My locker stands open, waiting for me to take from it what I came to take, only I can’t remember what that was. The hallway is eerily quiet now that Brooke’s voice and my voice no longer echo through it. I stand, gripping the locker door as my gaze darts from the coat hook to the books stacked on the top shelf, to the Met Opera mug that holds my pencils and pens. Oh right. A pen. I take one from the mug, and as I do the edges of the world start to shimmer—is it tears or adrenaline, or is everything changing now that we’ve broken the silence that has grown between us for so long? I close my locker and slide to the floor with my back against the door, letting my heart rate slow, screwing my eyes shut so that when I open them the world will be solid again. I can’t go back to Elise and the Picayune table; I can’t go back to interviewing people about their Homecoming memories. Whatever was going to happen tonight, it’s started. I stand and make my way back through school, back into the night.
