“So, then,” I hear my lab partner mutter under his breath. “He closes my door and leaves me there alone.” The rest of Adam’s story blurs into a mixture of muffled words and empty sentences. I’m never quite sure if he’s talking to me or to himself, so I sometimes half-nod as a polite gesture, just in case.
I look down at my ghostly hands and start fumbling with my mechanical pencil. Who even calls them mechanical anymore? They’re just pencils to me. As I contemplate the faded redness and ignore all other distractions in the room other than the one at my fingertips, I begin to ponder the whereabouts of the second hand, relentlessly ticking away as the seconds pass. I don’t dare to look at the clock, for I know that the minute I do, the bell will ring, and I don’t think that I can possibly filter out the desperate monotone of the cry for help that everyone cheers for.
“Hey, Soph. Pass this to Alex, will you?” I narrow my eyes as I pretend to be absolutely intrigued by the blank lines of my notebook paper. Adam still seems to be droning on, almost inaudibly to my left.
“Sophie!” the two girls whisper in unison, one higher-pitched than the other. I almost consider ignoring them a second time, or at least requesting the absence of their dramatic voices calling me from the table behind me, but I don’t. “Yes?” I mutter back to them, knowing already that they will request my services in being Messenger Woman once more. It feels sometimes as if that is the only thing I am good for. I do a quick rundown of my thought process before completely directing my attention toward the neatly folded paper, supported by fingers with polished fingernails.
Addie hands me the note, raising her knit eyebrows and accentuating her long black eyelashes, clearly defined by the latest brand of mascara. I take the note and hastily toss it diagonally to my right and not bothering to watch it land on the table. I could not care less about the contents of the note, so I exhale and fold my arms again, crossing my legs at the ankles as I sink back into the maroon chair.
“‘Damn car seat’ were his exact words actually, so he didn’t even strap him in,” Adam says, almost to the point of a whisper. I don’t understand why he even talks at all; nobody listens. I need to whiff out a sigh, just a little bit harder, so I let it out in short bursts to be sure that I don’t rudely interrupt Adam. That is, if he is even talking to me.
“Then,” he says, suddenly straining to speak. “That’s when,” he says, almost as if he were about to announce the death of his favorite cat, which I have heard him mumble about. Her name is Pettie, or Patty, or something like that. “That’s when he locked me in the trunk,” he stresses the words all wrong. There is no way I just heard what I heard. I look the other direction, gaining the strength to look at the clock on the wall.
“It felt like excruciating fire drops of anger and boiling fury,” he whispered, with a sudden tear down his face. There is no way I’m hearing this, so I blink to hold my eyes closed for a split second longer than necessary, to gain confidence that I am imagining this. Just then, Adam moves his arm to extend his sleeve up, revealing multiple burned welts in his skin, appearing to be from the end of a cigarette. I can feel my eyes widen before I attempt to restrain them.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you that night, Sophie.” he says, looking at me for the first time. “I had to, he made me. I-” he starts, but the tears stop him. I finally look back at his tear-streaked face, confusion overtaking my expression, but I say nothing.
“Don’t you remember?” he asks, lapping his tears with his wrist. “Don’t you remember how much it hurt? Don’t you remember a thing?” I say nothing, staring at him blankly, still trying to convince myself that he is not really talking to me. “Sophie,” he says. Yep, he is either talking to me or I am dreaming a bizarre nightmare.
Suddenly, a noise so shockingly high-pitched and painful shatters my eardrums and I collapse to the floor. The bell.
Adam’s hand feels familiar against my back, warm and afraid, hesitant yet comforting. My ribs sear with undeniable pain, like an excruciating stabbing of a knife between each one of my ribs repeatedly and relentlessly. I contort my arms against my chest, shielding my torso.
“I’m sorry,” Adam’s voice climbs up the veins in my neck as he holds my body as still as he can. “Sophie,” he cries, so hard that he is actually gagging. “I’m never going to be able to forgive myself.”
“For what?” I manage to choke out, but he can’t hear me through the volume of his own cries.
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