Chapter 8: Locked Door

I got my sweater over my head in about a second and a half.

Geoffrey was already buttoning his shirt, and his face was perfectly flat.

"Geoff," Brandon said again, through the wood. "Open up."

"Go home, Brandon."

"She's in there. I saw her go in."

"Ms. Linden is going over her final with me," Geoffrey said. "It's ten at night and I'm tired. Go home."

"Mira!" Brandon shouted. "Mira, I know you can hear me!"

I put my hand over my mouth.

Geoffrey looked at me and held up one finger, and I nodded.

"If you don't leave," Geoffrey said, in the same even voice, "I'll walk you out myself, in front of the whole building."

The handle rattled once, hard.

Then a different voice came down the hall, fast and loud and delighted.

"Brandon Newberry! There you are!"

It was Maddie.

"Candice's looking all over for you," she said. "She's crying in the lobby. Something about a coat. You'd better hurry."

"She's not crying," Brandon said. "She doesn't cry."

"Wow. That's a cold thing to say about your friend."

There was a long pause.

Then footsteps went away down the hall, one set heavy and one set light, and the elevator dinged.

I slid off the desk on shaking legs.

"I'm going to kiss Maddie," I said.

"Later," Geoffrey said. "Now we use the back stairs."

His apartment was ten minutes away, in a building full of faculty on leave.

He unlocked the door and let me in ahead of him.

It was almost bare, a sofa and a lamp and a shelf of books and a kitchen with one mug in the sink.

"It's a rental," he said.

"It's the loneliest room I've ever seen."

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