I push the royal blue door with my shoulder. I’m met with one long row of sinks, two stalls, and three urinals. Not too shocking.

Garrison is sitting on the sink counter, a lit cigarette between his fingers. His head is hung, hair in his eyes, but as soon as I enter, he looks up. His bones seem to cement, joints unoiled. Frozen.

Maybe this wasn’t a smart idea.

“I…” I gesture to the door I came from, as though that explains everything. It actually explains absolutely nothing.

Smoke wafts around his body, and it takes him a second to shift the hand that holds his cigarette. He casually sucks on it, quiet.

I like quiet.

I’m familiar with quiet more than I am loud. I walk further inside and rest my back on a locked, out-of-order stall.

He blows smoke up at the air vent. Then his aquamarine eyes study his cigarette, embers eating the paper. “Did you hear the bell?” He finally speaks.

“Yeah.”

He nods a couple times, almost in realization, and then he takes another drag.

“Thanks for trying to help me,” I say softly.

“I probably made it worse.”

I cross my arms, feeling naked without my backpack. “They’re your friends?”

“Were,” he corrects. “They pretty much want nothing to do with me after…the thing.” The thing. He takes a deeper drag of his cigarette. I know he must mean when his friends broke into Loren’s house with gargoyle masks.

“What’d you say to Carly?”

He stares off past me, his gaze haunted. “I told her that she’s right.”

“What?” A weight bears down on me. And the room.

He puts out his cigarette in the sink basin. “I’m a piece of shit.” He says it with such finality, as though he’s accepted it for a long time.

I open my mouth to tell him that it’s not true—that he’s a great person. I pause.

I falter.

And I think. How much of Garrison Abbey do I really know? Not much.

Not yet.

I lick my dried lips and stare at the tiled floor. “You’re better than your friends, you know?”

He says under his breath, “What an accomplishment.” His pretty eyes land on me. “You don’t have to cheer me up. It’s a lost cause, honestly.” He expels a deep breath and rubs his tired eyes with the heel of his palm. “You should go to class, Willow.”

“Are you going?” I wonder.

“No.” He pulls a carton of cigarettes out of his slacks. He undoes his navy tie and pops some of the buttons at the collar. Like the uniform has been slowly but surely choking him.

I unbutton some of mine at the collar and untuck my blouse. Feeling better. I don’t brave a glance at him, but I do climb awkwardly onto the sink counter, right next to Garrison.

My legs are much shorter, and I push my glasses up before splaying my hands flat on my thighs.

“Do you smoke?” he asks me, staring down at my features. Our arms skim, and a thunderous sensation pounds inside of me, grasping tight of my lungs, reaching and stretching for my heart.