The Last Time We Say Goodbye Part 33

"El," he warns. "Don't."

Don't what?

She ignores him and turns to me like this is something that needs to be said and she has appointed herself the messenger. "He's going to Harvard."

I glance quickly at Steven, who's blushing. "You got into Harvard?" I gasp.

"I got into Harvard," he admits.

This is huge. I feel the urge to hug him, to celebrate, but that would be decidedly awkward. "You got into Harvard! Why wouldn't you want her to tell me that?"

He scratches at the back of his neck. "It felt like we should be celebrating your moment, that's all."

Eleanor smirks. "Right."

I still don't get what she's being so cat-ate-the-canary about. "What's wrong with you?"

She fixes me with a no-nonsense stare, like she doesn't understand why I haven't already figured this out. "MIT and Harvard are both in Cambridge, Ma.s.sachusetts. Did you know that?" she asks.

"I think I did know that, yes," I say, and I understand immediately where she's going with it.

"I visited both campuses last year. They're two miles apart." She pulls out her phone (which we are not supposed to do in cla.s.s but Miss Mahoney generally allows because she's not supposed to be watching YouTube, either) and does a quick search. "Yes. It's one-point-nine-six miles from MIT to Harvard. Nine minutes, by car. You and Steven will be one-point-nine-six miles away from each other for the next four years. Now do you see why he's so ridiculously happy?"

"El, come on," Steven says, and he's really blushing now.

My face is red, too. I turn to Steven, who's meticulously studying his cards. "So you're going, of course. To Harvard. Not to Yale or Dartmouth or any of the others?"

He doesn't smile this time, but it's in his eyes. "That's the plan."

"I bet your family is thrilled."

"They're over the moon. I'm the first Blake male who's not going to be a farmer, and they could not be happier."

"And how about you, is it what you wanted?" I know it is. We didn't discuss it much when we were applying. We didn't want to pressure each other. But it was the best-case scenario: me at MIT, Steven at Harvard.

It meant the possibility of more.

But that was before.

His warm brown eyes meet mine.

"Well, you know," he murmurs. "I hear Harvard's a pretty good place to study chemistry."

I instantly have b.u.t.terflies in my stomach, and I try to squash them. I wet my lips and attempt to breathe properly. How does he keep making me feel this way, even with all that's happened? I should not feel this way.

I think about what Ty wrote in his letter, how it's so obvious that Steven and I are right for each other. That we fit.

Beaker and Eleanor have been looking back and forth from me to Steven gleefully, like they'd like a bowl of popcorn. Then Beaker throws me a lifeline.

"Hey, are we playing cards here or what?" she asks, rearranging the cards in her hand. "Time is candy, you know."

We go back to playing, but Steven is still smiling.

I have a hard time concentrating on the game.

I'm so befuddled by the exchange with Steven, the idea of Steven at Harvard, that I forget to ditch eighth period. So I don't remember about delivering the paper daisy to Damian until the bell rings at the end of the day.

I check his locker. He's not there. I try his cell phone, but it goes straight to voice mail.

I b.u.mp into El in the commons, where everybody is milling around.

"Lex, are you feeling all right? You look scared," she observes.

I am scared, for a reason I can't quite put my finger on. Damian should be here. Why isn't he here? A bad feeling is boiling up from the pit of my stomach. "Can you help me find Damian Whittaker?" I ask El.

"Sure. Who's Damian Whittaker?"

I fish the photo of the three amigos out of my backpack. "This one." I point to Damian.

"Oh, Gray Hoodie," she says. "I know him."

We check the library. The gym. We start walking down the halls, poking our head into random cla.s.srooms, hoping to find him. Somewhere along the way we pick up Beaker, then Steven, who checks the guys' bathrooms and locker room.

No Damian.

Back in the commons, El hacks the school's computer system to check the attendance record. "He's marked absent today. No explanation as to why. It's an unexcused absence," she says from behind her laptop. "Which means his parents didn't call him in sick."

That's when the terrible thought occurs to me.

I grab El's laptop and turn it toward me. I check a few of Damian's social media websites before I stumble across a new poem on one of them: She makes the stars go out.

She makes the rain.

I give her my heart as a rose made of paper but she lets it fall on the dirty floor.

She gives me a cup full of pity and pain to drown myself in.

And this is when the terrible thought becomes even more terrible.

"What does that even mean?" El asks from over my shoulder, reading the screen.

The poem was posted an hour ago. I try to ignore the panicked clenching in my stomach and take out my phone to call Damian's cell. I get his voice mail again.

"Hi, you've reached Damian. You know what to do," he says.

I hang up. I don't think he'd want to hear my voice right now. But I have to see if he's home.

"Get me his home number," I say to El. "The landline."

She finesses the school's records system again, and produces a number.

It rings and rings and rings. No answer. No machine.

"Lex, who is this guy?" Steven asks.

"Gray Hoodie," El fills in helpfully.

I jump up. "I have to go. What's his address?"

She clicks some keys. "2585 West Mill Road."

I'm already running for the school's front door. For the parking lot. For my car.

El, Beaker, and Steven fall in behind me.

"2585 West Mill Road," I repeat to myself. "That's not far, right?"

"It's about ten minutes, I think," Steven calculates.

But the Lemon doesn't start.

I turn to my friends, panting a little. "Tell me one of you drove."

El doesn't have a car, and Beaker looks guilty. "No," she says. "I got a ride with Antonio."

I turn to Steven. He shakes his head. "Sarah has the car today."

I try the Lemon again, but it's no use.

Why? I think. Why will the universe not give me a freaking break?

"Lex," Steven starts nervously. "What's going on? Do you think that Damian is . . . Why do you think that Damian's going to-"

I shake my head. "Be quiet for a second, okay? I need to think."

So I think as hard as I've ever thought. I strain every neuron. And I see the answer.

I dial and lift the phone to my ear.

"Come on," I whisper. "Come on. Be awake."

"h.e.l.lo?" says a sleepy voice. "What's up?"

"Seth," I breathe in relief. "This is Lex. I need a favor."

"Sure, Lex," he says. "Your wish is my command, yo."

"Thanks." I meet Steven's eyes. "Seth, I'm going to need that ride."

TWELVE MINUTES LATER I'M FLYING UP North 27th Street headed out of town, my teeth chattering, my hair tucked into Seth's helmet, holding Seth tight around the ribs.

It's warmer out now, but still chilly. Over our heads white cirrostratus clouds are stretched in rows across the sky, cut by the sharp trail of a plane descending into the Lincoln airport.

"Are you all right back there?" Seth yells.

"Can we go any faster?" I yell back.

We're going so fast already, but Seth pushes the engine harder, making the telephone poles start whipping by us at an increased rate.

I'm so cold I can't feel my face.

We turn on West Mill Road and head out into the deep farm country, cornfields and more cornfields. The snow has melted, leaving the muddy brown fields stubbled with the dead cornstalks from last year. The farmers will plow it all under soon and plant again. The air smells like cow manure and fresh water and growing things.

It smells like spring.

I hope we're not too late.

Seth asks for the number again, and I yell, "2585," and he slows way down and yells, "I think this is it up here."

We pull off onto a long driveway and drive up to a gray two-story house.

I recognize Damian's car parked out front. "Yes, this is it."

Seth takes us right up to the front step. I clutch at him as he leans to put his foot down.

"You'll have to get off first," he says. "Just swing your leg around."

I dismount in the most awkward way possible and take off the helmet. I hand it back to Seth. We both step back to get a look at the house.

"Whoa," Seth says. "Gothic. I bet this place is haunted."

Ramshackle is the word I would use. It's your basic two-story farmhouse with the windows that look like eyes and the door like a mouth. It needs a new paint job and maybe a new roof, and it does look like something out of an old black-and-white horror movie, but it has good bones, as Beaker would say.

I climb the porch steps and knock on the door.

n.o.body answers.

I knock again, harder. I find a doorbell, but when I press it I don't hear any sound.

"I don't think he's home," Seth says.

"No, he's home. That's his car." I point. I bang on the door with the flat of my hand. "Damian! Open up! It's Lex!"

No answer.

He's mad at me. Maybe I shouldn't scream "it's Lex" quite so loudly.

I try his cell again. I try the home number. We listen to it ringing inside the house.