Chapter 34 Twenty–Three Items

Chapter 34 Twenty–Three Items

Wren

By Monday morning the photo was everywhere.

I could feel it before I reached my locker. The hallway had a different quality to it, the way it did when something had moved through the school overnight and rearranged things. Two girls stopped talking when I passed them near the main entrance. A junior I had never spoken to looked at me for one second too long and then away. A group near the vending machines went quiet as I approached and resumed when I was past.

I kept my face still and my eyes forward.

At my locker I spun the combination and opened the door and swapped my books with the deliberate calm of someone who was completely fine. I was not completely fine. I was performing completely fine, which I had done enough times that the performance was very nearly automatic. I was not completely fine. I was performing completely fine, which I had done enough times in this building that the performance was very nearly automatic.

First period passed without incident.

In second period a folded piece of paper landed on my desk.

I felt it before I saw it. The soft impact of paper on a desk was not something you missed when you had been waiting for something to happen. I kept my eyes on the board for another thirty seconds and then picked it up and opened it under the table with one hand.

The handwriting was neat. Not Tyler's. Someone else.

Cole Hensley doesn't look at charity cases like that unless he wants something. Watch yourself.

I read it twice.

Then I folded it back along the same creases and put it in my bag.

I looked at the board. The teacher was explaining something about the French Revolution. I wrote it down because writing things down was what I did when I needed something to do with my hands.

The note was going in the folder when I got home. That would make twenty-three items.

Third period. Fourth period. Lunch.

At lunch I counted the number of times someone looked at me and then looked at their phone. Eleven in twenty minutes.

I ate my food.

Dani caught me near the end of sixth period. She fell into step beside me.

"The note in second period," she said.

"You saw it happen."

"I do not know who wrote it but I know who asked them to." She kept her voice low. "The handwriting was disguised. That tells you the person who wrote it knows their handwriting would be recognised."

"So it is someone whose handwriting I would know."

"Most likely." She slowed slightly. "The folder you have been building."

I looked at her. "How do you know about the folder."

"I do not know the specifics. I know you have been collecting because of the way you have been paying attention for three weeks." She shrugged. "People building something collect things."

"What would you do with a folder like that," I said.

"The right person. The right moment." She paused. "Not a teacher. Someone with enough reach to make the pattern visible."

"Who is the right person."

"You will know when the moment arrives," she said, and walked away.

I stood in the hallway.

I thought about twenty-three items. I thought about all of it as a single thing rather than separate incidents.

It was one story told twenty-three different ways.

I was almost ready to tell it.

Dani caught me near the end of sixth period. She fell into step beside me.

"The note in second period," she said.

"You saw it happen."

"I do not know who wrote it but I know who asked them to." She kept her voice low. "The handwriting was disguised. That tells you the person who wrote it knows their handwriting would be recognised."

"So it is someone whose handwriting I would know."

"Most likely." She slowed slightly. "The folder you have been building."

I looked at her sharply. "How do you know about the folder."

"I do not know the specifics. I know you have been collecting because of the way you have been paying attention for three weeks." She shrugged. "People building something collect things. You have the look of someone collecting."

"What would you do with a folder like that," I said.

"The right person. The right moment." She paused. "Not a teacher. Someone with enough reach to make the pattern visible."

"Who is the right person."

"You will know when the moment arrives," she said, and walked away.

I stood in the hallway.

I thought about twenty-three items. I thought about all of it as a single thing rather than separate incidents.

It was a single thing. I had been treating it as separate incidents for three weeks and that was the mistake.

The folder was not twenty-three items.

It was one story told twenty-three different ways.

I thought about what building toward something felt like from the inside. It felt like this. Like knowing you had the pieces and knowing the moment was coming and not being afraid of it anymore.

I was almost ready.

The last piece was almost here.

I went to fifth and sixth period and kept my face still and my eyes forward and thought about the folder and the moment Dani had described.

At the end of sixth period the sophomore from two weeks ago passed me in the hallway. She said hey and then she said I just wanted you to know the photo is actually kind of honest if you know how to look at it. I know people are being weird about it. She said I thought someone should say that.

I looked at her. I did not know what to do with that.

"Thank you," I said.

She nodded and walked away.

I stood in the hallway for a moment.

Then I went to seventh period and thought about what she had said. Kind of honest if you know how to look at it.

I thought about what the photo had captured.

I thought about what it had not captured.

I thought about Cole's face in the two seconds and what it had been showing and whether that was something I had been pretending not to know for weeks or whether I was still making that up.

I was not making it up.

I had known it for a while and I had crossed out the paragraph and the crossing out had not worked and tonight when I got home I was going to stop pretending otherwise.

The folder had twenty-three items and a direction and I was almost ready to use it.

And whatever was going to happen between me and Cole was going to have to happen too because pretending it was not happening was costing more than it was saving.

I had decided that somewhere between the car park and the hallway and the sophomore saying kind of honest if you know how to look at it.

I was done pretending.

About any of it.