Hannah Jayne - Truly, Madly, Deadly

“Whatever.”

“Besides, I heard he gave Libby a ride home the other day.”

Sawyer unzipped her backpack. “And I’m sure she thanked him appropriately.”

Chloe crossed her arms in front of her chest, bored now. “Are we still on for tomorrow night?”

“You mean our convocation?”

“Ooh, convocation. SAT word?”

Sawyer laughed. “My ticket out of suburban hell. Let me call you about tomorrow, though. Dad and wife number two are finding out the sex-slash-species of The Spawn. I’m sure they’ll want to do something educational and emotionally satisfying out of their Blended Families/Blended Lives book.”

“Ah, another evening rubbing placenta on each other and worshipping the moon?”

Sawyer sighed. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come over and watch your parents’ passive aggression as they avoid each other while showing their extreme disappointment in your choices?”

Chloe folded a stick of gum into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “Hell no. Wednesday is fried chicken and mac-and-cheese-as-vegetable night at the double wide. That dysfunction is all mine. And they’re not my parents—Lois and Dean are my guardians.”

Sawyer cocked her head, her arms crossed in front of her chest. “Not mom and stepdud anymore?”

“Hopefully not. Haven’t seen Dean in over a week. And I’m using the guardian thing so hopefully Lois will finally cave in and admit that I’m adopted.”

Sawyer grinned. “Except that you are the spitting image of your mother.”

“Sawyer Dodd, that is a horrible thing to say.”

“Of course. A thousand apologies. I take it back.”

“Better.” Chloe blew Sawyer an air kiss. “I’ll be waiting by the phone with greasy fingers for your call.”

“I’ll have the ambulance on standby,” Sawyer called over her shoulder.

She grinned, watching her best friend skip down the hall. For the first time in what seemed like forever, things felt normal and light again.

“Excuse me.” Logan Haas smiled shyly at Sawyer and she stepped aside, letting him get into the locker under hers. Logan bore the unlucky high school triumvirate of being slight, short, and nearsighted, but Sawyer liked him.

“Hey, sorry,” she said.

Logan stacked his books, slammed his locker shut, gave Sawyer an awkward salute, and headed down the hall, eyes glued to his shoes. Sawyer spun her combination lock and yanked the door open, her lips forming a little o of surprise when she did so. Amongst her neatly stacked binders and books was a short, fat envelope in a pale mint green. Her name was printed on it in a handwriting font. She took the envelope and looked over both shoulders; no one milled about, red-faced or smiling, indicating that they had slipped the note in her locker.

She tore the envelope open and pulled out a matching mint green folded card, a tiny plain oak leaf embossed on the bottom. When she opened it, a clipped newspaper article slipped out. Sawyer didn’t have to read the headline to know what it said: “Local High School Student Killed In Car Wreck.” She swallowed down a cry and read the note on the card.

It said, simply,

You’re welcome.

Heat, like a live wire, raced down Sawyer’s spine. The note was signed, “an admirer,” and that word, admirer, clawed at her. Her fingers started to shake, and she flicked the note back into her locker and slammed the door shut, pressing her forehead against the cool metal.

It’s nothing, she told herself. Someone probably sent flowers—everyone sent flowers. Each hour after Kevin’s death was reported a new bouquet seemed to show up—gaudy, pitiful, with drooping spider mums and cheap, glittered ribbons in the Hawthorne High School colors. Each bouquet reminded Sawyer of Kevin—especially when they died.

She suddenly hated flowers.

“I’m sure that’s what it is,” Sawyer mumbled.

“Tick tock, Ms. Dodd.” Principal Chappie tapped his mammoth wristwatch as he strode by, giving students his principal snarl and tick-tock warning.

Sawyer hiked her backpack onto her shoulder and stepped away from her locker, but that meager line— “You’re welcome” —was like an invisible string pulling her back. She spun her combination lock and reached for the note, her fingers hovering tentatively over it as though it would burn her. Finally, she snatched it up and tucked the note into her bag, heading toward her AP biology class.

Chloe appeared in the hallway halfway to Sawyer’s class and fell in step with her. She leaned in. “You look awful,” she whispered.

Sawyer swallowed heavily and licked her lips. “There was something in my locker.”

“Like a dead mouse?” Chloe shuddered.

“Ahem,” Mr. Rhodes said from inside his classroom. “As soon as Ms. Dodd is through with her conversation, we will begin our class.”

Sawyer looked from Mr. Rhodes to Chloe. “Gotta go.”

Chloe peeled off into her own class as Sawyer beelined through the open door and pulled it shut behind her, whispering apologies as she did.

“Nice of you to join us, Sawyer. Take your seat.”

“Sorry.” She ducked into her desk at the back of the room and pulled out her biology book, working to rein in her mind as it shot off in multiple directions. As the day wore on, Sawyer tried to put the note out of her mind, but each time the bell rang, her heart would start to punch against her ribs. She purposely avoided her locker—which was easy to do, since her speech class didn’t require a book and she was planning to buy her lunch anyway—but she couldn’t avoid it at the end of the day. She sat in her last class, doing her best to avoid the clock. But each time another minute ticked off, a hot coil of dread burned through her. When the bell finally rang, she took her time gathering her things.

Chloe poked her head through the doorway from the hall, glaring at Sawyer.

“Oh my God, Sawyer, the glaciers are melting,” she moaned. “Come on already!”

Sawyer slung her last book into her backpack and hitched it over her shoulder. She followed Chloe into the crowded hallway, and as they approached the junior hall, icy fingers of anxiety—or fear—pricked at Sawyer. She tried to shake it off, to remind herself of her well-constructed flower theory, but the note—and its message—hung heavily in the back of her mind.

“Hey, are you okay?” Chloe asked.

Sawyer shook her head, shrugged.

“Didn’t you say you got something?”

Sawyer sucked in a stomach-quivering breath, her eyes focused on her locker. Would there be another note? She fumbled with the lock and tugged it open, letting out a whoosh of air when she saw that her locker was just as she had left it: her neat stack of books, two tubes of Chapstick, a picture of her and Kevin—and no note.

“Earth to Sawyer?”

“Sorry, Chloe. I’m just—I’m just tired, I guess. I’m not sleeping very well.”

“I thought your doctor gave you some sleeping pills or something.”

Sawyer nodded, swapping the books in her locker for the ones in her backpack. “He did, but if I take one of those I’m dead to the world.”

“Sounds like heaven.”

Sawyer rolled her eyes. “Heaven with the teensiest bit of hallucinatory crazy tossed in.”

Chloe bounced on the balls of her feet. “Oh, IPO-paid hallucinogens? Sign me up!”

“And then I run like molasses the next morning.”

“You dropped something.” Chloe bent down and plucked the mint-green envelope from the linoleum. “What’s this?”

Sawyer swallowed. “It’s nothing.” She snatched the envelope back while Chloe cocked an eyebrow.

“Grabby.”