how hard she is thinking. She’s probably thinking of how to fix it—impossible. Thinking of how she can save money for a new bike—unlikely. Thinking about how her best friends ride their bikes, and if she doesn’t have a bike—
Campbell thinks. She thinks so hard. And I realize that’s all she’ll be able to do now that her bike is gone.
Chapter Sixteen
I HAVE CREEPY-BASEMENT-INDUCED INSOMNIA.
Sometimes I lie awake at night and think about the crawl space in our basement. It isn’t anything special—a little creepy, but it’s nothing more than a hole in one of the stone walls. It’s maybe six feet off the ground and opens into a space as wide and long as the foyer it lies beneath. There are some pipes visible inside, and a floor made of insulation and years of dust.
I don’t know why I fixate on that crawl space, but I do. Maybe because it is dark and moist and feels like it’s hiding things. Maybe because it is behind the staircase, so that most people would miss it entirely. Especially if something were covering the opening.
Maybe it is just because I am in a shitty situation and was blessed with an active imagination.
So I lie awake, waiting to see if anything is going to happen. And even when the house stays quiet and calm, I can’t sleep. Even when his mood is good and money is okay and he laughs with her and brings her flowers, I can’t sleep. Because I know that maybe tomorrow night it won’t be darkness and the deep breathing sounds of a peaceful house. Tomorrow night might be all of the lights in the house turned on. The trash bin hurled across the kitchen, leaving a trail of eggshells and crumpled bills and cigarette butts. His incessant, angry voice, repeating the same words over and over as he moves around the house looking for more things that will piss him off even harder, because once he gets going, I swear to God, he loves it and tries to feed that flame.
I’m not scared of the dark. I’m scared I won’t make it to morning. So I lie awake at night and I think about that crawl space. I think about how it might be where he hides our bodies one day.
Chapter Seventeen
MY VISION BLURS AND I READ the same sentence for the fourth time.
It was a weekend of unbroken tension in our home. The voices arguing Friday night, the lost construction bid, Campbell’s bike. More problems to solve. Less time to do it.
Tension like that works its way into every nook of the house, until it feels small and tight and so full you can barely breathe with all of that worry packed inside the walls.
I’m balancing a huge stack of loose papers, still warm from the library printer. I’ve been running back and forth because the newspaper room printer is down. The pages in front of me contain crow myths and folklore, from almost every historical period and major geographic region in human history. Medieval. Babylonian. Celtic. Crows have been used as symbols for as long as we’ve told stories.
I’m not looking where I’m walking.
“Whoa there!” shouts a voice from the floor, too late.
I walk into Liam where he was crouched at his locker.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter as my pages fly everywhere.
“It’s a little late for a prayer on this one, don’t you think?” Liam scoops up my scattered pages and climbs to his feet. We talk every day when we exchange books, and we debate each other in lit class all the time, and I like how familiar he is to me now. How I’m starting to think of him as a friend. His eyebrows shift into concern.
“You all right?” he asks.
“I’m really sorry. Sleep deprived.”
“Studying too much?” He shakes the papers in his hands.
“Kind of. Newspaper article.”
“That’s a lot of work for an extracurricular,” he says.
“Says the football player with the perfect grades,” I say, cocking my head to the side. “How much do you practice? Three hours a night? And then you study?”
“That’s different. It’s all for those college applications.”
“Not so different. Me too.”
“You want to do this in school?” Liam shuffles the pages, straightening them. We start walking together, my notes tucked safely under his arm.
“More like in life. But yeah, school to start.”
“That’s cool. I’ve read your articles. They’re really good.”
“Thanks, Liam. But flattery doesn’t really—”
“It isn’t flattery.”
I squint my eyes at him. Isn’t it?
“Okay, it’s flattery, but it’s true. And you