him to. They’d pull the phone from his pocket and dial, pressing it against his head until he spoke and asked this huge thing of his father.
And when his father said no, because of course he would, Kenji would know finally, in no uncertain terms, how little he meant to him.
It was already sneaking in, anyway, that realization. Creeping around, like dread itself, like every image of dread Kenji had ever seen in movies, fog curling its way around dead tree trunks, a shadow lurking in a hallway.
During those sleepless nights on CIS’s floor, Kenji thought about how, even if he hadn’t told his father his company was named in the list of demands, surely his father already knew. And yet the demand remained uncrossed. Which meant his father had already weighed the question of helping, in whatever way he could, to help set his son free from a hostage situation, or canceling a work project, and he had chosen the latter. Day after day, for a week now, he had chosen the latter.
So of course Kenji listened to podcasts. At night, and throughout the strange new days at CIS—as the teachers tried to teach classes almost no one attended, as they struggled to meet Marisa’s demands, as they exhausted themselves haranguing kids from going Lord of the Flies all over again—Kenji turned to improv. He didn’t want to think about inevitabilities, about how much he was hiding from his new little group of friends, about his father. He just wanted to laugh.
* * *
One exception to the sleep deprivation was Peejay. He seemed to sleep all day, hidden and huddled beneath the cheap pashmina his mother had brought for him shortly after lock-in night.
No one had caught the whole exchange—they were busy collecting things from their own parents, or claiming corners of the school, or once again trying to find some air-conditioning vents to climb into action-movie style to finally flee from this scholarly prison—just that she handed the pashmina, and spoke for a little while, and then the life drained from Peejay’s face. He’d practically been asleep since then.
When he did wake, he kept the pashmina wrapped around him. Kenji had no idea how to help him outside of continuing to invite him to play improv, and to every now and then refill his water bottle while he slept.
It was almost as if Peejay was soaking up all the sleep his classmates lost, as if all those hours of slumber were bouncing around the building unable to escape, and Peejay had taken it on himself to absorb them all. Just like he’d absorbed the responsibilities of the party, or how he seemed to carry within him, before, enough life for the whole school, Peejay had taken it all on his shoulders.
What Kenji didn’t know, couldn’t know, was that the morning after Peejay had thrown the best party CIS had ever seen, Hamish succumbed to an infection he’d developed during his coma. Peejay had still been feeling the buzz of the rum in his blood, the buzz of the party itself, when his mother reached her hand up to attempt to offer her consolation through the window slit. But it was beyond her reach, beyond Peejay’s, and after a few moments she had recovered from her bout of crying and told him she would let him know when the funeral would be.
* * *
Kenji stared at the perfectly still mass hidden within the blue pashmina, wishing Peejay would at least snore, show some sign that he found peace and pleasure in sleep. He reached out, resting his hand on Peejay’s back for a second, wondering if it provided any comfort for Peejay or if it was a gesture he made only for himself. Then he rose, grabbing his toothbrush and toothpaste.
Kenji kind of loved these mornings. He would never say it to anyone but Celeste or Lindsay (although, these days, he hated mentioning anything about what went on inside the building to Lindsay—there was a strange longing in her texts, an obvious sense she felt she was missing something, as if he hadn’t been locked inside but rather she was the one who’d been locked out), but it felt like summer camp. Or it was like long-form improv they’d all accidentally fallen into, the whole school playing pretend. It made him feel like he could stay safely within the school for a long time.
With that thought he resumed listening to the podcast he’d paused as he gathered his toiletries,