Faith felt off, like everything she’d learned from Dylan had found a way to escape into the open air and fly away. She’d been feeling that way all day, a tragic sadness welling up in her chest that made her want to cry. She didn’t know why this was so; but as she walked in the darkness toward the old mall, she tried to think of all the reasons for her depression. Life at Old Park Hill was finished. She’d left schools before, lots of times. But this was different, because she knew in her heart of hearts that whatever school had been, it was over now. There would be no more classrooms, no hallways, no teachers in the flesh. All the desperate feelings of wanting to belong and traveling through angst-filled passageways were behind her now. So that was one reason for feeling blue: the bloody death of what little childhood she’d had was officially over. She would never go back inside the abandoned, ivy-covered grade school again, either. She didn’t know why there was such certainty in this, only that it was so.
