Chapter Twelve
Twelve
THE WEEKEND PASSES IN THIS WEIRDLY QUIET and calm way. My thumb autopilots to Insta more times than I would like, but aside from a handful of messages from Noah begging me to meet up at “grief group,” my comms are pretty much silent.
Peter is off making pencil rubbings of rare leaves and pocketing special rocks by a babbling brook (or whatever people like him do on camping trips). Jules is off with Elise again (don’t ask). Dad is cloistered in his study as usual. And Ms. Jegstrup is … not dead.
Well, she’s definitely dead. The clocks don’t lie. But no one has said anything about her dying, which is weird as hell. I keep refreshing my feeds, waiting, but there’s nothing.
Still, when I walk on to campus Monday morning, I’m ready.
I figure by now the senior class will have heard about Ms. Jegstrup and descended into chaos—the Emmas and Sophias of Chapswell High lobbying the administration to let us skip school for a week under the guise of mourning, the witchy kids pulling tarot cards in the hallway to see who’s going to be the next to die, the lit kids writing overly sentimental poetry under the oak tree, and the Christian freaks offering (so selflessly, #PraiseBe) to save the rest of us dirty sinners before it’s too late . … But none of that is happening.
It’s just a regular Monday morning. People are bitching about tests, frantically texting their moms to bring in lunches they forgot, slapping each other in the dicks …
the same old bullshit. It feels weird. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to the chaos, but I was prepared for it.
What I was not prepared for was this aggressive level of normalcy.
I head into first period and Peter is already there, leaning on his desk in a plain green shirt and jeans (not khakis). He looks happy. Which, like … why? I slide into my seat and he does too. He opens his mouth but then closes it and pulls out his phone.
PETERBECKETT1984:Figured it was best not to say out loud but
PETERBECKETT1984:It looks like maybe everything is okay???
Oh. Yeah, not a fucking chance. The clocks don’t miss. Not ever.
SYD_IS_NOT_HERE: no
PETERBECKETT1984: No???
SYD_IS_NOT_HERE: no
Peter frowns at his phone and then looks at me. “Are you sure?”
“As sure as a heart attack.” Which might be what took her out.
Or who knows? Maybe something worse happened.
Maybe she got jumped and assaulted and her body has been tossed into a dumpster in the city, her thin gray sweater covered in yesterday’s rotting banana peels and used bags of dog shit. Or maybe—
“Are you all right?” Peter’s eyebrows pull together in a concerned little V. His eyes look extra green today. It must be his shirt.
“Yeah. I was just …” Spiraling? Indulging in a cute li’l intrusive thought? “Thinking.”
Peter nods, but he turns his eyes back to the door. I know what he’s thinking, because I’ve been there. He’s thinking if he can just will it hard enough, visualize it in the right way, he can manifest Ms. Jegstrup walking through that door.
He can’t.
Seeing him all nervous like this gives me a sharp stab of guilt to the stomach.
I should’ve kept this clock shit to myself.
I should’ve learned after what happened before …
but no. I went ahead and ran my mouth like an asshole just because some tall boy with wavy hair put a Band-Aid on my forehead.
God, he looks so hopeful. It makes me want to vomit.
The bell rings and the door stays shut.
A ripple of excitement spreads through the rows of seats. “Yooooo,” Ethan says. “Looks like Jegstrup abandoned us. You know what that means, right?”
“A sub will be here soon?” Emma says. “God, I hope it’s not Thompson. That guy’s lazy eye freaks me out.”
This other kid, Tennessee, looks up from their book. “You can’t say lazy eye.”
“God, whatever,” Emma huffs. “His differently abled eye freaks me out. Better?”
“No … you—”
“Guys,” Ethan cuts in. “Who gives a shit? The point is—Jegstrup isn’t here, which means we can bounce.”
“I’m pretty sure that only applies to college classes,” Tennessee says.
“No way.” Ethan zips up his backpack. “If the teacher doesn’t show, it means you can go.”
Emma rolls her eyes. “Just because you say it in a rhyme doesn’t make it a thing.”
“It is a thing.”
The door opens and Ms. Shywill walks in. The principal.
“Goddamn it,” Ethan mumbles, sitting back down.
Peter glances at me, and then back to the principal. His face is ghost pale, and I can practically feel his stomach dropping along with mine. The knowing before everyone else is the worst part.
Well, it’s one of the worst parts. Seeing Peter white-knuckling his knees, little beads of sweat forming on his brow … this is actually turning out to be worse than knowing by myself.
“So.” Ms. Shywill smooths her dusty gray bob. “Ms. Jegstrup will not be in today.” Her face is pinched and tight like pulled pizza dough—ready to rip. She must know now too.
Please, please don’t let her be face down in a landfill.
Ms. Shywill pauses like she’s steeling herself for an interrogation about Ms. Jegstrup’s whereabouts. But she forgot that she’s talking to a class of high school seniors. We’re not exactly in the habit of giving a shit where our teachers are. No one asks her anything.
“Right. Well, then.” She twists her thin gold bracelet in circles around her wrist. “This absence was a bit … unexpected. So.”
Peter glances over at me, the hope drained from his face. I give him a little shrug, because what else can you do?
“So.” Ms. Shywill clears her throat. “Ms. Jegstrup did not … alert us of her absence ahead of time. As of now, there is no sub lined up.”
“Hell yeah!” Ethan whoops.
“Language, Mr. Jones!”
Ethan gives her a salute. “Heck yes.”
Ms. Shywill takes a sharp breath in through her nose.
“As I was saying, we don’t yet have a sub, seeing as …
well … the nature of this absence … and …
” She takes another breath. “Until the sub arrives, you all will be joining the students who have free period in the cafeteria for their first module.”
Emma’s face lights up and she turns to Sophia. “Maybe this will get us out of the poetry project,” she whispers excitedly. She turns back in her seat and raises her hand. “Um, Ms. Shywill? Do you know when exactly she’ll be back?”
The principal’s face loses all its color, her tight demeanor breaking ever so slightly, like a hairline crack on a phone screen—only visible if you look in the right light.
This is it. I have the impulse to reach across the desk aisle and grab Peter’s arm. But I keep my hands squeezed together on top of my desk.
“She …” Ms. Shywill’s usually stern eyes soften and fill with tears. She touches the edges of the pearl necklace lying on her collarbone.
Ethan laughs and says, “Dude, Jegstrup isn’t, like, dead or anything, is she?”
Ms. Shywill nods just slightly, but it’s enough. Because then everything happens.
Emma and Sophia start crying, their sobs getting louder and louder, like they’re in some private competition to see who can wipe more snot and bronzer on the other’s shirt.
Tennessee passes them a pack of travel tissues.
Ethan slumps in his seat. And I swear to god, Luna (whose actual name is Emily) pulls her tarot deck out of her satchel and starts shuffling.
Sarah eyes her deck with disgust and starts mumbling the Lord’s Prayer under her breath.
A wave of nausea crests over me. I eye the empty trash can next to Ms. Jegstrup’s desk and make a quick calculation of how many steps it would take me to reach it. I don’t dare look at Peter.
Ms. Shywill instructs us to pack up our things and head for the cafeteria, where the school counselor will be waiting for us (no doubt casually half sitting on a table to show us how relatable and approachable he is).
We file out of the classroom and into the hallway. Emma and Sophia keep crying and clinging to each other for dear life, their sobs reverberating off the walls. It makes me want to slam their heads together.
“Hey.” Peter touches the edge of my sleeve.
He stops. So I stop too.
“We’re going to be late …” I motion to the growing distance between the two of us and the blubbering mob of our classmates death-marching to the cafeteria. I don’t know what he wants from me. But I don’t have it in me right now to babysit his feelings and—
“Let’s get out of here.” Peter motions with his head in the opposite direction. Away. Away from school. Away from the pathetic wails of my classmates. Away from the poser counselor. Away from it all. And in this moment, there is absolutely nothing I want more than to be away.
And so I hear myself say, “Okay.”