Black River Falls by Jeff Hirsch(63)

“It doesn’t?matter.”

“It does.”

“Why?”

Hannah was quiet a moment. “Because I want to know all of him,” she said. “And once you forget . . .”

Down below, the bonfire leaped higher as it consumed its new fuel. Leaves curled and turned to ash. What could I do? Tell her that when I met Greer, practically the first two words out of his mouth were “mongrel” and “trash”? Or that half a second after that, his big brother pinned my arms behind my back so Greer could give me a black eye? Or that they’d done the same thing to Luke Tran and Rashawn Walken and to a dozen other kids like us? Telling Hannah any of that felt like killing him all over again.

“That other Greer—” I said, “—that wasn’t him.”

We watched the fire until it died down and the crowd thinned, wandering off into the dark. Eliot waved up to us, and then the others fell in behind him and he led them back toward the high school.

“How much time is left?” Hannah asked.

I looked at the moon hanging just above the tree line. Pretty soon the sun would be coming up over Lucy’s Promise. “Not long.”

We started down the hill side by side. Hannah took my hand and held it tightly. The feel of her skin, warm and slightly rough against my own, was still so new. We passed the remains of the bonfire and crossed the park. In the days since the riots the rubble had been cleared away and the worst scars in the grass had been filled in. Softened by the moonlight, Monument Park looked almost like new.

“We moved into the school’s auditorium after you left,” Hannah said. “There’s more room and we can get away from everybody else. One day Freeman came by and gave us a copy of Hamlet. He said no one could truly understand what it meant to be human until they’d read Shakespeare.”

“Sounds like something he’d say.”

“So we started reading it which, of course, led the kids to actually wanting to perform it. Maybe it’s crazy, but I thought it’d be good for them. Take their minds off things. Turns out Makela was born to be on the stage.”

We came up out of the park and started along Magnolia Street.

“Makela?”

“I know,” Hannah said. “I thought it would be Astrid, but as soon as Makela got onstage, it was just obvious. She’ll be playing Hamlet, of course. Tomiko is Ophelia. I’m playing the queen.”

“So you’re an actor now.”

She laughed. “I was going to say no, but then I started reading it, and—have you ever read Shakespeare?”

“A little.”

“I don’t think I knew anything that beautiful existed. Most of the time I feel like I’m this jumble. You know? But when I’m up on that stage, saying those words, it’s like I come into focus.”

“I guess we missed it when we tested you,” I said. “You weren’t just a nerd, you were a theater nerd.”

She shook her head. “That’s what I thought at first too,” she said. “But there’s nothing familiar about it at all. I think maybe that’s the reason I like it. It feels new.”

The high school appeared at the end of the street. Its windows were all lit up, casting a warm glow on the brick walls and the lawn that surrounded it. I could see shadows moving around inside. Every room seemed to be filled.

“We’ve still got a few parts we haven’t cast yet,” Hannah said as she crossed into the schoolyard. “I bet you’d make a pretty good Horatio. Oh! Or you could be King Claudius. I think we’ve even got a crown that’ll fit you. We’ll check it out tomorrow after breakfast, and then we’ll—”

“I think I should be alone.”

She turned around and saw me standing at the edge of the sidewalk. The wind whipped her hair over her cheeks.

“When it happens,” I said. “I think I should be alone.”

“Why?”

I thought about the bonfire, how the flames had burned the leaves and the branches off that tree and made the bark into a crust of ash. I imagined the core of it deep inside, pale and untouched. When Lassiter’s was done with me, I wondered what would be consumed and what would be left behind. Would I come out the other side like Greer? Like Dad?

“Because I don’t know who I’m going to be yet.”

I thought Hannah was going to fight me, but instead she came and took both my hands.

“You want to come inside and get your things first? We’ve got your pack and—”

I shook my head. There was nothing I needed. Nothing I wanted.

“There’s a stand of dogwoods on the other side of the park,” I said. “Near the fence. I’ll be there. Come find me in a few hours.”

Hannah’s lips touched my cheek, and then she whispered in my ear.

“Who do you want to be when it’s done?”

Everything that had happened in the last year ran through my mind all at once. The outbreak. Mom and Dad. You. Greer. I felt like a handful of barbed wire had been tied in a knot and buried in my stomach.

“No one.”

She kissed me again, then squeezed my hand and crossed the lawn to the school’s front steps. The door squeaked on its hinges as she opened it. Hannah looked back one last time, and then she went inside. The door shut behind her with a click.