Chapter 12: Bench

I looked at the photo until the screen went dark.

Then I tapped it awake and looked again.

The green sweater.

The claw clip.

The bulb at the top of the stairs, mid-flicker.

Someone had stood at the bottom of Crew's stairwell and watched me climb.

Crew stirred under me.

"What's wrong?"

I held the phone over his face.

He was awake all at once.

He sat up so fast I nearly fell off him.

He went to the window and pulled one slat of the blind down with a finger.

The parking lot was empty.

The tire shop sign buzzed red.

"They were right there," he said. "Right under my window."

"Four hours ago."

He didn't come back to bed.

He sat on the edge of it with his elbows on his knees and watched the lot until the sky went gray.

The next afternoon the stadium was a sea of Delmont green.

Seventy thousand people, a marching band, the smell of hot dogs and sunscreen.

Corey wasn't on the field.

He was in the student section, twelve rows up, in a gray hoodie with his hood down.

Everybody knew why.

His coach had said it at Friday's press conference: one game, for conduct toward a fellow student.

Everybody remembered what I'd said into the mic.

People left a seat empty on either side of him.

I climbed the stairs in his away jersey.

Number seven.

I'd bought it at the bookstore that morning, and Jordyn had rung it up with her eyebrows halfway to her hairline.

"Babe," she'd said. "Are you making a statement?"

"I'm making a statement."

"I love you. I'm so scared for you. Wear it."

Now I squeezed down the row and sat in the empty seat on Corey's left.

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