“True.” I look out the window. “So, wait. Why are we going there today, then?”
“To see if we can find the music classrooms and figure out which ones have evening classes. Hopefully the buildings will be open now that students are returning from break.” He pulls out a map of the entire main quad, and it’s like he’s been energized.
“Are you . . . feeling okay?”
He looks at me. “Actually, for once, yeah. The vision calmed down after I figured out the music thing. So I feel like I got something right.”
We stop for an early dinner near campus at Five Guys and spend a couple of hours talking everything through. Sawyer tells me the entire vision one more time, using the map to point out where he thinks things are. I borrow his phone to check the weather, but it still calls for sunny skies tomorrow.
“Question,” I say. “In the vision, when you see the, uh, girl,” I say, looking around to see if anybody can hear me, “do you see other students around? Like, do you get a broad view of the quad?”
“No other students, no broad view. Just the sky and tree, then the grass and pavement and little stop sign. We zoom in to the building, then out to see the back of the girl’s body, and then we’re in the classroom.”
I look more closely at the map, seeing the individual buildings labeled. “Do you think the music building is in the main quad?”
“That’s my guess.”
I frown and start googling the names of the buildings around the Snell-Hitchcock Halls. “These are mostly sciencey. Like labs and stuff.” I keep going. “Cobb. That’s the building with the ivy that we thought the vision was focusing on the other day, right?”
“Yeah.” He’s got his laptop out and is searching too.
“Here,” I say. “Music. It’s this one next to Cobb. Goodspeed Hall. Offices, music classrooms and practice rooms all on the bottom four floors. Practice rooms open seven days a week.”
“Sweet.” After a minute, Sawyer looks up. “Is Trey coming?”
“Oh, crap,” I say. “Yeah. Does he need to? Are you sure it’s tomorrow?”
“It’s a classroom, Jules. It’ll be tomorrow.”
“Okay, well, that’s probably better timing . . .” I whip out my phone and call Trey.
He answers and says in a curt voice, “Not now. I’ll call you later.”
“Oh,” I say, but he’s already hung up. I look at Sawyer. “He’s handling the Rowan thing.” I drum my fingers on the table, suddenly nervous about that. She should have called me by now. Hours ago, in fact. I call her cell phone.
“Are you alive?” I almost yell when she answers.
“Shit,” she says. “I forgot, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I figured you knew I made it since Mom’s been screaming at me on the phone for the last two hours.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not at home. How’s it going?”
“Good. I think Trey has them settled down enough not to call the cops, and poor Charlie here is kind of pissed at me for doing this without them knowing.”
I hadn’t thought of that. “Ack. Do his parents know?”
“Not yet. Hopefully not ever.” She hesitates and I hear her talking to someone. “I gotta go, Jules. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
“And, Jules?”
“Yeah?”
But she doesn’t say anything, and I figure one of us hit a dead spot, or she’s got to answer another call from our parents. I bite my lip and hang up. And then I look at Sawyer. “I think I’d better head home.”
He smiles. “Yeah, you definitely should. Poor Trey.” He gathers the wrappers and we get up. “I’m going to go to the campus and see if I can figure out the classroom situation.”
I feel terrible leaving him here alone. “Are you sure you’re cool with that?”
“Hundred percent.”
I glance at my watch. There’s a bus in twenty-three minutes. “Okay. Call me whenever you find out anything. And when you’re on your way home. And when you get there. And if anything weird happens.”
He grins. “I’ll call you every five minutes just to let you know I’m still alive.”
I grin. “That sounds perfect.” I look outside, and it’s sprinkling again. The sky is a roiling cauldron of dark, angry clouds. We go outside and I reach up to kiss him, and then we split up, him to campus, me to the bus stop.
As I stand there under the shelter of a nearby overhang, the rain pelting down, I grip my phone, waiting for it to ring. Waiting to hear from Sawyer. Or Trey. And I think about my parents, and Rowan, and how everything we’re doing feels so underhanded, and I kind of don’t like myself much these days. It’s way too easy to lie. I have an argument with myself, telling me that there’s no other way to go about it. That all the superheroes have to lie to hide their true identity, and this is a lot like that.
“Except you’re not a superhero,” I mutter. “You’re a not-quite-seventeen-year-old kid with a contagious mental disorder.” I bounce on my toes, waiting for the stupid bus, which is most certainly late. “Come on. Somebody call. I’m anxious.” I pause, and then I say, “I’m so anxious I’m talking to myself.”
Finally, ten minutes late, the bus pulls up just as the heavens open. I watch the people get off and prepare to make a mad dash for the bus door.