Eli | POV
The body bag had wheels that squeaked.
That was the thing nobody talked about afterward — how loud those wheels were against the asphalt, cutting through all that crying and whispering and phone-camera clicking. A sharp little squeak with every roll, like it was announcing itself. Like it wanted to be heard.
I heard it.
I stood at the edge of the parking lot with my backpack hanging off one shoulder and watched them wheel Devon Cross out of the school I'd been walking into for three years. Yellow tape sectioned off the whole back corner near the fire escape. Two cops stood with their arms crossed, not doing much of anything. A girl — I think her name was Priya, Devon's girlfriend — had both hands pressed over her mouth like she was trying to keep something inside.
Devon Cross. Seventeen. Dead.
The same Devon Cross who'd spent the last three weeks of my life making sure everyone at Hartwell High believed I'd been cheating on my finals. His little whisper campaign almost worked too. I'd sat outside the vice principal's office for two hours while they decided whether to expel me. Two hours of my life I'd never get back, staring at a motivational poster about eagles.
I didn't feel good that he was dead. I want to be clear about that.
I just didn't feel much of anything, and that probably said something about me I didn't want to look at too closely.
"Here."
A cup of coffee appeared in front of my face. I took it without thinking.
Sable was already straightening my collar with her free hand, her fingers quick and automatic, like she'd done it a thousand times. She had. Sable Lorne had been my best friend since second grade, and somewhere in those nine years she'd decided that keeping me presentable was part of the job description.
"You look like you slept in that shirt," she said.
"I kind of did."
She clicked her tongue softly. Fixed the collar again. Then she stood beside me with her own coffee and looked out at the parking lot the same way I was — calm, quiet, like we were just watching a boring movie neither of us had chosen.
"I told you," she said. "Things work out."
I almost choked.
"Sable. The guy is dead."
"I know." She took a sip of her coffee. "I'm just saying. You were stressed for three weeks over something he started. And now —" She tilted her head a little. "You won't have to be anymore."
I looked at her.
She looked back at me, and she was smiling — that easy, clean smile she always had, the one that made teachers trust her and parents love her and everyone in every room relax like she'd pressed a button. It was a good smile. It had always been a good smile.
I bumped her shoulder with mine because I didn't know what else to do. "You're kind of terrible sometimes, you know that?"
"I'm realistic," she said.
I squeezed her hand once and she let me, her fingers briefly tightening around mine before she stepped back and fixed the sleeve of her jacket like that was what she'd meant to do the whole time.
Around us, people were losing it. Guys who'd never said two words to Devon were tearing up. Girls were hugging in clusters, heads pressed together, voices low and shaking. Someone started a prayer circle near the front steps. Two kids I recognized from Devon's lunch table had already set up a little makeshift memorial against the fence — a candle, a photo, a soccer cleat that was probably his.
Sable watched all of it with her coffee cup near her lips.
She didn't look sad.
I noticed that. Then I immediately un-noticed it because noticing it felt disloyal, and Sable was the most loyal person I had ever met.
I turned to go. We had first period in eight minutes and I'd skipped breakfast and my brain was already somewhere else — calculating how fast I could stop by the vending machine before the bell when I felt it.
A stare.
Heavy enough to feel physical.
I turned my head and found Priya — Devon's girlfriend — standing maybe fifteen feet away near the memorial. She'd stopped crying. Both her hands were down at her sides. Her eyes weren't red anymore. They were wide open, dry, and she was staring at something.
Not at the body bag. Not at the cops. Not at Devon's photo leaned against the fence.
At Sable.
She was staring at Sable the way you stare at something you already know is dangerous. Not shock. Not grief. Her whole face had gone still, and she was looking at my best friend the way you look at a car that almost hit you — not surprised it happened, just terrified it missed.
Like she'd been waiting for something like this.
Like she recognized it.
My stomach moved in a way I didn't like.
Sable hadn't turned around. She was still watching the memorial, sipping her coffee, her profile perfectly calm. She couldn't have known Priya was looking at her.
Except.
The corner of her mouth moved. Just barely. The kind of shift that wasn't quite a smile and wasn't quite nothing either.
"Eli." She touched my arm. "We'll be late."
I turned. I walked with her. I matched her pace.
And the whole way down the hall I kept thinking about Priya's face — not the crying, not the grief, not any of the normal things a girlfriend should be feeling outside where her boyfriend had just been zipped into a bag.
Just that look.
That dry, wide-eyed, recognition look.
Like she'd seen Sable before, somewhere Devon never told her about. Like whatever had happened to Devon — whatever actually happened — wasn't the accident the cops were planning to call it.
And Sable held the door open for me and smiled and said, "You've got that crease in your forehead again. Relax."
I relaxed.
I don't know why I relaxed.
I don't know why I always did.