Wish You Were Gone(52)
“Please, Emma. No. You’re dealing with your own stuff right now. We’ll be fine.” Gray brushed a nonexistent something off the sleeve of her hoodie. “Just please don’t tell Lizzie.”
Emma blinked. “Why not?” she said, even as she wondered why she ever would.
“I just don’t want her to know my personal stuff,” she said. “You know I’m not friends with her the way you are and I’m not ready for this to be public.”
“Okay,” Emma said, though she did feel offended on some level. Did she think Emma would be close friends with someone who would run around spouting Gray’s business?
“Thanks for telling me,” Emma said. “And I know that what happened the other night wasn’t technically Darnell’s fault, but Gray… if you’re in danger—”
“I’m not in danger,” Gray said automatically.
“I love Darnell. You know I do. But if he has no control over—”
“Emma.” Gray said her name like a warning. “You saw how I took him down. I can take care of myself.”
KELSEY
“We’ve been studying DNA for a few weeks now, and predicting eye color, hair color, and other factors based on recessive and dominant genes, but it’s not only our physical traits that are determined by our heredity.”
Kelsey sat with her laptop open, ready to take notes. She tried not to stare at the odd pattern of adult acne on Mr. Wooster’s chin. It looked a bit like Italy. She wondered if that was something he’d inherited from his parents. Or if teaching loudmouthed, overprivileged, prescription-drug-popping teenagers all day had something to do with it.
What would science classes be like at Daltry? She knew she’d still have to meet a basic requirement, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to be taking any more of this AP crap. Even if she utterly failed as an actress, biology was not a field she was going to be exploring. It had fucked things up for her enough already. Kelsey itched to check her phone for a notification from the school, but Wooster had no tolerance for cell phones in class and collected them in a butterfly net on the wall at the beginning of each session.
“You can also carry with you various mental illnesses like depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, as well as the propensity toward alcoholism and drug addiction,” the professor continued. “Environmental factors also play a role in pushing a person toward these behaviors, but certain combinations of genes have been shown to be a factor.”
Kelsey’s mouth was dry. Wooster turned to draw a complex gene configuration on the whiteboard. Behind Kelsey, Cory Dean sneezed “Doomed” into her ear.
It was the new theory of the day. That Kelsey’s father must have been a closet addict. Heroin, most likely. That he’d been shooting up in the driveway and slipped off into the blissful abyss and driven himself through the garage. She glanced across the room at Alexa, but her friend was doodling intently in her notebook.
“Of course, if you have a history of mental illness in addition to a history of addiction, your chances of becoming an addict yourself rise exponentially.”
Wooster delivered this news as if it was a fascinating tidbit of information. Rather than a life sentence.
“Poor Kelsey,” someone sang in the back of the room. “May as well sign her up for rehab now.”
Why did everyone hate her so much? There was no way people were saying these things to Hunter. They wouldn’t dare. And Hunter was so much more like her dad than she was. They had no clue. No freaking clue what life had been like in her house.
Kelsey began to shake. Her hands were first, trembling, so slight no one would have noticed. Then her heart joined the party. It felt twenty-five times too small for her body and nitro-charged, like a tiny hornet pinging its way around the empty vessel of her chest. Suddenly all the colors were too bright, and everything blurred at the edges. In a snap, she couldn’t breathe.
She had to get out of here. The door? The window? Under the desk? She couldn’t be around all these people. But Wooster would never stop talking. The heat was coming on now. Pulsating from underneath her skin, and she knew what was next. She wanted to cry out—get someone’s attention—but her windpipe had closed completely.
It doesn’t matter it doesn’t matter it doesn’t matter
Who the fuck do you think you are?
He doesn’t matter he doesn’t know me he doesn’t matter
You think you can talk to me that way? I will fucking end you!
I can’t I can’t I can’t can’t can’t can’t—
They’re right, you know. You’re doomed. You’re a freak. A loser. I’ll never let you go.
“Mr. Wooster?” Alexa. Alexa was talking.
“Yes, Miss Osaka?”
“Kelsey needs to go to the nurse.”
Her eyes rolled wildly to Alexa, who gripped her forearm firmly, but tightly, and pulled her out of her chair.
“Then why doesn’t Kelsey tell me her—”
Wooster stopped talking as Alexa dragged Kelsey past the desk. The door slammed. Their shoes squeaked down the hall. Too far. Too far. Too far. And then a shove, a blast, and air.
“Breathe! Holy shit, Kelsey, breathe!”
Kelsey doubled over and sucked in the coldness that surrounded her. Purple spots burst across her vision. There was a gum wrapper in the grass. The scent of burning leaves in the air. Paper pumpkin decorations hung in one of the lower building’s windows.