Page 7 of Soul So Dark

“Ugh, gross…” the blonde girl murmurs with revulsion.

“Needless to say, it’ll be a closed casket.” Then she turns to the dark-haired girl with disgust. “So, maybe you shouldn’t gettooclose to Colson yet.”

“Everyone grieves differently. I bet I can snap him out of it...doing what he loves best,” the dark-haired girl snickers, her words dripping with innuendo.

I bow my head and clasp my hands over my ears as their shrill giggles echo off the cinderblock walls. I can’t listen to them anymore, talking about Evie like some inconvenient detail, describing her like shit on the bottom of a sneaker. Why won’t they just fucking leave? I try to pretend I’m somewhere else, but all I can think about is Evie and what she might’ve looked like in that creek, and then I hear Colson’s screams, and then the scratches on my wrists start to burn again.

Finally, everything goes quiet and I let go of my head to listen. I’m finally alone in the restroom, and I’d better get out of here before someone else comes in and says God-knows-what. Plus, hanging out in here too long guarantees that I’ll smell like stale vape smoke.

I throw open the stall door and take a quick look in the mirror. I look awful, my eyes wet and cheeks flushed, ruining any chance of remaining inconspicuous. I tear the hairband out of my ponytail and start brushing my thick hair out from behind my ears to obscure my face. After a few deep breaths and blotting as many tears as I can out of my eyes with industrial-grade cardboard paper towels, I fly out of the restroom.

The vestibule between the gym and cafeteria is deserted, everyone a good 10 minutes into the lunch period. Engulfed in the dull roar of the cafeteria, I glance around, deciding where to go. Shelby, Maddie, Carter, Austin, and a couple of his basketball friends are at our usual table across the room by the windows, but I need to buy more time for my blotchy skin to calm down.

Instead, I turn and head for the snack line only a few feet away. If I was hungry before, I sure as hell am not now. At least this way I can face the window to the vestibule and not have to look at anyone.

But it doesn’t help. As soon as I grab a bag of Doritos from the rack, I reach into my bag for my wallet and my eyes catch a girl at the closest table. It’s the dark-haired girl from the restroom, sitting with her friends and laughing like nothing ever happened. And maybe to her, nothing did happen. Maybe her talking about my brother and sister like that was nothing new. Maybe she’s even forgotten about it by now.

The lump rises again and before I can stop it, my face contorts and the tears come spilling over my cheeks again. I look down, trying to hide behind my wall of hair. I can’t face Letha, the sweet old grandma-like lady who sits at the register. Right now, she’s laughing with a couple of football players and ringing up four Gatorades and a mountain of food for each of them.

I toss my snack back onto the metal rack and step out of line. I act like I’m digging through my bag, trying to find something, but I can’t stop the tears. Everyone can see me and there’s nothing I can do about it. I should just suck it up and go to my table with my friends, but that would mean walking all the way across the cafeteria with everyone looking at me. This fact makes me cry even harder.

But before I can decide what to do, an arm appears in my periphery and wraps around my shoulders. They spin me around and sweep me through the nearby door into the stairwell.

The door clangs shut, and when I turn around and look up, my eyes round with shock.

CHAPTER FIVE

Alex

“My house tonight,” Aiden announces before tucking his phone back into his pocket.

The group chat goes on, but I haven’t seen Colson or Mason since Friday when they found Evie.

“Finally,” I reply as we pass the front office on the way to the cafeteria. “If Col’s been at home this whole time, he’s probably going insane.”

How the hell did they even find her?

“Were you expecting this year to end any differently?”

Aiden’s right, none of us could’ve foreseen this, but senior year started on a strange note and just went to hell from there.

He turns and squints at me, “When are you leaving again?”

“The Monday after graduation,” I remind him, even though I’ve already told him multiple times. I think he keeps asking with the hope that I’ll say something different, like I changed my mind. “We still have the rest of the month.”

“You’ve said as much,” Aiden mutters.

He doesn’t like it, but he gets it. Aiden’s father will pay for him to go to school anywhere in—or out—of the country, probably in an effort to turn him into an upstanding citizen. And byupstanding, we all know that translates intoreputable, at least to the point where his father doesn’t have to deal with the optics of Aiden’s antics. But I don’t have the same luxury.

Instead, I live on a liminal plane of existence far from poverty, but just far enough away from affluence where my oldest brother, Adrian, makes more than enough money running our dad’s contracting firm to keep us in the house we grew up in, but too much for me to qualify for any meaningful financial aid. My 4.8 GPA will get me into school, but in cruel irony, it won’t get me any money to pay for it.

My guidance counselor—if you could call her that—told me to just take out loans for school.

Idiot.

I’ll never owe anyone anything. Ever. I’d rather die. It’s one thing our dad taught us that Adrian and I do agree on. Thus, enter the United States Marine Corps.

I cast a smile in Aiden’s direction. “You sound like Adrian now.”