Nevermore

In the dim light streaming from her room, she could discern little monkeys swinging on vines across the package. BANANA FUDGE SWIRL, the label read, and she felt a twisty sensation that came from the realization that he’d actually remembered.

Next he held out a spoon for her, staring at her from behind the curve of white plastic with such intensity that it frightened her. She felt an unfurling sensation through her whole body, like she was experiencing the first drop of a roller coaster—one that was sure to have a lot of loops up ahead.

Isobel took the spoon slowly, a gesture that seemed to carry with it some sort of immense weight that she didn’t exactly understand yet. His eyes fell away, releasing her.

A curious smile threatened to crack at one side of her mouth as she watched him pry open a carton of his own. He pulled another spoon from the nylon bag, then wordlessly dug in.

Isobel took a bite too, savoring the combination of banana and chocolate.

She couldn’t keep her eyes off his hands, those long fingers that, in their movement, held a grace all their own. His silver rings glinted in the light from her window, and she focused on his knuckles before clearing her throat to speak.

“That was Gwen Daniels on the phone,” she blurted, shattering the silence that had become, at least for her, unbearable. “She told me that you tried to keep Brad from taking stuff out of my locker. Is that why you called me?”

“Partly,” he admitted.

“Is that why you’re here now?”

“No.”

“Oh.” Her stomach clutched. She waited for him to say something else, but he didn’t. She looked down into her carton of ice cream, pushing her spoon through, creating little paths and mountains. “She, uh, said that he, um . . . Are you okay?” she asked.

He scowled up at her, looking genuinely affronted. She returned his stare, refusing to take back the question even though it seemed as if he was just as stubbornly going to refuse to acknowledge it.

“Gwen said”—Isobel tried out these waters tentatively—“that something strange happened with all the lockers. Did . . . did you see it?”

His face darkened. He glanced away from her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered, taking another bite of ice cream.

Ooookay, she thought. She wouldn’t go there just yet, then.

“Do you know why he wanted my stuff?”

He stopped picking at his ice cream and looked back up at her through the jagged edges of his hair. “I figured you would know that.”

Isobel shook her head. She took another bite of ice cream, then, shivering, set it aside on the sill next to her. She slid off the window ledge and, easing down, settled on the roof beside him, all too conscious that now a space of mere inches existed between them.

“I need to tell you about something,” she whispered.

He stuck his spoon into his ice cream and, reaching over her, set it on the window ledge next to hers. He raised his eyebrows expectantly, maybe even a little curiously.

“I had a dream last night,” she continued, half surprised he’d given her his full attention sans his usual dry remark or disparaging comment. “About Poe— I think,” she added.

His cool expression didn’t change. “Poe?”

“Yeah.” She nodded, biting her bottom lip, afraid she might be alone in this after all.

“What happened?” he asked, seeming to take her seriously enough, though that could have been because of the way she’d been staring at him—wide-eyed, thirsty for him to believe.

His question was the waving checkered flag she’d been waiting for. “Your Poe book,” she said, then stopped when she realized that in order to tell him the rest, she would have to admit to tossing it in the trash. Maybe she could modify the truth a little and say she’d lost it instead.

Then something else stalled her. From inside her room came another quiet knock at her door.

“Isobel?” her mom called. What was this? Parent-daughter conference night?

“Ugh,” she growled, poking her head over the windowsill. Between the two ice cream cartons, she could see her locked door handle jiggling.

“Go,” he said.

She glanced at him, just in time to watch him sink into the shadows, lying back against the roof. His legs outstretched, he crossed them at the ankles, the toes of his boots now the only visible part of him within the line of light streaming from her window. “I’ll wait.”

“Isobel?” her mother called again. “Why is this door locked?”

Trying to be ladylike about it, Isobel crawled back through the window, shutting it as quietly as she could manage. She pulled down the shade once more to hide the ice cream cartons, then opened her door.