I ran up the front steps of the house, one of the larger ones in the county, and walked through the front door with a group of laughing girls. The local Top 40 station was blasting from a stereo in the living room. Some girls sang along while a group of boys sat on the floor around the coffee table, playing quarters.
I wove my way around furniture and past groups of friends standing in corners and piled onto couches, talking and shrieking with laughter. Like they weren’t having to fight off the hum of death anxiety. Like they weren’t worried about what might happen if someone barged through the front door with a weapon. Or what it felt like to stop existing.
I envied them.
Even when I’m having fun, that fear is always going to be there, even if it is just a quiet, fleeting thing. It will never leave me entirely, I’m certain of that.
I was sure that Miles and Denny had similar fears—at least the ones about escaping a confined space—so when I saw that the back door of the house was standing open and people were outside on the deck, I headed that way. It seemed likely that they’d be outside, where it would be easier to follow through with an exit plan.
I hadn’t quite made it to the door yet when I heard someone shout my name. I jumped and spun around, only to see two older guys—ones I was sure had graduated a year or two before—moving toward me through the dining room. I didn’t recognize one of them, but the other I knew, at least in memory. Peter McHale, Sarah’s older cousin. And as you might expect, he looked furious.
Crap, I thought, and tried to walk a little faster, toward the back door.
But just then, Tara Chambers stepped through it. She saw me, then she glanced over my shoulder, and the guys headed my way. She gave them a nod and started walking to me herself.
I backed up and stumbled, my feet tangling with the leg of a chair. When I righted myself again, they’d come nearer. Closing in. Crowding me back until I was standing in a corner, surrounded by three angry people.
I could feel my throat starting to close up.
“We need to talk to you,” Peter said, jabbing a finger at me. “You’d better shut your damn mouth about my cousin.”
I wanted to make myself small. To shrink down to the size of a mouse so I could run past their feet. Or to evaporate, becoming a ghost and disappearing through the wall. But I was still solid, and very much human-sized, and they were too close. Sealing me in. Blocking my view of anything or anyone else.
For a minute, they weren’t people anymore. They were walls. The walls of a narrow bathroom stall, and I was trapped there, waiting for the world to end.
“My aunt and uncle are a mess because of you,” Peter was saying. “Haven’t they been through enough? What the hell is your problem? Do you need attention this bad that you’ll just come in and start a bunch of crap like this?”
I couldn’t breathe. It felt like there was a hand clamped around my heart. I tried to rush forward, to push past them, but Peter caught me by the shoulders and shoved me back against the wall.
“Pete,” I heard Tara gasp, like this—just this—was the first thing that had gone too far.
Peter ignored her. “Aw, are you scared, Lee?” he asked, his voice all menace and mock concern. “You should’ve thought about that before you started telling a bunch of lies. If you want attention, you’re gonna get it.”
His face changed then. Nose shortening, cheeks rounding, hair shifting from auburn to dishwater blond. Until he wasn’t Peter McHale anymore, buthim. Peering over the edge of the stall, gun pointed down at us.
I whimpered and sank to the floor, pressing my face into my knees and wrapping my arms over my head. I could hear screaming and the pop of gunshots. I knew it wasn’t real. I knew this was just a panic attack, a flashback. But my body didn’t seem to understand what my mind did. My chest ached and my lungs begged for air as I panted.
“Pete,” I heard the other guy’s voice whisper, “maybe we should—”
“Don’t feel sorry for her,” Peter snapped. “She’s just being a drama queen. She’s an actress, remember? She just wants us to feel sorry for her. Get up, Lee.”
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even force out the words on the tip of my tongue, not even a feeble command for them to leave me alone.
“I don’t think she’s acting,” Tara said.
And then there were more voices. Familiar ones.
“Is that Lee?”
“Get away from her!”
“What’s going on?”
I raised my head slowly. Tara and Peter’s friend had moved back, and in the gaps between their bodies I could see Denny, Amber, and Miles standing there, like they’d just come through the back door.
Miles looked furious.
“I said get away from her,” he snarled at Peter.
