I'll Stop the World (109)

He creased the paper down the center, preparing to fold it small enough to put in his pocket—later, he’d burn it, making sure the record was erased for good—when a pair of headlights swung into the parking lot, briefly washing Shawn with light.

He jumped, dropping the flashlight so it knocked over an open bottle that was sitting on the edge of the desk. The bottle fell to the floor, its contents splashing out onto the carpet as it rolled under the desk. The sharp smell of liquor hit his nostrils.

“Shit!” Shawn whispered through his teeth, bending down and fumbling in the dark. His hand closed around the neck of the bottle and he hurried to replace it on the desk but instead slammed the bottom of the bottle into the arm of Mr. Warren’s desk chair, causing it to shatter. Liquid and shards of glass sprayed across the chair, the carpet, Shawn’s pants.

“Shit!”

Crouched beside the desk, his nostrils burning with the smell of alcohol, Shawn switched off the flashlight as a car door opened and shut outside. A muffled voice drifted through the closed window. “We can talk about it more later, okay? Just give me a second.”

Shawn’s stomach sank. Mr. Warren? What was he doing here now? Shouldn’t he already be at the debate?

He looked around the dark office, his heart hammering. There was nowhere to hide. He considered running out the main door of the guidance office and hiding somewhere in the school until Mr. Warren was gone, but before he could move, a light switched on in the main office.

Shawn dropped behind the desk, liquid soaking into the knees of his khakis, his breath coming in shallow gasps. Another light flipped on in the hall. Shawn could hear Mr. Warren humming softly to himself as he came closer and risked a glance around the side of the desk, through the doorway window.

Mr. Warren had paused by the mailboxes, a cigarette dangling from his lips as he flipped through a stack of papers. He opened a letter and scanned it, then sighed, breathing out a cloud of smoke.

Slowly, Shawn shifted from his knees to the balls of his feet, the muscles in his legs tensing to run. He adjusted the hood of his sweatshirt, pulling the drawstrings tight around his face. There was no way Mr. Warren wouldn’t notice that someone had been in his office, so it didn’t matter if Shawn was seen, as long as he wasn’t recognized. If he could knock Mr. Warren over before he got a good look at him, he could probably get through the office and back to his truck unidentified.

As soon as Shawn heard the door to the office begin to creak open, he sprang forward. Tucking his head before Mr. Warren could reach for the light switch, he hit the guidance counselor at full speed, his shoulder colliding with the soft center of his body. Mr. Warren let out a surprised grunt as he flipped over Shawn’s back and hit the floor of the dark office.

Shawn didn’t look back; he just sprinted through the office toward the open window. He didn’t think Mr. Warren had seen his face, and he couldn’t risk changing that. Adrenaline roared through him as he pushed himself up onto the counter and outside, not caring anymore about the papers he knocked to the ground.

As soon as his feet hit the grass, he ran full tilt toward the side street where his truck was parked, his sneakers smacking the pavement in a frantic staccato.

“Hey! Hey, stop!”

Shawn glanced back to see Mrs. Warren’s head leaning out the passenger side window of her idling car, peering toward him. Hurriedly, he turned away and kept his head down as he ran from the lot. Surely she couldn’t have recognized him. Not in the dark.

It was only once he threw himself into the driver’s seat of his truck that he noticed McMillain’s list still crumpled in his fist. He tossed it onto the seat beside him and fumbled in his pocket for the keys, his fingers shaking as he turned the ignition. He glanced in the rearview mirror, bracing himself to see Mrs. Warren walking toward him, but the street behind him was still empty. Shawn pressed the pedal to the floor and drove off into the night.





Chapter Sixty-Seven


BILL

“We can talk about it more later, okay? Just give me a second.”

He gave Veronica a quick kiss before stepping out of the car. They’d been discussing baby names the whole way here. It turned out that girl names were hard. Coming up with Millie’s name had been easy—Millicent Esther, after Veronica’s grandmother and mother—but now they weren’t sure what they’d name a second girl. Boy names were easier; Veronica suggested Jonathan, after her father, and Bill was happy to go with that, since they both knew they wouldn’t be using any of the names from his side of the family.

Bill reached into his shirt pocket as he walked toward the school, his mind whirring as he pulled out a cigarette and flicked open his lighter. His body moved automatically, holding the cigarette between his lips as he lit it, blowing out a cloud of smoke as he traded his lighter for his keys and unlocked the front door of the school. He’d already flipped on the light in the front office before his mind even registered that he was inside the building.

Another baby.

He was going to be a dad. Again.

Millie was going to be a big sister.

A smile spread across his face as he paused by the teacher mailboxes and pulled a stack of papers from his cubby. Cat Stevens lyrics ran through his head as he riffled through them, absently tossing aside college recruiting pamphlets and flyers for spirit nights and fundraisers.

An envelope caught his eye, his name scrawled across it in blue ink. He didn’t recognize the handwriting.