This made absolutely no sense to me, no matter how many times Jade said it.
Only seniors were allowed to leave campus for lunch. I was a senior, but how was I going to leave campus? I had no driver’s license. The State of Connecticut had apparently agreed with my neurologist that it was not a good idea for me to drive.
I’d looked at the written test for the State of Florida online because Jade had encouraged me to, and there were even more questions on it than on the one for the State of Connecticut. It was hopeless.
Alex had said on the way to school, “I’ll meet you in the Quad for lunch. We’ll go grab a burger.”
But when lunchtime came, of course I couldn’t find him. He hadn’t told me where to meet him. This was typical Alex. Also, typical me, unfortunately, to forget to ask.
I selected two caffeinated sodas, a bag of nuts, a bag of chips, and a bag of cookies from the vending machines. Then I hid out in the library to eat them. This seemed like the safest thing to do.
The library was where Jade found me.
“Pierce,” she said, pulling out the chair from the study carrel next to me and lowering herself into it. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“I’m here,” I said stupidly. Obviously I was there. I took out my earbuds. “How’s it going?”
“Good,” Jade said. “How’s it going with you? Didn’t make it to the cafeteria for lunch, I see.”
“Not today,” I said. “Maybe tomorrow.”
What was I supposed to say? I didn’t have my necklace to protect me anymore? Not that I believed I needed its protective powers, necessarily.
I just wasn’t sure I didn’t need them.
“Hey, listen, I get it. It’s cool,” Jade said. Jade had very dark hair and many black leather cords that she wore around her neck and wrists. A tattoo on her wrist said Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself in fancy script. “But if you want to talk, maybe about that thing that happened with that teacher at your old school, or about that friend of yours who died…anything. You know where to find me.”
I did know where to find her. The New Pathways offices were located in D-Wing, which was also where all of my classes happened to be located. Convenient.
And really…anything, Jade? What about the guy I ran into last night in the cemetery? Can we talk about him? Because I’ve run into him before, actually during “that thing that happened with that teacher” at my old school. When “that friend” of mine died.
Or at least when I tried to make her death right.
And he put a teacher in the hospital.
“Thanks,” I said, not mentioning any of that. “Will do.”
Jade gave me a funny look, halfway between a smile and a frown.
“Hey,” she said, reaching out to touch my hand. “I mean it. None of what happened at your old school was your fault, you know.”
I froze when she touched me. And not just because the librarian was shooting us a disapproving look from across the room, either…though I’m pretty sure she didn’t appreciate our having a conversation in the quiet zone of her library, let alone my using it as a lunchroom.
“Right,” I said. “I know.”
Was she kidding?
Jade nodded. “Good,” she said. “Just remember that. In the meantime, try to enjoy yourself, okay? I know you’ve been through a lot, but give yourself a break. It’s just high school.”
I pasted a smile onto my face. “Sure,” I said. Maybe Jade was the one who was crazy, not me. Although she and her fellow New Pathways staff members had taken great pains to remind us all that there’s no such thing as “crazy” or “normal.” These words aren’t therapeutically beneficial. “I’ll try.”
“Okay, well, great talk.” Jade got up. “Five minutes till the bell rings. Be sure to stop by to check in with me after school. I got some more of that licorice you like. The red kind. Oh, and there’s an assembly in the auditorium at two. Don’t miss it. It’s gonna be epic.”
She winked and left. Epic, unlike crazy or normal, is a word the New Pathways staff members love. Especially Jade. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.
It was clear that my experience at IHHS was going to be sink or swim.
I already knew what it was like to sink.
I decided I might as well swim.
When I arrived at the auditorium for the assembly, the din was deafening. The two-thousand-seat room was filled with people greeting each other after a long summer apart: girls with long, white-tipped nails — this look was considered totally over up north…at least according to gossip I’d overheard back at the Westport Academy for Girls, before I was thrown out — screaming and hugging, and tattooed guys in head scarves fist-bumping and high-fiving one another, and some actually greeting one another a bit more aggressively than that. So many students talking at a volume so loud in a room so large, I was tempted to slip my earbuds back in just to keep myself from going crazy. Or whatever the therapeutically beneficial word for crazy is.
But I knew I couldn’t. I had promised myself that I would stay engaged this year. If I didn’t stay engaged, how would I keep the next girl from dying on my watch?
And okay, I had failed miserably to help the last one.
But you never knew. I had a lot of advantages here on Isla Huesos that I hadn’t had back in Connecticut. At least here I wasn’t invisible, the way I’d unfortunately made myself for too long back at my old school. I could already tell, because some guy in a white shirt had noticed me and held the auditorium door open for me.