I'm Thinking of Ending Things(46)

The locker room. It’s not as dark in here as in the gym. There are two overhead lights on. Now I recognize it—the sound is water running. One tap is on full blast. I can’t see it yet, but I know.

I should wash my hands, get the paint off. Maybe take a drink. That cool, soothing water in my mouth and running down my throat. I turn my hands over, looking at my palms. Streaked red. Trembling. My right thumbnail is gone.

There’s an opening up ahead to my left. That’s where the sound of water is coming from. I trip on something. I pick it up. A shoe. Jake’s shoe. I want to yell out, to call for Jake. But I can’t. I cover my mouth with a hand. I have to be quiet.

I look down and see Jake’s other shoe. I pick it up. I keep walking toward the opening. I peek around the corner. No one. I bend down and look under the stalls. No legs. I’m holding a shoe in each hand. I take another step closer.

Now I can see the bank of taps. No running water. I move toward the showers.

One of the silver showerheads is on full blast. Only one. There’s lots of steam. It must be hot water, very hot.

“Jake,” I whisper.

I need to think, but it’s so warm here, humid. Steam all around me. I need to figure out how I can get out of here. There’s no point trying to figure out why he’s doing this or who he is. That doesn’t matter. None of it matters.

If I can somehow make it outside the school, I can run for the road. If I make it to the road, I’ll run. I won’t stop. My lungs will burn and my legs will be jelly and I won’t stop. I promise. I won’t stop. I will run as far and as fast as possible. I’ll get away from here to somewhere else, anywhere else. Where things are different. Where life is possible. Where everything isn’t so old.

Or maybe I could last in here alone. Maybe longer than I think. Maybe I could find new places to hide, to blend into the walls. Maybe I could stay in here, live here. In a corner. Under a desk. In the locker rooms.

Someone is there. At the far end of the showers. The floor’s slippery. Wet, steamy tiles. I have an urge to stand under the jet, the steaming water. Just to stand there. But I don’t.

It’s his clothes. By the last stall. I pick them up. Pants and a shirt, balled up, wet. Jake’s clothes. These are Jake’s clothes! I drop them. Why are his clothes in here? And where is he?

An emergency exit. I need one. Now.

Leaving the changing room, I hear the music again. The same song. From the beginning. In the locker rooms, the classrooms, the halls. The speakers are everywhere, but I can’t see them. Does it ever stop? I think so, but I’m not sure anymore. Maybe the same song has been playing this whole time.

I KNOW PEOPLE TALK ABOUT the opposite of truth and the opposite of love. What is the opposite of fear? The opposites of unease and panic and regret? I’ll never know why we came to this place, how I ended up confined like this, how I ended up so alone. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Why me?

I sit down on the hard floor. There is no way out. There’s no way out of this gym. No way out of this school. There never was. I want to think about nice things, but I can’t. I cover my ears. I’m crying. There’s no way out.

I’VE BEEN WALKING AND CRAWLING around this school forever.

I think there’s a perception that fear and terror and dread are fleeting. That they hit hard and fast when they do, but they don’t last. It’s not true. They don’t fade unless they’re replaced by some other feeling. Deep fear will stay and spread if it can. You can’t outrun or outsmart or subdue it. Untreated, it will only fester. Fear is a rash.

I can see myself sitting in the blue chair beside my bookshelf in my room. The lamp is on. I try to think about it, the soft light it emits. I want this to be in my mind. I’m thinking of my old shoes, the blue ones I wear only in the house, like slippers. I need to focus on something outside this school, beyond the darkness, the crippling, oppressive silence, and the song.

My room. I’ve spent so much time in that room, and it still exists. It’s still there, even when I’m not. It’s real. My room is real.

I just have to think about it. Focus on it. Then it’s real.

In my room, I have books. They comfort me. I have an old brown teapot. There’s a chip in the spout. I bought it at a garage sale for one dollar a long time ago. I can see the teapot sitting on my desk amid the pens, pencils, notepads, and my full shelves.

My favorite blue chair is imprinted with my body weight. My shape. I’ve sat in it hundreds of times, thousands. It’s molded to my form, to me alone. I can go there now and sit in the quiet of my mind, where I’ve been before. I have a candle. I have one, only one; I’ve never lit it. Not once. It’s a deep red, almost crimson. It’s in the shape of an elephant, the white wick rising out of the animal’s back.

It was a gift from my parents after I graduated high school at the top of my class.

I always thought I would light that candle one day. I never did. The more time passed, the harder it became to light. Whenever I thought an occasion might be special enough to burn the candle, it felt like I was settling. So I would wait for a better occasion. It’s still there, unlit, on top of a bookcase. There was never an occasion special enough. How could that be?





—He’d been working at the school for more than thirty years. No previous incidents. Nothing in his file.