Silent Alarm by Jennifer Banash

Author:Jennifer Banash
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group, USA
Published: 2015-02-24T05:00:00+00:00

THREE

After the assembly, we have a break before first period begins, and I wander out the front door of the school, oblivious to the buzz and chatter surrounding me. The rain has stopped its punishing assent, but the sky is streaked with charcoal-gray and violet clouds that tell me more waterworks are on the way. If I just stay locked inside myself, I’ll be all right. I say this over and over, repeating the words in my head until they blur together and become as meaningless as the cacophony of voices surrounding me.

Out in the parking lot, I notice a red car draped in flowers, stuffed toys, balloons, cards dotting the windshield, and I float toward it, as if in a trance. A makeshift shrine. I would know that car anywhere—it’s Kitty Ellison’s, the license plate spelling out KITTY E in large black letters. Kitty is

(was)

a senior. Early acceptance to Princeton, long blond hair, and a body that made boys stop speaking when she swished past. But the thing about Kitty that separated her from a life of complete and total banality was that she was nice. She wasn’t cliquey, didn’t put others down to make herself feel better. She was just . . . sweet. Tutored kids after school not just to pad her college applications, but because she thought it was the right thing to do. Didn’t suck up for college recs. She didn’t have to. Everyone—and I mean everyone—in Plainewood practically worshipped the ground she walked on. And now she’s gone.

(—will I find her under my bed tonight when I turn back the covers, her bloodless face rising out of the darkness—)

There are people milling around near the car, and I walk through them, drawn to the shiny red finish, enticing as a poison apple. I want to walk up to my pain and impale myself on it, drag a knife across my skin until it splits under a serrated blade. I imagine the relief it would bring, the blood streaming out of my body until my brain fills with whiteness.

Melissa Anderson, Kitty’s best friend, is standing next to the car, tracing designs on the hood with one finger. Her black hair hangs past her shoulders, held away from her face with a thick band, and a gray peacoat swallows her thin frame, toned and athletic from afternoons spent in the pool with the rest of the swim team. Her face is set in concentration, tears falling from her eyes although her expression is still. If you didn’t see the water streaking her cheeks in slow, silent rivulets, you wouldn’t know she was upset at all. Watching her, I feel like I’m eavesdropping on something horribly private, and I start to move away, my feet scraping against the pavement. Melissa wipes her face with one hand and sniffs loudly, turning to face me, her green eyes oblivious at first but then widening in gradual recognition. She looks like she’s seen a ghost, and maybe that’s what I am now.

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