Chapter 115: CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN

AVERY

By Monday morning, the whole school felt like it had collectively agreed to be loud.

Lockers slammed. Someone’s wireless speaker leaked bass down the junior hallway. A teacher kept clapping for order that never fully arrived. And above all of it, the same announcement repeated from the ceiling speakers in a tired administrative voice:

All students report to the auditorium for the mandatory senior retreat briefing.

Mandatory.

Of course it was.

I walked with Skyler on one side and Leo on the other, swept along by the current of bodies funneling toward the double doors. The auditorium was already half full by the time we got there…rows of worn red seats, the stage lights half-dimmed, a projector screen lowered behind a long table where three staff members sat with clipboards and the kind of patience that only existed because coffee had been involved.

“If this is another forty-minute speech about ‘making memories,’ I’m walking into traffic,” Skyler muttered, scanning for open seats.

“It’s about the lake retreat,” Leo said, adjusting the strap of his bag. “They have to cover liability, cabin rules, schedules—”

“Leo,” Skyler cut in sweetly, “if you say the word itinerary before we even sit down, I’m taking your pen.”

He closed his mouth, mildly offended, and I huffed out a quiet breath that almost passed for a laugh.

We found three seats near the left aisle, halfway back …close enough to see the stage, far enough to avoid the front-row enthusiasm of people who still believed school assemblies could be inspiring. I dropped into the middle seat between them out of habit, bag at my feet, hands folded tightly in my lap.

The auditorium kept filling.

Soccer boys piled into a row near the front. A cluster of juniors argued over who had to sit by the kid who always talked during announcements. Madeline’s blonde hair flashed somewhere to the right as she glided into a seat with her usual court of admirers. And somewhere in the crush of movement and voices, without meaning to look for him, I became aware of Asher.

Not close.

Just present…blond hair, easy posture, the gravitational pull of people naturally making space around him even when he wasn’t asking for it. Mason said something that made Landon laugh. Asher’s mouth moved in reply, but I looked away before I could catch the expression that came with it.

Last week still sat under my skin.

His apartment.

The panic attack.

I ended up passing the night at his place and left before he even woke up the next day.

Quietly.

With my pulse still unsettled and my head full of a version of him I still didn’t know what to do with.

All weekend I had told myself Monday would put things back in order.

School.

Routine.

Distance.

Sitting in a packed auditorium waiting to be briefed on overnight cabins in the woods was not exactly helping.

Principal Reynolds took the microphone, tapped it once, and cleared his throat until the noise dipped to a restless murmur.

“All right, settle down. This won’t take long if you let it.”

A few people laughed. Most didn’t.

He ran through the obvious points first…dates, departure time, buses leaving from the front lot, mandatory permission slips due by Friday. Teachers moved down the aisles handing out packets while he spoke. Skyler immediately started folding hers into some kind of questionable paper shape. Leo opened his and began highlighting.

I stared at the first page until the words Blackheight Senior Lake Retreat blurred slightly.

“This is a school-sanctioned trip,” Reynolds continued, “which means school rules still apply. No unauthorized swimming after hours. No cabin swapping without staff approval. No alcohol, no controlled substances, no genius experiments in independence that end with someone calling emergency services.”

That earned more laughter.

A teacher near the stage projected a map of the campsite onto the screen: lodge at the center, cabin clusters marked in neat rectangles along the tree line, a stretch of lake highlighted in blue like it was supposed to look inviting instead of cold and deep and full of bad possibilities.

My fingers tightened around the packet.

“Cabin assignments will be posted later this week,” Reynolds said. “Boys’ side and girls’ side are separate. Staff cabins are in between for a reason. If anyone has medical concerns, dietary restrictions, or other issues, speak to your form teacher before Thursday.”

Skyler leaned into me. “If I get stuck with Madeline, I’m faking a chronic illness.”

“You don’t have to fake one,” Leo murmured. “Your personality may qualify.”

She gasped. “Did you just—”

“Shh,” I whispered, though my mouth twitched.

Reynolds handed the mic to Ms. Oliver, who spoke briefly about reflection activities and “intentional downtime,” which roughly translated to supervised journaling and not disappearing into the woods. Then Coach got up for three minutes about sportsmanship during the inter-cabin games and somehow made it sound like a war briefing.

Through all of it, the room stayed a living thing… shifting, whispering, bored and restless and buzzing with the particular energy of seniors who knew this was one of the last big school events before everything scattered.

At some point, during the shuffle of a teacher passing more forms down our row, the seating compressed. People scooted. Bags moved. Someone behind us complained about legroom.

And when I glanced up again, Asher was closer than before.

Not beside me.

But near enough that if the crowd shifted one more time, pretending not to notice him would become a full-time job.

Skyler followed my line of sight before I could stop her.

Her eyebrows lifted with pure, delighted malice. “Oh.”

“Don’t,” I said under my breath.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to.”

“I was about to say this retreat just got interesting.”

Leo frowned faintly between us. “Why?”

“No reason,” Skyler and I said at the same time, which only made it worse.

I forced my eyes back to the stage, packet crinkling under my hands, and tried to focus on departure times and packing lists like they were the biggest problem I had.

They weren’t.

Because in less than two weeks, we would all be at the same lake, in the same woods, with the same thin walls and too much unsupervised time  and whatever fragile distance I had been trying to rebuild since his apartment was already starting to feel imaginary.