate when Palmer tossed both books between her and the sleepy boy. She grabbed Frankenstein and quickly went back to her seat.
The boy looked up at Dr. Palmer dreamily.
“Andrew, your life just got a lot more complicated.”
The assignment sounded simple enough. Read the book. Find a personal connection. Write, draw, construct a demonic temple in its honor—it didn’t matter what—but respond in some way. It was the oldest of teacher tricks and, normally, Claire would be thankful, if not downright jubilant, for this sort of slam-dunk project.
Instead, she stared at the back of the book and read the synopsis for the thousandth time.
She’d first read Frankenstein her sophomore year for a similar, equally forgettable assignment. But unlike so many things in high school, the book had stuck to her in a way she hadn’t expected—in a way that had brought some ribbing from her friends when she kept reading it again and again, carrying the tattered paperback everywhere.
And now it lit up parts of her life that she’d forgotten, like a pinball shooting through her. Had she almost gotten into a fight with Chris Thompson because he’d made fun of the cover’s dramatic illustration? Did Coach Harris tell her to “close that book and get your mind right” on the bus before the Maiden game? For months, the book—the sheer audacity of it—lived inside of her.
But eventually she just stopped carrying it around. Eventually she moved on, chasing whatever new thing had traipsed into her brain. Back when she didn’t feel like the one being chased.
She was still staring at the description when the bell rang. And when Dr. Palmer asked if she was okay, she jumped up—feeling the weight of the book in her hand as she walked through the hallways. The weight in her backpack when she got to her next class and the teacher told them to clear their desks for a test. It was something like nostalgia, but not quite, hovering over her and begging her to . . . what? Open the book? Remember that time in her life? Whatever it was, she spent the next three periods trying to shake the hold it had on her brain.