Chapter 3

Charley watched Henry sprint down the hall. She had told him to go.

She wished he would have stayed.

She didn’t know why she was so sensitive. She just was. She hated when her emotions overtook her like that.

Charley navigated through the crowds toward her locker and heard indistinct conversations float around her about the complications of teenage love and the latest gossip. She wasn’t interested. The scream from last class had piqued her concern and curiosity, but now it felt dampened and surreal after Trevor’s barb.

Maybe whoever screamed did it because they finally had enough of Trevor. He drove someone to insanity.

She smirked at the thought.

At least Henry stood by her—for the moment. But ultimately, he ran off to baseball.

Again.

He was after a scholarship. She knew—she had read the news.

Henry Murphy was forgetful, and she toyed with the idea that he was even a bit of a klutz, but something transformed when he got onto the baseball diamond. She even saw him play in a couple games. He was a full head taller than his classmates, and with his baseball skills maturing, he filled out to a strong, lean frame, even if he was still a little lanky and unorthodox.

The news article, which was only from the school paper and brief, said he could pound the ball when he swung and had an electric throwing arm. Now he was in his senior year, and the article praised him as a phenom at Middleton High. Colleges, maybe even professional scouts, were looking at him.

But for all his athletic prowess, he tended to get lost more in the mundane than in the sublime. He could listen to his coach about the subtleties of his baseball swing, but Charley had a hunch he didn’t even hear the assignment from the trigonometry teacher. Which he had repeated three times.

She opened her locker door and her books welcomed her, arranged by height on their familiar white-wire shelf. An array of highlighters in a plastic bin sat on top with a giant stockpile of index cards filled with neatly written notes.

Simple practicality. It made her feel like she at least had control over something. Some other girls had mirrors affixed to the inside of the door and an arsenal of lipstick, mascara, and glitter-laden eye shadow. Others had oil diffusers or popping colors or school-spirit banners. The inside of the high school locker was sacred.

Charley fingered the curved edge of the worn newspaper clipping neatly stuck with small magnets at its four corners on the inside of her locker door. The picture was modestly faded and some of the letters were rubbed out from the text after so many years. She had already read it twice today.

She sighed. It would have made today a lot easier if she could have changed it.

She grabbed her book and shut the door to see Henry bounding down the hall toward her. He exhaled a triumphant breath.

“See?” A couple more large breaths. “I made it, right?”

“Uh-huh,” she said. “You’re right. I’m impressed. Kind of.”

“So . . . what did you think of the scream last class?”

“Not now, Henry. You don’t have to make up for ignoring me at your locker.”

“Okay, okay! Just trying to talk . . . since now I don’t have to run all over the school.”

“Let’s just get to class. I’m ready for this day to be over.”