Inferno (22 page)

Her hair is silk against my neck and smells like green apples. It's all I can do not to bury my face in it. I sit still, barely breathing. “You know what I think,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “I think you should get the hell out. But...well, it's not up to me, is it?”

“See...that's what I like about you,” Parker whispers. “I bet it'd be so different to be with someone like you. You'd never tell me what to do, would you, Dante? If I was your girlfriend?”

God, I'm so crazy about her and I'm thinking,
maybe, just maybe
...Then I hear Leo's voice in my head—
She knows it, my friend
—and I pull away. “What are you
doing, Parker?” I ask her. My voice sounds colder than I mean it to.

She lifts her head and looks at me. “What do you mean?”

I don't want to fight with her. Besides, part of my brain is still saying maybe she really could like me that way; maybe it's possible; maybe she's not all that straight after all. So I just shake my head. “Nothing. Forget it.”

“What'd I do? Are you mad at me?”

Leo's voice is in my head again.
Flirting with me whenever Jamie's out of the room
. Is that what she's doing? “Nothing,” I say. “It's fine.”

Her husky blue eyes are suddenly shining, blinking. “I wasn't messing with you,” she says. “I wouldn't do that.”

“Yeah.” She's so close I can hear her breathing, so close I can smell the sweet apple scent of her shampoo. “It's okay, Parker.”

She looks like she might start crying. “You're mad, aren't you?”

I wish I was. It might be easier. “Nope. Not mad.”

Parker bites her lip. “I'm sorry. I guess I was being a bit...” She gestures in frustration. “I sort of wish I felt that way. About you, I mean.”

“But you don't.”

She shakes her head. “No. And you know, there's Jamie.”

“Right,” I say. “There's Jamie. Okay then.”

“Okay.” Her voice is sad. “We'll always be friends, right?”

“Yes,” I tell her. I hope it's the truth.

The next morning I wake insanely early. The house is still and silent and dark, but I can't imagine going back to sleep. I lie there for a few minutes, feeling oddly peaceful and not really thinking about anything; then I get out of bed, pull on my sweats and tiptoe down the carpeted stairs. I scrawl a quick note on the whiteboard in the kitchen, just in case Mom wakes up before I get back.
Gone for a run, back soon, love D
.

The air is cold and dry, and it's not even close to light out. Big black sky and wide empty roads and the smell of autumn. I stand at the end of my driveway, lacing my runners and doing a few quick stretches. Then I start to run, my feet landing sure and light on the smooth asphalt, my breathing easy, my legs strong, my heart pumping a steady rhythm. Times like this, I think I could run forever.

When I get to GRSS, I slow down. In the darkness, I can't see the damage. Not from the road, anyway. Across the field, the school sits there solidly, a gray indestructible-looking mass. In a few weeks, it'll be fixed up and we'll all be back in those corridors, and everything will, I suppose, go on as usual. I let my fingers brush against one of the spindly trees as I run past; then I pick up my pace again and leave the school behind.

It seems odd that more hasn't changed after everything that has happened in these last few weeks. You'd think there'd be more visible signs. I remember Jamie's
arm lifting and the bottle flying through the air in a slow-motion arc, flames exploding from the classroom window.
This is for you. Watch it burn. Dante's fucking inferno
.

I don't think I'll be spending time with Jamie again, and much as I don't want to believe it, I don't think Parker is going to leave him. Not anytime soon. And I don't know what this means for our friendship. I'm not walking away and I'll be there for her if she asks for help, but I won't put my life on hold. I'm not going to torture myself. It sounds as hokey as something Shelley would say, but I have to move on. Whatever that means.

These last few weeks have been a crazy kind of journey, but even though it ended up in such an ugly mess, I wouldn't want to undo it all. The world looks different to me now, like something has shifted, like the lenses I'm looking through have changed. More things seem possible now. I tilt my head back and look up at the sky. It's not quite black after all—more of a deep purple-gray—and it's filled with tiny points of light. I find myself thinking of the last line of the
Inferno
, as Dante emerges from hell:
And we walked out once more beneath the stars
.

Of course, for him the stars were the stars of heaven, and I don't believe in heaven any more than I believe in hell.

Still, they're awfully beautiful.

Many thanks to
everyone who read and gave thoughtful feedback on various versions of this story. I am especially grateful to Gwyneth Evans, Debra Henry, Cheryl May, Michelle Mulder, Holly Phillips, Pat Schmatz and Ilse Stevenson for their insight, inspiration and support. Thanks also to my amazing editor Sarah Harvey and the fabulous team at Orca.

Robin Stevenson
is the author of several novels for teens, including
A Thousand Shades of Blue
and
Out of Order
. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia. More information about Robin and her books is available on her website at
www.robinstevenson.com
.