Raven's Song

Questions

I wore the hoodie to school the next day after closely examining it to make sure there wasn't any blood or to see if there was a clue to who the boy was. It was just a generic black hoodie. My dad didn't even ask where I'd gotten it as he was eating his dinner and I was grabbing a breakfast to go.

He would have listened if I had told him the story from the night before. He probably could have tracked down both boys, but I hesitated. I didn't need for him to have anything else to worry about. He was already working more than he needed to just to make ends meet. Telling him what happened would have only made him wish that he could be home more. He didn't need to focus on something that he couldn't change.

And it had all been okay in the end. Someone else was looking out for me. I didn't know who. I didn't know if I'd ever find out who it had been. As much as I wanted to find that boy, I knew the important thing was that he had been watching my back.

Sometimes it wasn't such a bad idea to keep a secret.

As I sat in anatomy, my last class before lunch, my mind kept running through the events of the night before. There had to be a clue to tell me who the boy had been, but I couldn't find it. He'd been careful to keep me from ever seeing his face. I'd heard his voice but to pick his voice out again when he'd sounded like dozens of boys I went to school with would have been a challenge.

"We're starting to legit dissect today," Amber said as she put her backpack on the table behind me. "I might hurl."

"Don't be dramatic," Dove said, rolling her eyes at me as she walked past. "You'll be fine."

Somehow, I had gotten dragged into their friend group, but they still weren't people I called friends yet. We didn't go to the movies or the mall together. There weren't any sleepovers at one another's houses on the weekends. We didn't go to parties together. They were, for the moment, just people I could eat lunch with or work on group projects with. Unfortunately for me, our anatomy teacher only did pair work, so I was often doing the projects on my own. Which was fine because then I didn't have to worry about picking up the slack for anyone else, but it meant that I had more work to do than my classmates.

"I'm serious, Dove," Amber groaned as she slid her stool out. "I can't do it."

"You've convinced your mind that you can't do it so now you won't be able to!" Dove said with a laugh. "It's all mental, Amber. Envision yourself doing it and you'll be able to!"

I turned on my stool so I could look at them. "It's true. We learned about it in psychology last year at my old school."

Amber waved me off. "Whatever. I will be here to support however I can. From a distance. A far, far, far away distance."

Dove rolled her eyes. "You are a worthless partner. Maybe I'll work with Kenna and then you can dissect on your own."

Amber looked over at me. Fear was all over her face. "Please don't make me do it by myself." I shrugged and turned back around. "I write the lab reports, Dove. I do my part!"

"Oh my God," Dove said softly.

"What? Do you want me to do more because I totally can as long as I don't have to cut anything," Amber said quickly.

"No, shut up. Look who's here."

I had been doodling on my notebook but even I looked up. Whoever Dove was looking at was apparently big news. Several people had stopped to look at the boy who had walked in and was speaking to Mr. Alberts.