Page 55 of What You Left Me

They can think what they want. I’ve had a long day.

I need to see Martin.

27

“There you are,” Ms. Hornsby says when Petra walks into the classroom.

The overhead lights buzz like a thousand flies caught inside a jar. The room is sterile and small, without posters or desks. It is a box with a teacher and a test. Drawn blinds and forgotten memories. A clock that ticks down wasted seconds with piercing clicks.

Petra rubs her palms against her legs. The sweat won’t cool. Her hands stay moist, and the lights stay unrelenting, exposing her to this moment with such unflappability that no shadow dare cross her.

Ms. Hornsby hands over the Honors Algebra II exam and promptly disappears, leaving Petra without a place to sit or a pencil to use. Panic, like a dry storm of heat and sand, rises up inside her, gritty and sharp and incapable of being tamped down by desperate swallows of saliva. The entire test seems to be written in a different language.

She looks around for something: a pencil, a person, a way out. There is nothing but the clock on the wall and the blinds over the window. There isn’t even a door. She goes to the window and peeks through the horizontal slats. Outside, beyond the thick pane of glass, Martin stands atop a grassy knoll. He is distant and small. Unreachable. Petra alternates between pounding on the glass and waving her arms. She shouts his name over and over. He does not look to her.

“Martin!” she screams, willing herself to be loud enough to be heard. “I wanted to see you! To talk to you!”

She watches him hear her, the way his breath stops then speeds up, like an engine revving for a big push. She keeps screaming and pounding, and when he looks, the glass changes. It becomes the window of Ryan Hales’s Jeep.

They’re parked outside her house, and she’s got three minutes before curfew. Something isn’t right. Ryan’s not right.

“I need to get inside,” Petra says, looking to where she knows her house should be and only seeing Martin standing on that hill, staring at her.

Ryan unbuckles his seat belt and leans across the way. His breath is hot on Petra’s cheek. “You have six minutes,” he says. He’s lying.

“This isn’t the place,” she tells him. She blinks.

Martin disappears.

It’s just darkness beyond the window now. Pitch black and infinite.

Ryan moves fast, bumping into the gear shift as he heaves himself atop Petra. She scoots left and right, up and down, trying to wiggle out. But he’s too heavy.

“No place is ever the place,” he says before kissing her neck. He tucks a leg underneath hers, securing his pin. “This is as good as any.”

“Not now.”

“It’s never going to be perfect, Petra.” He kisses her hard.

She holds her breath. “Please stop.”

He puts his hand where he shouldn’t, and he’s clawing around, ripping fabric, trying to do two things at once. He’s got his other hand over her mouth. “Shut up, shut up, shut up,” he begs her.

Petra bites down on the flesh of his palm as hard as she can.

He screams out in pain, scrambling off.

She bolts out of the car. It’s a full sail jump to the ground from the height of the passenger seat. A new feeling floods her. Freedom. What it smells like, sounds like, tastes like. Calm and chaos intersecting. Bitterness and relief. The worst headache of your life at the best party you’ve ever attended.

“You’re such a dumb bitch,” Ryan calls out after her. “Useless and dumb.”

Words stick on her. They have real weight. They are soundtracks that score her every move. His last words tattoo onto her every thought. She’s running now, but there is no destination. No matter how fast she tries to go, she makes no ground.

28

No.

I had a dream, but it turned into a nightmare. The same nightmare I’ve had for a year straight.