Page 60 of Prometheus Burning

Holly glanced down at her notebook, flipping through pages as she spoke. “Yeah, I’m totally sure. I just gotta lay off the DDR for a while.”

The DDR.Is that what kids were calling it these days?

“Listen, Holly. I’ve known you a pretty long time now. You know if there’s ever anything else going on, you can talk to me, right?”

“Yeah, I know.” She flicked her pencil against the notebook. “Don’t worry. I promise. I just got a little carried away like I always do.”

“Getting carried away? You have a lot of spunk, and there’s nothing wrong with that,” I said. “But take it from someone older… there are some situations you should walk away from. Whether it’s some punk at DDR threatening to fight you. Or something else. Anyway, my door is figuratively always open. Besides, you know where I live.”

We both laughed at my final sentence, and I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Truthfully, I had no idea what else to say. Or do. I didn’t want to overstep. What if Holly was telling me the complete truth? If I went to the police, or her parents, would they just look at me like I was nuts for being so concerned?

“You know what,” I added. “Here. Give me your phone.”

Without hesitation, Holly handed me her iPhone, and I started plugging in my number. Then, I called myself from her phone, waited a minute, and then hung up so I would have her number as well.

“Seriously, Holly,” I said, “Should you ever end up in a shitty situation… and need a place to stay for the night. Or if anything is going on and you need someone to talk to. Just text or call.”

Before I had the chance to give her any more of a pep talk—I wasn’t sure what else I should say that wasn’t overstepping any boundaries—the rest of my students began to filter into the room.

After I returned her device, Holly glanced down at my number and smiled.

“Thanks,” she said.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Holly

The cursor blinked on the fresh page of my Word document. I lay on the carpet in my office, head back against the rug and tilted sideways to view my computer screen. Mesmerized by the blinking. My eyes had grown heavy, though it was only 10 am, and I had gotten up only about an hour before.

Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink…

9,800 more words to go, and I had no idea what to write. One week to get the words in before the deadline on Monday. If I survived that far—I still had to get through the party Jamie’s parents were throwing on Friday.

Ugh. The party…

I tapped the fingers of my right hand against the keyboard, wishing that fingers could magically type the words for me and put together sentences in the most polished way possible. The scene I dreaded most—the father’s death, or lack thereof—was approaching quickly. And I still had no idea how to handle that. Meghan wanted him to live. And I wanted him to die.

Was there even such a thing as a compromise in that?

Of course, in my YA thriller, they’d just discovered another teen girl’s body in the river.Yes, the river.And, yes, I understood what every single psychiatrist on the planet would say about me. That perhaps I was projecting my own needs and fantasies into the world of my books.

But I wasn’t concerned with what this said about me.

Instead, I focused on the bruise marks the crew found on the body when they discovered the young girl. The marks cascading down her back like she had been beaten with a thick object before her attacker had decided to dispose of the body.

The yellowing bruise around Holly’s eye reminded me of my character. Though Holly had told me the bruises were nothing more than from a fight at an arcade, a nagging feeling crawled through my stomach. A day had passed since she’d told me, and that icky-ness hadn’t gone away. That had to say something if the feeling was still there.

What if Holly was lying? What if there was something more going on at home or maybe with a boyfriend of hers or with some random kid at school? I tried to place myself in her shoes. Would I tell the truth if someone at home had been physically abusing me?

Absolutely not.

I bit my lip and rolled onto my stomach, stretched out an arm and reached for my phone next to my computer. Within the iMessage app, I started typing up a message.

Me:

Hey, Holly. Just checking in. Hope you’re staying out of the arcade for a few days.

Within a few seconds, dots appeared in the app.

---