Page 64 of I Hope This Doesn't Find
The scorpions inside my stomach crawl up to my throat.
“Remember: Be friendly,” Abigail hisses under her breath.
This is entirely counterintuitive to everything I’ve learned over the past ten years. As natural as jumping backward, or sticking your hand into a boiling pot, or running headfirst into a flaming building. But I force the muscles in my face to relax. The corners of my lips to lift. A high-pitched, strangled sound escapes my mouth.
His brows furrow. “Sorry?”
“I was just—saying hi,” I say brightly. “In greeting. Hello.”
He shoots me a weird look and walks right past me without another word.
And I’ve decided I would like to stop existing.
“Okay, to be fair, that could have gone a lot worse,” Abigail says once he’s settled into the back of the bus. The doors slide closed, and the teachers do a final head count before we start reversing out of the school parking lot. “It’s not like youcompletelyfumbled the birdie.”
I’m hitting my head very slowly against the window.
“Maybe stop doing that,” she tells me.
“Don’t worry, I’m not doing it hard enough to risk impairing my cognitive functions.”
“No, I’m worried because Ms. Hedge might see and force us to watch that seventy-minute video about the importance of self-love again. And also because Julius is currently looking in your direction.”
I freeze. Feel all the heat in my body refocus in my cheeks. “Are you sure?”
“Quite,” she confirms somberly. “But I’ll handle it.” Before I can even ask, she speaks up in a loud voice, so loud it drowns out the rumbling engines. “It’s great to see that the windows are so sturdy, Sadie. Thank you so much for testing that out for me. I’m now inclined to believe that the news article I read about that twenty-year-old who crashed headfirst through the bus window and left a human-shaped hole in the glass was most likely fake.”
I don’t know whether to burst into tears or laughter. “Is he still looking?” I whisper.
“Nope. All safe now.”
I heave a sigh and slump back in my seat. “God, Idetestthis.”
“You still have the whole trip,” she says, popping in an earphone and offering the other up to me. “Just wait until we get there.”
We don’t talk much for the rest of the ride, except to change the music every few songs (our tastes are starkly different; Abigail listens to what she refers to assad music for hot girls, or music you can wail to, while I prefer music you can study to). It’s one of the many reasons I love being around Abigail. We can talk on the phone for five hours straight in the evenings, stopping only to grab our phone chargers or a glass of water, but we can also just sit together and watch the changing scenery through the window. Soon the roads narrow into a single winding lane, and the rising sun glimmers through the trees on both sides. The malls and gas stations and busy cafés disappear. Everything disappears, until we’re venturing deep into the mountains, and all the colors are some variation of gold and blue and green.
And then we’re not the only ones silent, drinking in the view. The other students quiet down too. Even the athletes have stopped their competition of who-can-throw-their-empty-sports-drinks-higher-without-accidentally-hitting-a-teacher, which is pointless anyway, because there are no clear rules or rewards.
“Wow, it’s pretty,” Abigail murmurs, and I agree.
Lake Averlore looks exactly the way it does in photos.
From the handcrafted cabins at the base of the mountain to the wisteria and lace wildflowers to the great elm trees fringing the lake bank. We round the corner, and the lake itself comes into full view, vast and beautiful, the emerald water so clear it glows in the daylight, reflecting the scattered clouds in the sky. The place feels like its own secluded world, a retreat in the true sense of the word. It’s almost enough to help me forget about Julius, about the emails, about everything that’s happened these past couple of months.
But then the bus jolts to a stop, and I’m yanked back to reality. Or maybe some weird, alternate version of it. Because as everyone starts unbuckling their seat belts and reaching for their things, Ray Suzuki stands up from his seat and turns to me. “Hey,” he calls. “Did you choose this spot?”
I straighten Abigail’s earphones and hand them back to her. Look up warily. “Yeah?”
“It’s not as bad as I expected,” he grumbles.
I’d think I had hallucinated it if Abigail wasn’t wearing a similar expression of disbelief.
“Oh. Um, I’m glad,” I say, still waiting for the catch. Maybe the follow-up sentence is:It’s still a lot worse than I’d hoped.Or,I was imagining a literal pit in the flames of hell to match the inside of your soul.
But it doesn’t come. He just nods, clears his throat, and joins the other students crowded down the bus aisle.
“So you’re blushing and stuttering over Julius Gong, while Ray Suzuki is being sincerely appreciative of you,” Abigail remarks, her brows raised. “Bizarre. Truly, absolutely bizarre. Next thing you know, Ms. Hedge is going to start advocating for underage drinking and Rosie is going to declare that her lifelong dream is to become a nun.”
