I was stil thinking about Lena, despite the deafening roar in my ears, until Link's voice was drowned out altogether, and I heard Seventeen Moons. Only now the words had changed.
Seventeen moons, seventeen turns,
Eyes so dark and bright it burns,
Time is high but one is higher,
Draws the moon into the fire ...
Time is high? What did that even mean? It wasn't going to be Lena's Seventeenth Moon for eight more months. Why was time high now? And who was the one, and what was the fire?
I felt Link smack the side of my head, and the song disappeared. He was shouting over his demo tape. "If I can get the backbeat down, it'l be a pretty rockin' tune." I stared at him, and he knocked me in the head again. "Shake it off, man.
It's just an exam. You look as crazy as Miss Luney, the hot-lunch lady."
Thing is, he wasn't that far off.
When the Beater pul ed into the Jackson High parking lot, it stil didn't feel like the last day of school. For the seniors, it wasn't. They would have graduation tomorrow, and a party that lasted al night and usual y gave more than a few people a
brush with alcohol poisoning. But for us sophomores and juniors, we had one more exam until we were free.
Savannah and Emily walked past Link and me, ignoring us. Their short skirts were even shorter than usual, and we could see bikini strings hanging out from under their tank tops. Tie-dye and pink gingham.
"Check it out. Bikini season." Link grinned.
I had almost forgotten. We were only an exam away from an afternoon at the lake. Everyone who was anyone was wearing bathing suits under their clothes today, since summer didn't official y start until you had taken your first swim off the shores of Lake Moultrie. Kids from Jackson had a place we hung out, up past Monck's Corner, where the lake opened deep and wide into what felt like an ocean when you were swimming in it. Except for al the catfish and the swamp weeds, you could be out to sea. This time last year, I rode to the lake in the back of Emory's brother's truck with Emily, Savannah, Link, and half the basketbal team. But that was last year.
"You goin'?"
"Nah."
"I've got an extra suit in the Beater, but it's not as cool as these puppies." Link pul ed up his shirt so I could see his bathing suit, which was bright orange and yel ow plaid. About as low-key as Link was.
"I'l pass." He knew why I wasn't going, but I wouldn't say it. I had to act like things were okay.
Like Lena and I were okay.
Link wasn't giving up today. "I'm sure Emily's savin' you half her towel." It was a joke, because we both knew she wasn't. Even the pity parade had moved on, along with the hate campaign. I guess we were such easy targets these days, the sport was gone, like shooting fish in a barrel.
"Give it a rest."
Link stopped walking and put his hand up to stop me. I shoved his hand away before he could start talking. I knew what he was going to say, and as far as I was concerned, the conversation was over before it started.
"Come on. I know her uncle died. Quit actin' like you're both stil at the funeral. I know you love her, but ..." He didn't want to say it, even though we were both thinking it. He never brought it up anymore, because he was Link, and he sat at the lunch table with me when nobody else would.
"Everything's fine." It was going to work out. It had to. I didn't know how to be without her.
"It's hard to watch, dude. She's treatin' you like --"
"Like what?" It was a chal enge. I could feel my fingers curling into a fist. I was waiting for a reason, any reason. I felt like I was going to explode, that's how badly I wanted to hit something.
"The way girls usual y treat me." I think he was waiting for me to hit him. Maybe he even wanted me to, if it would've helped. He shrugged.
I uncurled my fingers. Link was Link, whether or not I felt like kicking his butt sometimes. "Sorry, man."
Link laughed a little, taking off down the hal a little faster than usual. "No problem, Psycho."
As I walked up the steps toward inevitable doom, I felt a familiar pang of loneliness. Maybe Link was right. I didn't know how much longer things could go on like this with Lena. Nothing was the same. If Link could see it, maybe it was time to face facts.
My stomach started to ache, and I grabbed my side, as if I could squeeze out the pain with my hands.
Where are you, L?
I slid into my desk just as the bel rang. Lena was sitting in the seat next to mine, on the Good-Eye Side, like she always had. But she didn't look like herself.
She was wearing one of those white V-neck undershirts that was too big, and a black skirt, a few inches shorter than she would've ever worn three months ago. You could barely see it under the shirt, which was Macon's. I almost didn't notice anymore. She also wore his ring, the one he used to twist on his finger when he was thinking, on a chain around her neck. It hung on a new chain, right next to my mother's ring. The old chain had broken the night of her birthday, lost somewhere in the ash. I had given her my mom's ring out of love, though I wasn't sure it felt like that to her now. Whatever the reason, Lena loyal y carried our ghosts with her, hers and mine, refusing to take off either one. My lost mother and her lost uncle, caught in circles of gold and platinum and other precious metals, hanging above her charm necklace and hidden in layers of cotton that didn't belong to her.
Mrs. English was already passing out the tests, and she didn't look amused that half the class was wearing a bathing suit or carrying a beach towel. Emily was doing both.
"Five short answers, ten points each, multiple-choice, twenty-five points, and the essay, twenty-five. Sorry, no Boo Radley this time. We're covering Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It's not summer yet, people." We had been reading To Kill a Mockingbird in the fal . I remembered the first time Lena had shown up for class, carrying her own broken-in copy.
"Boo Radley's dead, Mrs. English. Stake through the heart." I don't know who said it, one of the girls sitting in the back with Emily, but we al knew she was talking about Macon. The comment was meant for Lena, just like old times. I tensed up as the ripple of laughter died down. I was waiting for the windows to shatter or something, but there wasn't even a crack. Lena didn't react. Maybe she wasn't listening, or she didn't care what they said anymore.
"I bet Old Man Ravenwood isn't even in the town graveyard. That coffin's probably empty. If there is one." The voice was loud enough for Mrs. English to direct her eye toward the back of the room.
"Shut up, Emily," I hissed.
This time, Lena turned around and looked right at Emily. That's al it took -- one look. Emily opened her test, like she had any idea what Jekyll and Hyde was about. No one wanted to take on Lena. They just wanted to talk about her. Lena was the new Boo Radley. I wondered what Macon would have had to say about that.
I was stil wondering, when I heard a scream from the back of the room.
"Fire! Someone help!" Emily was holding her test, and it was burning up in her hand. She dropped the test on the linoleum floor and kept screaming. Mrs. English picked up her sweater off the back of her chair, walked to the back of the room, and swiveled so she could use her good eye. Three good slaps and the fire was out, leaving a charred and smoking test in the charred and smoking spot on the floor.
"I swear, it was some kinda spot-aneous combustion. It just started burnin' while I was writin'."
Mrs. English picked up a shiny black lighter from the center of Emily's desk. "Real y? pack up your things. You can explain it al to Principal Harper."
Emily stormed out the door while Mrs. English marched to the front of the classroom. As she passed me, I noticed the lighter was emblazoned with a silver crescent moon.
Lena turned back to her own test and started writing. I stared at the baggy white undershirt, her necklace jingling beneath it. Her hair was up, twisted into a weird knot, another new preference she never bothered to explain. I poked her with my pencil. She stopped writing and looked up at me, curving her mouth into a crooked half-smile, which was about the best she could do these days.
I smiled back at her, but she looked down at her test, as if she would rather consider assonance and consonance than look at me. Like it actual y hurt to look at me -- or, worse, she just didn't want to.
When the bel rang, Jackson High turned into Mardi Gras. Girls peeled off their tank tops and went running through the parking lot in their bikini tops. Lockers were emptied, notebooks dumped into the trash. Talking turned into shouting, then screaming, as sophomores turned into juniors and juniors into seniors. Everyone final y had what they'd been waiting for al year -- freedom, and a fresh start.
Everyone but me.
Lena and I walked to the parking lot. Her bag swung as she walked, and we brushed against each other. I felt the electricity from months ago, but it was stil cold. She stepped to the side, avoiding me.
"So, how'd you do?" I was trying to make conversation, as if we were total strangers.
"What?"
"The English final."
"I probably failed it. I didn't real y do any of the reading." It was hard to imagine Lena not doing the reading for class, considering she had answered every question for months when we read To Kill a Mockingbird.
"Yeah? I aced it. I stole a copy of the test off Mrs. English's desk last week." It was a lie. I would have failed before I cheated in the House of Amma. But Lena wasn't listening anyway. I waved my hand in front of her eyes. "L? Are you listening to me?" I wanted to talk to her about the dream, but first I had to get her to notice I was here.
"Sorry. I have a lot on my mind." She looked away. It wasn't much, but it was more than I'd gotten out of her in weeks.
"Like what?"
She hesitated. "Nothing."
Nothing good? Or nothing you can talk about here?
She stopped walking and turned to face me, refusing to let me in. "We're leaving Gatlin. Al of us."
"What?" I hadn't seen this coming. Which must have been what she wanted. She was shutting me out so I couldn't see inside, where things were happening, where she hid the feelings she didn't want to share. I kept thinking she just needed time. I didn't realize it was time away from me.
"I didn't want to tel you. It's only for a few months."
"Does it have anything to do with --" The familiar panic in my stomach dropped like a stone.
"It has nothing to do with her." Lena looked down. "Gramma and Aunt Del think if I get away from Ravenwood, I might think about it less. About him less."
If I get away from you . That's what I heard.
"It doesn't work like that, Lena."
"What?"
"You aren't going to forget Macon by running away."
She tensed at the mention of his name. "Yeah? Is that what your books say? Where am I? Stage five? Six, tops?"
"Is that what you think?"
"Here's a stage for you. Leave it al behind and get away while you stil can. When do I get to that one?"
I stopped walking and looked at her. "Is that what you want?"
She twisted her charm necklace on the long silver chain, touching the littlest bits of us, the things we had done and seen together. She twisted it so tight, I thought for a minute it would snap. "I don't know. Part of me wants to leave and never come back, and part of me can't bear to go because he loved Ravenwood and left it to me."