“Anyway,” Declan said as we reached my parents’ Volvo, as if he’d been carrying on an entire conversation with me in his head. That was the thing about Declan—he didn’t do awkward silences. When he was silent, there was a good reason for it.

We stopped and turned; our parents were still standing and talking at the entrance of the church. I shivered because it was getting chilly as it was getting darker. “Catch you at home?”

“Yeah.”

His eyes lingered on me. I held my breath, wondering if he could see through me, straight to my sins.

Friday, February 15

“You have such pretty eyes,” Nurse Ryan tells me as she wraps my wrist.

I’m glad she’s so mesmerized by my baby blues. I’m glad it’s her and not Nurse Fielding, who retired last year after twenty years with Deer Hills. Nurse Fielding was a ballbuster. She wouldn’t bandage a hangnail without a game of twenty questions. Even though Nurse Ryan winds the bandage too tightly, she doesn’t notice the similar cuts up higher near my elbow.

Hooray for ignorance. Hooray for long sleeves. Freaking hallelujah.

Hooray too for a gym teacher who only cares about collecting a paycheck. Wilbur caught Declan and me making out under the bleachers in the gym once and didn’t say anything. But today, as the blood pooled atop my wrist and then coursed down through my fingers onto the lacquered gym floor, Wilbur handed me the hall pass and an inadequate wad of tissues and ushered me out the door. I’d had the cut it on the locker door excuse on the tip of my tongue, but she didn’t even wait to hear it.

“I cut it on the locker door,” I blurt out to Nurse Ryan. Apparently, the excuse had been fighting to get out all this time.

The young nurse nods as she peels a piece of surgical tape and secures it. “All fixed.” She’s blond and cheerful, and I know she means well. “We should have a janitor take a look at it.”

I stare at her.

“At the locker, of course. Not your arm.” She giggles as if she’s twelve.

I pull my sleeve over the bandage so it’s hardly noticeable. I threw away the file. Good as new. “Sure.”

“What the hell? Are you okay?”

I know it’s Kane before he speaks, before I turn around. I cringe. I’d expected this. News travels fast in this school.

He kneels in front of the cot and looks at my bandage. “Shit, Hail. Shit.”

The nurse crosses her arms. “She’s fine. What class are you coming from? You need to—”