She slips through the noisy room and takes the seat in the row next to his, moving her eyes to him and then quickly away. Her arms are empty, no books or paper, no backpack. A few people watch her sit down, but she moves so fluidly, she seems to already have joined the rhythm of the room.
“If you can’t ride for a whole month, we’re going to need a plan,” Jay whispers. “No way can you be stuck inside that long. You’ll go insane.”
Colin hums, distracted. It’s crazy; the girl seems otherworldly, almost as if a faint sheen of light surrounds the exposed skin on her arms. Her white-blond hair has been brushed free of leaves, and she has these badass black boots laced to her knees with a French-blue oxford tucked into the navy uniform skirt. Her lips are full and red, her eyes lined with thick lashes. She looks like she could rip through the wool of his trousers with only a dirty word. As if feeling him watching, she pulls her legs farther under the desk, her arms closer against her body.
Jay pokes Colin right above his cast. “You’re not going to let that little cast stop you from having fun, are you?”
He pulls his eyes from the girl to look at Jay. “Are you kidding me? There’s tons of other ways to get in trouble without leaving the grounds.”
Jay grins and bumps Colin’s good fist.
Mrs. Polzweski organizes her stack of papers at her desk, ignoring the flurry of hushed activity: books being opened, pages turning, and students grumbling, the occasional cough, a pencil being sharpened somewhere. The girl sits, staring ahead, looking like she’s trying as hard as she can to not be noticed.
Where has she been?
In the periphery, Colin sees her thin fingers reach for a pencil that someone has left on the desk. She turns it over and over in her hand, as if the movement requires practice, examining it like she suspects it’s a magic wand.
Colin doesn’t think he’s ever seen such light hair before. When she tilts her head slightly, inspecting the pencil, her hair catches a dusty sunbeam, making it seem almost translucent. The strands twist and spill over shoulders that are hunched forward and wrapped in a shirt that’s too bulky for someone so delicate. She looks like a shadow of a girl. A shadow wearing a cap of sunshine.
As if she can feel him staring, she turns, an involuntary smile lifting the corner of her mouth. Her dimple makes him think of giggled pleas, mischievous promises, and the taste of sugar on his tongue. Gunmetal eyes meet his, and the color is alive, churning like an angry ocean, pulling him in.
He lets himself drown.
Chapter 3 HER
THE ONLY PERSON LOOKING AT HER IS THE same boy whose face has haunted her all week, with wild dark hair that needs to be cut, an arm in a new cast, and eyes that pierce her, amber and fierce. “Hi,” she rasps, tucking away her smile. Her voice is rough because this is the first time she’s used it in six days.
The first time she used it since she spoke to him and then burst from the dining room, intending to run into town to find the police and tell them she needed help. She could get only as far as a hulking metal campus gate a half mile down the gravelly road. Each of the three times she tried to escape, one step past the gate put her right back on the trail where she woke up, as if she’d stepped into a skipping song.
The boy’s gaze narrows and slips across her cheeks, over her nose, pauses at her mouth. He blinks once, slowly, then again. “Where did you go?”
Nowhere, she thinks, envisioning the empty shed she found in the middle of a barren field beside the school. It was as deserted as her memory bank, after all, and seemed the perfect home for a girl who has no name, no past. After being inexplicably drawn to this school building every morning for a week, she finally grew brave enough to steal a uniform, walk inside, and sit down.
“You disappeared,” he says.
She shifts in her seat, glancing at his mouth. “I know. I wasn’t quite sure how to follow up my stunning opening line.”
Laughing, he says, “Here,” and pushes his open textbook closer to her.
She blinks, the phantom trace of a pulse racing inside her throat at the way his eyes move over her face, the way he purses his lips slightly before smiling.
“Thanks,” she says. “But I’m okay. I can just listen.” He shrugs, but doesn’t move away. “I think we’re covering the history of labor-management relations today. Wouldn’t want you to miss out on the full experience.”
The girl isn’t sure what to do with his attention. She suspects, from the way her skin seems to be aching to move
closer to him, that he’s the reason she’s drawn here every morning, just as she found herself in the dining hall that first day. But he seems so sweet, almost too open, like she’s a strip of paper dragged through poisoned honey and this perfect boy flies innocently around her. How good can a girl be when she doesn’t need to eat or sleep and keeps finding herself snapped back to school grounds every time she tries to leave? He continues to stare, and she shifts her hair over her shoulder, lowering it like a curtain between them. “Colin?” It’s a woman’s voice, clear and authoritative. The pressure of his gaze on her lifts. “Sorry, Mrs. Polzweski,” he says.
Now that the girl knows his name, she wants to whisper it over and over.
“Who are you, honey?” the teacher asks.
The room is a vast bubble, silent and pulsing with expectation, and the girl realizes this Ms. Polzweski is speaking to her. But with the question hanging in the air, a man’s voice speaks in the girl’s mind.
“I bet you didn’t know your name means light,” he whispered, lips too close to her ear.
“I did know,” she wanted to say, but the hand on her throat made it hard to even draw breath.
“Lucia,” she remembers in a gasp. “My name is Lucy.” The teacher hums in acknowledgment. “Lucy, are you new?” Something inside Lucy stirs at the sound of someone else saying her name. For a heavy moment, she feels real, as if she’s a balloon and someone has finally weighted her to the ground. Maybe a girl with a name won’t float off into the sky. Lucy nods, and a phantom heat burns across her cheek where Colin’s gaze settles again.
“You’re not on my roll, Lucy. Can you go to the office to check in?”
“Sorry,” Lucy says, fighting panic. “I just started today.” Ms. Polzweski smiles. “You need to make sure to pick up your add card. I’ll sign it.”
Lucy nods again and slips away, wanting to disappear like a shadow into black.
Lucy knew she’d be told to go, but she doesn’t even know where the office is and isn’t quite ready to brave the outdoors and the winds that weigh more than she does. And here her feet seem grounded anyway, keeping her from leaving. She sits at the end of the hall, knees to chest, waiting for the next tug of instinct to pull her up and forward.
A door opens and closes shut with a quiet click. “Lucy?” It’s one of the only two voices in this world that she’s connected to a name—Colin—and it’s hesitant and deep and quiet. It cuts straight down the hall, and his lanky figure moves just as smoothly, straight to her. “Hey. Do you need help finding the office?”
She shakes her head, wishing she had something to gather to take with her so she could look purposeful and less like a lost girl sitting on the floor. Instead, she stands and turns, watching the lines of wood flooring weave a path in front of her as she walks away. She knows how it would go, anyway: He would walk with her, notice how she fights the wind, ask if she’s okay. And how would she respond? I don’t know. I only remembered my name five minutes ago.
“Hey, wait.”
She reaches a door, but it’s locked. She tries another beside it. Also locked.
“Lucy, wait,” Colin says. “What are you looking for? You can’t go in there. Those are janitor closets.”
She stops, turning to face him, and he’s looking at her. Really looking, like he wants to capture every detail. When their eyes meet, he makes a strangled sound, narrowing his gaze and leaning closer to look. Her eyes are murky greenbrown; she’s stared at them for hours in an old mirror hoping to remember the girl behind them.
“What?” she asks. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“If you can’t ride for a whole month, we’re going to need a plan,” Jay whispers. “No way can you be stuck inside that long. You’ll go insane.”
Colin hums, distracted. It’s crazy; the girl seems otherworldly, almost as if a faint sheen of light surrounds the exposed skin on her arms. Her white-blond hair has been brushed free of leaves, and she has these badass black boots laced to her knees with a French-blue oxford tucked into the navy uniform skirt. Her lips are full and red, her eyes lined with thick lashes. She looks like she could rip through the wool of his trousers with only a dirty word. As if feeling him watching, she pulls her legs farther under the desk, her arms closer against her body.
Jay pokes Colin right above his cast. “You’re not going to let that little cast stop you from having fun, are you?”
He pulls his eyes from the girl to look at Jay. “Are you kidding me? There’s tons of other ways to get in trouble without leaving the grounds.”
Jay grins and bumps Colin’s good fist.
Mrs. Polzweski organizes her stack of papers at her desk, ignoring the flurry of hushed activity: books being opened, pages turning, and students grumbling, the occasional cough, a pencil being sharpened somewhere. The girl sits, staring ahead, looking like she’s trying as hard as she can to not be noticed.
Where has she been?
In the periphery, Colin sees her thin fingers reach for a pencil that someone has left on the desk. She turns it over and over in her hand, as if the movement requires practice, examining it like she suspects it’s a magic wand.
Colin doesn’t think he’s ever seen such light hair before. When she tilts her head slightly, inspecting the pencil, her hair catches a dusty sunbeam, making it seem almost translucent. The strands twist and spill over shoulders that are hunched forward and wrapped in a shirt that’s too bulky for someone so delicate. She looks like a shadow of a girl. A shadow wearing a cap of sunshine.
As if she can feel him staring, she turns, an involuntary smile lifting the corner of her mouth. Her dimple makes him think of giggled pleas, mischievous promises, and the taste of sugar on his tongue. Gunmetal eyes meet his, and the color is alive, churning like an angry ocean, pulling him in.
He lets himself drown.
Chapter 3 HER
THE ONLY PERSON LOOKING AT HER IS THE same boy whose face has haunted her all week, with wild dark hair that needs to be cut, an arm in a new cast, and eyes that pierce her, amber and fierce. “Hi,” she rasps, tucking away her smile. Her voice is rough because this is the first time she’s used it in six days.
The first time she used it since she spoke to him and then burst from the dining room, intending to run into town to find the police and tell them she needed help. She could get only as far as a hulking metal campus gate a half mile down the gravelly road. Each of the three times she tried to escape, one step past the gate put her right back on the trail where she woke up, as if she’d stepped into a skipping song.
The boy’s gaze narrows and slips across her cheeks, over her nose, pauses at her mouth. He blinks once, slowly, then again. “Where did you go?”
Nowhere, she thinks, envisioning the empty shed she found in the middle of a barren field beside the school. It was as deserted as her memory bank, after all, and seemed the perfect home for a girl who has no name, no past. After being inexplicably drawn to this school building every morning for a week, she finally grew brave enough to steal a uniform, walk inside, and sit down.
“You disappeared,” he says.
She shifts in her seat, glancing at his mouth. “I know. I wasn’t quite sure how to follow up my stunning opening line.”
Laughing, he says, “Here,” and pushes his open textbook closer to her.
She blinks, the phantom trace of a pulse racing inside her throat at the way his eyes move over her face, the way he purses his lips slightly before smiling.
“Thanks,” she says. “But I’m okay. I can just listen.” He shrugs, but doesn’t move away. “I think we’re covering the history of labor-management relations today. Wouldn’t want you to miss out on the full experience.”
The girl isn’t sure what to do with his attention. She suspects, from the way her skin seems to be aching to move
closer to him, that he’s the reason she’s drawn here every morning, just as she found herself in the dining hall that first day. But he seems so sweet, almost too open, like she’s a strip of paper dragged through poisoned honey and this perfect boy flies innocently around her. How good can a girl be when she doesn’t need to eat or sleep and keeps finding herself snapped back to school grounds every time she tries to leave? He continues to stare, and she shifts her hair over her shoulder, lowering it like a curtain between them. “Colin?” It’s a woman’s voice, clear and authoritative. The pressure of his gaze on her lifts. “Sorry, Mrs. Polzweski,” he says.
Now that the girl knows his name, she wants to whisper it over and over.
“Who are you, honey?” the teacher asks.
The room is a vast bubble, silent and pulsing with expectation, and the girl realizes this Ms. Polzweski is speaking to her. But with the question hanging in the air, a man’s voice speaks in the girl’s mind.
“I bet you didn’t know your name means light,” he whispered, lips too close to her ear.
“I did know,” she wanted to say, but the hand on her throat made it hard to even draw breath.
“Lucia,” she remembers in a gasp. “My name is Lucy.” The teacher hums in acknowledgment. “Lucy, are you new?” Something inside Lucy stirs at the sound of someone else saying her name. For a heavy moment, she feels real, as if she’s a balloon and someone has finally weighted her to the ground. Maybe a girl with a name won’t float off into the sky. Lucy nods, and a phantom heat burns across her cheek where Colin’s gaze settles again.
“You’re not on my roll, Lucy. Can you go to the office to check in?”
“Sorry,” Lucy says, fighting panic. “I just started today.” Ms. Polzweski smiles. “You need to make sure to pick up your add card. I’ll sign it.”
Lucy nods again and slips away, wanting to disappear like a shadow into black.
Lucy knew she’d be told to go, but she doesn’t even know where the office is and isn’t quite ready to brave the outdoors and the winds that weigh more than she does. And here her feet seem grounded anyway, keeping her from leaving. She sits at the end of the hall, knees to chest, waiting for the next tug of instinct to pull her up and forward.
A door opens and closes shut with a quiet click. “Lucy?” It’s one of the only two voices in this world that she’s connected to a name—Colin—and it’s hesitant and deep and quiet. It cuts straight down the hall, and his lanky figure moves just as smoothly, straight to her. “Hey. Do you need help finding the office?”
She shakes her head, wishing she had something to gather to take with her so she could look purposeful and less like a lost girl sitting on the floor. Instead, she stands and turns, watching the lines of wood flooring weave a path in front of her as she walks away. She knows how it would go, anyway: He would walk with her, notice how she fights the wind, ask if she’s okay. And how would she respond? I don’t know. I only remembered my name five minutes ago.
“Hey, wait.”
She reaches a door, but it’s locked. She tries another beside it. Also locked.
“Lucy, wait,” Colin says. “What are you looking for? You can’t go in there. Those are janitor closets.”
She stops, turning to face him, and he’s looking at her. Really looking, like he wants to capture every detail. When their eyes meet, he makes a strangled sound, narrowing his gaze and leaning closer to look. Her eyes are murky greenbrown; she’s stared at them for hours in an old mirror hoping to remember the girl behind them.
“What?” she asks. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
