He Told Me to Stay Away, So I Left and He Followed novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: The Proof

Hazel tells Miles in front of their friends what she heard, he swears he said nothing, and when she says she is going to Seattle he answers: then go.

I didn't sleep.

At seven in the morning, Maggie came home from her shift and looked at my face.

She went straight back out for coffee without saying a word.

At eight, someone knocked on the door.

I checked the landing before I opened it.

It was only Whitney, holding a paper cup and my glasses.

"I am the worst person alive," she said. "They were in my tote the whole time. I fell asleep before I could bring them."

I put them on, and the world snapped back into hard edges.

I had never been so glad to see anything.

"You're not the worst," I said. "I think you saved my life."

"Miles came looking for you last night, you know. He texted me to ask where you were."

She winced. "I told him you'd gone home. I thought I saw you leave with a gray hoodie. Did I get it wrong?"

"I was in the lecture room the whole time."

"Oh, Hazel, no. I'm so sorry."

"It's fine," I said, and I meant it, because nothing else mattered that morning.

She squeezed my arm. "Drink the coffee. It's got the vanilla stuff you like."

The study hall for finals was in the library basement.

I walked in at nine with my bag on one shoulder and my recorder clipped to the strap.

Pete Sutton, Miles's roommate, was at the long table with a pile of index cards.

Maggie sat across from him in her scrubs with the biggest coffee the cafe sold.

Miles was standing at the end of the table.

He looked like he hadn't slept either.

"Where were you?" he said. "I sat outside your door until one."

"I know," I said. "I was inside."

Pete put down his index cards. "Okay, I'm going to just sit here very quietly."

"You were inside," Miles said slowly. "You heard me knock."

"I heard everything you said yesterday, Miles."

His eyebrows came together. "What did I say?"

I kept my voice flat. I had practiced it in the shower.

"'God, you're so annoying. Can't you just stay away from me?'"

Nobody in the room moved.

"When did I say that?" Miles asked.

"At the photo. Right beside my ear, as soon as everyone shouted cheese."

"Hazel." He took a step toward me, and I took a step back. "I didn't say anything. I was standing there with my mouth shut."

"I know your voice."

"I know you do. That's why I'm telling you it wasn't me."

Maggie had already pulled out her laptop. She turned it around.

The class had posted the proofs that morning.

There we were on the steps, a hundred and forty seniors in blue blazers.

I found myself in the third row, squinting at nothing.

Miles stood next to me with his hands in his pockets and his jaw set.

His mouth was closed.

"He wasn't talking, Hazel," Maggie said. "Look at him."

"Then he said it through his teeth."

"That's a stretch," Pete said gently.

"It's not a stretch. It's what my ears told me."

Pete opened his mouth, looked at Miles, and shut it again.

Miles didn't argue anymore.

He looked at me for a long moment, waiting for me to take it back.

I didn't.

"Fine," I said. "Here's something else. I accepted Seattle last night."

Maggie's coffee stopped halfway to her mouth.

"Seattle," Miles said.

"Cascade Conservatory. The sound design master's. I got in three weeks ago and I never told anyone."

"You said Chicago. You wrote it on the wall."

"I took it down."

"I know." His voice went quiet. "I went by the board at six, after the review. There was a pin and nothing on it."

For a second, I couldn't breathe.

He had gone to look for me, at the wall and at the lecture room and at my door.

That didn't change what I had heard.

"So you're going," Miles said.

"Yes."

"For the program, or because of what you think I said?"

"Does it matter?"

He didn't answer that.

He picked up his bag from the floor.

I waited for him to say the one word I had spent three years pretending I didn't want.

Stay.

"Then go," Miles said.

He walked out of the study hall, and the door swung shut behind him.

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