Chapter 8-2
1003 Words
“Where’ve you been?” Evan said, waving his hand in front of Anne’s face.
She blinked, then turned toward him. Her eyes were dazed, like she wasn’t seeing him at all. Evan didn’t think she’d met anyone else’s eyes for months, not since she’d started having nightmares almost every night. She hardly ever looked at anyone besides him anymore.
He touched her arm.
“You okay, Anne?”
She gasped and finally focused on him. He started to move his hand, but she grabbed it. He was a little scared by the tears in her eyes.
“Evan,” she whispered. “Don’t go home.”
“What? Why would I go home? We’re here for another three hours. This crazy class in the middle of vacation was your idea, remember?”
She shook her head, still staring into his eyes.
“Listen to me. Evan, you have to listen to me!”
She let go of his hand, but before Evan could be disappointed, she was hugging him tight. His heart pounded, and other parts of him responded, too. Kids glanced at their table, looking confused or smirking, all of them younger than he was.
Before he could decide what to do, Anne whispered, her warm breath against his ear giving him goosebumps.
“Don’t go home. Don’t go home, please. Don’t go home.”
Evan forgot about all the other kids and the teachers too.
“Anne, you’re scaring me. Come on, don’t do that.”
What Evan wanted to do was hold her as long as she’d let him. She felt so warm in his arms, so perfect, and her hair smelled like the sun. But he hadn’t been lying about being scared. Anne knew how much he hated that. He held her shoulders.
“What’s going on? We’re supposed to wait here for your dad to pick us up. Why can’t I go home?”
She wiped at her eyes, but the tears kept falling. One of the teachers was going to notice everyone looking in their direction. Evan was sure he needed to know what was upsetting her, even if he got both of them into trouble.
“Just stay here, and you can go to my house later.” Anne was nodding, her words running together. “My parents never mind when you come over. That will be better.”
“No, tell me what’s wrong,” Evan whispered when he wanted to shout. “Tell me now.”
“Ms. Fincastle? Mr. Griffith? Is this class boring you so much that you must interrupt everyone else?”
Evan shook his head without looking at the teacher. He should just apologize, get back to work on his terrible drawing, and worry about all of this later.
Something in Anne’s eyes warned every nerve in his body.
“Stay here, Evan,” Anne said, her breath hitching in her chest. “Don’t go home.”
Evan stared at her, trembling starting in his belly and moving up to his heart and brain.
If he left now, he could make the walk in about ten minutes. Less if he ran.
That was exactly what he needed to do. He needed to run.
Another teacher spoke from right behind him.
“Both of you get back to work. Your parents paid good money for you to learn something, not for you to cut up and disrupt everyone else.”
His parents.
Evan’s jaw dropped. Anne’s eyes squeezed closed, and she was crying harder, her mouth turning down. He barely heard her, but she was still whispering.
“No, don’t go home. Don’t go home.”
He grabbed his backpack from under the table and shoved the chair out of his way.
“Evan!”
He ignored her and kept walking. He made it out of the classroom and halfway down the hall before he started to run. Evan pushed the doors open with both arms straight out in front of him. The midsummer Illinois heat hit him like a suffocating blanket, but he kept going.
By the time he got to his block, he had to slow to a walk, grabbing at the cramp in his side. No one else was out, everything still and quiet in the terrible heat. He wiped sweat from his eyes and face and kept moving.
Evan imagined everything that could be happening, from a robbery to a fire to his sister coming home from college to throw some kind of fit. He saw no smoke, but he was still relieved when he didn’t see fire trucks. His sister’s car wasn’t there either.
Evan’s flesh felt like it was going to boil off his bones. No thief would possibly be out on an afternoon with the air over one hundred degrees and soaking wet.
Walking up his driveway, still pressing his hand against the sharp pain in his ribs, Evan didn’t need Anne to tell him something was horribly wrong.
* * * *
By the time Anne made it to the big double doors, Evan was gone. He’d been out the classroom before she could even grab her own bag. She groaned at the blast of summer air and fierce sunlight, making her head pound after the freezing cold classroom.
Keeping both of them inside was one of the reasons their parents had agreed to the expensive class, but Anne wasn’t worried about that. She was worried about not being able to see her friend at all.
She started walking, but before she left the school grounds she was running. Evan was two years older, several inches taller, and much faster. She’d never be able to catch him.
The awful memories of Evan’s father getting home first hadn’t faded at all inside her.
What if Mr. Fincastle decided to go home early today? What if she hadn’t seen hours later, but what was going to happen in just a few minutes? Anne felt like she was drowning in the humid air, but she kept running. She had to make sure.
Please, don’t let it be one of the other memories. Please.
Anne was gasping by the time she saw Evan’s house. There was no car in the driveway. She stopped with her hands on her knees. No car.
Mrs. Griffith parked around back.
Evan’s father wasn’t home yet, not unless he had walked for some crazy reason. He worked in the city, so that probably meant he wasn’t here. He might not know yet, but he could still show up if Evan called him or called the police or an ambulance.
The memory of Evan’s face in all three memories, his broken and haunted eyes, got her moving again.
- Writer
