We Are the Ants(39)

While Diego tinkered under the hood, doubt gnawed at my resolve. Mr. Weiss wouldn’t care if I snuck into study hall a few minutes late. I could’ve lied and told him the cafeteria burritos gave me stomach cramps, even though I’m smart enough never to eat those cheesy laxative bombs. This was a stupid idea. Skipping class wasn’t going to change my mind about pressing the button. It wasn’t going to bring back Jesse or make Marcus and Adrian disappear. Even if we found something to do, my shitty life would still be waiting for me when the fun ended. I was about to say so when Diego slammed the hood and said, “She’s toast.”

“I guess we should go to class.” I tried to sound crestfallen as I grabbed my bag and got out of the car. That’s when I saw Audrey speed-walking toward us. It was really more of a trot.

“Problems?” she asked.

“We were planning to ditch,” I said.

Audrey glanced nervously over her shoulder. “Were?”

“Car trouble,” I said.

“I hate to break it to you, but Marten’s headed this way.”

Diego sighed. “We’re not going anywhere in this thing.”

I swore I could hear the predatory whirr of Marten’s golf cart approaching.

Audrey fidgeted with her keys. She kept looking behind her, her eyes wide and dodgy. “Listen, I’ll give you a ride off campus if you want, but we should hurry.”

“It might be safer to go back to class.” I’d agreed to skip school with Diego; catching a ride with Audrey hadn’t been part of the plan.

Diego snorted. “No way. Marks will give me detention. I don’t do detention.”

“Now or never.” Audrey took a couple of steps toward her car and disarmed the alarm.

I wasn’t paranoid. I could definitely hear the golf cart’s motor. I’d earned some sympathy because of the attack, but I doubt I’d be able to weasel out of a detention if Marten caught me trying to skip. “Fine. Let’s go.”

Nobody said much as we left campus. Vice Principal Marten chased us out of the parking lot, but he couldn’t catch Audrey’s V8. I wasn’t sure what Diego and I were going to do without a car after Audrey dropped us off. Ratting out Adrian for the mask didn’t make us even. She pulled into a CVS and parked.

Diego hopped out and stretched his legs. “Thanks for the save.”

“Yeah,” I mumbled.

Audrey looked at me in the rearview mirror. “I never pegged you for a skipper.”

“You’re one to talk.”

I noticed she’d changed out of her soda-stained clothes, and into jeans and a tank top. “I . . . yeah . . . I needed to get out of there.”

“I know the feeling.” Diego wandered to her side and offered her his hand through the open window. “I’m Diego Vega, by the way.”

“Audrey Dorn.”

“Henry’s told me nothing about you.”

Audrey flashed him a wry smile. “I bet.”

“Seriously,” Diego said. “All I know is that you used to be friends.”

“It’s . . . whatever,” I said. We’d managed to escape school, but we didn’t have a car, and I didn’t want to spend the rest of the day in a drugstore parking lot. “Where were you headed?”

“Home, probably,” Audrey said. “Me and Leah and a couple of other girls had plans to go to the fair tonight, but they’ve been avoiding me lately.”

Diego perked up. “Fair?”

“It comes around every year,” I said.

“Is it far? I haven’t been to a real fair ever.”

“I don’t know. Maybe we could go this weekend.”

“What else are you going to do today?” Audrey asked. “It’s not like you’ve got a car.”

Diego was so excited, he was practically bouncing up and down, and I didn’t want to disappoint him. Hanging out at the fair with Audrey wasn’t how I’d planned to spend my afternoon, but she had a point.

“Come on, Henry,” Diego said. “It’ll be fun, I promise.”

“Do you think you can stand hanging out with me for a few hours?” Audrey’s lips hinted at a smirk I knew well.

I sighed dramatically. “You did sort of save my ass—”

“Twice.”

“So I suppose I can make an exception.”

Audrey shrugged. “Then I guess we’re going to the fair.”

? ? ?

The last time I attended the fair, Audrey and I were still friends, and Jesse was alive. I thought Jesse was happy, though in retrospect, the signs were there that he was going to fall apart. It wasn’t any one big thing; it was the way all the -little things added up and compounded. He didn’t kill himself because of a single overwhelming problem; he died from a thousand tiny wounds.

Audrey walked ahead of me and Diego, moving with the line, which was longer than we’d anticipated. Clearly, we weren’t the only ones skipping the last two classes of the day, but it still wasn’t as busy as it would have been on a Friday night or Saturday afternoon.

“There’s no way you survived living in a house without Internet.” Audrey’s head was cocked to the side, and she jutted out her hip. “Please tell me you’re joking.”