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“Mr. Savior, I think it’s about time Miss Silby made it to class,” the lady in the pink blazer advises from the counter.
Shy turns and smiles at her. “Yes. Sorry, Mrs. Cole.” He looks at me, clearing his throat. “So, what’s your first class?”
I’m glad the distraction gives me a reason to look away from him because my cheeks are on fire. I open my folder to look at my schedule. I’d seen it a few minutes ago but now, I can’t remember anything.
“Um, Mr. Val, trig … in Walcourt?”
Shy laughs.
“What?” I lean away to get a good look at his face, but he just shakes his head, eyes focused on my schedule.
“Nothing—what’s your locker number?”
Forty-four.
Shy directs me out of the lobby, down a hallway flanked with a large trophy case and a couple bulletin boards covered with flyers for homecoming.
“The lockers, dorms, and cafeteria are all located here in Emerson,” he explains. “It’s a little inconvenient, but you just have to make sure you have everything you need for your first four classes before lunch,” he pauses and nods to my locker, then the one next to it. “That one’s mine.”
I smile at him and it feels like I’m falling into a trap. “I guess I’ll see more of you, then?”
“Yeah.” He grins, showing his teeth, and runs a hand through his blond hair. I like the way his eyes crinkle at the sides when he smiles, all things I shouldn’t notice about him, considering my rules. “Yeah, you will.”
The sunlight blinds me as we exit Emerson and I blink several times to adjust my vision before turning to watch the girl overhead. She sways ever-so-slightly, propelled by nothing but the memory of the day of her death. Shy has stopped, too, and watches me, following my gaze to the bars.
“It was to keep people—”
“From jumping,” I finish quickly. “I know.”
He doesn’t smile back, and he studies me. The intensity of his eyes makes me feel like he can see every layer of me.
“Why don’t they take them down?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Aesthetics, history, a precaution. The windows in the dorms don’t open, either.”
“History?”
“This place used to be an asylum before it was a school. Back in the twenties.”
Oh, that isn’t good.
I look back up at the bars and then around. So far so good, I haven’t encountered any other dead, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t here.
“Do you live on campus?”
He shakes his head. “No, thank God.”
“That bad, huh?”
He sort of laughs but it sounds more like a snicker. “I already spend more time here than I like.”
As we cross campus, I conduct another sweep of the grounds and notice a thin layer of decay has settled upon the landscape in the form of weathered brick, buckled sidewalks, and rusted pipe rails. These are flaws in its beauty—cracks the past has slipped through. The dead are a part of that past, and I want to fix it. The urge tugs at my heart, twines with my veins and bursts from my palm. The sharpness is startling, and I squeeze my fingers into a fist, knowing no good can come of it, no matter my intentions.
Worse, I’ll leave my mark on everything.
It’s like fixing a china doll after her face has shattered—you might find a rosy cheek and an eye, but nothing prepares you for the chips in the already-broken pieces or the glue that never stops oozing from those cracks.
“Are you a senior this year?” Shy asks. His voice startles me, and though the question grounds me, I want to tell him he doesn’t have to keep up conversation just to be polite. Still, I answer.
