Radiant (4 page)

Mary
went to each stall, pushing the doors open. But no one was there. She returned to her bag and pulled out the bottle of painkillers. Dizziness and anxiousness numbered among the side effects, but not hallucinations. Had she just imagined seeing him?

The water in the sink was still running
. Mary shut it off and looked in the mirror again. Only her reflection stared back at her.

Suddenly, she remembered the movie on
TV a couple days ago, where the dead kid's ghost tracked down and killed the ones who tried to cover up his death. "He died," she said to herself. "He died, and now he's haunting me."

Brrriiiiinnnnggggg!

Mary jumped at the sound of the bell. She looked at the painkillers in her hand. The word "anxiousness" stood out on the label.

"
That's stupid. I'm just imagining things." She shoved the pills back into her bag and headed to class.

When she got the
re, she sat next to Sienna. Sienna was one of only two people Mary spoke to beyond the obligatory niceties. Part of it was because Sienna was also mixed—her dad was Brazilian and her mom's family was Persian. In a prep school where non-Caucasian kids made up less than a quarter of the student body, mixed kids were an anomaly. But it was also because Mary took Art with Sienna and her boyfriend, David, and they had always sat together.

"
You're here!" Sienna said cheerfully. "How are you doing?"

"Ok
, thanks," Mary said.

"I was sick the day of the accident," Sienna said. "I heard about it from David. It must've been crazy."

Mary took her books out of her bag. "Yeah, it was." She didn't elaborate.

Sienna watched Mary quietly for a moment as she finished getting her stuff settled. "So, have you seen Carter?"

"Once in the hospital," Mary said.

"
How about today?" Sienna asked.

Mary shook her head. "I haven't been back to the hospital. Besides, it'd be kinda weird since I'm not a family member or friend, you know?"

Sienna raised her eyebrows. "No, I meant here. Have you seen him here at school today?"

Mary looked at her. "Of course not."

"Mary," she said. "He's here. He was back at school on Friday."

"
What
?" Mary gasped.

Sienna nodded.
"I didn't believe it either at first. But David and I saw him in the hall after lunch."

It
had taken Mary days to stop aching enough to function. With pain meds. Carter had nearly
died
, and he came back to school just two days after the accident?

"
I heard he went to class and basketball practice and everything like normal," Sienna said. "Well, maybe 'normal' isn't the right word. He was acting a little weird."

"
Weird?" Mary asked. "How so?"

"
Well, you know what an asshole Carter Maxwell can be," Sienna said. "But not since he's been back. He hardly talks to anyone. Not even Laci."

Mary stared at her blankly.

"Laci Wallace. His current girlfriend. Or his flavor of the month, as people like to say," Sienna explained.

"Oh," Mary said.

"No one saw him during lunch last week, which is weird because he's always at the popular table with his friends," Sienna continued. "At practice, Coach Hannigan made him sit on the bench. You know, being in an accident and all."

"
What's strange about that?" Mary asked.

Sienna looked at her dumbly.
"Carter Maxwell? On the bench? He would've had a fit! But I heard that he just sat there without a single complaint. He's totally different."

The bell rang
again, and Mr. Hubert began the Pre-Calculus lesson. But Mary hardly paid attention as she thought about what Sienna had told her. Was Carter really here at school? Now? She only had her last class with him—Physics. He normally sat in the back with some of his friends, while Mary took one of the lonely desks near the front. She'd have to wait until then to see if he was in a body cast or something.

When Pre-Cal
was finished, Mary gathered up her stuff and headed for the door with the others as usual. But the moment she stepped outside, she collided with another person. "Gah!" she cried as waves of pain surged through her bruised side, bringing her to her knees.

"Mary!" Sienna said as she came over to
her. "Geez Carter. What's wrong with you?"

Mary looked up. The person she had run into was Carter Maxwell. He wasn
't in a body cast and he didn't have crutches or anything. He looked normal, actually. Except for the thick black sweater he wore over his school uniform.

"I am sorry," he said.
"I did not mean to cause harm." He then knelt down and looked Mary in the eyes. There was a subtle spark of life in his green irises. "Are you all right, Mary?" he asked.

She
didn't say anything for a moment. Mary didn't know that Carter knew her name, and she had never noticed he had green eyes before. Nor how nice they looked when he was concerned.

She shook her head quickly to break off his gaze. "No. I mean, yeah. I'm fine."

The corners of his mouth curled into a half-smile. "I am glad."

P
eople were staring at them. Mary blushed under the added attention, and she quickly got to her feet.

"Need help carrying your stuff?" Sienna asked.

"Thanks," Mary said. "But I'm just gonna swing by my locker. I'll be fine."

"All right. See you in Art." Sienna
shot one last warning look at Carter before heading down the hall.

Mary picked up her bag and turned
the other direction. As she walked, she realized people were still looking at her. That's when she noticed Carter was walking next to her. And he was doing it in a really weird way. He made each step deliberate, like he was doing mini-lunges.

"
What are you doing?" she asked.

"I am walking
," he said.

"
Um. Okay." Mary looked forward again, thinking that when she got to her locker, he'd go away. But he didn't. He stopped with her.

"
I'm all right, Carter," she said. "You don't have to help me."

"Okay
," he said.

Mary looked at him from the corner of her eye as she put her
Pre-Cal stuff away and got her Art things. "Are you all right?"

Carter smiled. "I am. Thank you for asking."

Sienna was right. Carter was acting weird. That bus sure did a job on his brain.

"Don't you have to go to class or something
?" she asked.

"
Yes," he said.

Mary c
losed her locker and headed towards Art. Carter followed. The halls were emptying as kids got to their rooms, but it was still embarrassing with him lunging next to her. Mary stopped and faced him. "Listen, Carter. I really am all right. You don't have to walk with me to class." In fact, she preferred that he didn't.

He smiled. "You said that already."

"Yeah," she said. "So…stop following me."

Carter wrinkled his brow. "
Do I make you uncomfortable? Walking with you like this?"

Give the man a prize. "Uh, yeah," Mary said. "Very."

He looked a little sad suddenly. "I am sorry. I will leave you alone." He turned and walked down the other hall.

Mary felt bad. She didn't mean to make him sad. She just wanted him to stop following her. She sighed and
headed down the same hall to apologize. But when she got there, she didn't see him. "Carter?"

He was nowhere
. Despite the weird lunges, he apparently could move quickly.

That
's when she remembered. For days, Mary had put herself through a series of guilt trips, thinking Carter was going to die or end up a vegetable. She had never considered everything going back to normal. Or, relatively normal. This was the first time she'd seen Carter since the hospital, and she had forgotten to thank him for what he had done.

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Ring
s

In Art, Mary sat at th
e same table with Sienna and David.

"
I saw Carter following you in the hall," Sienna said. "Did he talk to you?"

"
A little," Mary said.

"
What did he say?" Sienna asked.

David
rolled his eyes. "C'mon, babe. Give her a break. She just got back. Besides, who cares about what Carter Maxwell does or doesn't do?"

"
But this is
big
!" Sienna said. "She's got to be the first one he's really talked to. Did he say how he got out of the hospital? Or how come his parents made him go back to school so fast?"

Mary suddenly recalled why she didn't consider S
ienna a friend. She was an unimaginable gossip. But those were actually good questions, even though Mary didn't have the answers. Thankfully, the bell rang, and Mr. Edwards started class before Sienna could prod more.

Even though Art
was Mary's favorite class, she was preoccupied with Carter. How was she going to thank him? Just saying "Thank you" seemed weak. Borderline ingratitude. "Thank you for saving my life. I'm eternally grateful. I pledge to thee my firstborn child" seemed excessive. Maybe she could get him a gift? That would also be an understatement, but it would be better than just "Thank you." But what would she get him? She didn't know what he liked.

With the other half of her brain,
Mary started sketches for a new painting. Since she couldn't do the mobile, she decided to make a space painting instead, so she had poked around the interwebs on Sunday and found a cool picture of Saturn and its rings. She drafted several different angles to see which one she liked best.

Mary
worked on her sketches through lunch. She didn't normally eat in the cafeteria, and Mr. Edwards didn't mind her bringing her sandwich into the Art room. She was the only one who did that, after all. She also wanted to avoid people, especially today if more questions came up that she wasn't prepared to answer. Maybe that's why Carter had avoided the cafeteria when he returned last week.

The lead in her mechanical pencil suddenly broke.
Mary gently blew it away and examined her sketch. It wasn't looking like she imagined. She'd have to see the picture again and, for that, she needed to go to the computer lab. She gathered her things and tossed her sandwich wrapper into the trashcan. When she stepped out of the classroom, she jumped and nearly dropped her stuff.

"Gah!" she cried.

Carter was in the hall. "Hello, Mary. I am sorry. I frightened you."

Duh
, Captain Obvious. And why was he talking like that? He didn't use contractions. Maybe another side effect from the accident.

"
No. It's all right," she said. "Have you been standing out here all this time?"

He cocked his head to the side and repeated,
"
All this time
?"

"
I mean, how long have you been here? Outside this room?" she asked.

"
Class was dismissed fourteen minutes ago," he said.

"
So that's how long you've been here?" she asked. "For fourteen minutes?"

"
Yes."

"W
hy?"

"
I was waiting for you."

Mary
wrinkled her brow. "Um okay. Listen, there's something I've been wanting to say to you."

His face lit up. "There is?"

"Yeah" she said. "I know it's kinda late, but…thank you. For saving me. That was very brave." Sweet mother of pearl! That was the sorriest "thank you" in the history of the universe.

Carter
smiled. "You are welcome."

"
Really?" she asked. "You're not, like, mad at me?"

"
Should I be?"

That was actually a good question.
"I don't know," she said. "I mean, that whole bus thing was my fault. And you are—"

"
—fine," he said. "I appreciate your gratitude. But you owe me nothing."

Mary stared at him.
He had just answered the most important question that she hadn't thought to ask. "I don't?"

He shook his head.
Like his lunge-walk, he did it in a deliberate way. She thought his head would fly off for a moment.

Mary didn
't know what to say to that. Except, "Thank you." And she really meant it.

"
You are welcome. Again," he said.

Neither of them spoke
for a moment. Mary started picking at a stray thread on the seam of her bag. "Um, so, any news on your car?" she asked.