The whispers are everywhere. As soon as he steps through the school doors, Peter hears them. Alyssia, Alyssia. A constant background rustle, like the wind through the trees.
To start with, he ignores it. They talk about her. They always have, from time to time, when she does something offbeat enough to remind them of her existence. And today is her first day back after being suspended.
Yet by what would have been their second class together, it becomes clear that it isn’t her first day back. She isn’t here. She didn’t show. The gossip is … something else.
He lingers on the fringes of one conversation, and catches snippets. Phoned the school first thing. Think she’s done a runner. Didn’t even take a coat.
Then a girl catches his eye. “What about you, Pete? Have you heard anything?”
“About what?”
She rolls her eyes. “Alyssia Gale. Disappearing in the night.”
The old fear hits him – of being tarnished by association, becoming a target. He shrugs, carefully casual. “If it’s Alyssia we’re talking about … who the fuck knows, right?”
They laugh, and he turns away. He’s good at ignoring the guilt, by now. He almost doesn’t feel it. But the coldness of unease still lingers.
By the time he reaches the changing room for football practice, most of the other boys are already out on the field. Colin is there, pulling on his boots; Peter sits down beside him.
“All right, Col?”
“Yeah.”
It would be unwise to mention the whispers. It would be far more sensible to talk about music, or the upcoming lesson, or their plans for the weekend. Colin’s face is cloud-free; clearly he hasn’t heard anything. Yet, in the end, it’s that which drives Peter onward. Because Colin deserves to be troubled. No reason why Peter should carry it alone.
“Did you hear about Alyssia?”
“What about her?”
“They’re saying she ran away. Someone called the school this morning.”
Colin’s hands pause, briefly, before resuming their lacing. “So?”
“So … don’t you think we might have had something to do with it?”
Colin straightens up and looks at him. “She hit me.”
“For a reason!”
“And that reason is, she’s fucking crazy.”
You can’t say things like that. Peter almost lets the words escape him. Almost. Instead, what leaves his lips is no more than a faint, “But – ”
“Look,” Colin says. “It isn’t our fault she went mental in some accident. Her running away is just part of the same old shitstorm she’s had going on since she came here. If you’d been around as long as I have, you’d get it.”
“But what if she … I dunno. Gets hurt, or …”
“Anyone would think you cared.” Colin’s gaze is level. “And you don’t care, do you, Pete?”
“No.” If he cared, he’d have stepped in before now. He’d have told Colin to lay off her. He’d have …
Well. He’d have been her friend.
“I don’t give a shit,” he reiterates, too loudly. “I just … I don’t want to be landed in it if she does something stupid.”
“Nah,” Colin says, leaning down to lace his other boot. “That girl’s too lost in her own little world even to be thinking about us.”