The Leaving Season (7 page)

Never in my life had I skipped school. Never. But no one in admin batted an eye when I came in the next day. Principal McMahon gently shooed me out of her office.

“You can take some more time if you want.”

I shook my head and left, relieved but also a bit bewildered.
That's it? Not even a slap on the wrist or a wag of her finger?

My friends noticed, naturally, but they too didn't seem to care. At lunch I joined Haley, who was saving me a seat at our table in the back of the cafeteria, one of the small round ones out of the way of salad bar traffic but close enough to keep tabs on everyone's comings and goings.

I slid my tray down beside her. I had circled the salad
bar a half dozen times before settling on a banana and a bottled water. I felt Haley's eyes on my lunch. She opened her mouth and then quickly closed it again. Her tray contained her usual carb-fueled, protein-packed meal, along with two cartons of skim milk—an athlete's lunch.

“I'm sorry I didn't call you after the service—”

She placed a hand on my arm and her eyes smiled warmly. “No worries.”

A minute later, Katrina and Debra arrived, eagerly taking seats at the table.

“Middie, you were so perfect at the memorial,” Katrina said as she arranged her salad and soda in front of her.

“And that dress,” Debra added. “Where'd you get that? Twenty-One?”

“Huh? No, that's Allison's.”

“Oh. Did
she
get it at Twenty-One?”

“Debra, Middie doesn't want to talk about clothing,” Haley said.

Oh yes, she does,
I thought. I wanted to talk about clothes and lunch and whether it was better to be taking history with Mr. Quinn before or after he'd had his second latte. I wanted a break—or a
fucking
break, as Lee so eloquently put it.

“You know, I heard that Nate's mom is in total denial,” Debra said.

“You'd feel the same if it were your son,” Haley said.

“Yeah, I guess.” Debra shrugged. “But she didn't even come home for the funeral.”

“It wasn't a funeral,” I told them, a little too fiercely. “Mrs. Bingham will be back. She's just . . . making sure there's, you know, no chance he's . . .” My voice petered out.
No chance he's still alive . . .
Maybe I wasn't ready to say it either.

My friends nodded sympathetically.

“Well, I thought what you said at the service was just right,” Katrina said to me. “It was short and sweet and really . . . just really
perfect
.” She tossed her salad with a plastic spoon and fork. A slippery tomato flew off her plate and skittered away, landing in the center of the table. All of our eyes followed it as it rolled to a stop, leaving a snail trail of Italian dressing. Haley plucked it off the table and tossed it back at Katrina.

“I'm kind of glad you didn't tell a story about Nate,” Katrina said as she wiped the tomato off with her napkin and returned it to her salad. “TMI, you know?”

“What do you mean?” Debra asked her. “I like stories.”

“Yeah, but it's better to be mysterious,” Katrina said. “Nate and Middie were, like, the best couple—”

“Oh yeah, you would have been voted Best Couple if you and Nate were in the same class,” Debra interrupted.

“And you don't want to spoil the image, you know.” Katrina spun a limp leaf of romaine around her fork as she talked. “I want to remember them at the prom and at homecoming and holding hands in the hall . . .”

I could feel my heart sink as Katrina went on. Each time
she mentioned a party or dance or event Nate and I had attended, I had a flash of an image in my mind. A snapshot of us together, smiling, happy, perfect.

“What inspired you, Middie?” Katrina wanted to know.

“Excuse me?” I looked up to find my friends smiling sweetly at me.

“The service. What you said. What inspired you?”

“Oh, um, they weren't really my words,” I demurred. “I, um, someone else suggested them.”

Haley smiled. “Was it Allison? She's so cool.”

“Uh-uh.” I shook my head. “Lee? Ryan?”

“Lee Ryan . . . you mean . . .”

“Nate's friend. His best friend,” I clarified. Katrina and Debra had blank looks on their faces. Since Nate was in the class ahead of us, they didn't really know his friends very well. But Haley did. Her eyebrows lifted in surprise.

“When were you talking to Lee?”

“Oh, um, remember when I ran out of gas? And I called you?”

Haley nodded. “Lee helped you?”

“Yeah. He gave me a lift to get some gas.” I could feel Haley's cluck of disapproval, even if she didn't actually make the sound, and I hastened to add, “He was the only person who had a car.”

Vespa. Whatever.

“He's really . . . nice.” Well, “nice” might not have been the best word to describe Lee, but it was the simplest.

“I think I remember him,” Debra said. “Tall, kind of gawky.”

“Stoner,” Katrina said, as if she suddenly remembered Lee. “Oh my god, he was so wasted at his own graduation!”

Napping,
I thought. He was only napping, he'd said.

“Did he play basketball or something?” Debra wanted to know.

“No . . . ,” I heard myself say. “But he and Nate were best friends.”

“I don't get that at all,” Haley said. “They were
so
different.”

“Well, he came and helped me. When no one else could.”

“I get it.” Haley sounded chastened, as if I were blaming her.

“And he's got a girlfriend,” I added. “She's pretty.”

“So he's not a total loser,” Katrina said with a light laugh.

“Listen, I'm glad he was nice,” Haley said. “But we can help you too, you know?”

“She's right,” Katrina said. “You need anything at all, you just call us, okay? Any time of day or night. We're here for you.” She and Debra both reached for me, but because of the size of the table, their arms couldn't really reach mine. All that touched were the slightest tips of our fingers.

“And next time you want to play hooky, call me,” Haley said, grinning. “You don't need to get Allison to come all the way from college.”

I laughed. “Oh, I didn't hang with—” I stopped. The girls all looked at me quizzically. “I mean, right, you're
right. I won't call Allison.”

I watched Haley, waited for her to say something to me, to ask another question about my day off and who I really spent it with, but she turned instead to Debra. “Do you have anything but fashion on your mind?”

Debra made a face. “Do you have anything but sports on your mind?”

Haley paused and held her gaze. “Yeah. Boys!” When she cracked up, the rest of us did too. I didn't realize I'd been holding my breath until I felt my shoulders relax. As the talk turned to boys and music and television, I quietly slipped away from the table, but Haley jumped up to follow. I tensed, wondering if she was going to say something else about my day of hooky, to flat-out ask me who I'd spent the day with, but she merely leaned into me and whispered, “You okay, Middie?”

I almost growled at her—did everyone have to ask that question ten times a day? But I knew she was only asking because she was concerned. “Yeah, yeah, I'm good. Just have to get ready for class, that's all.”

“Well, like I said, we're one hundred percent here for you. All of us.”

“I know. Thank you.” I loved Haley, truly. She was an amazing friend with only my best interest at heart. It wasn't her fault she could only come up with trite phrases like
We're here for you
; after all, she couldn't understand.

“I totally understand,” she said solemnly. “This is a
rough time, but we're gonna get through it together, okay?”

I let her hug me and told her how much I appreciated her friendship and then slid out of her grasp as politely as I could. Aside from Nate's family, there was only one person who truly understood what I was going through: Lee.

I'll call you when you need me.

But he didn't call that night, not even when I sent him a text:
call me?

In fact, two more days passed and I heard nothing from him, no call or text. Was I wrong about Lee? Did I put my trust in him too quickly? My gut wanted to say no, but my heart sank a little as the days went by.

Three in the morning had to be the loneliest time of the night when your only companion was the wild thought in your brain. Crazy thoughts, thoughts like,
Was Nate sleeping when they attacked the village? Was he frightened or calm? How many people did he try to save?

Silly things too.
What was he wearing? Did he have time to put on his shoes? Did he have bad breath or bed head or sleep drool on his chin?

My gaze flitted from my textbook to my phone about twenty times before I realized that I'd been staring at the same page of chemistry homework for half an hour.

3:05. Density equals mass over volume.

3:09. Molarity. Wave relation. Atomic structure.

My eyes began to close as my lashes grew heavier, my
arms and legs sank into the mattress, light flickered behind my eyelids—

—and the phone on my bedside table suddenly rattled, waking me with a start. My heart skipped a beat as my semiconscious mind thought,
Nate!
But of course it wasn't.

It was Lee. I resisted picking it up. He hadn't responded to my text, so why should I answer his call?

The muted phone buzzed and shook. I pulled the comforter over my head like a turtle retreating into its shell. It finally stopped ringing and then buzzed with a text.

Sighing, I reached a hand up and swiped the phone from the bedside table, curling up with it under the blanket. I tapped the screen and read the illuminated text. He wanted to know where I was.

Home. Bed. Asleep. Go away,
I typed and sent.

A second later, the phone rang in my hand. “What?” I asked him.

“You're not asleep.”

“I was studying.”

“Studying what?”

What did he care? “Chemistry.”

“Waste of time. No one uses chemistry in real life.”

I could feel my temperature rise. I threw off the covers and savored the cool air against my skin. “What do you want, Lee?”

“What do
you
want?”

“Huh?”

“You texted me. Why?”

“That was two days ago.”

“So? What do you want?”

He can be so bullheaded,
I thought and then reminded myself,
He's not Nate.
He wasn't Nate's brother or his dog or even his shadow. He was a loner whose only friend was dead.

I swallowed hard.
Whose only friend was dead.
Oh god. Heartless. I was heartless. I softened my tone. “I have to go. I need to finish studying.”

Lee cleared his throat, and his voice sounded phlegmy and thick. “Come outside.”

“What? Now?”

“Yes. Now.”

“It's after three. I'm not going anywhere.” I pulled the comforter back up and snuggled under it. There was no chance of me leaving this bed tonight, not until I'd gotten at least three hours of sleep. I turned over and readjusted the comforter. I was oh-so-cozy.

But oh-so-curious.

“Why do you want me to come outside? I don't smoke, you know,” I added.

“Who said I wanted you to smoke anything?” He sighed as if he was disappointed in the world. Or at least me. “Maybe I have something you want to see.”

“Doubt it.” I threaded a fraying nylon edge of my comforter through my fingers. “Just tell me.”

“I can't. I have to show you.”

“Lee—”

“It's something Nate would want you to see.”

I inhaled sharply and half sat up. “Don't say that.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because you can't know what Nate would want and what he wouldn't want,” I heard myself blurt out. I could feel tears sting my eyes and I blinked hard against them.

“And you can?”

“Yes, I can.”

He let the silence happen for a while.

Damn.
I was doing it again. Assuming things. Being selfish with Nate's memory. “Fine, whatever,” I said. “Give me ten minutes.”

“Five. I'm waiting outside.”

I peered through the window and saw Lee standing in the middle of the yard. I tapped on the glass and pointed at him. “You look like a stalker!” I whispered into the phone. He slowly swiveled his head up toward me on the second floor; moonlight danced across his face. “Go wait down the street. I'll be there in a minute.”

I watched as he strode across the front lawn. Even his walk was different from Nate's—slow and loose. Did I really confuse him with Nate the other day? How was that even possible?

Five minutes more and I was creeping down the back staircase of our house. Past the driveway, about halfway down the block, Lee leaned against his scooter. I shivered
in the brisk air and crossed my arms over my chest as I approached him. He was wearing a lightweight Windbreaker and his hands were bare. “Okay, where is it?”

In answer, he hopped on his scooter and waved me on.

“Excuse me? No. You didn't say anything about
going anywhere
.”

“What I have to show you isn't here. Get on. Or walk.” He shrugged.

“It's three in the morning!”

Lee started the engine. “Hold on to my waist.”

I glanced back over my shoulder at the house, dark and sleepy, all buttoned up for the night. I had come this far; I supposed I could go a little farther. Rather than sitting sidesaddle like I'd done before, this time I swung a leg over the back of the seat; the leather instantly chilled my jeans. I held on to the bottom of it with both hands, but as Lee revved up, it was hard to stay upright.