He Told Me to Stay Away, So I Left and He Followed novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Last Photo
At the senior photo Hazel hears Miles tell her to stay away from him, peels her wish note off the wall, waits two hours, then accepts Seattle while he knocks outside.
On senior photo day, I walked straight to Miles Everly without thinking about it.
He was already standing in the middle of the third row on the quad steps, with his hands in his pockets.
A boy behind us whistled. "Make room, everybody! The happy couple wants to stand together!"
Classmates had been saying that to us since freshman year.
I laughed it off, because I always did.
Miles didn't say anything. He kept his eyes on the photographer's ladder.
A girl from my sound lectures leaned in from the end of the row. "Hazel, give me your glasses. They'll flash in the photo and you'll hate it forever."
She sat behind me in every class and had shared her notes with me for three years.
"I can't see past my own nose without them," I said.
"I'll hold them. Miles will tell you if you blink."
I handed them over.
She dropped them into her leather tote and stepped into the spot on Miles's other side.
She patted her blazer pocket once, checking her phone, and faced front.
Without my glasses, the quad turned into green and gray smears.
The photographer was a tall dark blur up on the ladder. The photographer counted down from three.
Everyone shouted, "Cheese!"
Under all that noise, a low voice spoke right beside my left ear.
"God, you're so annoying. Can't you just stay away from me?"
It was Miles's voice.
I had heard that voice every day of my life.
My smile froze, and I kept it there, because the photographer was still shooting.
Nobody else reacted.
The crowd was loud, and my ears have always been better than anyone's.
Gran says it's because my eyes are so bad.
I turned my head.
Miles was a tall shape in a dark blazer, looking straight ahead. I couldn't see his mouth.
"That's it, everyone, thank you!" the photographer called.
Miles stepped down and walked into the building without looking back.
Whitney Lakin, my friend with the tote bag, was suddenly next to me, holding her phone. "Oh no, the registrar just texted me. I have to run. I'll bring your glasses tonight, I promise!"
"Thanks," I said.
She was gone before I finished the word.
I stood on the steps for a long time, with students streaming around me.
Then I walked inside by memory, one hand on the wall.
Outside our lecture hall hangs the wishing wall.
It is a long cork board where seniors pin their plans for next year.
My note was at eye level. It was yellow, and I knew what it said without reading it.
Lakeshore, Chicago. Wherever Miles is.
I peeled it off, folded it in half, and put it in my pocket.
Miles was already in his seat in the lecture room, talking to the guy beside him. When he saw me come in, he turned to me right away.
"Where are your glasses?"
I rubbed my eyes. They were dry and sore from the sun.
"Whitney has them. She's bringing them tonight."
He sighed and reached across me to yank the curtain shut against the glare. "I'll walk you home after class."
His voice was the same one. Flat, a little tired, completely normal.
I almost asked him about the photo.
I didn't.
I had never been wrong about what I heard, and I didn't want to watch him say it to my face.
"Okay," I said.
When class let out, the department head leaned into the doorway and called Miles for his thesis review.
Miles stood up. "Wait for me here. Don't go anywhere."
"I won't," I said.
I waited.
The room emptied. The sun moved across the floor and up the far wall.
I took out my phone to text him, and the screen was black. I had forgotten to charge it.
I sat there with my hands in my lap and told myself every few minutes that he was coming.
Two whole hours went by.
Then an instructor came in to lock the room and stopped when he saw me. "Hazel? Everyone left a long time ago. Why are you still here?"
"I'm waiting for Miles."
"He's not here."
I looked at the chair beside mine. It was too blurry to see whether his bag was still on it.
I understood then that it wasn't there.
So I stopped waiting.
I walked home slowly, past shapes I knew by heart.
Then I climbed the stairs to 3B.
Maggie was on a night shift. The apartment was dark.
I plugged in my phone, opened my laptop, and found the email from Cascade Conservatory in Seattle. It had been sitting in my inbox for three weeks.
Offer of admission. Reply by midnight tonight.
I had been about to let it expire, so I could follow Miles to Chicago.
I clicked "Accept" and typed my name. My hands were steady.
Footsteps came up the stairs from the second floor, where Miles lived.
Someone knocked on my door.
"Hazel?" Miles said. "It's me. The review ran forever. I thought you'd gone home."
I sat very still in the dark.
"Please open the door," he said.
He had told me to stay away from him, so I stayed away.
I heard him sit down on the landing outside my door.
I turned my screen face down so the light wouldn't show under it.
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