Gravity

  "I heard you got in a little trouble, huh?" Gwen said to me, flipping another sketch over with great care.

  "She's apparently decided it's rebellion time," Hugh said.

  "I'm sure she's not so bad," Gwen said, winking at me. "When I was sixteen, I shaved off every hair on my head and got a tattoo with a fake ID."

  "See, Hugh? I don't even want a tattoo."

  Both adults tittered at that, but I could tell he was still pissed. They did, however, gush over Theo's art, making her beam when she finally came back to talk to them. Hugh made a hefty stack to prepare for matting.

  The powerful feeling that someone was watching us overtook me. I turned my head towards the frosted front window. Two little girls were peering in, huddled together as if to keep each other warm.

  Alyssa's raincoat hood was pulled up and Susan, whom I recognized from her flyers, was wearing a party dress. Both of them had their small palms and noses flat on the glass. They watched me with beetle-black eyes, as if waiting for an answer, or permission. Behind them, it began to snow, big white fluffs that swiftly covered the ground. None of the snow flakes landed on the dead girls.

  ###

  Despite my hope that things would change, I soon discovered that Henry wouldn't talk to me in school. In fact, the person he had been disappeared, replaced by a specter that shuffled down the halls and never smiled. Every time I saw him I wanted to reach out, to talk to him, to shake him and ask him what was going on. But I didn't know how.

  "What is up with your boy?" Theo asked one day as November chugged on.

  "He's not my boy," I said emphatically. "And your guess is as good as mine."

  Henry laid his head down on his desk. He was wearing the sweatshirt with the blackbirds inside the hood pulled over his head. I clenched my fingers, ignoring the strong impulse to go over and stroke the back of his head.

  "Maybe he got sick like us," Theo suggested, but I knew it was more than that.

  For the next week, he acted distant. He brought his thick fantasy books to class, kept them open on his lap under his desk as he read. The teachers ignored him, since he wasn't causing trouble, but I couldn't. He sent me a text on Tuesday to let me know that he couldn't do tutoring anymore. It interfered with his schedule, he claimed. Although it shouldn't have been a surprise, it felt like the final blow.

  I got the picture, as bleak as the November sky.

  ###

  A loud banging noise startled me awake. I began to panic before I even opened my eyes.

  "Not again," I whispered, sitting up on my bed in the dark and clutching my comforter to my chin. My room had been peaceful for weeks, with no strange occurrences or vanishing lights.

  But the sound wasn't coming from my room, it was coming from out in the main basement. Pulling my door open gently, I stepped out into the pitch black hallway, the cement floor chilly on my feet. The furnace groaned gently at my back.

  I heard the gentle rapping again and stood still. A fist on the French doors was my best guess. I crouched and grabbed a weight sitting just inside the door of Claire's still-untouched exercise room. Just because the person was knocking, didn't make them welcome. I made my way through boxes and around the pool table with its canvas cover, to where I could see outside.

  The motion detector light was activated and someone lurked outside the door. A dark figure like in an alarm company commercial. I stifled the urge to scream. As my eyes focused, I recognized Henry's face—only from the nose up, but it was enough.

  I sped over and unlocked the door, pushing it open.

  "What the hell are you doing here?" I hissed.

  "Are you going to hit me with that?" Henry leaned back warily and gestured to the hand weight.

  I tossed the weight on a nearby chair, wrapping my arms across my chest to keep out the frigid night air.

  "I need to talk to you," he said. His cheeks and the tip of his nose were flushed from the cold.

  "And you couldn't find a better time than three in the morning?" I asked skeptically.

  "Well, I knew you would be free," he said, in a shadow of his old good humor. He rubbed his arms through his sweatshirt and complained, "It's cold out here. Are you going to invite me in or am I walking the long walk home?"

  I hesitated. This was so against the rules. But the pleading look in his eyes and the thrill of having him here for me won out.

  I stepped aside and swept my arm out. I was suddenly acutely aware of my cupcake pajama pants and frizzy bed hair.

  "Thanks," he breathed, the air expelled from his lungs like vaporous ghosts. He stepped in and I pulled the door shut as quietly as I could.

  "You have to be really quiet," I whispered. "If my parents knew..."

  "Understood," he whispered back, holding his hands up like stop signs.

  I couldn't believe this was real. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was just another dream. And that made me remember my long ago dream that wound up with us making out in my bed, and I blushed in the shadows.

  "Follow me," I whispered, and led him down the hall. Being out in the main basement felt too open, like we were just waiting to get caught, but when I stepped into my room and turned on the lamp, it felt too intimate.

  "Have a seat," I said.

  Henry sat down in my desk chair. I sat on the bed, aware that the floor was my only other option, and that would put me in an even more awkward position.

  "What was so important that you needed to walk to my house in the middle of the night?" I asked.

  As he dropped his hood, I noticed that his hair was disheveled, like he had been lying down, tossing and turning while trying to sleep. He stared at the floor before speaking. "Do you trust me?"

  That was out of left field. "Should I?" I had plenty of reasons not to, but I didn't speak them aloud.

  He worried his bottom lip with his teeth again.

  "Do you trust me?" he repeated, more emphatic.

  "I don't know," I said automatically. "I used to."

  I remembered how soft his lips felt on mine when we kissed at the dance, the pressure of his hands on the small of my back. I looked away.

  "I want to be able to prove to you that you can," he said. "To try and make up for blowing up at you."

  "Why? To start with, you haven't spoken a word to me in weeks," I said, the hurt that I felt bubbling to the surface. "You were the one who chased after me, and then you just ignored me like I was invisible."

  "I know." He looked down again.

  I quickly scanned my room to make sure I had no embarrassing personal effects sitting out. He was twisting a key ring around his thumb, the keys jingling softly. "I found out some things and...there's a lot going on in my life right now."

  "Yeah, well, mine too." I was uncomfortable, thinking that it was a mistake to let him in. Not just into my room, but to let him in to my life at all. There was a moment of loaded silence.

  "I pulled the fire alarm."

  "What?" I asked, my eyes widening. But I had heard him fine.

  He squeezed his own eyes shut tightly. "I pulled the fire alarm. When I left art that day."

  I opened my mouth to speak, and shut it again. In my shock I had no words, no clever response. I'd suspected it that day, but for him to admit it....how could Henry—my Henry—be capable of such a thing? A mental picture emerged: Henry with his hood pulled up, sneaking down the halls with a handful of matches, dropping them like breadcrumbs...

  "But I didn't start the fires," he said, and now he was looking at me, his eyes begging me to believe him.

  "What are you talking about?" I asked. I stood up, suddenly wide awake and alert. And very aware that I could be in the room with an arsonist.

  "It's such a long story, it's hard to explain. I don't even know if I know enough to explain it." He was babbling, unlike most of the time when he always seemed to know the right words. "I was being blackmailed."

  I stood silent, my look conveying that he should continue.

>   "When we moved here, I started getting emails from an address I didn't recognize. The person presented evidence that he had something bad on my father, something that would destroy him professionally and maybe even destroy his marriage to my mother."

  I sat back on my bed, legs crossed as I held my ankles for support.

  "The last email that I received told me to go up to the top floor of the school, and pull the fire alarm. It didn't say why, it just gave me a time and a location. I figured they needed to clear the school for some reason, but now I'm thinking I was being set up. And I think I know who's behind it. McPherson."

  "I just felt like I had to talk to someone," he continued. "And you're the closest person to me right now. I avoided you before because I didn't want to pull you into this with me. When I'm stressed out, I'm a bastard. I can't deal with anything. You should know how much I care about you by now. That's why I had to come here tonight."

  That admission, that I was the closest person to him, made my heart swan dive. At the same time, my head was reeling, filled with his words.

  "I wasn't supposed to ask questions," he said, rubbing his face with his hands and then looking up at me. "So I tried not to."

  I could tell he was sure I didn't believe him. "I swear, I'm telling you the truth," he continued. "I have no reason to lie."

  "Do you have any idea what the blackmail itself is?" I asked, whirling my hair back and whipping it into a sloppy ponytail.

  "I'm guessing it has something to do with his work," he said thoughtfully. "In the profession he's in, there are all kinds of situations he could get himself into. Lying for a client, stealing..."

  "Is your father capable of that?" It was a hard question, but I felt that I had to ask it.

  "Yes," he said without hesitation.

  "What do you suggest we do about it?" I asked, my shoulders slumping as I tried to process what he had told me. The surrealism of the night, having the not-so-secret object of my affection sitting in my bedroom, unloading all of his secrets to me. A month ago, even a few weeks ago, I would have welcomed it. Now it felt like I was being handed a piece of an incredible burden.

  "I want to check out the security office," Henry said, his mind made up. "I figure we find some way to get everyone out of the office, and then go in there and look through the files."

  "And you make fun of my strange trespassing ideas," I scoffed, trying to bring a little levity to the situation. He smiled weakly, a shadow of its former glory. Everything about him seemed paler and muted, like the colors were washing out and soon he would be completely gray.

  "Will you help me?" he asked, his dark eyes pleading.

  "Yes," I said. "As long as you answer me this. Why were you so mean during McPherson's meeting?"

  Henry bit his lip again. If he kept it up, it was going to start bleeding; the flesh was already dark red. "I was trying to push you away so you wouldn't get hurt. But I just hurt you anyway."

  "Oh." I dipped my head, my hair falling in a black curtain in front of my face so he couldn't see my confused expression.

  After a moment, he put his hands on his knees, and boosted himself up. "Okay," he said, getting up to leave the room.

  "Where are you going?"

  He thought about it for a long second. "Home, I suppose."

  "You can stay here," I offered, gesturing randomly around my room.

  "I don't know if your dad would like that," he said, smiling wryly. He looked so tired, I couldn't possibly imagine him having to walk all the way back home in the cold.

  "You can sleep in here. On the floor," I added, in case I was giving off any other vibes.

  I took a pillow and an extra blanket from the foot of my bed, and propped them up on the floor.

  "I know it's not fancy," I said apologetically. "But at least you don't have to go back out in the snow."

  "It's fine. Thank you." He took off his sweatshirt and laid it on the back of the chair. The homey gesture reminded me of when Hugh would come home from work, and toss his jacket on my parents' bed. As he propped himself up, I sat down next to him on the floor. I couldn't help myself.

  His eyes registered confusion now that I was so close. I stroked the side of his cheek with the back of my hand.

  "Can we finish one thing?" I asked softly. And then I kissed him. He responded immediately, moving his lips against mine, putting his arms around me, his muscles trembling with restrained desire.

  The kiss grew in intensity, all of my feelings rushing to my mouth, searching his with my tongue. When I finally pulled away, gasping for breath, we stared into each other's eyes. He was so close that they blurred into one.

  His hands slid slowly up to my shoulders, and then down my sides to rest at my hips. With the excitement and want bubbling in my stomach, I knew if I didn't put a stop to our actions, things might go much farther.

  I gently removed his hands from their hold around me, and kissed him briefly on the lips. Then I shifted my knees beneath me and began to stand.

  "Goodnight," he said, pressing his forehead quickly against mine. He lay down on the pillow, looking incredibly inviting.

  I crawled into bed and shut off the light before I changed my mind. In the dark, I tried not to pay attention to the whir of images in front of my unseeing eyes, and Henry's breathing from below me, making every cell in my skin tingle in anticipation.

  ###

  During lunch the next day, Theo and I were the first in the commons, reserving two seats for Henry and Alex. We filled the extra seats with our bags so no one else would join us.

  "I don't know if I want to be a part of another one of your crazy schemes," Alex said, shaking his head.

  "Okay, Ricky, you just go to the Tropicana," Theo said.

  "What the hell?" Alex wrinkled his nose like he was about to sneeze. His mouth was full of chicken nuggets, and I cringed.

  "You never watched I Love Lucy? Why am I not surprised?" She scoffed, rolling her eyes.

  "Can we please get back to the topic?" Henry asked impatiently.

  "Sorry," Theo muttered. "But what are you hoping to find on the tapes?"

  He had, due to my insistence, explained everything to them. After all, we'd been co-conspirators before, during our break in at the orphanage.

  "Hopefully, one of them will show who started the fires. Or at the very least clues as to what happened."

  "How are we going to get them?" Alex asked.

  "We need to create a distraction so that we can get into the security office," Henry explained. "That way we can check out the tape from the day of the fire. And that is where you and Theo come in."

  "How exactly are we supposed to do that?" Alex asked.

  "Figure something out," Henry said. "You're both very creative." Theo and Alex seemed doubtful, wearing twin skeptical expressions. They probably thought we were crazy, and they weren't far off.

  A chance to get into the security office didn't come for days. We were all busy, preparing for first semester finals. It had never been so hard to study, to focus on the task at hand. It didn't help that the teachers were cracking their whips at our backs.

  Henry hadn't returned to his old self, but he hung out with me a little more. Our foursome started sitting together in the commons again, although we'd only spend a few minutes catching up on our plan of action before moving on to mundane chat about classes.

  One day about a week later, we were walking to English, when Henry pulled me aside up against the lockers. He spoke out of the corner of his mouth, and I had to strain to hear his hushed voice. "This is going to sound so paranoid. But hopefully you won't tell me I'm psycho."

  "What is it?" I asked.

  "I feel like there are people watching me." His eyes darted around, not helping the paranoid conclusion. "Like spies. I just feel like what I'm doing is being observed, by whoever it is that's blackmailing my dad."

  I looked around at the slow moving crowd, but I didn't see anyone paying attention to us
. Still, I sensed that he was right.

  ###

  I took it as a cosmic sign that McPherson was absent from school the next day. Nurse Callie did the morning announcements instead, a welcome change. In the middle of it, the lights flickered again, and everyone groaned. With a buzzing like a giant fly had landed on the roof, they came back on.

  "And hopefully we'll be getting someone to attend to those lights," Callie improvised lightly.

  But I kept staring at the ceiling. It was almost as though I could feel Alyssa trying to communicate with me, trying to draw my attention. Somehow I knew today was the day we should go forward with our plan to get into the security office.

  Henry must have had the same gut feeling, because he agreed with me. The four of us hammered out the details, skipping lunch. I felt a touch of the paranoia that Henry had spoken of, like someone knew what we were up to.

  A few minutes before the lunch hour was up, the four of us were all standing over by central office. We watched the secretaries through the glass front as they chatted by the counter, unaware of the scheme we were hatching.

  "I hope this works," I said softly.

  "Me too," Henry replied. We stared at each other, and I saw my own trepidation in his eyes. If we got caught, we would be in much worse trouble than before, maybe too bad for even his father to rescue us.

  "Ships ahoy," Theo muttered. Taking a deep breath, she dropped to the hard floor and started screaming, writhing around like her skin was on fire, mopping the floor with her hair.

  "I didn't mean it!" Alex shouted, all part of the scene we had rehearsed.

  The two office assistants, followed by Nurse Callie, ran out to where Theo lay twitching on the ground. She was piling on the dramatics pretty thick, practically howling, but they didn't seem to be on to her deception. All they saw was a student in pain.

  Henry and I rounded the corner, walking quickly and bypassing the cluster around Theo and Alex. The security officer took his lunch breaks outside, so we had the office to ourselves. Henry held open the door, and I slipped inside first. He followed me, hopefully unnoticed.

  Henry led the way back into the security office without stopping. Inside, a slideshow of different locations in the school cycled on the monitor. I felt my adrenaline bumping again as I stared at the security guard's temporarily empty chair, a mug of stale coffee by the control panel.