One Last Thing ✅

forty-one things

The next morning is chilly, but I decide to walk to school by myself, get some fresh air, collect my thoughts. I put in my headphones, pull my hood over my hair, which is not quite dry yet but good enough, and begin my trek to school.

The leaves, which just began falling a few days ago, have almost completely covered the sidewalks. I enjoy the texture and the crunching beneath my feet as I progress toward school, Staind's "Believe" blasting on my headphones.

I haven't walked to school since I was in elementary school. Either I rode the bus or caught a ride with Grams or one of my friends. But there is something so calming about the journey there. Just one foot in front of the other, endlessly, concentrating on the music and nothing else. It takes me about twenty minutes to get to school, but it seems quicker than that because I'm dreading seeing everyone again, facing the rumors that I know will be flying.

When I see the school, I stop for a moment and just look at the ugly brick building, all the kids streaming through the front doors. Some of them with backpacks, others with purses or clarinet cases or gym bags. Each one with a different mood, family, story, goal. And it seems weird that we're all going into this one place to have our heads cranked open for knowledge to be poured inside.

Because if we are all truly individuals, and I believe that we are, don't we all want different things in our futures? Like, Riley wants to be a brain surgeon. Jared wants to be a rock star. How is it that each of them taking the same classes and being prepared for their separate journeys?

I don't know.

It just seems weird.

Finally I make my feet start going again, and I join the crowds headed into the mouth of the school. I expect there to be long looks and covert whispers, like the day I came back after the car accident, but no one really pays attention to me. I wonder if it's possible my suicide attempt hasn't made the rumor mill yet. After all, the only people who really know about it were the Sea Monkeys. I can't really see any of them blabbing about it.

I feel my shoulders start to relax as I walk through the front doors and head down the hallway, toward my locker. Riley already has it open and is sorting through her backpack. When she straightens up and notices me, she gives me a tentative smile. "Hey, lady. You're back. I wasn't sure if you would be."

I shrug. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Her eyes flick away from mine. "I don't know. Abbott said he saw you last night, and you weren't doing very well."

My cheeks heat up as I remember Abbott kneeling before me, recounting the story of me defending that kid when I was a freshman. The way he looked at me, not like Jared ever did, like I was a meal or something, more like he saw all of me—not just my physical self, but what was inside, too. And not just that, but like he actually admired what he saw.

I haven't felt that way in a while.

Maybe never.

"I was just... tired," I say.

Riley hangs her backpack on the hook inside the locker and turns to me. She grabs both of my arms gently and looks into my face. "You know you can talk to me about anything, right? We've been best friends practically since we came out of the uterus." She scrunches up her face. "Or I guess... uteruses? Uterii?"

The absurdity of her comment breaks through the seriousness of the moment, and I find myself laughing. And she starts giggling, too, and we are holding onto each other, and suddenly everything doesn't feel so scary. As long as Riley is here with me, I think I'll be okay.

The ten-minute bell rings, and Riley turns to grab her books. "What do you need?" she asks. "I'll carry your things." She grabs the strap of my backpack and eases it off my shoulder, then unzips it.

"Uh, just my notebook and that copy of Hamlet." I'd plucked my worn copy of the play off my bedside table this morning, thinking it might come in handy if we have another discussion in Mr. Wright's class. "And maybe my poetry book."

"Got it," Riley says. She retrieves the items and then hangs my backpack in the locker. When she pushes it closed, my throat clenches.

KILLER.

The words are still there, though it looks as though someone tried to scrub them off. The ghost of them remains, faded, mocking. I feel as though someone punched me in the stomach. Funny how you can go so quickly from feeling okay in the world to wishing the ugly linoleum would open up and swallow you whole.

A word in my brain, just as sharp as the one on my locker: KNIFE.

I push it deep, somewhere inside me, cover it with fluffy colorful thoughts like I hide the letters in my closet with the pile of sweaters.

Riley's steps in front of the locker, blocking the word from my sight. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "I tried to get it off. If I find out who did that..."

I force myself to breathe. "It's okay."

Riley looks at me steadily. "Are you sure? Do you need to go to the nurse? Or to see Mrs. Feldmann or anything?"

I rummage for a smile and paste it on my face. "Don't worry. I'm fine."

There is a beat while Riley studies me. "Okay, then. Let's go to class."