Floorboards in the hallway creaked once, then twice. I whirled to the door, clamping my mouth shut. Crossing the distance, I peered out into the empty hallway. Not knowing if someone had overheard what I’d said, I pushed back from the door and turned toward Mom. My heart stopped.

She looked straight at me, her eyes unnaturally wide, the green hue surprisingly bright.

“Mom?”

Then I realized she wasn’t looking at me, but behind metoward the door, like she’d also heard someone in the hallway.

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Self-reflection was like preparing for the SAT. I didn’t want to do it, but I knew I had to. And when I did, it was going to suck buttmajorly. It was also going to take awhilemine took two weeks and a couple of days.

I guess I had Holden Caulfield to thank for it.

Mr. Theo sat on the edge of his desk, Catcher in the Rye in his hands. He went on and on about how Holden had alienated himself as a form of self-protection, which led to his loneliness. And then something about loneliness being a form of security.

Whatever. At least Holden had had a choice in becoming an outcast.

But I had an epiphany while Mr. Theo’s smooth voice read a line from the book. “‘The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody’d move…. Nobody’d be different. The only thing that would be different would be you.’”

Mr. Theo cracked the book shut and peered at the class; his bright gaze seemed to zero in on me. “What does that mean to you?”

“The kid needed to get laid,” Billy answered.

I ignored the laughter and Mr. Theo’s response. I was way too focused on the fact I didn’t want to be one of those statues in the museumsnever moving, never changingto forever be the girl who couldn’t even touch a plant. I wanted to changeneeded to change, but after two weeks of massacring every plant I’d touched, things weren’t working.

Every evening, Hayden and I snuck off to the cabin and started with the plants. Afterwards, we sat on the couch and talked about anything. Sometimes we lay on the bed. On those nights, we usually fell asleep, and then snuck back into the house at the crack of dawn, praying we wouldn’t get caught.

But maybe I wasn’t trying hard enough. Maybe I was going along with the training so I could spend time with Hayden, because I liked falling asleep next to him. I liked being that close to someone.

The shrill sound of the bell startled me, and I almost fell out of my seat. Students shot to their feet, blinking away the dazed looks on their faces.

Mr. Theo dropped the book on the desk. “Ember, can you hold on a sec?”