Page 85 of Deeply Examined

West hesitates, searching my face. With a single nod, he rises from my desk.

As he follows me out the door, twenty-eight pairs of eyes track us, the weight of their hope pressing down on me.

But this isn’t their story.

It’s mine. I get to figure out how it ends.

Jessica

Together, West and I step out into the hallway, right outside my door. There’s a window so I can make sure no one’s goofing off. I left Nick in charge, a move that had shocked the entire class but surprised Nick most of all.

“Me?” He pointed at himself. “You wantmeto make sure everyone behaves? Not Beck or even Ari?”

I nodded, confident in my decision. Now that I understood more about his background, I wanted to give him a chance. To prove to himself—and to me—that he could be responsible.

West clears his throat, drawing my attention back to him.

“What happened to all the lockers?” he asks, nodding toward the scuffed hallway walls. Where once there were rows of metal doors, there are now only remnants—chips, divots, the ghosts of old flyers and posters once stapled in place.

“Got rid of them. Too many kids hiding drugs or weapons.” I scan the space, a dull ache of nostalgia creeping in. “It looks kinda empty now, doesn’t it? Different from when we went here. My locker was just over there.” I point across the way.

“I know.” He shoves his hands in his pants pockets. “Mine was six down from yours.”

“It was?” My mouth falls open, and guilt buzzes through me like a swarm of angry bees. “I’m so sorry. I feel terrible that I don’t remember you.”

He shrugs, but the downturn of his mouth tells me that, even though he wants to deny it, it hurts his feelings. That I never saw him back then. “It’s okay. I mostly hid when you were around.”

“But you sawme?” I ask, not understanding how he could know me so well from those days, yet I have zero recollection of him.

“I watched you,” West admits. His gaze goes soft, unfocused, like he’s looking backward into our shared past. “You had a mirror on the inside of your locker, the magnetic kind. Pink with purple hearts around the edges. After lunch, you’d always get out this little red jar of lip gloss and put it on.Cherry. I could smell it from where I hid around the corner. You’d rub your lips together until they were shiny and then smile at yourself in the mirror, as if you liked the person staring back at you.”

He lets out a sigh filled with melancholy. “I couldn’t imagine it, liking myself. I was so filled with anger and self-loathing. Looking at you gave me hope that maybe someday I could look in a mirror and not hate my own reflection. That was when I fell in love with you. I was seventeen.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out something small, holding it between his fingers. A penny, old and dented.

“Here,” he says, offering it to me. “You dropped this.”

My brows knit together as I extend my hand. He presses the coin into my palm, and I bring it closer, confused about why he’s bringing this up now. “When?”

“My last day of high school. You were getting into a car full of your friends, and it fell out of your purse. I ran over to grab it, thinking,finally,an excuse to talk to you. But by the time I stood up, all I got was a face full of exhaust. You were already gone.”

The breath leaves my lungs in a rush. My gaze snaps to his. “Youkeptit?”

“All this time.”

I flip the penny over. It’s just as worn on the other side, so faded you can’t even read the year it was made. “But you moved. College. Med school—”

“It moved with me.”

My fingers curl around the coin, pressing it to my chest. He kept this tiny, insignificant thing. Carried it with him for years. A reminder of me, of a moment I never even knew existed.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth, that I knew you from when we were young.” West’s gaze drifts over the hallway. The scuffed floor. The dinged, dingy walls. “This place wasn’t kind to me. I was beaten here. Humiliated. Bullied. It made me feel ashamed. I didn’t want you to see me like that.” He swallows. “I worried if you knew, you’d look at me differently. That it would make you turn away and I couldn’t stand for that to happen.” His eyes find mine again. Steady. Pleading. “I wanted—I wantyouto wantme. I still do.”

I draw in a slow breath and justlookat him.

At the boy who once loved me from the shadows.

At the man who broke me.

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