Chapter 78 Expiring clock

Chapter 78 Expiring clock
The main hallway of Oakwood High is louder than it has been all semester. Green and gold paper streamers are taped across the metal locker doors, most of them already torn and dragging on the linoleum from the volume of students crowding the corridors. It is 1:15 PM on Friday. The pep rally in the main gym just ended, and the bass from the marching band's drumline is still vibrating through the soles of my shoes.

Everywhere I look, there is green and gold. The varsity cheerleaders are still wearing their short pleated skirts despite the ice on the windows, their pom-poms rustling like dry leaves as they crowd around the trophy cases. In the center of the lobby, three large, black coach buses are idling in the circle drive, their exhausts sending grey plumes of diesel smoke into the freezing afternoon air.

On the sides of the buses, magnetic banners read: OAKWOOD BEARS - STATE QUALIFIER.

I walk past the cafeteria entrance, keeping my head down and my eyes fixed on the black strap of my backpack. I feel like a ghost moving through a crowd of living people. Nobody looks at me, and I don't look at them. My chest has been a tight since Thursday night. Every time I take a breath, the image of Leo standing in our kitchen, his fingers digging into his ruined thigh, flashes behind my eyes.

You have until Friday night.

His voice has been running on a loop in my head for eighteen hours. Saturday morning. That is when my mother gets home from her shift. That is when Leo will show her the photos of me in Jackson's car and at the theater. If that happens, we leave. She will pack our bags, pull Leo out of the clinic, and we will move back to the lower valley, running from the Thornes just like we did two years ago.

My phone vibrates in my front pocket.

The sharp buzz makes me flinch so hard I drop my binder. It hits the floorboards with a loud slap, three loose sheets of lined paper sliding across the dirty tile. Nobody stops to help me. I scramble down, my knees hitting the cold floor as I scoop the papers back into the cardboard folder. With my left hand, I pull my phone out.

There is a single text message from an unsaved number.

Behind the home bleachers. Now.

My heart does a heavy roll against my ribs. I don't reply. I shove the phone back into my pocket, clutch my binder against my chest, and turn toward the doors that lead to the athletic fields.

Outside, the sleet from yesterday has stopped, but the sky is leaden grey, and the wind coming off the ridge is biting. The grass of the football field is yellowed and dead, covered in a crunchy layer of frost that breaks under my sneakers as I walk.

I head toward the home bleachers—the towering structure of steel and aluminum that overlooks the fifty-yard line. During the season, thousands of people sit up there under the floodlights, but today the stadium is empty, the green chain-link gates left open for the maintenance crews.

I slip through the gap in the fence and walk into the cold space beneath the steel beams.

It is silent under here. The wind is cut off by the aluminum planks above, but the air is freezing, smelling of damp soil, rusted iron, and old popcorn boxes. The shadows are long and grey, stretching across the gravel.

Jackson is already there.

He is pacing a tight circle near the concrete support pillars. He has his black-and-gold varsity team jacket zipped up to his throat, but underneath it, I can see the stiff white collar of his padded shoulder gear. He is already wearing his padded hockey pants and his compression socks, his skates slung over his right shoulder by their laces. His helmet is sitting on a wooden equipment crate nearby, its clear plastic visor scratched and smudged.

When he hears my sneakers on the gravel, he stops. His head whips around, his eyes wide and bloodshot under his messy brown hair.

"Did anyone see you come out here?" he asks immediately. His voice is tight, his breath forming white clouds in the freezing air.

"No," I say, stopping five feet from him. I drop my binder onto a wooden bench. "They're all in the lobby waiting for the team send-off. The buses are idling."

Jackson takes quick steps toward me, his hockey pants rustling. He stops just out of reach, his eyes scanning my face, taking in the dark circles under my eyes and the way I'm holding my arms pressed tight against my ribs.

"What happened, Maya?" he asks. "You didn't answer my texts last night. I drove by your street at midnight, but your kitchen light was off."

"Leo knows," I say.

The two words are small, but they seem to drop into the space between us.

Jackson freezes. His shoulders, which are usually broad and square under his varsity jacket, seem to drop. His hands, still wrapped in their black athletic tape, twitch at his sides. "What do you mean he knows? Did Chloe—"

"No," I cut him off, my voice cracking slightly. "Not Chloe. It was Raph."

Jackson’s jaw tightens, a hard look flashing across his face. "Raph?"

"He took pictures of us, Jackson," I say, the tears starting to blur my vision again, though I blink them back furiously. "He was watching us on Tuesday night. He took a photo of me inside your car at midnight. And he had someone take a photo of us leaving the Oakhaven theater. He sent them to Leo’s phone last night. Anonymously."

Jackson lets out a low breath, his eyes staring past me at the rusted steel pillars. He slams his fist against the nearest concrete support, the sound of his taped knuckles hitting the cement echoing through the empty space under the bleachers. "I knew I should have handled him on Tuesday. I knew he was watching the lane."

"It doesn't matter what you should have done," I say, my voice rising as the panic finally breaks through. "He did it. He gave them to Leo. And Leo went crazy last night, Jackson. He was screaming. He brought up your father, he brought up his leg, he brought up everything from junior year."

Jackson looks back at me, his grey eyes raw and vulnerable in the dim light. He steps closer, reaching out to grab my upper arms. "Did he tell your mom?"

"Not yet," I say, my breath hitching as I look up at him. "But he gave me an ultimatum. He said if I don't break things off with you before you step onto the ice tonight, he is showing the photos to my mother the second she gets home from her shift tomorrow morning. He said we’re moving out of the valley if she sees them."

Jackson’s grip on my arms tightens. "He can't do that, Maya. We can explain—"

"Explain what, Jackson?" I cry, a tear finally escaping and freezing on my cheek. "Explain that I’ve been lying to her for weeks? Explain that I'm seeing the son of the man who ruined her son’s life? She will never understand. She will think I betrayed Leo. She will think I don't care about what happened to this family."

"You didn't betray anyone," Jackson says, his face bending down until his eyes are level with mine. "You didn't do anything wrong. I'm the one who kept coming down to the lane. I'm the one who wouldn't leave you alone."

"But I stayed," I say. "I got in the car. I held your hand."

A shrill blast of a bus horn echoes from the front parking lot, the sound vibrating through the metal planks above our heads. Twenty minutes until the team departs.

Jackson looks toward the sound, his face turning pale. He looks back at me.

"The game is in two hours," he says, his voice frantic now. "The scouts are already at the stadium. My dad is hosting a pre-game reception at the rink right now. If I mess up tonight—if I don't start—everything we did this week is for nothing."

"Then play," I say, my voice dropping into a whisper. "Play the game, Jackson. Go to Michigan. Do what your dad wants. Let's just end it. Leo is right. We can't keep doing this. The ceiling is falling in on us."

"No," Jackson says. He lets go of my arms, his hands sliding up to cup the sides of my face. His palms are rough, smelling of hockey wax and sweat. He presses his forehead against mine, his breath warm against my lips. "I am not letting you go, Maya. Not again. I spent a year watching you walk down the hall pretending I didn't exist because I was too coward to stand up to my dad. I am not doing it anymore."

"We don't have a choice!" I sob, my hands rising to grip his wrists, trying to pull his hands away from my face, but he holds me steady. "Leo has the photos on his phone. Raph has the originals. Even if I lie to Leo, Raph will just send them to my mom himself. We have no leverage. We have to break up."