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Her friend says, “Carly—”
“Leave me alone.” She swats her hand off her shoulder and then points at Garrison again. I can’t see his features, just the back of his head. He’s unmoving. Even his fingers hang loosely, not curling into a fist. “You’re a piece of shit, Abbey. You’re a piece of shit—and you know it.”
Garrison nears Carly a little more, and she goes still at his closeness. He hangs his head and whispers something to her. In seconds, she breaks down and bursts into tears.
“It’s not fair!” she cries, sinking to the floor. I can only guess that she was close to John, maybe even in a relationship with him.
And I expect Garrison to swivel back towards me.
Am I being presumptuous? To assume that he’d come back?
Because he never does.
I watch him walk past his old friends. Away from me. I watch him disappear alone around a corner. I watch him vanish all together without another word. Without a goodbye.
The bell rings, and I’m left standing immobile in the middle of the hall. People pass around me like nothing occurred.
And I have two choices.
I can go to first period and forget about Garrison. I can act as though this intro to class never happened. Act like everyone else. Forget about him, Willow Moore.
Or I can go find him. I can step over my hurt feelings. The ones that say, he left me, and just make sure he’s okay.
He approached them for me. To stand up for me.
That means something.
I make my decision.
I trace his footsteps down the hallway. I veer around the corner where I expect another hallway or a cluster of vending machines. Instead, I’m met with two bathrooms. Girls and boys.
“Oh God,” I mutter.
I’m staring at the boy symbol. Just go in. This will be my first foray into this great unknown that is the boys’ bathroom. I wish I didn’t give a shit. I wish I could just push inside without a second thought or care.
It’s just the boys’ bathroom.
It’s trivial, right?
Just go in.
I do this time.
I push the royal blue door with my shoulder. I’m met with one long row of sinks, two stalls, and three urinals. Not too shocking.
Garrison is sitting on the sink counter, a lit cigarette between his fingers. His head is hung, hair in his eyes, but as soon as I enter, he looks up. His bones seem to cement, joints unoiled. Frozen.
Maybe this wasn’t a smart idea.
“I…” I gesture to the door I came from, as though that explains everything. It actually explains absolutely nothing.
Smoke wafts around his body, and it takes him a second to shift the hand that holds his cigarette. He casually sucks on it, quiet.
I like quiet.
I’m familiar with quiet more than I am loud. I walk further inside and rest my back on a locked, out-of-order stall.
He blows smoke up at the air vent. Then his aquamarine eyes study his cigarette, embers eating the paper. “Did you hear the bell?” He finally speaks.
“Yeah.”
He nods a couple times, almost in realization, and then he takes another drag.
“Thanks for trying to help me,” I say softly.
“I probably made it worse.”
I cross my arms, feeling naked without my backpack. “They’re your friends?”
“Were,” he corrects. “They pretty much want nothing to do with me after…the thing.” The thing. He takes a deeper drag of his cigarette. I know he must mean when his friends broke into Loren’s house with gargoyle masks.
“What’d you say to Carly?”
He stares off past me, his gaze haunted. “I told her that she’s right.”
“What?” A weight bears down on me. And the room.
He puts out his cigarette in the sink basin. “I’m a piece of shit.” He says it with such finality, as though he’s accepted it for a long time.
I open my mouth to tell him that it’s not true—that he’s a great person. I pause.
I falter.
And I think. How much of Garrison Abbey do I really know? Not much.
Not yet.
I lick my dried lips and stare at the tiled floor. “You’re better than your friends, you know?”
He says under his breath, “What an accomplishment.” His pretty eyes land on me. “You don’t have to cheer me up. It’s a lost cause, honestly.” He expels a deep breath and rubs his tired eyes with the heel of his palm. “You should go to class, Willow.”
“Are you going?” I wonder.
“No.” He pulls a carton of cigarettes out of his slacks. He undoes his navy tie and pops some of the buttons at the collar. Like the uniform has been slowly but surely choking him.
I unbutton some of mine at the collar and untuck my blouse. Feeling better. I don’t brave a glance at him, but I do climb awkwardly onto the sink counter, right next to Garrison.
My legs are much shorter, and I push my glasses up before splaying my hands flat on my thighs.
