Page 23 of Haunted

“I know it’s all a bit sudden, but I need to know you’re okay.”

“I’m okay.”

“Are you sure? Honey, I’m worried about you.”

It’s the endearment that gets me. I’m not your fucking honey, I want to say. But that’s not what comes out. What comes out is worse.

“You’re not my boyfriend, Lance.”

He goes very still.

“We never got there. You don’t just get to claim me. I never said yes to that.”

I don’t raise my voice. I don’t need to.

He looks away. When he looks back, there is a mask on his face that wasn’t there a minute ago. It’s not open to me the way it was before.

“I’m trying to do everything for you,” he says. His voice is careful now, controlled.

“Except give me space. We sleep three feet apart. We eat together. I can’t go to the bathroom without you checking on me. I want to carry my own backpack. I want to walk into school without someone holding my hand.”

He nods eagerly “Done. Okay. I can do that.” Lance says it too quickly, the way you agree to something before you’ve had time to argue. And I realize that he will. He will keep that promise if it kills him, in the hope that one day I’m going to love him. And all the while, I am going to string him along. He’s going to give me every inch of space I asked for, and he’s going to be kind about it, and it’s going to cost him something every single day, and he will never once let me see the bill.

And I’ll be the reason. For as long as I stay, I’ll be the reason.

“Thank you.”

“But I can be your friend, right?” He looks at me, and behind the mask I can see what he’s trying not to show me. His heart is breaking, and I can see myself as if I were across the room, looking at us both. I don’t like what I see. He is so wonderfully open-hearted and I am angry, selfish, and bitter. I am a hole in the shape of a human. I am a vortex of rage. And there is a part of me that knows that for as long as I dangle the promise that someday I’m going to come around, he will put his life on hold for me.

“Yes,” I choke out. “Friends.”

It’s a lie, and giving it to him costs me nothing. That’s the part that makes me want to be sick.

He nods again. “If you ever change your mind about—” He stops.

“You’ll be the first person I tell,” I say. And I mean it. I just don’t think I’ll change my mind.

The bell rings. Mr. Robillard opens his door. “Mr. Bishop, Mr. Broussard,” he says, as if he hasn’t noticed the tension between us. “I’ll write you notes for your first period classes.”

I stand up and grab my backpack before Lance can reach for it. I tell Mr. Robillard my first-period teacher’s name, collect the slip, and leave without waiting.

Once in the empty hallway, I take the stairs fast. I don’t go to History. I walk past my classroom and keep going until I reach the front office, where Mrs. Banker—short, round, wearing a cardigan the color of a traffic cone—comes out from behind the desk and folds me into an enormous hug.

“Parker, honey, I’m so sorry,” she says.

“Thank you. I just need to know, if I transferred schools, how long it would take to process.”

She gives me a sad look. “Come sit in my office. There’s a form. Normally we’d need proof of address in the new district before we’d even start it—”

“I don’t have an address yet.”

“—but nobody’s asking Hemingway Road kids for proof of anything this month.” She pulls a folder out of a drawer without looking. “We’ve done eleven of these in nine days. Mostly to Central. Where’s your aunt at?”

“Flint Street, I think. Next to the university.”

“That’ll do for now.”

Central. Aunt Shelley’s apartment is in that district. I can catch the city bus. I take a pen and write BISHOP, PARKER JONATHAN at the top of the form.