Unfinished Business

CHAPTER 8: PUNCH ME AT THE CEMETERY GATES

Class on the day before Halloween was always the same. Only about half of the students dressed up in costumes. Most teachers gave out candy, just for fun. Ms. Oman always gave her AP Calculus classes cheap candy from the dollar store in the next town over on the holidays. It was usually the cheap stuff, like Tootsie Rolls, but Ms. Oman always shelled out for the good stuff in October and December. I could see, from the wrappers gathering underfoot, that people who weren't in her miniscule classes had dropped by just to say hello.  

I watched the costumed students and teachers walk by while I stood in the hall, waiting for something, anything  to happen. It was striking me, once again, that the lack of information was really screwing me over. I felt like nobody cared about me enough to give me the information I needed. I read that file so many times my eyes wanted to bleed and, yet, there was never enough information. 

There was a sense of dread, though, hanging over my head. It was as pervasive, all-encompassing, and unshakable as the hollow feeling it caused in the pit of my stomach. Actually, there wasn't anything there; I didn't exactly have a stomach anymore. It was covered by my shirt, which I had tried to staple together. I didn't like looking at the hole. To be honest, I still don't. I don't know where the dread came from, then, or the sensation of being weighed down by something. I just knew that it was there, and I couldn't get rid of it, even while I patrolled and prowled the halls.  

She figured out what the problem was by the end of her third-period AP Chemistry class. It wasn't some weird, spontaneous anxiety or something she could trace back to Eve's death (though she couldn't shake the idea that she could have prevented what happened simply by being there). Someone had to be watching her. The question was, who? Willa couldn't tell who it was-- or where they were-- at first, but it came to her quickly. 

I didn't find an answer. Not by third period, at least. What I did find by then was someone leaving the Little Theater, where drama classes were held, with a pile of wood in her arms. She started walking; she caught a glimpse of something in the glass of the front office when she passed it, and started walking faster as a result. 

It was Willa. 

She was dressed for the holiday, clearly as some sort of gray cat. She was wearing ripped gray skinny jeans and had cat ears up against her two little afro puffs. Everything she wore was gray, from her tank top to the sweater tied around her waist. She even had little whiskers painted on her face. 

I knew she TA-ed for one of the beginner drama classes. I guessed that was what she was doing. It was clear to me that Willa was headed down to the Cemetery. Something in me pinged. I didn't know why, but I felt like I had to follow her. 

The hallway was almost empty, save for one poor soul in a full-body Winnie The Pooh costume. It wasn't a flattering one; it made the sophomore wearing it look more like a child than he already did. (Willa knew he was a part of the wrestling team. She had seen him there when she went to matches to watch Cash compete.) Willa circumvented him and his open locker.

I caught a glimpse of red hair and corduroy turning left at the end of the hall. That was me. That was my own reflection.  I wasn't a fan of it. I put it out of my mind and followed Willa to the end of the hall, then to the girl's locker room, then to the downstairs track.

I thought I was done with hating aspects of my body, but the way I saw myself in passing windows and the ill-fitting nature of my shirt now that half of it was missing was making that incredibly hard. Maybe it was just the trying times. Maybe it was the massive gaping hole in my body. I didn't want to think about it, or about much of anything. Without a single critical thought pertaining to where she was going, I followed vague glimpses of a still-living girl to the Cemetery.