Chapter 7

- First, you may consult an eye doctor. Second, you may switch from my subject to one more suitable for you. Of course, that is not easy now, given that the rosters are closed and the school year is already underway, but I think the administration will meet you halfway. And the third option is to file a complaint against me. I admit, the last option is not my favorite, but I would be extremely interested in discussing your grievance with the principal, together with you. Well?

I cannot see it, but I can imagine Carter's jaw tightening.

- Continue the lesson, Miss Edwards!

- Thank you, Mr. Wright...

For the entire lesson I sit there half-dead, feeling the back of my head burn. Alex's brother and I have never been this close to each other before. If he wanted to reach out and touch me, he could do it easily, so ignoring his nearness is impossible.

I did eventually pick up the notebook, but what the lesson was about, and what I wrote down in it, I do not remember at all.

When the bell rings and it is time to leave, the teacher stops us.

- Goodbye, everyone! Holt, Wright... you two stay behind!

Miss Edwards rises from her chair and lifts the gradebooks from her desk. Waiting until all the students have gone from the classroom into the hall, she lays them over her arm, preparing to leave the room as well.

Carter and I are standing in the aisle between the rows--he has managed to get around me, and now I am stuck behind his shoulder, afraid to breathe. The woman looks at us with interest, her eyes moving from one to the other.

- Holt, Wright, - she repeats once more, looking sternly over her glasses, - since both of you took up my time today, and Law was your last class on the schedule, I believe it will be fair to leave you in the classroom for, say... - she raises her hand to her eyes and looks at her watch. - Thirty minutes! I want to see a brief written conclusion on today's lecture. And, in addition to the conclusion, a new topic for a lesson. I promise to consider your suggestions. Is everything clear?

I press my lips together and clutch my backpack, while Carter visibly and unhappily tenses, turning toward the woman and pointedly not noticing me.

- No, not everything, - he objects. - I cannot stay. In fifteen minutes I have lacrosse practice with Coach Hurley. I am afraid he will not like my absence. Better not create problems for anyone, Miss Edwards, - he warns dryly, - especially since I was present for the class I chose myself!

No, Wright does not raise his voice, but his words still sound rude and carry a trace of threat. I can already sense the teacher will not let it pass, and the punishment will probably be far more serious than extra time after school. But somehow she manages to keep herself under control.

True, what she says is not very pleasant, and she is clearly not even thinking of yielding to the stubborn student:

- You cannot know this, but I am a problem all by myself, Mr. Wright! And thank God that so far I am neither yours nor Coach Hurley's!.. Thirty minutes! Or we will meet in the principal's office with your parents, and then I promise, no one leaves until I personally find out all your reasons!

Her sturdy heels strike the floor as she goes out, slamming the door behind her, and I am left alone with Carter Wright. In a room where all outside sounds have been cut off, and where it becomes so quiet I can hear my own breathing.

And Carter's heavy exhale, full of barely restrained anger.

I am so surprised by it that I do not immediately notice his closed eyes and the fingers clenched into a fist around the strap of his bag at his chest. The knuckles are scraped, the tan skin wind-chapped, but the shape of the hand itself is very beautiful and familiar to me. It leads into a strong, sinewy wrist braided with taut cords of veins. And it seems that if you touched them, they would answer with strength...

No, Alex's fingers were smooth, warm, and when his palm opened, with its rough pads, a birthmark shaped like a half-moon was visible there. I had touched that palm so easily, and the feeling of those touches is still alive in my memory, like I remember the first caress and the tenderness with which my friend's fingers wove into mine. And I immediately cling to that memory.

Alex...

Carter is standing in profile to me, only a meter away, and the desire to look at him is stronger than I am. Again my gaze fixes on him--anxious at first, but with every new second more aching and hungry. I look at his shoulders, his face... Suddenly I want to touch him, no matter what. Not his body, but his soul. And perhaps feel an answer. At least some warmth that would make it easier.

He turns so abruptly that I flinch back.

- Damn it, Holt! I told you! Stop staring at me! You think I do not notice it every fucking time? What part of my words do you not understand? Back off!

I understand everything, more than everything, but how can I explain to him that seeing him is as necessary as breathing? That he is like a thread of hope still alive whenever I allow myself, even for one brief instant, to believe the impossible might suddenly happen and everything might turn out to be a dream...

- I am sorry, I know. It is just...

- Just what, Holt?

For the first time, we look at each other this openly, and I shake my head.

- You look so much like your brother. I cannot help it. I cannot keep from thinking about it when I see you.

Carter's cheekbones sharpen, and his lips turn harder still. He takes the bag from his shoulder and throws it onto a desk. He comes closer to me, and I cannot take even one step. But I do retreat when he crowds me back with his body, leaving me no choice.

- I am not him, do you hear me? - he looms in front of me. - Not even close to Alex. You are nothing to me, Holt! Do not imagine the impossible! Just another stupid girl, one of hundreds around here! And I am ready not to notice you, but if you make me... - the cold in his tone slips under my skin, - I will hurt you very badly. So keep your distance, and better yet, stay out of my sight!

The words are cruel, and a stunned question tears from my lips:

- I do not understand, Wright. Why are you so angry? What did I do to you?!

- Nothing! - he cuts me off harshly. - You did nothing, you just exist, and I have to live with it! And do you know what question I ask myself when I see you? When you walk around laughing with your friends as if nothing happened? As if Alex never existed...

- That is not true!

- I ask myself whether my brother would have been at that time and in that place if there had been no girl named Holt. At all! If you had never come back to this town!.. He was going to you that day, wasn't he? I know. He told me!

It sounds like an accusation, like a bitter reproach, and it hurts. I myself have asked so many times: what if everything in my life had turned out differently? If I had not come back to Sandfield Rock and had not made friends with the boy next door? Would he be alive now--happy and wonderful?

No, I am not made of iron at all, and the pain stirred up by memory demands a way out. Carter's accusation brings prickling tears to my eyes, and anger enters my words. Mine too!