High School Hit List (CLIQUE BAIT)

Epilogue

My knees were knocking together under the table. I began unconsciously fiddling with the napkin. It had been three months. Three months was a long time.

Would she be showing her baby bump yet? Would she be the same Maddy she was when I'd deserted Arlington?

I let out the breath I'd been holding and focused on the slow moving cafe instead. I'd just come from my Friday afternoon meeting with the psychologist, which had me feeling a little overwhelmed.

The first thing they'd done when I'd enrolled at Silver Oak Science and Mathematics School was assign me to talk to a psychologist. After only a week of sessions, she'd listed multiple issues I was facing. Grief. Borderline OCD. The sure signs of a developing eating disorder.

At first, I was set back with a debilitating loneliness. Transferring schools mid-year had left me with a stack of work and not many people open to talking about it. So, through some unsaid agreement, they assigned me a buddy named Aanya who started sitting with me and asking how I was. Often I didn't know how I was. My mind usually revolved between two people who I wasn't supposed to be dwelling on.

Time had brought with it insight on everything that had happened at the start of the year. Over Christmas break, when I was cleaning the last of my lists from my drawers, I found the note he left me the first night he'd stayed over. It was like my body was fracturing all over again. Until then I'd been doing so well at shoving him from my life.

Our last argument lingered in my mind, even now, as my eyes strayed to the window, awaiting my lunch date. I didn't hate William. The more I thought about him, the sadder I felt for him. I imagined that night, the one I'd sought him out to use him with no intention of guarding his feelings. I wasn't the only one to do it to him. William was more of a puppet than any of us.

And what must have hurt the most was that it was a secret that must have been Earth-shattering for him. If I flipped the situation, I'd be left heart broken and torn. And that's how he'd been. I mean, he was protecting his family. It didn't matter if the girl who'd also tried to use him got a little hurt along the way.

What bothered me the most was that I didn't know how much of it he'd put on. So many times he'd been there to hold me or to break into houses with me or to just drive. So often it felt like he was genuinely caring for me, protecting me against them. And it broke my heart to think otherwise.

I never wanted to know the answer, because I wasn't sure I could face the truth.

And chances are, I'd never find out anyway. We hadn't spoken since I'd left, just as we'd promised.

The cafe was in a busy shopping mall, and I was watching a couple through the window as they stepped into a department store, playfully nudging each other at the hip. I smiled a little. Arlington had left the impression that there was no good left in people. Little signs of innocence like that reassured me. Even if it was only on the outside.

My gaze finally found the black-haired girl with an arm full of shopping bags balancing at her elbows, fishing for what I saw to be a mobile phone. Her stomach was concealed in a baggy cashmere sweater, and I knew that was probably intentional.

Once she'd retrieved the smart phone, her expression became relieved, and then she turned to face whoever was beside her.

Maddy Danton wasn't supposed to have a companion. This was only a lunch date to catch up. It had taken me weeks to agree. She knew that.

My breathing quickened when I recognized who it was trailing behind her, an uncertain look on his face as he eyed Maddy skeptically.

William.