The Hidden - Jessica Verday [23]
Senior year started off with a bang. Literally. Someone’s car backfired in the parking lot right after Mom dropped me off, and half the students that had been milling around went running and screaming that someone was outside shooting. The whole school was put on lockdown, and we didn’t get to home-room until after lunch.
After the situation was settled, and our lockers were assigned (which is pretty much a joke since we all end up with the same locker year after year), I stood twirling my padlock and staring into the teeny, tiny space my stuff would call home for the next nine months, when someone tapped me on the shoulder.
“Excuse me,” a voice said. “I need to get in there. I don’t think the bell is going to hold off much longer. And while I’m normally cool with just hanging out, the hallway isn’t my first choice of places to do that.”
When I turned around to find bright green eyes, I paused in the middle of saying “Yeah?” to think about Caspian for a moment. I wonder what he’s doing. Is time going fast for him again? Or slowly, since he’s awake? Or is he even awake? Maybe he’s sleeping.
Hair was the second thing I saw. Her hair was long, even longer than my own, but not quite as curly. And red. Impossibly red. I snapped back to reality. “Oh! Sorry. You need me to move?” I glanced around. “Where?”
She looked down at a piece of paper clutched in one hand. “I’m 9-C. So I need to get in right there. Beside you.”
My stomach dropped to the floor, and my book bag slid out of my grip, spewing books everywhere. “Beside …” My throat seized up, and I coughed. “Beside me?”
She shifted her books, and something else she was holding. Something that I couldn’t get a glimpse of. “Yeah. Beside you. That’s how numbers work here, right? You’re 9-B, so 9-C comes next, right?”
“But that’s Kristen’s locker.”
“It’s already taken? Shit.”
I shook my head. And then found my voice. “It’s not. Taken, I mean. Kristen’s dead. It was just … It used to be her locker.”
There was silence, and then the unmistakable sound of the bell buzzing overhead.
“Shit. Twice,” she said, throwing one hand to point up. “There goes the bell.”
Glancing around me at the scurrying students, I realized that I was going to be late for class too. And my books were still all over the floor. Dropping to my knees, I started to gather them.
The new girl bent to help me pick one up. “I’m Cyn, by the way. And before you ask, no, ‘Cyn’ isn’t short for Cynthia, or Cynder, or Alicyn, or any of those. It’s just Cyn. Sweet. Short. C-Y-N. Got it?”
I glanced up. I think I liked her. “Abbey,” I said. “Short for Abigail. And it’s with an e.” She nodded, and just like that, we had an understanding.
Upon closer inspection, I could see that she had thin green highlights scattered throughout her hair. The color of new leaves. The effect was striking.
“I like your hair,” I said.
“Thanks.”
I stepped to one side and cleared a path for her to get to locker 9-C. As she slid the numbers around and then threw open the door, a wave of nostalgia overwhelmed me.
Kristen dropping notes into my locker after fifth period. Kristen letting me use her mirror because I was always forgetting to buy my own. Kristen waiting with a Cheshire cat smile and the latest study hall gossip. Kristen—
Cyn snapped her fingers. “Earth to Abbey. Are we losing you there? You’re zoning out on me.”
I shook my head and stuffed my books into my own locker. “Sorry. Just … lost in a memory.”
“I get it. You knew Kristen, huh?”
“You could say that. We were best friends.”
“Oh. Jesus. That sucks. How did she die?”
Such an innocent question. But it made my skin crawl. “She drowned,” I said curtly. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“Got it. That memo is loud and clear.” Cyn finally slid the other thing she’d been holding onto the little top shelf of the locker, and I couldn’t help but steal a peek.
It was a dead plant.
She caught me looking. “I have to keep them here,” she explained. “Otherwise my mom will throw them out.”
Why would she want to keep a dead plant?
Apparently