scars, hesitated, then asked him the question she’d been thinking about ever since Saturday afternoon, when Mr. Conners had spent an hour talking with all the kids about what had happened. When the teacher had asked if they had any questions, Amy had remained silent. Now, alone with Josh, she said, “Did it hurt? I mean, when you cut yourself?”
Josh hesitated, trying to remember. It was funny—he could remember holding the knife in his hand, and he could remember the blood spurting out after he cut his wrists, but he couldn’t remember actually doing it.
Nor could he remember whether or not it hurt.
“I don’t remember,” he finally replied. “I mean, if it did, I’d remember it, wouldn’t I?”
Now it was Amy who shrugged. “I—I wonder if Adam felt anything when the train hit him,” she said pensively. “I mean, I guess being dead wouldn’t be so bad if you weren’t ever happy about anything. But if dying hurts—”
“I know,” Josh said. “That’s what I keep thinking about. And once you’ve done it—well, it’s not like you can change your mind, is it?”
Amy shook her head. “I don’t think I could do it,” she decided. “I mean, no matter how bad things were, I think I’d be too scared even to try.”
Their conversation was interrupted by a car turning through the gates and starting up the long drive. As he watched it approach, Josh suddenly recognized it.
It was his mother. What was she doing here?
And then his heart sank. She’d heard what had happened to Adam, and she’d changed her mind about him being here. She’d come to take him home.
His first instinct was to go and hide somewhere, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good. If she’d come to take him home, they’d find him no matter where he was, and then he’d just be in trouble. So he stood nervously where he was, watching while his mother parked the car and got out, already waving to him. A moment later she ran up the steps and swept him into her arms, hugging him as if she hadn’t seen him for a year, instead of just a week.
“Jeez, Mom,” Josh complained. “Put me down! What if the kids see? They’ll tease me for the rest of the year!”
Despite the reason for her visit to the Academy, Brenda couldn’t help laughing at her son’s embarrassment. “And what’ll they think if your mother doesn’t give you a hug when she sees you?”
“You don’t have to pick me up,” Josh groused. “I’m not a baby anymore!”
“Right,” Brenda agreed, setting him back on his feet. “You’re all grown up, and ready to go out and start earning a living so you can support your old mother, huh?”
“Mo-om,” Josh groaned.
Brenda turned to wink at Amy Carlson. “Does your mom embarrass you as bad as I embarrass Josh?”
Amy shrugged. “I guess,” she said. Then, voicing the thought that had been in Josh’s head from the moment he saw his mother’s car: “Are you going to take Josh home?”
Brenda’s smile faded, and she gazed down at Josh. “I don’t know,” she admitted. She dropped down onto the steps, suddenly feeling the fatigue of the all-night drive. She’d only heard the news about Adam Aldrich yesterday afternoon, when Hildie Kramer had called, and she still wasn’t quite over the shock of it. Of course she’d barely known the boy, but after last weekend she’d already come to think of Jeanette and Chet Aldrich as friends. All through her shift at the café she’d thought about whether or not to make the drive up to Barrington, and she’d set out as soon as she’d gotten off work at midnight.
In the end, of course, she realized she had no choice. It wasn’t just for the funeral, which was going to be at ten o’clock that morning.
It was Josh.
She had to see for herself how he was doing, make up her own mind how he’d dealt with the suicide of one of his schoolmates.
Most important, she had to see how he was reacting to the school. And she decided if he wasn’t happy there, she was prepared to pack him up and drive him home that very afternoon, taking him away from the Academy even more quickly than she’d put him in.
For if Adam Aldrich hadn’t responded to the school, and followed up his unsuccessful suicide attempt with a successful one, what was to say that Josh wouldn’t do the same thing? Just the thought of it had made her