hard to describe, but the room felt nervous…twitchy with my presence. It wasn't like anything I'd ever felt before. Several times I felt eyes watching me, but when I glanced around, all I saw were kids bent over their papers, scribbling notes or doodling in the margins. Paranoid much?
I jumped when the shrill bell rang out, ending first period. I really needed to chill out. I shook my head at my idiocy and stepped into the river of teenagers flowing up and down the hallway.
Someone touched my arm just above the elbow. I looked up to see Bryan. He smiled and asked, "How was it?"
I glanced around and noticed people looking at me as they passed by. "Awkward."
"Well, awkward is okay. You know you can do it now. With each class, it’ll get easier."
We merged into the traffic walking left. I wanted to stop at my locker to drop off the broken bag and the textbooks that I wouldn’t need. The crowd of students felt more oppressive than it ever had before. Flickers of hot and cold brushed my body, causing a sheen of cold sweat to dampen my skin. I felt my forehead, but didn’t detect a fever, just a dull ache forming between my eyes.
When we rounded the corner, I felt like someone socked me in the chest with a baseball bat. Before me was Lony's locker, looking as if Hallmark threw up all over it. Photos and cards were taped in over-lapping layers so no metal was exposed. What didn’t make it on the locker itself leaned neatly along the base of the wall. A vase with wilting roses stood on the floor with a hand-made sign sticking out which read, “Gone to the angels.” Teddy-bears and Beanie Babies with blank eyes and mocking smiles stared up at me from the floor.
"Oh, my god..." I whispered, my face draining to white. Kids passing by between classes stared at me, making my skin crawl.
Bryan clutched my arm and steered me into an empty classroom. "I'm so sorry, Cady."
"What is that? A shrine?" I shouted, my voice breaking like a twelve-year-old boy. I started to hyperventilate, the air in my lungs heaving in and out, in and out.
Bryan pulled me into his arms, his hand patting my hair. My tears soaked into the cotton of his White Stripes t-shirt, leaving dark gray blotches.
"I'm so sorry. I had no idea that was there. I never come down this hallway."
I didn’t wrap my arms around him; rather I drew them in tightly to my sides, my fists balled up clutching his shirt. I hadn’t noticed how cold I was until I was snuggling against him, basking in his body heat. Maybe I should have been embarrassed, but at that moment, all I could focus on was his calm warmth. He could have been anyone, I just needed to be held.
"It's okay, Cady," he whispered. "You stay here. I'll go get the janitor to take it all away."
As soon as he drew away, an irrational wave of anger rolled through me that even Bryan's calming influence couldn't touch.
"How could they? Don't they realize she was my sister? That my locker is right there, too? It's bad enough I have to live down the hall from her empty bedroom. Do they expect me to step around that —that altar between every class?”
A small rational part of me knew I was being a bitch, that those students lost someone too, but my emotions were out of control with selfish need. I started pacing and Bryan just stepped back and watched.
Mr. Small, the computer arts teacher, poked his head in to see what all the shouting was about.
"Oh, Miss Day! Is everything alright?" He snatched a box of tissues from the window sill and held them out to me as if he didn’t want to come too close.
“It's fine," Bryan assured him, "She just wasn't prepared to see that memorial at her sister's locker."
"Oh, well... I guess I can call the custodian and have it removed."
"Forget it!" I said. "I'll do it myself."
Before they could stop me, I went out into the hallway and plucked a poem off of the metal. It was some sappy thing that struggled to rhyme. I ripped it and let the pieces float to my feet. I could feel the eyes of the crowd on my back, boring into my skull. A cold cloud of grief wafted around me. Without realizing it, my fingers started ripping the pictures and notes