Dying Wish

[3]

Alpha was very much a residential high school, so home games attracted people from the neighborhood, too. Our bodies flowed with the flesh to the side of the building, the gym doors were already open. My senses braced for the assault of music through the speakers and pulsations from a restless crowd.

"Where do we sit?" Alice said.

"Good question," I said. "Let's see." The bleachers were already filling, there was limited time to pick. But seeing as I still clung to my five-step plan, I took the necessary time to make the right decision. "There." We hurdled toward the girls' volleyball team. I thanked them in my head for dutifully coming out to support their fellow athletes.

Cliques at Alpha, well, they were much like cliques at other schools, very much driven by nonnegotiable norms, be they rooted in snobbery or some other type of geekism. Dissent was betrayal, punishable by the worst kind of death: social excommunication.

Certain systems understood these laws better than others. For example— the athletes. Devotion to a sport takes up so much time. Your life revolves around practices, games, and travel. You enter a vicious cycle of always doing laundry, being sweaty, and non-stop snacking. Your teammates get this in a way others don't (or can't). It's natural for tight-knit groups like these to form rigid rules only they understand. Sacred stuff, like where the team must sit for indoor games versus outdoor games. Where the team sits in the lunchroom. That going to Smiley's was done as a unit or not at all.

Following the codes of your cohort not only proved your loyalty, but it allowed you to say with an army of affirmers behind you, "Hey— check me out. I'm part of the 'blah-blah-blah's.'" Or, the 'he-ha-ha's.'" No joke, this had meaning.

Which was how I flourished, simply by turning this on its head. My popularity came from rejecting the rules of any one group for the pleasures of another group. In other words, I drifted as I pleased and never apologized for it. It gave me a certain freedom everyone else lacked. An adaptability to envy. That was all it took. Because you'll never be seen if you're also trying to blend into a crowd, that's stupid; you have to rock the boat.

Hannah noticed me.

"It's Gray," she said. "Make room, make room." Bodies shifted on the bleachers for us to squeeze into. "And... Wait, you're the new girl, right? Hold on, hold on. Don't tell me. Uh, Alice, right?"

"You got it," Alice said.

"Score! Nice to meet you."

The girls shook hands. Alice exchanged smiles with everyone else.

Our jackets came off and went under our knees. The girls came out for tip-off and the game began. I should've ducked out at halftime when everyone went to the bathroom, but for some reason, I didn't. I'd lost track of time and before I knew it, the final buzzer went off. Alpha won over Beacon, 53-45. The gym emptied into the adjacent parking lot. There, Hannah and Alice swapped phone numbers. I caught myself smiling about that. They'd really hit it off.

At this point, it'd been dark for hours. Having botched the rest of my plan, I conceded it wouldn't kill me to walk Alice back to her house. But when I told her this, she countered with "But we're so much closer to the train station, aren't we? It'd make more sense for me to walk you there and head home myself."

"It's dark," I said. "You know, dangerous."

"Exactly. Gray, you live further away than I do."

"Sure. It's just, you came with me and—"

"I agreed to do that," she interrupted.

So she did.

"It'll be fine, Gray. Come on."

She walked ahead of me, already of a firm mind I wasn't going back to her house. I sighed and smiled to camouflage the uneasiness I felt. Trains ran especially slow at night, so we had to wait even longer than I would've liked.

Since I wasn't the only student living outside the neighborhood, the station was actually livelier than you might expect. The energy from the game kept everyone awake and her distracted. The train whistled onto the platform. We exchanged goodnights. I boarded.

I leaned against the frame of the door. "Attention! Next stop— Plank Boulevard. Doors are now closing." The motor sealed off the desolate platform. Alice was already climbing the stairs, her eyes lowered on her phone.

When I got home, I went straight to bed. But sleep evaded me. My mind was busy. Doing what? Why, thinking, of course. About what? About what I saw as the train chugged away from the station.

An unsavory trio— two males and one female— exited the train when I boarded. Based on their loitering they had nowhere to be. So, then, why'd they decide to leave seconds after Alice did?

Could they...?

No.

I turned my face into the pillow. My imagination was overactive, I was tired. Those three acted out of coincidence, I told myself. Nothing more. Only the very next day did I learn how wrong I was. Someone died that night. Killed would be a better way to put it. Alice was fine, so you know. She was the one doing the killing.

THIS MARKS THE OFFICIAL END OF THE FIRST CHAPTER

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CHAPTER 2 ON THE WAY