The Reaping of Norah Bentley (23 page)

I hit send and tossed my phone aside, not really caring what her reply was. I could live without my books. And I probably wasn’t going to eat the lunch I’d packed, anyway. Not now.

I leaned back against the chair and closed my eyes for a few minutes. I heard feet shuffling up the center aisle; the group from the stage, I guess, talking and laughing. I pressed closer to the seat I was hiding behind, curled up and tried to make myself as small as possible until their voices were lost in the more distant murmur of the crowded hallway. It was perfectly quiet for a minute, and I’d just started to relax again when I heard somebody say my name. Somebody who wasn’t Rachel.

“I’m over here,” I said quietly, reluctantly.

Luke came around the corner a second later, put a hand on the back of the chair I was leaning against and crouched down beside me. He looked down at the now-empty stage, back to my dark corner, and then finally met my eyes.

“I’m starting to worry about you,” he said with a cautious smile.

I took my book bag out of his hands and started messing with all its zippers, made sure the front and side pockets were closed, made sure I didn’t meet his questioning gaze.

“What are you doing in here?” he asked.

“Where’s Rachel?” I asked.

“…On her way to her next class, I guess?” he said. “She told me I’d find you here and asked me to bring your stuff. Don’t know why she couldn’t do it herself, but…”

I laughed darkly, because I knew exactly why she couldn’t.

“What?”

“She’s trying to force us to talk,” I said dryly. I rolled away from Luke and pressed the side of my face against the dimpled plastic armrest. I wanted be mad at Rachel. I really did.

But I couldn’t. She was too right, and there was no getting away from that now. Death is a great motivator, really; and Sam’s friendly reminder of my imminent demise suddenly made clearing the air between Luke and me seem doubly important. So when he asked what we could possibly need to talk about, still playing his dumb acting game, I turned back around and just came out and said it:

“We need to talk about what happened Saturday.”

He frowned, pulled out his cell phone and glanced down at it. “I don’t think we have time for that particular discussion,” he said.

“I’m not going to second,” I said. “Walden’s not going to miss me for one class, and I can just get Rachel’s notes.” I shrugged. “So I’ve got time.”

His frown lifted a little. “Never thought I’d see this,” he said.

“See what?”

“The day Norah Bentley turned into a class-skipping rebel.” He shook his head. “Your step-mom was right—I
have
been a bad influence on you.” He offered his hand, and I took it without thinking, was already on my feet and following him down the aisle before I thought to ask,

“Where are we going?”

“Heller’s theatre appreciation class will be in here before long,” he said. “They usually meet up in her office first, but they’ll probably be here pretty quick, working on getting the stage together for the play this Friday.”

“That still doesn’t answer my question.”

“We can’t stay here,” he said, pulling insistently on my arm until I gave in and matched his quick pace.

“But we’re walking towards the stage. Wouldn’t that—”

Luke shook his head, stopping beside a door painted to blend in with the wall, hidden in the shadows of the stage itself. He opened it, and I followed him inside, into a dimly lit, narrow corridor.

“Well this is creepy,” I said.

His laugh was quiet, but still managed to fill the tiny space. “It leads to the row of rooms behind the stage—dressing rooms, storage space and stuff,” he said. “Have you never been back here before?”

“I’ve never had Heller for a class,” I said.

We walked silently down the hall, turned the corner to find the rooms he was talking about; a half-dozen of them, all with faded paint and laminated signs taped on, designating their purpose. He walked all the way to the end, to the only door without a sign, and pushed it open. A concentrated rush of the stale auditorium air, with a hint of mothballs, hit me before I even stepped inside.

“This room doesn’t lock,” he said. “So we don’t really use it for anything, and nobody ever goes in here.” He reached over and flicked the light switch. Nothing happened. “They also don’t bother changing the light bulbs,” he muttered. “Be right back.” He left me standing in the room, in the sliver of white light shining in from the hallway, and disappeared back outside. I heard keys jingling, a door knob rattling, and then a minute later he reappeared with a small lamp. “From one of the dressing rooms,” he explained. “They’ll never notice it’s gone.”

The tiny storage room was ‘L’ shaped, and Luke went around the corner and found an outlet on the farthest wall, plugged in the lamp and switched it on. The soft light hardly penetrated the tan lampshade or the thin layer of dust caked on it, and I could still just barely make out the inside of the room; it looked mostly empty, but there were a few boxes shoved in one of the corners, silhouetted against the wall. The wood floors were painted what might have been a dark green, and they creaked underneath Luke as he walked over to shut the door, and then back over to the corner with the lamp.

He sat down and leaned against the wall, nodded to the spot next to him.

“Saved you a seat,” he said.

I folded my arms across my chest and took one last look at the door. “…So I guess you’re skipping second, too?” I asked, slowly wandering my way over to him.

He shrugged. “You said you wanted to talk.”

I shook my head and slumped back against the wall, slid down to the floor—closer to him than was probably good for either of us right now. But it really was creepy as hell in here. “I never said
wanted,”
I pointed out.

“We’re here now, though,” he said, using his finger to make a trail through the dust on the lampshade. “So we might as well.”

“Go ahead, then.”

“Fine.” He sounded amused by my abruptness, and he smiled to himself for a moment before he turned to me and said, “I have a question then, if I get to start.”

“What?”

“I want to know what you saw outside that window.”

Of all the things he could have asked, that was probably the least expected. I had to take a second to compose myself before I could calmly ask,

“What are you talking about?”

“Was it the same thing you saw out there on the stage the other day?”

“…I didn’t see anything on the stage the other day,” I said. “I was just under a lot of stress, and I thought I—”

“You’re lying.”

Anger welled up inside me, made me forget all about trying to convince him he was wrong. “Well
you’ve
been lying all morning,” I said. “You and that stupid smile, acting like everything’s just great between us.”

“Keep your voice down,” he said, lowering his own and glancing toward the door. After a few seconds, he added, “So you’re not going to tell me, then?”

“There’s nothing to tell you,” I snapped.

“…Now you’re just being stubborn.” He knocked his head lightly back against the wall and sighed. “And what if I have been lying all morning?” he said after a minute. “Would you rather me start telling the truth? Maybe I could just start saying and doing everything I
really
wanted to, since that worked out so well for me Saturday night?”

“It might have, if you hadn’t been so stupid about it.”

“Would it have made a difference?”

I looked away, stared at the shadow of us stretched across the dark floor. I didn’t know how to answer him, but he took his own answer from my silence.

“…That’s what I thought,” he said.

I jerked my head back to him, wanting to protest—but when I met his dark eyes, all my words were suddenly gone again. And even if I could find them, I probably would have kept them to myself, if only to spare him any more pain.

We were quiet for several minutes before I finally managed, in a small voice:

“I’m sorry.”

His laugh was quiet and cold, his gaze piercing as he looked over at me.

“I don’t need your apologies,” he said. Speaking seemed to make some sort of trance come over him, and trance-like was how he moved a second later, bringing his hand up to absently brush my cheek, and then dragging it down along my neck. His fingers were cold, leaving a trail of numbness along my skin.

“I just need you to tell me what I have to do.” His voice was rough; his lips barely parted when he spoke. His touch slipped down to the hollow at the base of my throat, gently outlined the pale purple glass hanging from it.

I’d frozen in place the second he reached for me, and it was all I could do to stammer, “What do you mean, what do you have to do?”

He closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath. “To get you to stay away from him.”

“I…I don’t know who you’re talking about—”

The dazed look in his eyes was suddenly gone, replaced by a violent urgency.

“Look,” he said. “I don’t care if you don’t want anything to do with me. I don’t care if you never speak to me again, but
please—
” His hand clenched over the glass, and for a second I was afraid he might shatter it right there in his fist. But then he took another deep breath and let go of it just as quickly, leaned away from me and shook his head; at me or himself—I wasn’t sure which.

“Just stay away from him,” he finally managed to finish.

My anger from earlier resurfaced, melting away my paralysis. I stood up, shaking my head at Luke when he did the same, taking a step back when he reached for me.

“You’re being ridiculous,” I said.

His mouth was set in an even line; the rest of his face, just as impassive.

“There’s nothing you can do, anyway.” I managed to keep my voice quiet, but inside I was seething, pissed not just at him but at myself, at how wrong this whole situation was. This couldn’t be happening. It shouldn’t have been happening, and I shouldn’t have had to fight myself like this, to suppress the urge I had to scream at him.

But I
was.
I was fighting and I was losing—too angry to think straight, to think about anything but making him hurt like I was hurting. And that’s why I looked up, looked him straight in the eyes and said,

“I don’t care what you think. I’m not staying away from him.”

But Luke’s expression didn’t change. He just stared at me for a few seconds, and then he stepped toward me and very calmly said, “Then I’ll make sure he stays away from you.”

He was close enough now that I could tell he wasn't as calm as he sounded; I could see how deliberately his chest was rising and falling with deep attempts at calming breaths, and when he leaned in and pressed his lips against my cheek, I felt their faint trembling. And it scared me.

“You better not go anywhere near him,” I said. My legs were suddenly weak, kept trying to buckle underneath me as I backed away from him, moved toward the door without taking my eyes off him.

He didn’t try to stop me this time. He just stood there, blocking the light from the lamp with his anger gathered over him like a cloak, his eyes low to the ground.

“We’ll see,” he said.

This had been, without a doubt, the worst day of my life. When the last bell finally rang, I could have cheered—if I’d had the energy. But I was too exhausted, from carrying the weight of Luke’s words, from constantly trying to dodge Rachel’s demands to know why I’d skipped second period, what Luke and me had talked about back behind that stage. And from trying to avoid that stupid dog, too, because it followed me for the rest of the day, watching and waiting at every window. By the end of the day, though, I was too tired to even care about it anymore. If Sam had been there, I would have laughed right in his face, would have told him he was going to have to do a lot better than that if he wanted to shake me, to make me feel any worse after what happened with Luke.

I was too tired, even, to attempt to lose Rachel like I’d been planning to do when I headed outside to meet Eli. I’d even offered to introduce her to him, hoping it would get her to drop the subject of Luke for a little while. Besides, who really cared if she met him? Who cared if she knew the truth about him, about what was happening to me? None of it seemed to matter now. The only thing that
did
matter was forcing my feet to move, to get me through those halls, out the door and back to Eli as fast as they could. The thought of seeing his face again was the only thing that kept me moving, the only reason I had the strength to push open the heavy metal doors that led outside.

The sky was clear, the sun’s rays unseasonably warm and bright enough to lift even my mood the tiniest bit. And it was easy enough to lose myself in the crowd of people pushing through the door, to get swept up with them while they jostled their way towards the parking lot and let them carry me to the edge of the sidewalk. I stopped there, the soles of my shoes balanced on the curb, rocking my body back and forth while I anxiously scanned the schoolyard.