"I didn't know I raised a thief."
The words had stung, almost worse than Kurt's fists in my hair. Not worse than the punches I'd taken back at Fort Violet, to be fair, but it was close.
It had been my mother's first words when I came back home on Friday. She'd held a fresh letter in her hand, marked with the school's stamp, all crunched up as if she'd read it over and over. No one seemed to care about the truth.
Mr. White hadn't either. His rage had been palpable and terrifying, and both Axel and I had been sent home for the day. We'd exchanged no words before parting ways and heading back to an angry mother and an empty apartment. He'd had my back, though, and that was what mattered.
The weekend was slow and excruciating. My class' Facebook group was blowing up with updates about the model, more than one namedropping me in the hopes of dragging out a location. At first, I'd tried to tell them the truth, that I had nothing to do with the model, and knew as little about its whereabouts as they did, but people didn't listen, and so I stopped trying.
Emotions had shifted inside of me, changing like the direction of the wind. One moment I'd be sad, the other relaxed. Throughout the weekend, one pronounced emotion seemed to imprint itself in my gut. It was rage. Searing hot, dangerously impulsive — blind, unadulterated rage.
The stalker had taken things too far. The rat was already a notch above average grudge levels, but this? This crime, and my defamation? I spent the evenings in my room clenching my fists, thoughts racing at the pure nerve of this guy. The fact that he'd gone this far— I needed to end this, and I needed it to end now.
Operation Nao was still a go, even more so after the events of last week. Seth had been relentless in his work, even abandoning project duties to his group members. Everyone knew he was in league with me anyway, so I supposed they didn't want him around in the first place.
When sleepy Monday snuck up on unsuspecting December High students, the members of Operation Nao were ready.
"It's gotta be somewhere in the school."
"How do you know that?"
"Because it's heavy as hell. No way that nutjob carried it all the way out here. He'd be spotted for sure."
I shrugged, hugging myself as Seth paced back and forth, occasionally stopping to scratch his head or study the map of the school. Axel stood next to me, tall and silent, with a cozy-looking hoodie to warm himself.
"If we find it, they'll know we're not responsible." Seth nodded to himself, still pacing up and down the hallway. His footsteps were heavy now that he wore his winter boots.
"Or we'll look even guiltier," I interjected.
A hum came from my left, demanding my attention. "Haven't got much to lose," Axel said, meeting my eyes as I looked at him. His eyebrows were raised and his hair was tidy. A modest bruise stretched around his exposed throat.
He was right, so I nodded.
Our trio divided the school into three distinct zones. I would cover the first floor while Seth scoured the second, and Axel handled the third. The fourth floor had already been thoroughly searched by our class, so we left it for last. At 4:35 pm on a Monday, not many people were left. The only students we saw were desperate Specials that roamed the hallways like zombies, chasing that perfect GPA until the end.
It was a silent evening. The windows I passed were dark with December dullness, and only the occasional sounds of ceiling fans or creaky floors filled the air after our team split up. Snow prided the streets outside, and cars honked at each other in their rush for warmth, food, and an opportunity to rest. I wanted rest too, but it would have to wait.
The first floor housed a myriad of offices and a handful of classrooms. Storage rooms, faculty areas — it was a floor filled with locked doors. I walked the hallways in a distracted, disconnected sort of way. My footsteps cast eerie echoes between the walls, multiplying like a chorus of rhythmic thumps. I kept hugging myself, pulling my flannel shirt closer as I examined shelves and storage units as I came upon them.
The rage had subsided a bit as I explored December High after hours, settling as a sort of low humming in the pit of my stomach. It buzzed and swirled along with the empty hole, but both seemed to still as I swung into the nearby locker room.
It was the kind of place that belonged to serious students only. The walls were lined with lockers and shelves, housing books, clothes, and whatever else serious people left behind at school. To get access to one of these, you had to prove you needed it. I stepped into the room and wondered what secrets people kept in here.
Slapping the light switch near the door proved fruitless. The tired ceiling lamp had departed for its afterlife, and I supposed no one was here long enough to need it anymore. I grabbed my phone and enabled the flashlight function, watching as it beamed along the walls, eerie shadows sweeping over the room. This was a decidedly spooky area, alright. I thought about my mom then, for some reason, and that shadow her face took on as she had confronted me last week. The letter had been abandoned on the counter afterward, staying there as a reminder. I pulled at one of the lockers, finding it closed, predictably enough.
"Nao?"
My body reacted before my brain. My phone flew out of my hands, the floor pulled me towards it, and before I knew it, I found myself sprawled out on the linoleum, heart pumping like an engine.
"Holy," I managed to say, voice strange with fear. "Why did you— do this to me?"
Axel was there then, head popping up in front of me, hair falling into his face.
"What are you doing down there?"
Then he grinned, and all the fear melted out of me. An outstretched hand was all I needed — I grasped it with both hands and launched myself back on my shaky legs.
"That was unnecessary," I said.
"I didn't mean to scare you."
"You don't look very sorry that you did."
Axel looked tall and warm. Despite the fading bruise, his face appeared healthy, like he was eating and sleeping like teenagers ought to. His hoodie only added more fuel to his coziness factor, making him both soft and kind of sleepy. I was reminded of our weird relationship, then. Our limbo.
"I take it you didn't find anything on the third floor," I said, getting the sense I had to say something. I had a weird taste in my mouth and the empty hole in my belly growled.
"Correct." Axel was studying the locker room now, dark eyes sweeping over the eerie shadows and hidden secrets. "I think Seth's wrong, for once."
I scoffed. "Oh, believe me, him being wrong about something is far from rare. Give your friendship a couple more years and you'll see."
Axel smiled, a slow upward tilt of his lips. His next words woke me up.
"You think we'll still be friends then? We're graduating next year."
The words were heavy, almost too heavy for this Monday night. We were still in the locker room, still pretending like we were searching for a lost December High replica. The words were about Seth, but I knew Axel wasn't asking about Seth anymore.
December 15th. December 15th. December 15th. The date repeated in my head like an echo. I wanted to voice it, shout it so Axel would hear and understand. I didn't want to deal with this until then — couldn't. His nearness was so abrupt it was painful. He'd been nothing to me, and suddenly he was almost everything. How did you address something like that without changing the course of the universe? I realized I was being a dramatic teenager, but at that moment, our series of almosts and somethings felt vital.
"I don't know," I said finally, letting my fingertip trace a little smiley face on a nearby locker. The metal was so cold it stung. "I would hope so."
"Nao."
My name brought goosebumps to my skin. The flannel shirt I was wearing no longer felt warm enough.
"Can I hug you?"
And it was stupid how he felt like he needed to ask. Axel could have picked me up and flown into the sun for all I cared. The second he spoke, I knew I wanted nothing more than to say,
"Yes."