Shall Not Sleep [bxb]

Chapter Twelve

I managed get to school and stumble to my morning classes. I even took a whole page of notes during Biology. I was a better student distracted than I was when I was actually trying.

After lunch, where I spent the entire hour sitting in the library with books about World War I, staring hard into the face of every British soldier photographed, I went to art class. Maybe I could get out some paints and do an abstract piece. That's how I felt in my mind: scattered and nonsensical and full of magic.

When I sat down in my usual seat, though, someone joined me. Selena set up her pencils and sketchbook in the seat across from me.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, not looking up from her things. "I'm sorry for everything, okay?"

I just kept staring at her. She frowns.

"Close your mouth," she says. "Jeez. Do you always react to apologies that way?"

I closed my mouth. I hadn't even realized it was open.

"Um, what are you sorry for?" I asked.

"Treating you like crap because of your dad. I—I didn't know, okay?"

Oh! That.

"It's okay. I didn't know either, until a couple days ago."

"I'm so afraid of that."

"Me, too," I said.

Now that I've seen Alastair, held him, kissed him... the thought of him in danger was a million times worse. Jesus.

"But it's already happened to you," she said.

"Remember when I told you there was someone else I loved who was at war?"

I couldn't believe I was telling her.

She nodded. "A family member?"

"Um... a friend."

"Oh."

The sound of her pencil stroking the paper filled our silence. I started painting swirls on a sheet of newspaper, not caring what colours I picked or where I put them. When I was done and class was over, it was a mess. I tossed it in the garbage can on my way out.

I felt clearer. It got me through the fear for a bit and now I was back to the happy. I was back to feeling the ghost of Alastair's hands around my waist.

With the fog pulled out of my head, I started to notice things as I headed to my last class. A guy on the swim team I'd never spoken to nodded at me in that "bro" kind of way. On the main staircase, Kerri Jones touched my arm and asked how I was doing. A half-dozen other people made eye contact and smiled with sympathy.

It was only when I stepped into Mrs. Martin's class early that I found out why.

"Max," she said, getting up from her desk and approaching me. "I am so, so sorry about your father. I heard the news."

Mrs. Martin opened her arms and pulled me into a hug. I couldn't even speak. She smelled like mothballs and violets.

"No wonder you haven't been doing well in school," she whispered as she rocked me back and forth. "Oh, when I think of some of the things I said to you... can you forgive me, hon?"

She pulled away and held me by the shoulders. Her eyes were full of tears behind her big glasses.

"Of course," I said, because what else can you say?

She sniffed loudly. "Thank God for your father. He was a true hero."

The rest of the class was... just kind of weird. Mrs. Martin rambled on as usual. The other kids mumbled and ignored her as usual—but this time they included me.

"Look at Mrs. Martin's goofy sweater," Selena's best friend, Jamie, whispered to her. "Looks like she stole it off a preschool teacher."

Selena smirked, and turned to me. "What do you think, Max? Stolen off a preschool teacher or a Christmas present from Bill Cosby?"

I forced a smile.

I wasn't sure what to do with this. I started the walk home and a girl who lived in my complex joined me. Mostly she just talked about herself the whole time, but when I headed for my house and she headed for hers, she said, "I'm really sorry about your dad, Max. You can talk to me about it any time if you need to, okay?"

I thanked her, but inside I was just confused. This was what I wanted, once upon a time. Not even very long ago, I would've dreamed for something to happen that would make everyone not look at me like a burst slug on the sidewalk. But now that it had happened, I wished it hadn't.

If I could trade popularity for Alastair right now, I would do it in a heartbeat.

But maybe I'd have a letter waiting for me when I got home.

I ran upstairs and headed straight for my pillow. An envelope's corner poked the centre of my palm. My heart skipped beats, but my stomach sank when I pull the envelope into the light. It's the one I wrote last night. It was my own stark white envelope, Alastair written on the front.

He didn't get it. It didn't send.

Stupid fucking magical postal service. So unreliable.

Very definitively, I put it back and squished the pillow tightly over it. Maybe that would show it. I waited a minute or so and lifted it. I would have done anything to avoid the sight of my letter still sitting there under my pillow, instead of one with my own name written on it in that gorgeous cursive.

Maybe I needed to send him a letter through Mrs. Martin's mailbox again? To... reactivate things?

I wrote another letter—just a note, asking him to please reply if he gets it—and popped it in the box in Mrs. Martin's room early the next morning.

Days passed. The letter under my pillow didn't budge, and nothing was handed out to me in class. On the one-week anniversary of the night Alastair and I spent together, I still had nothing. I asked Mrs. Martin outright.

"Are you sure there's nothing for me?"

She looked at me in surprise as she handed a letter to Kelsey Green.

"No, I'm sorry, there isn't," she said. "I thought you were forgoing the extra marks and writing through the US postal service?"

"I was, but... never mind."

She gave me those sympathetic eyes and tisked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "You're not the first to have a penpal fall through. I'm sorry."

I couldn't breathe after that. Because I knew Alastair wouldn't "fall through." He would never just stop writing. Something must have happened to prevent him from picking up a pen.

And after I thought that, I had to bite my lip and try to smother my breaths, which kept speeding up on their own.

The only thing that could stop him from writing was his death.

"Max?" Serena's voice asked from somewhere above me. "Max! Mrs. Martin, he's—"

Her words went all garbled and the edges of my vision went black.