“All what?” My voice is steely. Then my lower lip trembles and I bite down hard to stop it. Look back at her. Her face is drawn.
She continues, “It’s just…with college. Scholarships. I don’t think I can do it anymore.” She pauses. “I thought about it a lot today, after lunch. You know I started off really into what we were doing. It made sense—it was retribution. It felt like we were doing something good. Like we were doing something important to remember Jordan. But now…with David’s parents moving to god knows where and this obsession you have with his lawyer…I don’t feel right about it. Especially with college…If my chance of getting a scholarship is taken away because they catch us…” She shakes her head. “Dude, I’d be so screwed. You know I can’t afford to go anywhere without one. I’ve worked too hard for it all to be ruined, and it would destroy Grann. I’m sorry.”
My insides collapse on themselves, but there’s no way I’m going to let her see it. I don’t ever want to hurt Lucy’s Grann, who is one of my favorite people in the entire universe and the only person other than Lucy I could bring myself to speak to right after Jordan died. But it’s Michelle Teller. Lucy doesn’t feel right about what we’re doing to her? So, what, it’s right that she sleeps at night, safe and secure, after spending her days defending the piece of shit who killed my brother? It’s not a fucking obsession. It’s my pathetic attempt to force the universe back into some semblance of balance.
I dig my nails into my palms. Bite down even harder on what’s left of my shredded cheeks. They start to bleed again.
It doesn’t matter.
I’m made of stone.
I don’t have any feelings left to hurt. Any tears left to cry.
I grit my teeth so hard I think they might break.
“It’s fine. You gotta do your thing. College or whatever. Moving on.”
She grimaces. “I’m sorry, May. But don’t you feel like we’ve done enough? For Jordan? For his memory?”
I nod—a total lie—because what she doesn’t understand is that it’s never going to be enough. I could avenge every hurt human living on this planet, every human who will ever live, and it will never make up for the fact that I stayed in that closet like a coward. It will never make up for the fact that I am the only one David left alive.
“It’s fine. Like I said. Whatever. You do you.” I turn toward the window, and we ride the rest of the way to the audition in silence.
By the time we get to the warehouse, I’m a ball of fury. This is one of the reasons I got kicked out of school—oh, sorry, asked to “take a leave of absence.” Last year, before she said those words, Rose-Brady told me she’d given me second…third…tenth chances (her words, not mine), but they just couldn’t risk letting me stay in school. I was a loose cannon (again, her stupid words); I was going off on people too often. Plus, every time I took a test, sat through a lecture, walked by that fucking boarded-up entrance to the band room…every time, I felt another little piece of what was left of my soul die. The hilarious part is, I got asked to leave only a few weeks before the administration decided that Carter was too full of anger and ghosts and shut it down forever.
Lucy and I walk into the warehouse and find ourselves in a long, narrow hallway lit by bright overhead fluorescent lights. The noises of instruments pile on top of each other, creating a cacophony. It’s the first time I’ve heard live instruments since that day. I haven’t played my trumpet. I don’t even know where it is. The last time I saw it was in that room, before I got up to find an extra music stand, leaving it behind. Leaving so much behind.
I don’t know what they did with it, and I haven’t asked. I don’t want to know.
“Where are we going?” I put my hands over my ears to block out the sounds. It’s so