Between These Lines (A Young Adult Novel) (22 page)

Despite
the pain, nothing was worse than how I felt inside.

Fire
hated me. It stole any chance at the happiness I could possibly ever have. It
stole away everyone I had ever loved.
   

And
I could have—I could have loved Evie. I had only just begun to realize
it.

I
never got the chance to tell her what she was beginning to mean to me.

Now
that chance was gone.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Monday

The scrape
of chalk made everyone cringe. Mr. Generro, my Life Science teacher, was the
only teacher at Whitley who still insisted on using a black board instead of
rising into the modern age and using a Smart Board. He said there was nothing
smart about the new boards. It was the person doing the work at it that created
the brilliance. In truth, I think he just really liked the smell of chalk dust.

Mr.
Generro was old school, which was why before starting today’s lesson, he
decidedly set his skinny stick of white chalk to rest, and turned to us with
somber eyes.

“I
need everyone’s attention, please,” he cleared his throat before beginning again.
“This past weekend there was a horrible tragedy and Whitley Prep lost one of
its own. I’d like each of you to take in a moment of silence before we resume
with our lesson.”

I
watched as he bowed his chin to his chest, his unruly brown curls bobbing forward
to reveal the bald spot on top of his head. Kids in the next row over did the
same, and the row over from them, but they lacked the amount of reverence Mr.
Generro displayed. Some didn’t even close their eyes. Some began texting in
their laps. Most looked bored.

I
peeked behind me. The girl seated in the rear of the class had her ear buds in
and was filing her nails like she could care less.

No
one said a word.

Mr.
Generro stood and slowly walked over to my desk, but I wasn’t about to stick
around to hear what he had to say. I wasn’t going to let myself become an
example because of Evie. I gathered my books, brushed past him, and made my way
toward the door. Not a head lifted to watch me leave. It was just like
before—now that Evie was gone.

The
moment I stepped out of class, I realized the mistake I had made: directly in
front of the classroom stood Evie’s locker across the hall. If I closed my
eyes, I bet I could still hear the drop of that envelope Shane shoved into it
last Friday.
 
I pictured it lying
there, although I was sure it was gone. The janitors would have emptied her
locker by now.

The
school was unusually quiet and the hallway was empty as I made my way to my own
locker. I passed no one. It was as if the universe was giving me the time and
space I needed.

Even
Aunt Claudie was giving me an unusual amount of space at home. Always picking
up on what was going on with me, she was unusually silent, but she didn’t
hover. She went about making my favorite Monkey Bread and simply set it on the
counter without bothering to ask me what
really
happened this weekend.
But Aunt Claudie worked that way. She knew how to keep a distance and wait
patiently for me to come around until I was ready for her to listen.

#1767
. . . #1766 . . . #1765. Mine. I turned the dial. Everything had become a
dismal numbness since the party. Even the sun shining through the window near
my locker had little effect on me.

The
latch clicked, releasing the lock, and it opened. Like a bad dream revisited, a
paper hung from one of the narrow slats on the door. Immediately, I thought of
Shane, setting me up in some warped way of his, but it must have been pushed in
gently for it to catch the way it did, leaving it to hang there instead of
dropping to the bottom. I reached up, plucked it away, and turned it over in my
hands.

My
heart pounded as I studied the handwriting on the paper. It was too girly. Too
familiar.
 

Crazed
thoughts of Tara sending me an apology for all the times she acted so rudely
entered my head, but I knew better than that. This was Evie’s handwriting. Then
I considered Tara playing a cruel joke on me, at Shane’s request. This was
sick.

I
let the paper unfold in my hands. It wasn’t a note. It wasn’t much more than a
few random lines that didn’t make much sense. In fact, it was more like a page
from a diary.

I
stared at the girlish slant. For some reason it pulled at the back of my mind.
Quickly, I reached up to feel along the top of the shelf for the folder I had
placed there the other day.

English
Lit. I opened it and thumbed through the notes filed in the pocket next to the
first and second drafts of the Sylvia Plath papers Evie and I had collaborated
on. I leaned against the locker as my pulse raced. The handwriting on the notes
and the paper were the same. They were Evie’s.

October 12
^th

Things are getting
difficult. My parents, school . . . my friends. Is that what they are?

Sometimes, I don’t know
the meaning of the word friend. Why do I have them? Am I a good one in return?
And even if I figured it out, it wouldn’t matter. I wish I could understand why
my life is not my own.
   

A
wave of emotions ran through me.
Evie wrote this.

My
thumb traced the ink as if trying to capture one last moment with her. My
throat thickened and I could feel the smoke from the fire filling it again.

I
couldn’t save her.

Today,
however, there was something left of her. I was holding it, bringing her back.
My brain started working again. Between the why’s and why not’s was a very
important
who?

Who
had left this for me?

It
had to have been Shane. He was the only person, besides Tara, who could
possibly get his hands on Evie’s diary. He was the only person I knew of with a
heart cold enough to rip what she held secret and dear, and shove it in my
locker to prove a point.

Or
a threat.

Voices
filled the corridor behind me. I folded the paper with care and placed it
inside my pocket. I shut my locker and turned, walking back towards class,
telling myself I wouldn’t look at Evie’s locker as I approached it. Instead, I
concentrated on my teacher, who stood in the doorway. I could smell a pink slip
coming. He looked at me, shook his head sadly then walked back into the
classroom.

Chapter 35

Tuesday

October 13
^th

Mr. Floyd had a
revelation today, one he decided to share with Professor Coleman and assign to
us, believing we we’re none the wiser.

He’s onto the school
– about the cliques, the out casting, the hurtful things we say and do to
one another; things I’m ashamed to be a part of.

Tara thinks the project
is ridiculous, but then again, she would. She wants no part in this, as if
working alongside Chase is irreversibly demeaning.

But me? I’m dying
inside.

Not in the bad way. Not
in the way you’d think I
should
feel – according to Tara and Shane and the rest of them.

I’m dying because this
is something I’ve always wanted – Chase. I might have to burn this after
writing it, but can I ever admit to anyone how I really feel? I’ve heard Chase
in class. I don’t even have to turn around to know he’s the one who’s raised his
hand, because there’s a hush that falls on the room. I hang on to every word. I
can’t believe how alike we are. It only points out how different he is compared
to Shane. Would Chase care how I looked? How I acted? The only conversations
Shane and I have anymore are ones that revolve around him – or his
friends – or partying.

Shane could care less
how unhappy I feel.
 

I could literally kiss
Mr. Floyd right now!

I
found another note in my locker today. I folded it and shoved it in my pocket,
just like I had done with other, knowing I had to stop calling them notes. They
were anything but. Last night I’d spent hours thinking of her. I pictured her
face, pictured kissing her. I tried to match the words on the paper with the
girl I had come to know last week, but the words kept disappearing, leaving me
alone with her face behind my eyelids. Then sleep came and devoured me.

On
the way to World History, I finally saw Shane and the others at the water
fountain. It pissed me off that Headmaster Whitley changed his mind. I wondered
if they did another search last night because this morning the English Lit
folder was missing from my locker. The only thing in it this morning was the
page from Evie’s diary, but at least I still had something with her
handwriting.

Slinking
in to the classroom, I found my seat, and noticed how quiet the girl behind me
was, which was odd. Not a day went by when she didn’t have
something
to
say.

“Did
they search lockers again?” I asked, and waited for her to look up and answer
me.

“Hey,”
I asked again, and tapped my pencil on top of her desk. “Was anything missing
from your locker?”

Mr.
Shepherd rolled the overhead projector to the front of the room and pulled the
squeaky screen down over the chalkboard. The lights went out and I swiveled
back around to face forward, coming to the understanding that my life had
reverted back to when everyone chose to ignore me.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Wednesday

My locker
reeked of bleach.

I
looked around and watched everyone else pull out backpacks and notebooks out of
theirs, replacing whatever was coming out with something else going back in.
The precautionary measures of this school against illegal substances were
getting stranger each day. Whatever Shane had put in that envelope must have
caused enough alarm that the administrators worried there could be others and I
wasn’t thrilled with having to smell like Clorox for the rest of the day.

I
opened my locker and another paper flew out at me.
  

October 14
^th

My palms are sweating.
This morning Tara and I are going to start the assignment. We’re going to talk
to Chase. Though I’m sure it will be me doing most of the talking, if not all
of it. Tara could care less. I wish I was the only one assigned to him. I’m so
nervous. I’ve been planning in my head what to say, and nothing sounds good.
He’s going to think I’m just another snotty girl looking for help with a paper.
Looking for a grade. Then I’ll ditch him once I get it.

I have to come up with
something brilliant.

God,
I missed her.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Thursday

I
thought I saw Evie today.

It
was in the dining hall, for a second when I looked over at the table she used
to sit at, and it completely freaked me out. I saw the blonde hair, her slight
build, and just when I stood to walk over, she was gone. I think reading her
diary is messing with my head; reading her thoughts, reliving her
feelings—she isn’t gone from here.

Life
has to keep moving, I get that, but the way Shane and his friends were laughing
it up at lunch was sickening and wrong. They’ve found a way to move on without
her, but not me. With each page that winds up in my locker I realize I’m the
one moving on
with
her.

Aunt
Claudie forgot to pack me a lunch today, which was fine. For some reason my
appetite seems to have been nonexistent since the party. I decided to spend the
lunch hour on The Green. For October it was unusually mild and I needed the
fresh air to clear my head. My hands still hurt from the burns but I peeled the
gauze from them hoping the air would help dry the blisters. I pulled the papers
from my pocket. Not one page, but three, fell out of my locker today.

October 14
^th

Today I found out two
things: 1) Shane used me, and 2) I’m falling for Chase.

October 15
^th

You know the saying ‘you
can’t see the forest for the trees’? That explains the past few months being
Shane Whitley’s girlfriend, and the day I became his girlfriend is a day I wish

I could take back.

I finally know that it
wasn’t because he liked me that we ended up together. It was because I was just
another thing for him to have. It was always about Shane - never about me, or
more importantly, us. I finally see that.