48 Quinn
Quinn
The day of the fall
I find Joey by her locker.
We’re the only ones in the hall, and I’m breathless, growing more and more aware of the time.
“Can you talk?” I ask. I bring the tip of my thumb between my front teeth and bite down hard. This is neither the time nor place to say what I have to say, to ask of her what I have to ask of her, but I have no choice.
She is digging in her locker, her face hidden by the two-foot metal door.
She takes down some magnets that hold up photographs, stuffs two old notebooks into her backpack.
Then she pulls out a stack of unopened sticky notes and holds them out toward me.
“Want these?” I take them, noticing that she’s avoiding my eyes.
She’s not being cold exactly, just guarded.
Help me. The thought tsunamis to the front of my mind. Because I need her help. I need her steady, loyal logic. But Joey speaks before I can. “You broke up with River,” she says. She scuffs her shoe against the floor. The singular squeak fills the hallway.
I close my mouth, momentarily damming up my own words. Slowly, I nod.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She looks at me now, mournfully.
It’s as if she’s lost something irredeemable.
“I’m sorry,” I want to shout. “None of it was me. I chose a stupid dream over you and a stranger who made me feel like he saw the real me. Just help me untangle myself from this mess, and I promise I’ll make things right.
I promise I’ll fix us.” But I stay quiet.
Her face is slack, disappointed. It’s paralyzing.
The bell rings, and Joey closes her locker. Desperate panic floods my chest, overriding my guilt. I’m aching to talk to her, to talk to someone, and I know Joey is the only one who has a level head enough to help me through this. I just need to know what to do now so I don’t ruin things forever.
“After school?” I ask.
The cafeteria door opens and a deluge of shrill voices and laughter escapes.
Then, there are bodies. Dozens of them. They scatter in all directions like fruit flies from a rotting apple.
It is the last day of school, and so they are oblivious to us, busy flooding the hall with their violent shrieks that mark the impending freedom of summer.
Joey glances over her shoulder, and I can see that I’m losing her, that she’s about to be pulled in one direction and I’m about to be pulled in another.
“Last English class of the year,” she says and indicates down the hall with her head. “You coming?”
It’s an invitation. A lifeline. Her way of saying that she won’t abandon me, despite it all. But I can’t stay. I can’t go to class. I can’t be so easy a target for him. I have to get out of here.
“No,” I say, and at first she looks surprised.
It makes sense that she would be. I should go to English class with the rest of them and then clean out my locker and start making summer plans.
I should be doing normal things. But if I do normal things, I know what will happen to me.
After a few beats, she opens her mouth like she’s going to say something, but she doesn’t.
Instead, she shuts her lips tight and nods in resignation, almost in defeat. And then, she goes.
I walk the other way, toward the gym. I duck out the back doors and start to plan.
Home first. Then I’ll go to Joey’s. I pray that she will head home right after school.
She will help me come up with some way to stop him.
Maybe she’ll tell me to go to the police.
Or maybe she will hide me. Maybe I can do an illusion spell to hide myself.
I’ll have to tell her about the book and all the spells, but I don’t have the time or capacity to worry about what she’ll think.
She’s the best one to have around when you need to solve a puzzle. The only one.
He gets off work around five, so we’ll only have an hour, give or take, but I know she’ll help me. I know she will. Because she’s Joey.