Chapter Thirteen
THIRTEEN
YOU KNOW WHY.
In the dim of the chapel his eyes are even darker than they were that night. Assessing. Calculating. I step back, but he doesn’t let go. Instead he looks up and down my body with an intensity that raises the hairs on the back of my neck.
“You look different,” he grunts.
Internally, I cringe. I know that grief hasn’t been kind to me. My skin is breaking out and my hair feels thinner, my pants are tighter than they were before. Still, I lift my chin in defiance. “No, I look the same. You must not be remembering me right.”
I yank my wrists out of his grasp and wipe my palms down my face, turning away to hide the flush that’s reddening the tips of my ears.
I only make it two steps before his hand is on my arm again, firm against my sleeve, and I’m turning, tipping my head back to meet his eyes, no longer level with mine, but nearly two heads above my own.
How is it possible that’s he’s still growing.
“You’ve gotten taller,” I say.
He hums thoughtfully as he turns my arm over, his eyebrows pinching in the middle. “Yeah, no, you must not be remembering me right.”
There’s a pulsing in the back of my skull.
I gaze at his face, all muted blues and reds.
No matter how hard I search, I can’t find the freckle-faced little boy with a lopsided smile reserved just for me.
The townie kids seemed to know a different version of him.
A scrappy, angry thing they either chased in admiration or cornered outside the two-pump gas station three streets downriver.
Maybe I’m finally seeing what they did, and that sweeter version was just an act.
“Why were you following me?” I ask.
“I wasn’t. I just so happened to see a figure breaking into the chapel, and when I came to check it out, I realized it was you.”
“Okay… but why were you out past curfew?”
He ignores my question and instead says, “Though, it seems like some things will never change.”
The turn in subject is jarring.
“Wha—”
He holds up my hand by my sleeved wrist like I’m contagious and he can’t bear to touch my actual skin.
My fingertips poke through a beam of slanted moonlight.
“Oil pastels. You should probably wash the residue off your fingers before your next breaking and entering attempt. Wouldn’t want to leave behind any evidence. ”
I snatch my arm from his grasp, this time for good, taking a few extra steps away just in case. He looks like he maybe wants to murder me.
“Uh, yeah, thanks for the advice,” I say, turning my back to him and making my way toward the front of the chapel.
It takes a while for his steps to follow, but when he realizes that I’m not leaving and instead am turning down the hallway, he quickens his pace.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
I turn on my phone’s flashlight and pull the bobby pins from my pocket. “You should probably get back to your dorm. Wouldn’t want your uncle to find you out past curfew!” I call behind me.
“Where are you going?” His voice is much closer now, and a tad higher than before. “You’re not even supposed to be in here.”
I scoff. “What are you, the church police? Well, ACAB, buddy.”
He smacks his teeth. “I’m not the ‘church police.’ I just know that campus security will be making their rounds any minute, and the last thing we need is for you to be putting your greasy little paint fingers on everything!”
I sigh. He’s never been a fan of shenanigans. Lucas and I were always much more alike in that way.
When I reach the end of the hall, I shine my light against the door and inspect the seam, following it down until I find the keyhole again. Instinctively my fingers rub the pendant at my neck while I think, the metal growing warm from the friction.
“What is it?” Malachi asks, squeezing past to wedge himself between me and the door.
I blink, remembering that he was right behind me. “I, uh… what’s behind this door? I’ve been trying to remember if I ever went in there as a kid, but I’m not sure.”
“What door?” he asks, his eyebrows creasing.
“What door?” I scoff. “You don’t know about the famous secret door that I found earlier today? The one that’s right here?” I press against the wood and release a frustrated breath when it does what it did earlier. Click and then stop at the lock.
He nudges me out of the way and bends to look at the keyhole. “It’s probably nothing. Like storage or something. Why? You were gonna try to pick the lock?” He gestures to the bobby pins.
I roll my eyes. “What? No. I always carry bobby pins with me.” I shrug. “In case of a hair-mergency.”
“Okayyy,” he says, drawing the word out, before placing his hand on my shoulder. “Well, we should probably get out of here… before we get caught. And from now on you shouldn’t go breaking into other buildings on campus at night. It’s not safe.”
A pit forms in my stomach. “What do you mean it’s not safe?”
“I don’t—I just mean you could get in serious trouble. They don’t take that kind of thing lightly around here. They care a lot about the integrity of their students.”
I don’t miss how he’s separated himself from the institution, despite his name being on the founding plaque… and the student center.
“Besides, it’s an old school. You have no idea what could be down there. Mold or asbestos or something. It’s safer to just stay where you know you’re allowed.”
Down there? I think, shrugging from under his hand. “Thanks for the heads up, I guess? I’ll be sure to do my snooping in places where you won’t accidentally run into me from now on.”
“That’s not funny.”
“I’m not joking.”
He sighs, brushing past me before opening the front door of the chapel a crack. He sticks his head out, looking both ways before deciding it’s safe. “You should go back to your room now.”
“You’re not the boss of me,” I say, peeking out into the darkness of campus, not trusting his coast-clearing skills.
I consider stomping back inside and finishing what I came here to do, but something in my gut tells me that I have to do this alone.
Besides, after everything that’s happened between us, I don’t trust Malachi as far as I can throw him. And that guy is a giant.
“Yeah, whatever,” he says, giving me a small shove out of the chapel.
“Hey—”
“Shh!” He holds a finger to his lips before gently closing the door behind him and swiping his hand out to snatch the bobby pins from my grasp.
“Those are mine!” I whisper-protest.
He shrugs, tilting his head down to meet my eyes, but he’s shrouded in shadow. I can feel it though. A buzzing like he can’t wait to get away from me. Like every moment he’s near me is almost too painful to bear.
“Go back to your room,” he says before turning on his heel and retreating down the path leading away from the chapel, in the opposite direction of our dorm building.
Before he can disappear, I call out to him one last time.
“Malachi!” He slows to a stop, his shoulders hiking up to his ears.
“I really am sorry, you know. For what I said. For them being gone. For you hurting.” Because that has to be what this is, the pain of losing everything twisting him into a barbed-wire version of the boy I once knew.
He turns to peer at me over his shoulder. His face is illuminated by a nearby lamp, and I watch as his eyes rake over me once again. I just wish I knew what he was searching for.
“I pinky swear,” I mumble, and I hope that’s enough because he knows I would never lie on a pinky swear.
As we stand there among the screaming cicadas, his face blooms something small. So small I can almost convince myself it isn’t there. A softening. It’s slight, but it’s enough to unknot the teeniest bit of tension in my chest.
Fights among friends can be cathartic if you let them. But we aren’t friends anymore. Though, maybe now that we’ve laid it all out there, some of the pent-up rage has been released.
He watches me for another moment before turning back around and taking off.
As he’s swallowed by the darkness, I blow out a shaking breath.
Later when I lie in bed, still struggling to quiet my mind long enough to drift to sleep, I can’t help but think I’m not the only one on campus with secrets. I know Malachi Matsoukas better than anyone—or at least I did—and I know he’s hiding something.
I’m going to figure out what.
I’ve just begun to dream when I’m jolted awake by a ping. I crack one eye against the bright screen puncturing my room with blue light and almost drop my phone when I see the notification.
K!ll3r_kai09 has requested to follow you.
Startled, I lock my screen. Unlock it. Read the notification again just to be sure.
I’ve been blocked all year. Tonight he told me he hates me. I hate him in equal measure for how he’s treated me.
I don’t know what kind of mind games he’s playing, but if he wants to be enemies, then that means I’ve got to keep him closer than ever, right?
Though I can’t yet stomach the idea of searching through his profile, I click on the notification and accept the request.