his whole life could pass by and he still wouldn’t find it within him to rise. He knew only that the funeral had not happened yet, knew only that the doors were still closed.
Momentarily freeing himself from his thoughts, he came to as the crowd shuffled around him, focusing his eyes on the world beyond the pashmina. Nurse Hae emerged from a crowd. Behind her, Amira, Celeste and Kenji followed, as well as Ms. Duli, clad in yoga pants and a long-sleeved shirt.
All of them gathered around Marisa, and it seemed as if the whole school had appeared. Not just those inside the building but those outside, too, the whole school looking at her now, wondering what she would do. No one seemed to pay Peejay any mind, except for Kenji and Celeste, who knelt by his side, making sure no one accidentally stepped on him. It made him want to cry, and the only reason he didn’t was to remain invisible.
Even though Peejay hadn’t gleaned much information like everyone else, didn’t actually remember hearing Dov fall from the ceiling onto Marisa’s outstretched leg, hadn’t been particularly cognizant of anything that had happened in school the past week, he knew well enough everything that had come before what was happening now had been small—shifts in routine, days rearranging themselves one detail at a time into a new normal, which might have continued on for a long time if not for this.
* * *
Everyone waited for the nurse to speak, to say what they all expected but wouldn’t fully accept until the words were out there. They wanted her to really get into the details of Marisa’s break, mention specific bone names, the consequences that would come. They wanted her to be gruesome, unequivocal. To tell Marisa: “You have to open the doors.” Her first words, however, were, “I’m sorry.”
* * *
When the nurse was done with all the medical information she had, when she’d provided Marisa with her best guesses and possible scenarios, she apologized again and stood back, near the crowd, granting Marisa the room to make her decision.
Now all eyes were on her again. Ms. Duli’s discerning stare, and Jordi Marcos’s smug smile, and a few tear-rimmed eyes belonging to Maya Klutzheisen and Michael Obonte, who loved Marisa so and hated to see her hurt. There were those who loved Marisa and were prepared to love her no matter what she did, but also those who loved her and felt they might love her a little less if she opened the door, as well as those who felt they might love her less if she didn’t open the door. There were plenty of very angry people still looking at her the way they did on lock-in night, and those whose anger had simmered away and now felt nothing but a vague queasiness at the sight of her leg (or rather, just the memory of it, since it had now been gently covered by a blanket to spare everyone the sight).
Like she had that first night, Marisa met every single pair of eyes in the building, even momentarily catching Peejay’s stare through the shawl. Her jaw was clenched, as if that could give the pain somewhere to go. Her fists were shaking, in part because of the adrenaline her body was shooting through her to help ease the pain, sure, but also because of the anger that something so stupid might jeopardize this thing she’d spent so long planning. Outside, other students strained to see and hear over the rain. They knew the next bell was coming and they begged her silently to speak before it rang. But they didn’t have to worry. Here came her answer, and they wouldn’t even have to hear it to understand exactly what her decision would be.
Marisa took a breath—the motion alone causing so much pain to shoot through her entire body that she nearly had to take another just to recover—and, so imperceptibly that many in the crowd who’d blinked at the wrong time missed it, she shook her head.
3
7:57AM
The air turned heavy again. It hadn’t ever quite gotten light, at least not as light as it had been during lock-in night, but they’d all forgotten how much the little meaningless transgressions humans perpetrated on one another could shift the weight of air.
In the aftermath of Marisa’s headshake, their lungs felt compressed, their breaths not carrying quite enough oxygen. The teachers, no less impacted by Marisa’s refusal to let herself out, suddenly