Chapter Ten
TEN
THE MOST SOCIALLY INTIMIDATING LOCATION of any high school is the cafeteria, and Black Mountain Academy is no exception.
Reynolda Dining Hall is sandwiched between the dorms on the western edge of campus and is a few buildings down from the student center. The Matsoukas Student Center. I roll my eyes every time I think about it.
Surrounded on three sides by enormous, paneled windows, the caf is bright with natural light and has views so picturesque, I lose my breath as I cross the threshold.
Students sit in seemingly tight-knit groups at mismatching round and rectangular tables.
It’s so uncomfy, walking into a room where everyone knows everyone and being the only one out of the loop.
Around half the kids are wearing their uniforms, but beginning the first day of classes, they’re required every weekday during school hours.
As I weave through the tables, I hear snippets about the upcoming pep rally and something mysteriously called invocation. I make a mental note to double-check the paperwork Kate gave me, because I don’t remember seeing that on my “Countdown to Classes” schedule.
Lifting my chin, I try to keep my face neutral. I know I have serious RBF, and I’m making a conscious effort to seem more approachable. Even though it turns my stomach, because I know I wouldn’t have to do this if I were white.
The food is stationed around the room in a U, and my stomach growls violently at the smell. When I spot a make-your-own-pizza station, I head toward the garlicy-cheesy goodness. Halfway to my destination, I overhear something that stops me in my tracks.
“They don’t give a fuck! A girl goes missing, and they did fuck-all to find her. I don’t care what they say, one of those idiots knows what happened to Fiona.”
They’re talking about the girl from the missing-person posters and articles online.
I open my crossbody bag and pretend to search for my lip balm as I lean closer.
“Tomorrow night they’re having a vigil for her, but Dr. Rogers said I can’t hand out flyers, so I paid Forrest a hundred bucks to stuff the T-shirt canons full of them. It’s gonna be like girl-on-the-milk-carton confetti.”
What she’s said is so absurd that I snort. Realizing my mistake, I quickly cover my mouth, lifting my eyes to find the girl in front of me scrutinizing every inch of my face.
“Who are you?” she asks, her head tilting to the side. She’s got ice-blond hair and skeptical hazel eyes framed by long, mascara-dark lashes. She’s exactly the kind of girl that would have broken my heart back home.
“Uh,” I stammer. “I’m Harper. I’m new.”
“Obviously,” she says. “Didn’t anyone teach you that it’s rude to eavesdrop?”
Well, she’s certainly got me there.
“Totally, totally,” I nod. “I was just curious about the girl that went missing. The one that ran away?”
Her eyebrows pull way down over her eyes. “She didn’t fucking run away!”
Whoa. “Okay,” I say, holding up my hands. “Sorry, I didn’t know, just going off what I read online.”
“Do you believe everything you read online?” she asks, condescension dripping with every word. “In this age of disinformation dissemination? Really?”
Okay, now she’s starting to piss me off.
“No, I—”
“Where are you from? Because if you’re going to make it at this school, you’re gonna need better critical thinking skills than that.”
“What? I—”
“This is a college preparatory academy, not your grandma’s Facebook feed.”
Oh my god. Embarrassment and anger warm the back of my neck.
“Hold on,” I spit. “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?”
Laughing, she looks me up and down, a sneer pulling at her top lip.
The girls standing behind her share a knowing look, like she does this all the time.
“I don’t care who I’m talking to,” she says, stepping forward until we’re nearly nose to nose.
“You don’t know who the hell you’re messing with, new girl. ”
Some of the students at the surrounding tables are starting to notice our exchange. My heartbeat quickens, a thrumming sitting at the base of my throat. That tingling is back again. My eyes skate around the room, searching. A faint buzz whispers across my skin.
“That’s interesting,” I say before I can stop myself, dizzy with static. “Because I could tell you the exact same thing.” I pull back my shoulders defiantly.
I know I should walk away, but my feet are glued to the floor.
The girl’s face is splotchy red, but whoever she is, she thinks we’re evenly matched. I can tell from the glint in her eyes that she’ll stand here all day if she has to.
“Oh my god!” one of her friends butts in, throwing her arm between us. “Why are you being so aggressive? She didn’t do anything to you!” she yells, her voice quivering like she might cry even though this has absolutely nothing to do with her.
Aggressive. Black women are always accused of being aggressive. Like we don’t have good reason to be. Like we don’t deserve to melt the world with our rage.
An itch creeps under my skin, like a million tiny sparks stinging me over and over again. This feeling is becoming too familiar. The convenience store. The funeral. The dream.
Is this what those witches felt when they were chanting into the fire?
I don’t know what to do with my hands. I want to wrap them around myself, but I don’t want to seem weak.
I want to curl them into fists, but I don’t want to be taken as a threat.
I want to sink into the ground and disappear.
I want to scream until my throat bleeds, until the force of it rips me from the inside, my guts spilling out onto the floor.
The pink light streaming in from the large, paneled windows begins to dim. In the distance the gentle first murmuring of thunder vibrates through the room.
“Aggressive?” I whisper, cutting my eyes to the girl on the side. “Are your white-woman tears supposed to do something here?”
“Don’t tone police her!” the blond girl’s other friend yells.
“Seriously, Brit?” The milk carton girl hisses at the same time a deeper-than-I-remembered voice says, “Whoa,” and a firm hand lands on my shoulder.
The sound of his voice is a lit match against the gasoline pooling in my chest. Suddenly I am rage incarnate. I am nothing and no one. I am merely a feeling, a flare against an ever-black night.
The blonde turns to her friend and sneers. “You can’t keep saying shit like that!”
I refuse to look at him. I can’t look at him. Because whatever this—this power is building in my core, I can’t stop it. I’m afraid I’m going to combust and take everyone and everything with me.
A flash of lighting, and then thunder booms, eliciting shrieks from startled students.
This storm is moving impossibly fast.
My eyes are drawn to a figure at the back of the room, scarlet hair inching toward the door.
My breathing is coming faster now. My thoughts are getting fuzzy.
The sparks no longer tingle but stab—the pain is excruciating, begging me to release something.
But I don’t know what it wants. I don’t know how to satiate it.
“Harper?” Lucas sounds a million miles away.
“Is she—are you okay?” the blonde asks, squinting at me like I might be feral or diseased. And maybe I am. Behind her, her two friends look afraid of me, even though I haven’t done anything.
The blonde keeps talking, but her voice fades as my vision tunnels.
The sparks stinging my arms grow, slithering through me. Bone deep, infiltrating my organs, filling me with the chaotic buzzing of a kicked hornet’s nest. It’s all too much. Too much static, too much pressure, too much grief, pain, and fury boiling in the very core of me.
Before that day outside Dawson’s, before my birthday, I was living my normal life, laid out by the river and minding my own business. It wasn’t amazing, but it was mine. Now I don’t know who or what I am. But that old me? She’s long gone.
Another flash of lightning floods the room so brightly, everything goes white before it goes dark, and I realize I am falling.
Down.
Down.
Down.