Page 73 of I Hope This Doesn't Find
It’s somewhat difficult to hear him over the sound of my dignity splintering into a thousand pieces. I consider dismissing the whole thing as a joke, or maybe a reenactment from a very dramatic play about modern feminism, but I can tell from his expression, from the terrible, sweltering silence in the room, that the damage has already been done.
There’s no taking it back now.
“Thank you,” I manage to say, which is a miracle in and of itself. I keep my eyes averted as I grab the cardigan from him, my skin searing hot.
“Not at all,” he says with equal politeness.
This is probably the most polite we’ve ever been around each other.
And then—nobody speaks.
I’m staring at a fissure in the wall, and in my peripheral vision, Abigail is staring at the clouds outside the window, and Julius is still staring at the side of my face. It’s excruciating.
“Well, thanks a lot for visiting,” I tell the spot under Julius’s shoes when I can’t stand it anymore. “This has been very fun. If that was all, please feel free to go whenever—”
“No,” he says quickly.
My head jerks up against my will. This is what I mean about the sickness, because only somebody who is utterly unwell would hear that one word and wonder:No, what? No, there’s more? No, he doesn’t wish to leave? No, he doesn’t like me?
But before he can elaborate, a deafening clap of thunder startles all of us, so loud it makes the floor tremble. I glance outside just in time to watch the skies split open, water pouring down to flood the earth. It’s almost breathtaking to witness the rain come in, the droplets shattering the lake’s surface like hundreds of tiny knives. Within seconds, the pavement has darkened to black, the wild grass submerged under rapidly growing puddles.
Then, from inside a cabin, someone starts yelling.
Ray is trembling.
Whimpering, really. He’s standing in the middle of the hall in his polka-dot pajamas and clutching his arm, and he looks so alarmed, so horrified, that my first reaction is to search for blood. His clothes are damp and plastered to his skin, but there’s no trace of red. It’s only water.
“The roof is leaking,”he gasps. “I was doing my skincare routine and I felt a splash of freezing water on myarm.”
“Since when did you have a skincare routine?” Jonathan Sok grumbles behind me.
Unsurprisingly, his screams have drawn everyone out of their rooms; one quick glance around and it’s clear half my classmates are in their pajamas too. Georgina even appears to have come running straight out of the shower. There are still shampoo bubbles in her hair.
Ray narrows his eyes. “What’s wrong with it? You’re just jealous you don’t have beautiful, shiny skin like me.”
“Hey,” Jonathan protests. “My skin is already very shiny—”
“Yeah, well—”
But Ray’s voice is drowned out by the violent rush of rain outside. Within seconds, water starts trickling through the ceiling and pooling over the floors.
“See?”Ray yelps, lurching back. “It’s everywhere.”
“Oh perfect! It’s exactly what I need.” Georgina steps forward until her shampooed hair is positioned right underneath one of the leaks. “This is what you call being resourceful.”
I have to admire her outlook on life.
“What do we do?” someone asks.
More voices chime in, all of them speaking over one another, over the pouring rain:
“My clothes are going to be wet. This blazer is dry-clean only—”
“The water’s freezing—”
“I can’t sleep like this—”
“Someone take me homeright now—”
