Page 71 of Best Year Ever

After we round the building twice, I’m feeling pretty sure she’s not poisoned. But I’m not going to take her back inside so she can sit on a chair and cry. We keep walking. After five laps, we turn and go around the building the other way, unwinding the circle. She keeps talking, and I listen for any hints of symptoms the website told me to watch for. I’m confident she’s fine, just guilty of being a teenage girl dating a dumb teenage boy.

Eventually, I’m tired of the retelling of the details I’ve already heard at least twice. I need to ask her different questions.

“How long were you down there?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Not sure, but maybe an hour. Or less. Or a little more.”

“Walking on one direction the whole time?”

She’s blushing. Well, at least her color is improved. “We weren’t walking the whole time.”

Right. She said something about comforting. And catching her breath. I bet there was plenty of that.

“Where is the entrance? How did you find it?”

And for the first time tonight, Tessie is silent.

I wait way longer than it should take someone like Tessie to answer a direct question. She says nothing. She doesn’t even look at me. I know this version of Tessie. She’s ashamed.

Oh, no.

“He didn’t, like, blindfold you or something, did he?” I ask, my voice low. Please say no. Please say no.

“No.”

“So? Where’s the entrance?”

She sighs. “In the library basement.”

I stop walking.

She’s still holding my hand, so she has to stop, too.

I stare at her. She continues to study the seam in the sidewalk. I refuse to interrogate her. She can be the one to explain. And she can do it not because I’m pushing her, but because it’s the right thing to do.

She sighs and reaches her free hand into her coat pocket, pulls out something clutched in her fist, and holds it out to me.

When I drop her hand and hold out my palm, she puts a key into my hand. My key. From the ring I handed her yesterday so she could open a study room.

So many questions, so many accusations race through my head. I want to shout at her. Ask her what she was thinking. Tell her I’ll never trust her again. She could have been so hurt by this stupid prank. And it would have been all my fault.

But I don’t say any of it.

I wait.

The chilly October evening has turned cold, and I stand on the sidewalk and wait.

Tessie stands with me, eyes and nose streaming. We’ll probably both catch pneumonia, and I don’t even care. I’m not saying another word until she tells me what she needs to tell.

We’re silent for a lot of minutes, and my fingers are going numb. (My brain reminds me this could be carpal tunnel, tennis elbow, or nutritional deficiencies. Also maybe stroke, but let’s not get carried away. I remind my brain that it’s also very cold out here tonight.)

I shove my hands deep into my coat pockets. Wrapping my fingers tight around the key, I feel it bite into my skin. I can’t believe Tessie stole the key from me. I can’t believe I’m somehow involved in Hayes’s stupid prank.

Finally, she looks up. What I thought was dirt on her cheek I can see now is probably oil. Gross, ancient machine oil from the steam tunnels, I bet. I resist the urge to wipe it from her face.

“I’m sorry,” Tessie says. Her voice is quiet and shaky. “I shouldn’t have let—I mean, I shouldn’t have taken it. I’m sorry.”

I hear the apology, but I hear the aborted explanation even louder.

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