He knew I was there before I said anything.
“Why are you doing this?”
Mr. Miles closed the classroom door. Students completed the race to class, leaving us alone in the hal way.
Pietr stood silent, looking down at me.
“I don’t know what to do,” I confessed. “I thought—when I had time to think—we’d come through everything stronger. I didn’t expect this. You choosing Sarah, Derek choosing me.…”
“You said a girl wil know when she’s not wanted. She’l move on,” he said, shoving my logic back at me.
The logic I hoped would work on Sarah. It hit me in the chest, a strike to my heart that left me gasping.
“I’m not—you don’t—oh. God.” My hands covered my ears, but it didn’t matter. His words spun in my head, mixing with my racing pulse. Like Rio’s hoofbeats thudding at ful gal op.
“Eezvehneetyeh. I’m sorry, Jess. It’s for the best.”
“God! How can you just”—I fought for breath, for words, for hope—“how can you hurt me like this?”
Red seeped from his pupils to stain the edges of his irises purple. He grated the next words out, saying, “Things. Change.”
“I know that, Pietr. Things change, life goes on, it’s not you it’s me, al ’s fair in love and war … boys become men—or more … or is it less, Pietr?”
I stepped forward, closing the distance between us for a heartbeat before he closed his glowing eyes, clenched his jaw, and stepped back.
“Pietr. I know you’ve changed. But what I saw then wasn’t half as horrible as what I’m seeing now.”
Opening his eyes once more, he avoided looking into mine.
“You want to know what makes a man a monster? This.” I waved a hand at the thin space between us.
Stoic, he took it. Where had his fire, his fight, gone? I’d seen it the night of his seventeenth birthday. I’d been both mesmerized and terrified by it. Now al I wanted was some glimmer of that strength, some hint of that passion pointed in my direction.
I dropped my backpack. “Don’t you feel anything for me, Pietr?” I lunged and hooked my hands over his shoulders, stretching to cover his mouth with mine, wil ing my lips to do what words would not.
He pushed me away. Voice strangling, he replied, “Eezvehneetyeh. I’m sorry, Jess. Take care of yourself.” He stormed away, red eyes flashing.
I didn’t have the heart to watch him go—couldn’t bear that he wouldn’t look back.
I wound up late to biology, struggling to cool my heart. I was fine until I noticed the dissection trays and pins.
Amy was at our station, carving up the detached head of a pig. My world wobbled and I was back at that night, in the old park as Nickolai’s head was torn free of his body.
* * *
I tugged back my hair, barely knotting it at the nape of my neck before my throat tightened and I latched my hands onto the cool toilet seat. And threw up.
Again.
I fumbled with the toilet paper dispenser and tore free a wad of the rough stuff to wipe my mouth, tossing it into the bowl before I closed my eyes and flushed.
The door to the bathroom squeaked open and I tried to regain control of my swirling stomach. No good.
I lurched forward and heaved more of my guts into the waiting water.
“Jessie?” Amy’s voice froze me, though my insides quivered mutinously. I flushed and rustled through the contents of my purse for mints.
“Jessie!” She pounded on the stal door. “What’s wrong?”
That was Amy: straight to the heart of a matter—no How are you doing? when she could guess by the sound and the smel that I was far from okay. Hoping the mints worked, I stepped out, purse dragging behind.
“Ohhh.” She wrinkled her nose and looked me over. “You smel almost as bad as you look.”
I reached into my pocket, digging for my worry stone. Its touch did little to combat my twisting stomach.
“I’m fine.”
“Liar.”
I shrugged and headed to the sink.
“Are you pregnant?”
My head snapped up and I glimpsed myself in the mirror. Not good. “Not unless I’ve been chosen for immaculate conception.”
It took her a moment, but she got it. “So.” She grabbed a paper towel, wet it, and rubbed at the ends of my makeshift ponytail. “Why are you puking your guts out during bio?”
“I just…” How could I explain without giving everything away? Or making her think I’d lost it? “Something must not be sitting right with me.”
“Bul . Is it the dissection? You got a soft spot for pigs? You can opt out and use that computer program.”
I tried to imagine the process on a screen instead and headed for the toilet again. Dry heaves rattled me until my head ached. Even on a computer screen dissection—the slow examination of anatomy
—would remind me of death. Of violent nightmares spiraling out again and again in slow motion.
Amy knelt beside me, stroking my back. “I had to do this for my mom a couple times,” she confided.
“But she was dumb about drink. You’re not suffering from the same thing, are you, Jessie?”
I shook my head—slowly—not sure what to do with my mouth. There were plenty of words to explain the situation. But none of them were believable.
“This has to do with Pietr.”
I could give her that much, so I nodded. Ow.
“Bastard. Why are they always such bastards?”
“Marvin seems okay,” I suggested.
She let go of me and adjusted her sweater. “Yeah, he does seem pretty okay, doesn’t he?” Her eyebrows drew together as the wheels in her head turned. “Sure, Pietr’s dating Sarah, but that’s not new.
So what’s real y got you tied up in knots—what happened with Pietr you didn’t tel me about?” I felt freshly sick. “What happened the night you sneaked out?”
“You know.”
“No. Not the first night you sneaked out. The night of Pietr’s birthday. What happened between you two?”
“Was that when I went to see Max?”
“Ha!” Amy snorted.
“That’s what Sarah probably believes.”
“And you can thank me later for talking to her long enough to create an interesting reason you’d get grounded.”