Chapter 6 – Plans

•••

Twenty-five hippopotamus. Twenty-four hippopotamus. Twenty-three…

With a scattering of gravel, Conor skidded to a halt at the edge of the roof, catching the lip with one hand and turning sideways as he vaulted past and down, sneakers slamming onto the breezeway six feet below. Whirling, he ran down the center of the aluminum awning, his footfalls like thunder. When he reached the end, he ran over the edge without hesitation, this time plummeting onto the grass at the corner of the eighth grade building.

Fifteen hippopotamus. Fourteen hippopotamus.

His landing was surgically precise, the momentum of his roll taking him right behind one of the school’s giant holly bushes and into the dusty, musty space between its branches and the wall. There was a small, industrial-looking metal box bolted to the brick, with pipes coming out of it and disappearing into the ground, and that gave Conor the boost he needed to reach for the window that he knew would be hanging open, eight feet off the ground. Hauling himself up and through the narrow gap, he grabbed the top of the stall frame and dropped to the tile floor, sending up silent thanks for the fact that there were no girls in the bathroom.

Eight hippopotamus. Seven hippopotamus.

Despite the countdown in his head, he spared a moment to kick his shoes against the wall, knocking loose the dirt and mulch, anxious to avoid leaving a trail of incriminating footprints. The hallway was empty as he burst through the bathroom door, the voice in his head calling out one hippopotamus as he hurled himself across, pushing through the doorway opposite and into the boys’ bathroom—

The bell rang.

—where he sprinted to the first stall and locked himself in, heart pounding, chest heaving. Outside, the hallway began to fill with students, the sounds of squeaking shoes and locker doors and the babble of conversation swelling until they masked the sound of Conor’s coughing. There was a notable rise in volume when the bathroom door swung open, and he hastily pulled off the mask he was wearing, unzipping his pants as he turned toward the toilet. Still shaking, he spilled several drops onto the seat as he peed, electing to use the last three squares of toilet paper to wipe his face and neck instead of cleaning up the mess.

He counted out another thirty seconds as his breathing slowed fractionally, trying to judge the best moment to leave the stall. He wanted the bathroom to be full, but not so full that people would be standing around waiting for their turn, with nothing to distract them from his flushed face and slightly too-small frame. Making the decision based on feel, he pulled open the stall door and wormed his way out, skipping the sink and heading straight for the exit.

The hallway was packed with eighth graders, twin streams pushing through the double doors in opposite directions. Conor joined the crush, trailing slightly behind a pack of girls as they stepped out into the sunlight and headed for the cafeteria. He stuck with them until the last possible second, breaking off as they went inside, pretending to read the student council fliers posted in the vestibule as he waited for another source of cover.

There were plenty of stragglers still throwing their food away from second lunch, and soon enough Conor was drifting along with a clump of his fellow seventh graders, walking right back toward the middle school cluster. A pair of angry-looking teachers brushed past them, striding purposefully toward the eighth grade wing, and Conor allowed himself a tight little smile. It wasn’t until he was back at his locker that he felt the last cord of tension loosen in his shoulders, the hairs on the back of his neck shifting from attention to parade rest. Surreptitiously transferring the mask from his pocket to his bookbag, he shut his locker door and turned to rejoin Holt and the others leaving fifth period for third lunch.

He hadn’t even gone three steps before a hand fell on his shoulder, prompting an explosion of adrenaline in his chest that sent shrapnel tingles into every muscle of his body. Jerking instinctively away, he whirled, barely suppressing a gasp of relief as he registered the face of Nolan Brinkley, looking almost feverish.

“Did you hear?” the other boy asked, his voice quivering with excitement. “Ashleigh—he snuck back on campus again.”

•••

There were rules to this game, and each time Conor put on the mask, he added another, or two, or three.

(That was almost a rule in and of itself, a way to stay sharp and focused, keep himself from growing cocky or complacent.)

Some of them were obvious, inevitable, included mostly for completeness—like the cardinal rule, his First Commandment:

Don’t get caught.

Others were niche, narrow, cobbled together from chance observations and careless mistakes. Those were the ones he disciplined himself to remember, repeating them over and over. Each was a tool in his toolkit, a tiny trade secret that might one day make the difference between victory and failure.

Never lose track of your shadow.

Roll your feet—don’t tiptoe.

Mulch sticks to clothes worse than grass does.

He used them like a scalpel each time he planned a new excursion, cutting away the bad ideas until only viable ones remained.

Never drop where they can see you.

Always have a second way down.

Once you’re on the ground, go where there’s a crowd.

There was a limit to how far they could take him, he knew. This couldn’t last forever—all it would take was one grownup in the wrong place at the wrong time, one loose brick or shaky pipe, one teacher who spotted the sweat leaking through his uniform and put two and two together.

Cross buildings—never run along them.

If you’re not wearing the mask, don’t carry the mask.

Wash your hands as soon as you can.

But so far, it was working.

There was a subtle irony to the way it had all come together. Ashleigh’s defiant leap—

(Leaving Conor feeling something…he hadn’t had words for it, hadn’t been able to name it, but it had burned inside of him like magnesium.)

—then Conor’s encore, a daring stunt aimed at puncturing the other boy’s reputation—

(Except that it had ended up reinforcing it, instead, of course it had, everyone drawing exactly the wrong conclusion.)

—and afterward, the school’s response, a massive mobilization aimed at preventing a third incident that no one had been planning.

(At which point he basically had to, right?)

There hadn’t even been a goal, in the beginning. Just pressure, building and building and building, until Conor found himself alone on the roof of the library at seven thirty in the morning, hiding behind a ventilation shaft, watching the buses roll in as he wrestled with himself.

The route itself was simple, no technical skill required—down onto the breezeway, up onto the office roof, back down onto the breezeway opposite, and then back up onto the cafeteria, where he would disappear from view as soon as he climbed down the pierced brick wall surrounding the dumpsters. Thirty seconds, at a generous overestimate—

—but it would take him along the entire length of the courtyard where the middle schoolers were gathering, the courtyard that the high schoolers were passing through on their way to the inner quad.

You can’t seriously be afraid that they’ll catch you.

His own voice, Ashleigh’s voice—it was hard to tell which was which, in that moment. They’d been blending together, switching sides at random, each arguing caution and brashness in turn.

You’ll be gone before the teachers even move. Most of them probably won’t even see. Even if there is randomly someone on the ground by the dumpsters, you can just double back around to the magnolia.

But still, the fear. The same fear, familiar—he wasn’t afraid he would hurt himself, wasn’t scared he might fall, but it was the same feeling regardless, no different from what he’d felt on the rooftop all summer, looking out across the Gap—the knowledge that he could just go home, that no one would ever know what he hadn’t done. That there was no one to judge him, dock him points.

And that was the problem, really. Was why (Conor realized) Ashleigh had written his claim on the board, where everyone would see—to make himself do it, set up an expectation he would then feel obligated to fulfill.

(And it had worked.)

(All those times they had trained together, over the summer, and Conor realized that he had never once insisted, never once told Ashleigh look, this one isn’t optional. He’d tried to be reassuring, supportive—gentle, with the one thing they both knew he did better. Right from the start, he’d made it clear that he had no specific expectations of the other boy, and he was only just now recognizing that there were two sides to that coin…)

How many of you have been told that you can be anything you want to be?

Conor had thought about it as he climbed back down—defeated, humiliated. As he rejoined his classmates in the courtyard, hearing Ashleigh’s legend spreading all around him, the story being told and re-told and re-told again. He had forced himself to listen, taking it as penance for his cowardice, and that afternoon, he’d followed Timothy right up the stairs and let himself into the other boy’s bedroom.

(The door had not been locked.)

“I’m going to cut across the rooftops,” he had declared. “Tomorrow, before first bell, while everyone’s in the courtyard.”

He had tossed Ashleigh the pair of masks, and the grin that had spread across the other boy’s face was like sunlight, like gold. They sat together for almost two hours, hashing out the details, thinking through potential problems, chipping away at the uncertainties until the plan was so solid that the actual act felt almost a formality.

And then he’d returned to Ashleigh’s room the following afternoon, triumphant, to share the hilarious news—that nearly every single person in the school had concluded that the mysterious figure had been Ashleigh.

“So that’s why Sykes called this morning,” the other boy said.

(Serendipitously, the call had gone to voicemail—Ashleigh had simply not felt like picking up, and so had utterly failed to establish an alibi.)

“I’m going to run with it,” Conor said. “It won’t work for long, but—”

Again the grin.

The other kids bought it. The teachers were buying it, even—the only person who seemed to harbor any suspicion at all was Holt, his voice unusually quiet, his eyes lingering until Conor met them, then shifting uneasily away. The second mission had been the closest of the four—in a reckless gamble, they’d decided that Conor should go for an exact repeat, crossing the rooftops at the same time on the very next school day.

(It was such a terrible idea, they reasoned, that the grownups would assume that no one would be stupid enough to try it, and therefore they wouldn’t actually bother to defend against it.)

And they were right—but they underestimated just how quickly the teachers would make it around to the far side of the cafeteria, now that they were on high alert. Conor had ended up taking a tortuous detour across half the buildings in the school, doing his best to throw walls in the paths of his fastest pursuers and circling back on himself until he finally found a quiet corner he could drop into. Luckily, more than half the students in the school had come pouring into campus, whooping and cheering, and ultimately his was just one flushed, breathless face among many.

And it would have stopped there, probably, except that the next morning he’d disembarked from the bus to find that the entire student body was being funneled straight into the gym, as if in preparation for a hurricane. Three days went by before they let the students gather in the courtyard again, and there were fewer teachers supervising them than usual, most of the faculty scattered across campus, guarding all of the obvious spots.

Ashleigh had scoffed. “They really think that’s going to stop you?”

And it might have—before. Of the two of them, Conor had always been the cautious one, the anxious one, the drag on Ashleigh’s recklessness. He’d drawn a hard line at half mad, and on more than one occasion his cold feet had saved them both from disaster.

But he was changing, now—had maybe already changed, the two runs he’d done transforming him, the old Conor sloughing away. This newfound feeling of power, of potential—it was addictive, and he was finding that his gift for anticipating danger was just as useful for troubleshooting crazy plans as it was for torpedoing them.

They’d given it an extra day, to lull the staff into a false sense of security, and then he’d gone for his third target—a small, level gap between two outstretched wings of the music building, facing a commons where the upperclassmen went for break. He’d turned in his Social Studies quiz a few minutes early and asked to be dismissed to the bathroom, whereupon he’d grabbed his books from his locker, darted over to the high school side, scaled the patterned brick façade on the back of the math building, crossed the rooftops to the music wing and broken the jump without skipping a beat, slinging his bookbag down to the ground and dropping meteorically after it as shouts and cheers rang out behind him.

(With no teachers present, he’d had only students to dodge, and he made it back to the middle school side just as the dismissal bell rang. By the time third lunch rolled around an hour later, the story had already spread throughout the school, another feather in Ashleigh’s cap.)

Ashleigh, for his part, was doing everything he could to draw attention to himself. Twice he’d limped theatrically away from his driveway as Timothy got on the bus, and he invited Holt, Eddie, Nolan, and Sam over to his house nearly every afternoon, offering ludicrous alibis and non-denial denials whenever the topic turned to Conor’s latest exploit. His ankle injury—a modest sprain, as it turned out—was healing rapidly, and he frequently “forgot” his crutches when he stood, only to stutter and collapse dramatically as soon as someone noticed. With the notable exception of Holt, they seemed to be buying it, awe and admiration clearly visible on their faces.

(Eddie was particularly enthusiastic about playing along, his usual stream of nonsense littered with retractions and corrections as he repeatedly pretended to almost give the game away.)

Still, there was only so much they could do to muddy the trail. Conor’s complicity in the first two missions had been covered by the fact that no one kept track before homeroom, and they had judged the between-class excursion acceptable in light of Ms. Nease’s absentmindedness. But there weren’t that many moments during the day when he could disappear unnoticed…

“You should start skipping classes when nothing happens.”

“What? Why?”

“So people don’t notice that Clark Kent disappears every time Superman shows up,” Ashleigh explained, in a come on, keep up sort of tone. “Maybe get caught making out in the bathroom, or something—”

“Dunno if your mom’s willing to come all the way out to East Binder during the work day.”

“I mean, she was kind of hoping you’d move on soon anyway. It was mostly pity; she prefers guys who’ve hit puberty.”

“Dick,” Conor said, sticking out his tongue.

He wasn’t at all sure what to make of the other boy’s easy camaraderie, the abrupt and total reversal of their previous estrangement. On the surface, their friendship was back to normal, all brag and bluster. They were messaging one another every night, and Conor continued to bring Ashleigh his assignments, collecting them from Timothy on the bus each morning.

Yet in light of all they’d left unsaid, the lack of awkwardness was itself suspect, the laughter too easy, the banter smooth and almost pat.

I don’t get it. Isn’t this what you wanted?

…no. Not quite. This was how Ashleigh was with everyone else—the untouchable good humor, the self-assured exuberance. Gone were the rough edges, the savage honesties and quiet sincerity that had marked their something-special.

(But you couldn’t exactly ask for that sort of thing.)

To fill the hours, Conor poured himself into his training. He was strong, now, and getting stronger, with even his longer training sessions leaving him only moderately sore the next day. He’d climbed Mr. Baker’s little brick wall so often that he’d rubbed a hole in the sole of one shoe, and he was landing one target jump for every one he missed.

(Almost, anyway—thirty-seven out of seventy-five.)

His newfound endurance was serving him well in soccer, where he had been assigned to midfield and was tentatively confirmed as a second- and third-quarter player for their upcoming game. He’d had only one really embarrassing moment, and that one not entirely his fault—while chasing a wild ball past the bench where Guyler was sitting, he’d felt something catch his ankle and gone face-first into a puddle.

His schoolwork, on the other hand, was suffering. Ms. Palmano’s class was now officially his only B, and math was threatening to tank him entirely. It wasn’t just that he was splitting his evenings between jumping and scheming instead of doing his homework—he was losing focus during the day as well, his thoughts sliding to the rooftops over and over again as though gravity had reversed itself.

Lately, he’d been caught on a brand-new possibility, a gap unlike any of the ones he’d broken so far. Just as with Binder’s Gap, the solution had been obvious almost immediately, with the one small problem being that it was completely, utterly insane.

He had first noticed it during his mad escape after the second mission, when he was crisscrossing the rooftops, searching frantically for an unguarded way down. He’d spotted it out of the corner of his eye, come back to it later that day, studying it from below in spare minutes between classes.

It was a space roughly twelve feet across, bounded on one side by the squat, garage-like shop classroom, and on the other by the higher brick wall of the high school science wing. With a running start, and a boost from the raised lip at the edge of the shop roof, Conor could cover the distance easily. The catch was that the edge of the second roof wasn’t at the same height as the first, but was instead a good three feet higher up.

He’d thought about trying to make up the difference by simply running faster, jumping harder, but a few test runs in his neighborhood playground had put that idea to rest—he simply didn’t have the power. And so, he was forced back to his first idea.

Some kinda crazy Wile E. Coyote bullshit—

Shh.

Whenever Conor climbed a wall—whether it was the tiny one in Mr. Baker’s yard or a real one like the ones by the bank—there was a moment when he hung just below the edge, arms extended, elbows around his ears, his fingers gripping the top and his feet braced against the vertical surface, knees pulled up tight to his chest. It was a surprisingly solid position—after working on it for a few sessions, he’d found that he could hang like that for almost a full minute before his forearms started to shake.

But that’s just hanging. What you’re talking about is way worse.

He could jump the twelve feet between the two buildings. He just couldn’t make it up the additional yard. But if he went for it anyway, and managed to get his shoes to a spot three-or-so feet below the edge…

…that would put his hands at exactly the right height to catch the top. Instead of landing downward, on the roof, he could land forward, on the wall, trading his own height for the last bit of reach.

There were half a dozen reasons why it was a terrible idea. He could come in too low and bounce off, or slice his hands open slipping off the raised metal edge. He could smash his face, his chest, his knees, break his ankles or his wrists. He could even make it, only to have his arms rip out of their sockets—for all he knew, with how hard he’d have to run, it would be like trying to catch a moving train.

But the more he thought about it, the more he became convinced that these were merely technical problems, a set of logistical hurdles between him and a solution that was fundamentally sound. It could work. The question was: could it work for him?

It was that question that had brought him back to East Binder, four hours after sunset on Sunday evening, his nose running in the chill night air. He would have preferred to study the problem in daylight, but between soccer, homework, and the increasing vigilance of the teachers, nights were now the only option.

(He also found himself strangely reluctant to share his new idea with Ashleigh—a feeling which he deliberately did not examine—and there were fewer questions from the other boy when he disappeared after dark.)

A harsh, yellow light illuminated the gap, its buzz the only sound now that the crickets were starting to go to ground. Conor stepped forward to the edge of the roof, looking out at his target, deceptively, tantalizingly close.

He tried to picture it, in his mind—what it would take, how he’d have to position himself. How it would feel.

It was hard. The thing he was imagining was unlike anything he’d ever done—the only remotely relevant experience he could think of was the time he’d overjumped coming down from the roof of the supermarket. He’d been aiming for one of the large, green electrical boxes, and he’d almost missed it entirely, his feet landing just a few inches shy of the edge, his palms slamming down to stop himself from tumbling headfirst onto the grass below. The pain in his wrists had kept him out for over a week, and he didn’t relish the idea of repeating the experience.

But I won’t be falling this time, so—so the impact shouldn’t be so rough, right?

Well. He would be falling, still, actually, but it should be more or less incidental, with most of his energy going forward.

Unless you end up higher or lower than you think.

Conor grimaced. There were just too many variables, too many questions he had no easy way of answering—should he be more concerned about the strength of his fingers, or the placement of his feet? Was he going to have more trouble with gravity, or with the fact that he was basically hurling himself straight into a wall at top speed? Should he try to lead with his hands, or his feet, or both? Did it matter?

It probably matters.

Sighing, he turned, hopping up onto the breezeway, walking softly around to the science building, lowering himself down into a hang at the landing spot, testing the grip.

If I come in too steep, my feet are going to slip out—skid down the wall.

But was that better or worse than trying to absorb all of the shock with bent knees?

Conor didn’t know.

Okay, then. The hard way, just like with the Gap.

With Binder’s Gap, there had been only one real factor to take into account: impact. He would make the lateral distance or he wouldn’t—the question had been whether or not he would drive his knees up through his ribcage on the landing. In the months leading up to it, he’d been able to get a sense of just how much shock he’d be dealing with by dropping into mulch beds and sand pits, gradually pushing his way up to twelve feet, strengthening his legs as he went. He’d done squats and lunges for weeks, carrying buckets of paint from his father’s workshop, and had once even convinced Ashleigh to sit on his shoulders as he wobbled up and down the steps of the stadium at the community college, the other boy’s fists clenched tight in his hair. The actual jump had still been terrifying, but there hadn’t been any surprises when he finally broke through.

But this problem was a whole new level of complex. He would have to cover all of the bases, preparing equally well for any number of possible mistakes. And he was naturally further behind—however extraordinary Binder’s Gap might be in scale, he’d spent his whole life using his legs to take impact. Up until a few months ago, it had been years since he’d put all of his weight on his arms. Through trial and error, he had discovered that a drop of even just a foot basically doubled his effective weight—if he came in at the wrong angle and his feet slipped out, he might end up taking as much as two or three hundred pounds with just his fingertips.

He could get part of the way there by approximation—finding smaller, similar gaps and attempting the same sort of technique in miniature. But there were only so many ways to mock up a given obstacle. At some point, he would have to commit to the real thing, and when he did, it would become binary—he would succeed, or he would fail.

And he could not fail. A mistake here wasn’t as obviously lethal as a forty-eight-foot drop, but it was still something he couldn’t afford.

My arms.

His arms were the weak point.

This was going to take time, and work.

He turned to climb back down, his body’s autopilot coming online as his thoughts began to wander. A part of him was already brainstorming—weighted topovers and one-armed hangs, maybe?—while the rest was reluctantly crossing monkey jump off the list of possibilities for his next mission.

(Everything else on the list was crossed off, too. If he didn’t think of something soon, he’d be back to the idea of retracing his previous paths, which was both risky and lame.)

Mulling, Conor drifted through the deserted campus, his eyes on the rooftops, looking for inspiration. He did two full circuits, looping his way around every building—

Nothing.

He checked his watch. It was only a few minutes after eleven.

Still early. You could hit the Gap before you go, end on a high note.

He hadn’t been back since Ashleigh had broken it. And doing it in the dark again would be properly scary—would count for something, wash away at least a little bit of his disappointment.

Five minutes later, he was halfway through the magnolia, picking his way across by feel in the darkness—

His foot dislodged something.

His foot dislodged something, and the something fell down through the branches and out of the tree, making an oddly familiar sound as it went—something both commonplace and out of place, not like a stick or a pinecone at all.

What…?

Curious, he lowered himself down a couple of branches and peered at the ground. The mulch below was in deep shadow, and he couldn’t see anything unusual in the dark…

He checked his watch again. Still not even eleven fifteen—he could drop down and take a look and have plenty of time to climb back up again, if he wanted to.

Swinging sloth-style on the lowest branch, Conor let go with his feet and dangled, released, wincing at the jolt as he hit the ground a split second earlier than expected.

(He hated dropping in the dark.)

He circled the tree, peering through the darkness, shuffling his feet as he walked. On his fourth pass, his toe brushed against something small and hard, and he bent down to pick it up.

It was a book.

Holding it by the cover, he shook it gently, letting the mulch and bark it had collected during its fall drift away. He couldn’t make out any of the pages in the gloom, so he stepped out from under the magnolia, back into the cold September starshine.

He frowned.

It was a small book, bound in black leather, and he recognized it immediately.

His journal.

For a long moment, Conor just stood there, trying to make sense of it. The little book had gone missing, what—a week and a half ago? Sometime around Ashleigh’s jump, anyway—he remembered searching for it and being unable to find it. After a while, he’d simply stopped looking, and it had dropped to the back of his mind, crowded out by other things.

I must have never got it back from Ashleigh, he thought. He’d been leaving it in with the other boy’s homework, after all. Maybe Ashleigh had found it, hung onto it, and then—

His thoughts stalled.

And then brought it to school and left it in the tree?

Conor inspected the cover. It was hard to be sure, but it looked pristine, not weathered at all, and there’d been a thunderstorm only a couple of days earlier. However the little book had gotten there, it hadn’t been there long.

Flipping it open, he squinted down at the first page—

Still too dark. He began walking toward the auditorium. There was a light on the far side, and if he could just take a closer look—

He stalled again.

The page was covered—absolutely covered—in red marks, looking almost black in the harsh yellow light. They draped across his writing like twisted shadows, a mass of corrections and annotations. There were strikethroughs and carets, whole sentences rewritten with punctuation where Conor had left none. In the margins, a narrow, angular script spelled out a series of smug little taunts:

Don’t you have to know “your” and “you’re” to pass third grade?

Oh, man. “They’re” and “we’re,” too. Maybe your problem is “re”?

Never mind, I figured it out. You can’t read, so you can’t spell check.

Plus I bet it’s hard to write when your hand is permanently wrapped around someone else’s dick.

Conor felt his body go cold and still. Somewhere else, somewhere distant, a storm was rising—panic and humiliation and outrage—but here all was icy calm.

He thumbed to the next page and skimmed it, then flipped past the following four in quick succession. Every single one of them had been defaced, scarcely a line left unmarked. Even his math notes, jotted down when he hadn’t had another sheet of paper—half of the problems had been crossed out and completely reworked, while the other half had been overwritten, mistakes corrected with heavy, dark strokes.

And in the margins, on the blank pages—

(The ones he’d left for Ashleigh.)

A constant refrain of cruelty, variations on a theme, the same two or three insults clothed in a hundred different words.

Come on, you KNOW how to use an apostrophe. You’re just being lazy.

Oh, are we making fun of retards now? Is this like black people and the N-word?

Man, if THIS boring shit is what you pick to write down…

I was going to make fun of you for not knowing what to do with periods, but I guess you’re a late bloomer.

Would HAVE, not would OF. Moron.

Loser.

Faggot.

Dipshit.

A complicated sort of feeling was growing, swelling, filling the hollow space inside of him as anger continued to howl around the edges. People stole journals, sure. People read them, spread their secrets, maybe even trashed them.

But this?

Conor was indignant, horrified, violated—as if the little book were a direct extension of his body, the jagged words an uninvited touch. This was the sort of thing that was Not Supposed To Happen. It was barbaric. Gross. Uncivilized.

Who?

It was obvious, of course, but still he thumbed through the pages, looking for confirmation. And there it was, on the very first page, amid the run-ons and the botched contractions—a single misspelled name, crossed out and recopied, the corrected letters formed with obvious care.

(Who else would have noticed? Who else had reason to come after Conor in particular, and knew just where to leave the book?)

He flipped to the final entry, scribbled in haste and anger on the day of Ashleigh’s jump. Beneath it, the rest of the page was filled with red ink, the thin, angular letters like knives next to Conor’s sloppy scrawl.

Wowsers. Trouble in paradise, huh? Didn’t realize you two had a catfight. Or is this where you scribble down all the stuff you’re not brave enough to say out loud?

I’ve got to say, I’m disappointed. Half this shit isn’t even worth the time it takes to read, let alone write. Where are all the dirty little secrets? You didn’t even give me anything to blackmail you with! I mean, other than the part where you’d totally gargle Ashleigh’s balls if he’d just be nice to you again. And the part where you’re hiding a bag of pot somewhere (high five, didn’t think you had it in you!). And the part where you’re the dumbass who’s been running around on the roof all week (that one’s just a guess, but it fits, don’t you think?).

Bit of advice for you, since you don’t know how to put two and two together. Your boyfriend’s not interested anymore. Get over it, move on, maybe try pussy next time. Also, quit writing in a fucking journal. It’s the 21st century…haven’t you heard of Google docs?

Your biggest fan,

~Guyler

Moving very, very slowly, Conor closed the book, sliding it gently into his pocket, all other mental processes suspended. He waited for the explosion—the implosion—for the storm of emotion to break in and overwhelm him. But instead, the anger seemed to shrink, to retreat, coiling up like a viper, watchful and wary. If anything, he felt calmer as the seconds ticked by, the ice in his veins thawing into a sensation of pure clarity.

Everything about the situation was heavy with implied threat. That Guyler had somehow managed to steal the journal—that he had figured out about the missions, about the bag—even the way the message had been delivered was carefully calculated to throw Conor off stride, impress upon him just how easily the other boy could fuck everything up.

But…

He hadn’t.

Just like he hadn’t told on Ashleigh.

Why?

It wasn’t out of a sense of mercy or fair play—that much was clear. And despite the offhand reference to blackmail, it didn’t seem like a shakedown. There had been no demands, and Guyler had only lost leverage by giving Conor the heads up.

…could it be that there was no grand design? That the other boy had destroyed the journal simply because he could, and left it in the tree for no reason other than to make Conor twitch?

Yeah, well, if so it’s working.

Somewhere in the distance, an owl hooted softly, jerking him out of his thoughts. Glancing around at the deserted buildings, he moved away from the light and back into the shadow of the magnolia.

Maybe there was no point in trying to guess at the other boy’s motives. Conor simply didn’t know him well enough.

Fine, then. Damage control.

He should probably stay off the rooftops for a while, at the very least. He could spend a few weeks practicing off campus, building up strength for the monkey jump.

And the bag?

He turned to look back at the equipment shed, a squat shadow pressing up against the brick wall of the gymnasium.

I didn’t actually say where I hid it.

And Guyler had been in the hospital when Conor had buried it. And it wasn’t like Conor had a better hiding place lined up—at least this way, if the grownups found it, they had about two thousand other suspects.

But still—he’d sleep easier if he checked on it, maybe dug it down another foot or so. Walking over to the shed, he dropped onto his belly and wriggled into the tight space.

Ten minutes later, he crawled back out, his fingers raw and bleeding, his face stricken.

The bag was gone.

•••

Click.

The pebble bounced off the glass pane, dropping straight down to the driveway and tumbling away into the grass. Shaking the handful still in his palm, Conor chose the smallest and took careful aim.

Click.

It was well past midnight, and Ashleigh’s window was a pool of darkness, the navy blue curtains tightly closed. Conor had tried calling, but the other boy’s phone was off.

(Not for the first time, he wished that Ashleigh’s room and Timothy’s were switched; one side of their house was only one story, and Timothy’s window overlooked the lower part of the roof, making it much easier to knock at night.)

Click.

The curtains parted, revealing the vague outline of a face drawn in darkness, then fell back into place, swaying gently. Ditching the remaining pebbles, Conor turned and walked up the driveway. He reached the front door just as it opened, Ashleigh scrubbing at his eyes with one hand.

“Holy one-in-the-morning social call, Batman,” the other boy said thickly. “This good, or bad?”

Conor slipped past him and into the lightless living room, the other boy closing the door behind him, shoving his shoulder against the sagging wood so that the deadbolt would turn. “The bag is gone,” he said flatly.

There was a long and pregnant pause.

“What’s ‘gone’ mean, exactly?” Ashleigh asked.

“Gone,” Conor repeated. “I buried it under the shed after—”

He broke off. That was dangerous ground. “After,” he finished firmly. “I was scared they would search the roof once G—”

He stopped again, wishing uselessly that he had taken the time to plan out what he would say (and what he wouldn’t). In the gloom, Ashleigh was silent, waiting, his outline still and oddly monstrous.

“Anyway,” Conor continued. “I put it there first day of school, and just kind of…forgot about it. Tonight, I was out there training, and I decided to check on it—”

Oh, you just decided, huh? No particular reason?

Shut up, Ash.

“You were at school?” asked the real Ashleigh. “Just now?”

Conor winced. There was the barest hint of betrayal in the other boy’s tone, so faint he might have imagined it—

No, no, it’s fine, I see how it is.

“Yeah,” he answered. “I was, uh. Trying to scope out the next mission. Figured you wouldn’t want to risk it, since you’ve only got a few days left before you’re in the clear.”

He left space for the other boy to fill, but Ashleigh said nothing.

“Anyway,” he repeated. “I got sidetracked before I found anything—”

Don’t you mean after?

“—came straight here.”

Are you really not gonna—

Conor bit his lip, cutting off the voice in his head. It quieted, but didn’t go away, retreating to his shoulder, radiating disapproval and disbelief.

Meanwhile, the real Ashleigh shrugged, a slight shifting of shadows. “Wouldn’t worry about it,” he said, his voice easy and untroubled. “I mean, gone is gone, right?” His head tilted in the darkness. “You don’t have any idea who took it?”

“No. I mean, I didn’t exactly stop to look for clues, but—”

“Conor?”

Conor turned. There, in the doorway to the kitchen, backlit by the light from the stove clock, stood another dark silhouette, this one smaller and slighter than Ashleigh.

“What do you want, dwarf?” Ashleigh growled, his voice harsh.

The shape seemed to bristle, crossing its arms. “I heard you talking.”

“None of your business,” Ashleigh snapped. “Vanish.”

The shadow turned toward Conor. “You guys sneaking out?” Timothy asked. “Can I come?”

“I said go away.”

Conor shifted, uncomfortable, acutely aware that he had half-promised the younger boy another training session only to ignore him for more than a week—

Yeah, you dropped him as soon as your boyfriend came back.

It was Guyler’s voice, this time, and Conor was instantly grateful for the darkness, the fact that neither of the other boys would see his face, and wonder.

“We’re just talking,” he clarified. “I’ve got to get home soon, anyway.”

The shadow’s gaze seemed to linger on him for a moment before shifting back to Ashleigh. “Mom’s supposed to be home at two. You should—”

“Do I look like I give a shit?” Ashleigh interrupted. “Beat it, house elf, or you’re gonna get beat.”

The younger boy stiffened, uncrossing his arms with deliberate slowness. “Whatever,” he said acidly. “Fuck me for looking out, I guess.” He threw a stiff nod in Conor’s direction. “See you on the bus.”

And with that, he turned and disappeared, his footsteps deftly quiet on the creaking staircase. A long silence followed, in which Conor thought of half a dozen things to say and discarded every one.

You’re seriously not going to tell me?

Eventually, the real Ashleigh spoke. “There’s no rush,” he said, and now his voice was low and grim.

“Huh?”

“Mom’s not coming home. She’s been spending nights with her manager. As long as she’s back by six, Timothy doesn’t know the difference.”

Conor had no response to that.

“Oh,” he said. “You, um. You want to talk about—”

“None of my business whose face she wants to suck.”

Another awful silence, during which Conor was once again glad to be invisible.

After what felt like several hours, Ashleigh saved him again. “So,” he said, his voice suddenly back to normal, bright and light and unnervingly unbothered. “Next mission. Got any good ideas?”

“Actually,” Conor said slowly, feeling an odd flush of embarrassment. “I…kind of decided to hold off for a while? Thought maybe I’d wait until you’d been back for a bit, let the heat die down some.”

“Oh,” said Ashleigh.

There was another horrible lull.

Ashleigh cleared his throat. “So, hey,” he said, rallying. “Halloween.”

“Yeah?”

“We still going as Siphon and Tracer?”

Conor frowned. “You still…want to?”

“Yeah,” said the other boy, leaning back against the doorframe. “But I was thinking. Only like five weeks left. Not much time for full costumes.”

“My dad might be able to help.”

“Sure. Or, hear me out: we just wear the masks over our uniforms.”

Conor blinked. “But that’s—”

—what you’ve already been doing, during the missions. Yeah, exactly.

Even in the darkness, Conor felt like he could see the other boy’s grin.

“Didn’t you want to try to win the costume contest, though?” he asked.

Ashleigh shook his head. “This is better.”

Conor gnawed at his lip, considering. It was a bold move. Almost stupid, really. Pretty much asking for it. But at the same time…

“I am Iron Man,” Ashleigh murmured.

Conor laughed. “Okay. Maybe. But it can’t just be the two of us. That would actually get us caught.”

“Way ahead of you. The guys are already all on board, and I think William and Jennifer would probably be down, too.”

“When did you talk to William and Jennifer?”

“Grocery store. And Jennifer’s sister was there, too, and she was into it. She’s a junior, said she knows a bunch of people who’d probably join in.”

“A junior?”

“Yeah. She was right there when you did number three, said it was one of the coolest things that’s ever happened at East Binder. Which, you know. Low bar. But still.”

Conor fell silent, thinking. If it actually worked—if they actually got ten or fifteen people to show up, in uniform…

He crossed his arms. “What are you planning?”

It was Ashleigh’s turn to laugh. “Dunno,” he said. “Isn’t that your department? I’m just…opening doors.”

“Trying to tempt me, more like.”

“Hey, I’ll stop if you say the safeword.”

“I don’t remember us having a safeword.”

“Oh, did we not set one? Okay, how about I’m the littlest tiniest baby.”

“How about your mom?”

“If we have to stop whatever we’re doing every time you say your mom, we’re not going to get anything done.”

“Got your mom done last—”

“—last night, sure.” Ashleigh yawned. “Speaking of which, bedtime. You sleeping over, or…?”

“Nah. Don’t have any of my school stuff.”

“Right. School. That silly thing you all keep going to every day.”

“Like you won’t be back in October.”

“How long you think I’ll last this time?”

“Not as long as I lasted with your—”

“See, I told you it’s a bad safeword.”

The shadow shifted, and a punch landed on Conor’s shoulder, and then there was the sound of the deadbolt turning as Ashleigh opened the door, the skin of his shoulders pale and faintly spectral in the sudden moonlight. Conor stepped through onto the landing—

—hesitated—

—turned back.

“Hey,” he said slowly. “We’re not, like. Worried about whoever put the bag up there in the first place, are we?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well. Everybody thinks you’ve been running around on the roof all month. Say somebody goes and checks and it’s gone. Aren’t they going to think of you first?”

Ashleigh shook his head. “Nah,” he said easily. “There’s a million other people it could be. I mean, it was up there for three months and it never moved an inch. Who’s to say it didn’t disappear back in July?”

Conor frowned. There was something not quite right about that, something that wasn’t fully reassuring.

Another gentle punch. “You worry too much, Batman. We’re talking about potheads, here. Anybody goes up there looking for it, they’re just going to figure it fell in and got shredded. Or that some repair guy hit the jackpot. Nobody’s going to come looking for a couple of seventh graders.”

Not a couple of them, Ash. You.

Conor wasn’t finished, was going to press the issue, but Ashleigh was yawning again, and it was contagious. His own jaw was still cracking open when the other boy put a hand on his shoulder, turning him, nudging him down the steps—

—and then the moment had passed. There was the sound of the door closing, followed by the familiar thump of Ashleigh’s shoulder as he shoved it into place in the sagging frame. Feeling disoriented, Conor made his way down the driveway and out into the street.

Seriously, what the fuck?

Conor’s shoulders twitched.

I can’t believe you didn’t say anything about the journal.

Conor gritted his teeth.

It’s kind of a big deal, no? Since when do you not tell me everything?

You know exactly since when, asshole.

It was only a little bit after one o’clock. If he took it slowly, didn’t wake his body up too much, he could be in bed by one-thirty. Five hours of sleep, and then it would be time for another bus ride, another morning, another run through the gauntlet—

Hey, no complaints. Nobody’s making you do any of this.

With a sigh, Conor turned toward home and began to jog.

•••

“Irfan picks up two shirts for twenty-five dollars each, and a pair of jeans at forty dollars marked down by thirty percent. Question one: how much do the jeans cost, after the markdown?”

Conor dropped his books and sank wearily into his chair. Around him, the room was aflutter with activity, the Sids digging for pencils and paper while the Annas shuffled in from the hallway, laughing and chatting.

“Question two: what will his final total be if sales tax is seven percent? You can use your calculators for this one, but show your work.”

At the front of the room, Mrs. Atkins was reading the warm-up problems off of the whiteboard, bulling through the pre-class chaos with her usual forceful monotone. The babble of conversation gradually tapered off as people began writing, the last few stragglers hurrying toward their seats.

“Question three: if he has an additional fifty percent off coupon for one item, which item should he apply it to? How much will he save?”

Beside Conor, Holt was already bent over his paper, his hand a blur as he raced through the first question, numbers streaming from the tip of his pencil faster than Conor could read them. The other two boys at their table were staring up at the board, their eyes glassy as they followed along.

“And last, question four: how big of a discount would Irfan get if the store offers an additional ten percent off everything? Does it matter whether the ten percent discount or the fifty percent coupon gets applied first?”

That’s six questions, Conor grumbled inwardly, looking up at the board.

It had been a terrible morning. He had barely slept, tossing and turning in an apprehensive fugue, only dragging himself out of bed after his alarm went off for the third time. He’d been a zombie in his first four classes, nodding off repeatedly and getting nothing done. Even Ms. Palmano had lost patience with him, sending him out into the hallway to sit until he felt ready for class. (He hadn’t ever gone back in.)

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Holt had filled half a page and showed no signs of slowing down. Looking down at his own paper, he wrote 25, 25, 40, and then moved his pencil back up to the top to erase the 85 he’d written and circled out of habit.

How much do the jeans cost, after the markdown?

Mrs. Atkins had shown them a multi-step process that she swore would lead them to the right answer, though it had yet to work for Conor. He started with 100% and subtracted 30%, leaving him with 70%. The next step was to multiply 70% with the original forty dollars, and it was here that Conor fell apart. He knew there was some trick with percentages about moving the decimal point two spaces, but neither $28800 nor $2.88 sounded right…

Thirty percent is a little less than a third, and a third of forty is…fifteen?

So fourteen, then. The jeans would cost fourteen dollars.

He moved on to part two, his brain rebelling as he tried to force it to buckle down. Seven dollars on top of each item made each shirt cost thirty-two, and the jeans cost twenty-one. So the grand total should be eighty-five…

Beside him, Holt was nearly finished with the fourth problem. Conor glanced up at the other boy’s answers and was heartened to see $83.46 as his answer for part two. It was close enough that he didn’t bother to change his own—better by far to live with a near miss than to risk being called upon to explain a correct result he didn’t understand.

“Two more minutes, everyone. Finish up.”

Dammit.

All right, fine. 50% off the jeans. That conflicted with his earlier answer putting their price at fourteen dollars, but it made more sense than picking one shirt when they both cost the same amount. 50% of forty dollars meant twenty bucks saved. Done; last question.

He fully intended to look up at the board, but somehow his eyes never made it. They caught halfway as if snared in a trap, held fast by the sight of Guyler Stevens staring at him from the table at the front of the room.

The other boy was finished, his hands empty, his ever-present scowl blurred somewhat by boredom. There was a clinical disinterest in his scrutiny, as if Conor were an object, or an insect, something incapable of looking back in any meaningful way. He gave no sign that he’d registered Conor mirroring his gaze, continuing to stare without embarrassment, without heat, without any discernible purpose.

“One minute.”

Swearing under his breath, Conor pulled away long enough to reread the last question and cobble together an answer. He finished scribbling just as Mrs. Atkins called time, catching only the back of Guyler’s head as the other boy spun around in his seat to face the board.

Asshole.

What little energy Conor had had that morning had mostly been spent on trying (and failing) to come up with some kind of response to the whole journal situation. Daylight had brought no new insight into Guyler’s means or motives, and without a clear sense of either, Conor had no idea what to do. The thought of simply waiting for him to make another move left a bitter taste in Conor’s mouth, but realistically, what options did he have?

You could walk right up to him and punch him in his fucking face.

Yeah, because that worked out so well for you, Ash.

A public confrontation—even a nonviolent one—was out. The last time Conor had tried that, Guyler had run circles around him. And there really weren’t any opportunities to corner the other boy privately. The only times Conor saw him were at school and at soccer practice. What was he going to do—follow him into the bathroom?

You could follow him home. Fork his yard, kidnap his dog, TP his house.

Shut up, Ashleigh.

You know I’m not really him, right? These are YOUR fucked-up ideas, Bat-boy.

Leave me alone, Ashleigh.

It would be so much easier if he could just snitch. But Guyler had left all of his incriminating evidence right on top of Conor’s; there was no way to separate the two.

Up at the board, Mrs. Atkins had finished reviewing the warmup and was beginning the day’s lecture. Doing his best to appear focused, Conor took out a fresh sheet of paper and held his pencil at the ready. Beside him, Holt let loose a quiet snort.

Conor shot him a glare, but Holt merely shrugged. “What, you think you’re fooling anybody?” he whispered. “Don’t bother, take a nap. If you actually give a shit, I’ll try explaining it to you at lunch.”

Miffed, Conor mustered, squaring his shoulders, straightening in his seat. He spent the next five minutes taking increasingly incoherent notes as he tried to follow their teacher’s tortuous explanations. Today, there were letters mixed with the numbers, some of which meant numbers, some of which meant other letters, and some of which—Mrs. Atkins claimed—meant anything, which seemed to Conor to be the same as saying they meant nothing at all. Eventually he gave up, trying to ignore Holt’s smirk as his gaze drifted back toward Guyler’s table at the front of the room.

They were nearly halfway through class when Holt spoke again.

“Don’t,” the dark-haired boy murmured, keeping his eyes on the board as he spoke out of the corner of his mouth. Conor threw him a questioning look, and he jerked his head down toward Conor’s notes.

There, in his own handwriting, scrawled messily across several lines of dubious math, were the words What do you want?

“Whatever that means, it’s a bad idea,” Holt continued, keeping his voice low.

Conor felt his face flush. “It’s nothing,” he whispered back, fighting the urge to crumple the piece of paper.

“Con todo respeto, amigo, that’s the same look you get right before you and Ashleigh go off and do something really fucking dumb.”

Holt glanced back for the briefest of moments, his eyes full of concern, but he said nothing more. Conor frowned, looking back down at the paper.

…Holt was right.

Honestly, Conor’s best move was probably to pretend that Guyler simply didn’t exist. It certainly wasn’t a good idea to let the other boy know that he’d been rattled.

But would ignoring him actually work? However Guyler had managed to get his hands on the journal, he’d gone significantly out of his way to place it in Conor’s path—not to mention the sheer amount of effort he’d put into defacing it. It didn’t seem likely, having gone that far already, that the other boy had no plans to go further.

Conor looked up at the front table again. Guyler was motionless, upright and politely attentive. He wasn’t taking notes—just watching and listening as their teacher droned on. Nearly a month into the school year, there was no more pain visible in his posture, no compensating for sore ribs or scattered bruises.

Snake, whispered Ashleigh. Remember what Sykes said? He’s up to something.

…probably. Besides—if he was honest—Conor was tired of reacting. Of letting other people dictate the terms of engagement.

The best defense is a good offense.

Reaching down below his desk, he pulled the little leatherbound journal out from among his other books. Picking up his pencil, he flipped to the last entry and drew a line below the other boy’s signature.

Then:

Guyler,

What the fuck do you want?

Conor

He closed the book, feeling more tired than ever, but at the same time relieved, the burden of indecision lifting off of his shoulders. He could feel Holt radiating disapproval, but he ignored that along with everything else, floating through the rest of the period in a blissful fugue, the world around him muffled, his own thoughts mercifully quiet.

When the bell rang, he gathered his things and walked straight over to Guyler’s table. Tapping the other boy on the shoulder, he held up the journal, then set it down on top of Guyler’s math book. There was a pinched look of confusion on the other boy’s face, and Conor walked away before he could say anything, allowing himself an inward smirk of satisfaction.

Out in the hallway, Holt was waiting, his own face a mixture of pity, apprehension, and regret. “Do I even want to know?” the dark-haired boy asked, falling into step beside Conor as they both headed for the cafeteria.

Conor shrugged.

Holt didn’t press the issue, and soon enough Eddie and Nolan and Nicholas arrived, filling the awkward silence, giving Conor the space to drift unnoticed to the back of the group.

It was simple, really: if Conor took action, Guyler would retaliate. If Conor did nothing, then Guyler remained firmly in control. By giving back the journal, he at least made it that much more likely that the next few moves of this game would be played out in words, rather than some other, more dangerous medium.

Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can crush your soul.

Still. It was the best he could do with a bad set of options.

Besides, Guyler’s already done his worst with the journal. There wasn’t much chance the other boy would be able to land a second blow, now that Conor was braced. At the very least, he’d bought himself another day to think—if he could do that a couple more times, then Ashleigh would be back, at which point the pair of them could deal with Guyler together.

Oh, so you’re going to loop me in, then?

Conor looked out across the silent lunch tables to where the other boy was sitting, the journal open in front of him, pen in hand. The memory of flashing red lights danced across his thoughts, and he felt his breath catch in his throat.

Maybe, he thought.

Maybe.

•••

That night, Conor skipped his regular training, using the extra time to make up lost ground in Science and Social Studies. His mother came home early, and the three of them ate dinner together as a family, watching TV, chatting during the commercials. Afterward, his father sent him out into the yard, where he raked leaves until it grew too dark to see.

He lingered in the shower, bringing his mother’s hand lotion along from the bathroom sink for what felt like the first time in weeks. It didn’t take long, vague images of internet camgirls and Jennifer from English flashing behind his closed eyelids as he leaned against the shower wall, his fist blurring. He slowed for a moment, unnerved, when the face of Ms. Palmano somehow appeared in the lineup, but then he started up again, a quiet heat spreading through his chest, and it was her face—and voice—that were front and center as he finished. Feeling vaguely unclean, he lathered and rinsed an extra time before shutting off the water and patting himself dry.

There was a green dot next to Ashleigh’s name when he opened his computer, but he stayed invisible, surfing idly, losing himself in a string of autoplayed videos. A curious lethargy crept over him, the sort of tired that usually only followed a day of hard training. Before long, he felt his eyelids drooping, and he crawled into bed, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars that clung to the ceiling.

His mind wandered. He thought about his father’s project in the garage, and the buckwheat loaf his mother baked for the fall festival every year, and Avatar: The Last Airbender. His thoughts returned to Ms. Palmano, and—

—feeling slightly bolder this time, almost defiant—

—he let the image of her linger, let himself look at it more openly, feeling an almost bashful flush in his cheeks as a tent formed in his sheets.

He wasn’t sure why, but for once, there wasn’t anything pressing—no stream of thought struggling to stay above the surface as sleep rose to wash over him. He felt loose, and relaxed—better still, he felt justified in relaxing—was oddly, satisfyingly empty—drained in more ways than one, with no responsibility and no stones left to turn.

Nodding off, he dreamed of flying, of fighting, of cities run by monkeys and math tests carved from ice. His mind was like a crossword puzzle, memories rearranged and juxtaposed, the contents of his brain emptied out, divvied up, and stitched back together in a psychotic slideshow.

The last dream was a simple one—barely more than a single image—two boys suspended in midair, with rooftops ahead and behind. He awoke with the sound of laughter still echoing in his ears, and the feeling of weightlessness held as he dressed, as he ate breakfast, as he shouldered his bag and went to stand at the end of the driveway. He felt almost optimistic as he waited for the bus, his breath fogging the air—like he might have been tempted to whistle, had he known how.

It wasn’t that he felt good, exactly. Everything was still fucked—Guyler and Ashleigh and Eichardt and Timothy—math, the missing bag and the monkey jump—

(And the strange reluctance he still felt, to tell his friend about the journal—the final nail in the coffin of four years of holding nothing back.)

—but he had finally caught the larger rhythm, the way in which recovery followed stumbles, and was followed by stumbles again. Things were going to go wrong—had already gone wrong—were bound to go further sideways in unpleasant, unexpected ways. But the word obstacle meant something different, now, after four long months of being Batman. There was something good about problems (Conor was learning), something better about having overcome than having taken a smooth and uncomplicated path. He certainly would not have chosen the month he’d just endured, would have changed any number of things about it, if given the option…

…but he wouldn’t have changed all of it, either. Would not have jumped to the timeline in which everything was quiet, boring, ordinary.

And that was good to know. Was a new thing for him to notice, about himself. It rhymed with the way he felt about fear—that it was better to have it, and pass through it, than stay tucked away in safety.

I can do this, he thought.

And as the bus squealed to a stop and the doors swung open, he managed not to think the word probably.