Chapter 19: A Door With a Lock

Micah lived above his uncle's hardware store, down a back staircase that smelled of cut keys and machine oil.

On Wednesday night he unlocked the door at the top and let me in first.

It was a single room with a slanted ceiling, a bed under the window and a desk buried in other people's essays.

The door was heavy, painted green, and it had a deadbolt the size of my wrist.

"I told you," he said. "Big and heavy."

"You said it would have a lock."

He turned the bolt.

It dropped into place with a solid clunk, and my pulse jumped.

Dani had packed me a toothbrush and a note that said, "Do NOT come back before noon. Use your words. Bring me details."

I had hidden the note in my bag.

The dean's email had gone out to the whole college that afternoon.

It said the Harlow seat would not be reopened, and that Brightwater did not accept conditions on its students.

It didn't say what would happen to the science wing, and I had decided, walking up the staircase, that I wasn't thinking about the science wing.

"Are you nervous?" Micah asked.

"Yes."

"Me too. I've cleaned this room four times."

"It's very clean."

"There's a sock under the bed."

I laughed, and he came across the room to me.

He took my glasses off with both hands and folded them and put them on the desk, on top of a stranger's essay.

"I like seeing you without them," he said. "And I like seeing you with them. I'm just going to say I like seeing you."

"You don't have a note for that?"

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