in the world would you do that?”
She’s still hitting me, and it hurts.
I yelp. “Hey. Hey! Stop!”
Chim pulls her back. Lucy’s red in the face and breathing hard.
“Thank you. Fuck.” I rub my upper arm and glance around the hallway, and sure enough, people have stopped to stare. Great. Cool. Fantastic. I start to feel my skin prickle like it has so many times over the past year due to unwanted attention and take a deep breath. Who cares? Who cares that everyone is staring, per usual. What’s important is May. I turn back to Lucy, who’s still glaring at me. “Look, I thought going there might help her get some closure. I was trying to be a good friend.” I squint at the wall over Lucy’s head. “I thought…”
“That you could save her?” Lucy is fuming.
“What?”
“You thought you could save her. Admit it. You weren’t doing this for May. You were doing it so you could play out some bullshit Prince Charming fantasy you have.”
“No, I—”
She talks over me. “I bet. I just bet you were thinking about May when you took her to see her brother’s killer. Totally something you do for someone you care about.” She glares at me, eyes flashing.
Chim puts a hand on Lucy’s arm. “Hey. Both of you need to calm down. I know you’re worried, so you’re blaming the messenger”—she looks at Lucy, then turns to me—“and I think we both know that you were trying to be that guy to May, but I get it. You like her, you were trying to do what she asked.”
“No. I was trying to be there for her, since no one else was.” Lucy and Chim wince, and I feel like a jerk.
I run my hand through my hair, starting to understand the degree to which I fucked things up. On Sunday I was so focused on making May happy and giving her some sense of closure that I didn’t consider the consequences. What it would be like to come face to face with the person who murdered your twin.
Lucy takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. I’m worried that she’s going to start screaming at me again, but when she opens them back up, some of the anger has drained from her face. “Okay. I get that it wasn’t intentional—you weren’t trying to fuck her entire world up. Fine. Fine. Whatever.” She sighs. “Let’s move on to more important matters, like where in god’s name is she?”
My heart sinks. “I haven’t been able to get ahold of her. Maybe we should go by her house?” I thought about doing that last night, late, but I talked myself out of it. I didn’t want to be pushy, overbearing, too in-her-face. Now I regret it.
Lucy holds up a finger as she rummages through her bag. “Her parents still have a landline….” She pulls out her phone and taps the screen. Holds it to her ear. “It’s ringing.” A few seconds later, she shakes her head. “No answer. Just the machine. Shit.”
I feel sick, deep in my guts. If anything happened to May, it’s all my fault.
I look at Lucy. Her eyes are rimmed red. “Let’s leave right now, go to her house. We can take my car. She has to be there. Where else could she be?” I say.
Lucy gives a limp, weary shrug. All the fight has drained out of her. Her eyes are lifeless. “Sure. Whatever. I guess it can’t hurt. Let’s go.”
We’re almost at the doors to the school when a voice calls from behind: “Hey, guys. Are you on the way to the auditorium for the memorial?” We glance at each other and then slowly turn around.
Mr. Ames stands in the middle of the hallway, arms folded across his chest, eyebrows raised. He definitely knows we were not headed to the assembly. Fuck. The assembly. Where May is supposed to talk. She’s going to get kicked out of school again if she doesn’t show.
“Mr.—” I’m searching for an excuse for why we have to leave school, but