Kelsey Sutton: Some Quiet Place

“Aren’t you going to ask?” Maggie pulls away. I don’t respond, offering her a slight shrug. This girl who I call my friend slings her arm around my shoulders, steering me to the front doors. Even sick as she is, her grip is tight. “How I escaped from the asylum?” she presses. Her term for the hospital.

We’re drawing stares from others. I meet the gaze of Tyler Bentley, the star quarterback on the team. He barely notices me, but he’s looking at Maggie unabashedly. What is she doing here? I see him mouth. He doesn’t understand. None of them do. They think Maggie is an addict, and she lets them believe it. She even encourages it. She doesn’t want anyone to know the truth, because she doesn’t want to be pitied.

“Maybe you should go back to the hospital,” I say to her now. A friend should be concerned, and Maggie is deep into the cancer, reason enough for worry. Just getting out of bed is probably too much for her.

“So when do I get to see it?” she asks, ignoring me. She’s always been like this, jumping from one topic to another. Her lip ring glints.

“See what?”

“Hey, guys, wait up!”

Maggie turns quickly, her expression lighting up. The boy who called out runs toward us, then brushes past, heading for his friends a few feet ahead. I watch Maggie’s face fall. I’m not enough for her. She needs more. I know this. And yet where there should be remorse, regret, longing, grief, there is, of course, only me. The black hole, the white canvas, the empty room.

Maggie is already recovering, and she links her arm through mine as we navigate the halls of Edson High. I sidestep what looks like a puddle of soda. “I want to see your newest painting,” she asserts. “What are you working on?”

The bell rings overhead. “We’d better go to class,” I tell her. She nods, not bothering to force another smile or say goodbye. She’s already dwindling.

When the second bell sounds out—last chance to get to class—I stand by my locker and watch Maggie walk away, her tread trembling and uncertain. She’ll be going back to the hospital in less than an hour, no doubt. I may be able to understand human nature, and Maggie is stubborn enough to always get her way, but at this moment I can’t fathom what her parents were thinking this morning when they let her come back to school.

“Elizabeth Caldwell!” a teacher says sharply as she rushes by. I glance at her and wave, but we both know I’m going to be late again. I gather the materials for class, keeping one eye on Maggie making her way down the hall. In a moment, she’ll turn a corner and be gone from sight, probably the last time I’ll see her in a while.

I’m still there when she falls.

I hesitate for just an instant. I really should get to first period. That’s not a normal reaction , instinct nudges. Realizing this, I drop everything and run. The doors and posters on either side of me are blurs. When I reach Maggie’s side I go down to my knees, shake her shoulder.

Her skin has a more pronounced sickly tint, and her eyes don’t even flutter as I say her name. Her pulse is slow and faint. I lift my head. There’s no one else around but a skinny boy, and he stares at us dumbly. “Call an ambulance,” I order him. He fumbles around in his pockets and I turn my attention back to Maggie. It looks like she’s not breathing. I check her pulse again just to make sure she’s still alive.

It takes five minutes for the ambulance to arrive, and when the paramedics burst around the corner and spot us, they put a mask over Maggie’s face. They lift her up onto a stretcher, rattling off numbers and medical talk I don’t understand. When they take yellow Maggie away, I follow them. No one stops me; the hall is full now.

“She’s the girl that, like, doesn’t eat, right?”

“No, she throws it all up, I thought.”

My classmates’ hushed, speculative chatter fills my ears. I follow the paramedics outside, and so does everyone else. I go as far as the edge of the parking lot and watch the men carry Maggie hurriedly toward the vehicle.

A moment later, movement out of the corner of my eye catches my attention and I turn to see Maggie’s mom rushing toward me. “What happened?” she asks in a high, trembling voice. Her grip is so tight on her purse that her knuckles are white, and her hair is a wild mess.

“She collapsed.” I’m not the only one staring at the commotion; the front steps are now littered with students. Their expressions are full of curiosity. Not concern.

“I was out in the car,” she tells me with a twisted expression. Emotions shimmer into view and stand close to her. Guilt, Worry. I’m careful to keep my eyes on Maggie’s mom. “I should never have let her come,” she babbles on, “but she wanted to so much that I thought maybe—”

The paramedics slam the doors shut behind Maggie.

“I’d better go,” her mom says, tearful. She touches my elbow before jogging toward her car. The lights of the ambulance, red and blue, swirl over the parking lot. I watch it pull out of the parking lot and squeal onto Main Street. Maggie’s mom is close behind in her minivan. Before they’re out of sight, I turn away. There’s nothing I can do, after all.

I’m one of the first to head back to class.

I can feel Joshua Hayes staring at me again. I put my pencil down with a click , ignoring him. Our history teacher prattles on about the Revolutionary War. “It was when the outcome began to look worse for them that Washington made his move … ”

“Hey, freak.”

Sophia Richardson pokes me, moving quickly so Mr. Anderson doesn’t see. I glance up from my notes. “Yes?”

She raises her brows in a mocking imitation of interest, resting her elbow on the back of her chair. “There’s a football game Friday night. Are you going?”

Unlike the others in my class, Sophia doesn’t pretend I don’t exist. Her resentment shoves whatever instinct she has to the back of her mind. Which is why she taunts me with questions about football games and parties. Just like Fear, she waits for my answer even though she already knows it. I never go to social events. Not since Maggie stopped making me go.

“No, I don’t think so,” I tell her.

Satisfaction radiates from Sophia’s tight smile. She plays with the ends of her straightened hair and says casually, “No one wants to hang out with you because you’re—”

A crumpled-up piece of paper pops Sophia in the back of the head and she jerks, scowling. She reaches down to pick up the ball, scanning the room for the culprit. His head is bent down and he’s studying his textbook intently, but I suspect Joshua Hayes isn’t as innocent as he seems. Sophia must suspect it too, because she blanches. Tough as she may act, she’s had a crush on him for years. A crush that’s never been reciprocated. Then Sophia scowls, and when she turns her churning green eyes on me again, it’s evident she somehow blames me for all of it.

Everyone has a motive behind their actions. Sophia’s is based in pain and jealousy. I know a side of her she so desperately tries to hide. It’s obvious she’s tired today—she keeps rubbing her eyes and can’t hold back her yawns. Rumors circulate all the time, but I don’t need to listen to them; I know firsthand. Sophia’s little sister, Morgan, is autistic. She has a babysitter who stays with her during the day, but since Mrs. Richardson works long hours, it often falls on Sophia’s shoulders to look after her sister.

Once upon a time, Sophia considered me her best friend. I was over at her house a few times a week, playing dolls or whatever other game she invented for us. She tried to hide Morgan from me, deliberately dragging me to places that were as far from her as we could get. Until one day the babysitter brought Morgan outside for some fresh air and there was nowhere for Sophia to go, so I met the younger Richardson sister for the first time. And for some unfathomable reason, Morgan took to me like a drowning victim to a life jacket.