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Someone had written underneath:

BETTER QUESTION:

HOW MANY WANT HER?

And below that:

ALL EXCEPT #1. HE CAN’T STAND HER.

That one got me. Ridiculous. Childish.

Mean in exactly the way high school could be mean, finding the smallest soft place and pressing a thumb into it.

I tore the paper down and stepped back. My shoe caught something on the floor.

A tiny metallic scrape. I looked down.

A key lay near my shoe. Not mine.

Cheap silver.

Small enough for a padlock or cabinet.

A faded piece of red string was tied through the hole at the top.

My hand stopped.

The hallway seemed to tilt. Not move. Tilt.

Re-situating itself, locking in, becoming something else.

A bitter, acrid taste touched the back of my throat.

For one second my eyes wouldn’t focus.

The floor beneath me felt wrong. Too solid.

I shifted my feet, startled by it.

No give.

Why had I expected it to give?

I blinked.

The hallway came back. Lockers. Fluorescent lights. Voices farther away. A key.

That was all.

A key with string tied to it. People lost keys.

Someone had probably dropped it in the hall and a shoe had kicked it against my locker. There were ordinary explanations. Plenty of them. There had to be.

I bent to pick it up. Couldn’t make myself touch it.

I forced myself to look at it again. It was old. The red had faded almost pink.

The ends were frayed. No number. No markings. Nothing.