Come Find Me(48)

I write back: Thanks. What are you doing? Are you at school?

I’m scanning through the documents in the school library, eating lunch in the corner, when my phone vibrates under the table with a new text: Sort of. What are you doing?


Eating lunch in the library. Reading through the file.



I’m halfway through my banana when the library door pushes open. I look up, and Nolan’s there, hands in the pockets of his jeans, standing near the entrance like he’s lost—because he is.

I’m already smiling when his gaze finds me at the corner table, and his face mirrors mine. He walks toward me and my stomach flutters, and Oh crap, I think, Joe was totally right. He must’ve been able to read it on my face, whenever I mentioned Nolan’s name. I try to hold it back so Nolan doesn’t see. Though from the way the girls at the next table are watching me, smirking, I have a feeling I’m a little too late.

“What are you doing here?” I ask when he sits in the chair beside me. Not across, beside. Pulling the chair even closer so he can look over my shoulder at the documents I’m reading.

“This seemed a little more pressing than gym today,” he says. “And I figured I won’t get to see you later, what with the whole grounded thing.”

“Joe’s making me go to the neighbors’ after school. I think I’m being babysat.”

He cringes. “Sorry about that.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“No, as you pointed out, I’m not that stealthy. It was probably because of me.”

I don’t argue, because it’s true. He’s not. Even now, people at the next table are looking at him. It’s nothing you can really put your finger on—just the way everything comes together. The slight bend of his nose, the crinkle at the corner of his eyes, the angles of his cheekbones, the downslope of his lips. I noticed the very moment he walked into the library.

    “How’d you get into the school? And find the library?” I ask.

“Just walked straight in when some adult got buzzed in. They held the door for me and everything. As for the library, you’re not going to believe this.” He lowers his voice and grins. “I asked. Turns out the average high schooler is not nearly as suspicious as you.”

“Well, welcome to West Arbor-Hell,” I say, smiling, which is how Marco introduced it to me.

He pulls the papers out of his backpack. “Figured it would be easier if you had the hard copies to look through. Better than on your phone, anyway.”

He sets some paper and pens between us. “Wait, did you bring a highlighter?” I ask.

He grins. “I came prepared.”

We spend the next twenty-six minutes highlighting relevant information and dates, seeing where the investigation into Hunter’s disappearance petered out, trying to track his whereabouts. Eventually, the overhead bell rings and my shoulders tense. “I can skip,” I say.

“No. Go. I don’t want you to get in any more trouble.”

“It doesn’t matter—”

“It does, though, if I don’t get to see you after school.”

He looks down at the papers then, as if embarrassed. I can feel my cheeks heating. I let my hair fall over the side of my face as I pack my bag so he doesn’t notice.

    The bell rings again, and I’m officially late. He still doesn’t look up.

“Nolan,” I say.

“Yeah?” He’s shuffling papers, still looking down.

I put a hand on his shoulder until he turns his head. “Thank you for coming today,” I say.

I watch as his smile forms, and then I dart for class.



* * *



—

Marco catches me at my locker after last period. “Hey,” he says, angling his body between me and my locker door.

“Hey,” I repeat, tipping my head so he gets the picture to move out of the way.

He frowns and steps aside, but he’s still hovering over my shoulder. “What are you doing with that kid?”

“What kid?” I say, slamming the locker door.

“Uh, the kid who walked into the library, looking for you, even though he doesn’t go to our school.”

I had no idea Marco was in the library. “What’s it to you, Marco?”

His expression shifts, like I’ve somehow hurt him. Impossible. Marco didn’t care enough to be hurt. “You don’t have to act so mean, Kennedy. I didn’t do anything to you. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just didn’t know how to…”

I wave him off so he’ll just stop. He didn’t. He didn’t know how to act, or be, and I didn’t know how to tell him what I needed. We were young, and then we weren’t. Things got hard. He disappeared.

    It wasn’t surprising, but it was telling, and it left me with no one, on my own. My friends were his friends. And when he left me alone, that was it. I was alone.

“Stop acting like this was my decision,” he says. “You seem so angry at me all the time.”

“I’m not angry. I’m…” I can’t find the word. Indifferent. Empty. Bitter. Maybe there’s a part of me that is angry, a little. Maybe it’s easier to be angry about things like that—my boyfriend didn’t come to see me after—than the other parts.