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Bastien doesn’t reply, simply plays some downtempo on his computer while most of the class starts typing away on their phones, a few of us, including Codi and me, writing on paper.
Next week at this time I’ll be sitting in computer science, my class right before financial literacy. They didn’t have either of those options on my schedule here.
The classes are better at home, but still, it’ll be hard to leave Weston. I like Bastien. He talks to us like adults, and gives us more questions than answers. I don’t like people who think they know everything.
I mean, I understand the significance of learning programming and why my credit score matters and how the stock market works. I know new jobs are being invented every day, taxes help society function, and we’re being groomed to be useful parts in the massive machine, and hey, I don’t even mind all that much. I love helping the economy. I like shopping.
But I don’t love those classes. They’re not fun, and I never feel like I’m discovering anything.
Since coming to Weston, I’ve discovered one new thing about myself. I might be a Shelburne Falls parent someday, but I can’t say I want the jacket back anymore. Not really.
We turn in our assignments, and I go through the day, keeping my eyes forward.
Even when I feel him.
I thought maybe he wouldn’t come when I didn’t see him with the team during first period. Hunter has a habit of walking away. This is his third school in a little over a year, after leaving Falls High and St. Matthew’s.
But I head down the hallway, knowing when I pass him and his friends standing by a set of lockers, and he watches me.
I don’t look.
I draw in a long breath and release it, the weight of caring disappearing.
I talk to Codi at lunch, the others with the pack at the football players’ table, and I stay after school, helping Mr. Bastien print off all the letters that students emailed today.
He doesn’t read them before he asks me to stuff them in envelopes, including the one I wrote, writing the person’s name who wrote it on the front. He tells me to seal them.
“Are you mailing them?” I burst out.
He can’t. I don’t want this going to my house.
He shakes his head. “No. Just trust me.”
I cock an eyebrow and continue my task.
After I leave, the parking lot is empty, but instead of going to Knock Hill, I walk down to the mill district, seeing my bike still parked in front of the abandoned insurance business.
The hair on the back of my neck rises, though, and I pop my head up, looking around. Leaves blow across the street, workers jump off a tugboat down the street at the dock, andI see a mom carrying a bag of groceries, a small boy walking at her side.
No one is watching me, although it feels like there is.
I head up Phelan’s Throat, making runs around and around again for the next two hours. I shouldn’t be without supervision, I should be in more protective clothes, and I shouldn’t push it this fast, but I shove everything out of my head as my heart drops into my stomach and I just go. I have to.
I race up the hill, swerving around potholes and theRoad Closedsign. I fly up to the top and jerk the handlebars right, skidding down the throat just like Farrow taught. My knee catches on the ground, and I can feel the sting as it shreds my jeans, but I’m okay. I speed down and back up again, over the bend, and back to the finish.
The sun sets, darkness seeping in, and the eyes I felt before are in the woods, behind me, up ahead, all around now. I race back up the Throat one more time, headlights appearing far behind.
A car.
Cars don’t come up here. Road closed and all. I’m not even supposed to be up here.
It gains on me, but not close enough to threaten. All the same, though, I slow down and cruise around the Throat, taking it easy before speeding up again and dashing back to Knock Hill. It follows me the whole way, and I cruise up to the curb in front of my place, skidding to a halt.
The car, an old, black BMW with rust around the grill stops on the other side of the street, in front of Fletcher’s.
Constin climbs out. He’s alone.
“What are you doing?” I ask, but my eyes are stern.
