Nobody in Particular(43)

I hadn’t quite realized how much my happiness had come to correlate with the amount of time spent in her orbit.

That, and I can’t shake the fear that if she takes a large enough step away from me, she, too, might come to notice that my eyes are empty.

For now, at least, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Though she’s now sitting at a table next to Molly at the back of the class each day, she smiles and greets me at the start of our shared lessons. And though she goes directly to Molly’s room after lessons finish, she gives me a pleasant nod whenever we pass each other in the hall.

But still. We’ve stopped texting. And I don’t think we needed to stop texting in order for her to be there for Molly.

“I just hate it,” Eleanor grumbles to me as we pass Danni and Molly shooting a post for Molly’s social media by the oval. They’re laughing, so heartily Molly bends over for breath. I wonder what the joke was. “It’s like we’re dead to them out of nowhere.”

The two of us are on our way to the performing arts auditorium, where the cast list for Macbeth is being posted in approximately five minutes. Eleanor has been a bundle of nerves all day. I’ve never seen her want anything this desperately before, except for, perhaps, Santi’s attention. Which, now I think about it, isn’t necessarily extricable from this.

“It’s not entirely out of nowhere,” I admit. “Molly made it quite clear weeks ago she didn’t want to continue our friendship. I suppose this is her … not continuing it.”

Eleanor raises an eyebrow. “Molly spoke to you?”

“She did.”

“You didn’t tell me that.”

Well, no, I didn’t. I do my best to forget the conversation happened at all wherever possible. “The details aren’t important. Besides, I thought it was clear this was about me. You’re an unfortunate casualty.”

“I mean, I figured. But what’s Danni got against you?”

“Nothing,” I say. “I hope.”

“Maybe you should apologize to Molly.”

“Wait—that’s genius,” I say with mock excitement.

“Oh. You have already, huh?”

“No, it truly never occurred to me to try saying I’m sorry for killing her best friend. Eleanor, I think you’ve just solved everything.”

Eleanor gives me a sharp look. “You didn’t kill anyone, any more than I did.”

I shrug blithely in response.

“Anyway, if it was about that, she’d be just as mad at me, right?” Eleanor asks. “So, maybe there’s something else.”

I simply can’t tell Eleanor what Molly said about me. I’m not sure why, exactly. Perhaps I’m afraid that if I speak it aloud, Eleanor will notice everything Molly has. What was it Molly said? Once you see it, you can’t unsee it?

Please, don’t let Eleanor see it, whatever “it” is. She’s all I have left.

We reach the auditorium, where a small crowd of students has gathered in the entrance. One girl is in tears, a few others look thrilled, and another is clapping her friend on the back. The list must be up already. We weave our way to the front, and scan the piece of paper stuck to the wall as one.

Santi Moreno—Macduff



Sits many, many lines above:

Eleanor Kowalczyk—Soldier #3



We studied Macbeth in English last year, and I’m fairly certain there’s no character called soldier number three. Which implies the school has created a number of non-speaking background roles to include more students. All that work on the Lady Macbeth audition piece, wasted. I turn to Eleanor, ready to offer my condolences, but realize just in time that she’s lit from within.

She places a hand over her mouth. “I got in,” she says. “I got in! I’m going to hang with Santi twice a week! Four hours a week, Rose!” She throws her arms around me in ecstasy and starts to jump up and down in place. I keep my feet planted firmly on the ground to anchor us and wait for her to calm down. “This is the start of something huge. I can feel it.”

“I’m thrilled for you, Eleanor,” I say. “You’ll be the best soldier number three the theater world’s ever seen.”

She’s so elated, she misses the air of irony in my voice. Or, perhaps, she just accepts it.

On the way back to Dewitt, we have to pass the oval. My fists clench by my sides as we approach in anticipation of seeing Molly and Danni, and as I suspected, they’re still there. They’ve finished filming now, and are sitting on the grass, their legs stretched out before them. Molly has her back to me, but Danni notices us almost as soon as we round the corner. Her gaze roves past Eleanor and lands directly, intensely, on me.

I hold eye contact, and keep my face carefully blank. It’s not a crushing sadness I feel. I’m not sure I even have the ability to catch fire like that anymore, for better or worse. Rather, it simply feels as though there’s far less of me than there used to be. And I was never all that solid to begin with. If souls were corporeal, I suspect mine would look rather a lot like honeycomb.

It aches, this new absence. And I can’t shake the feeling that if I could close the space between us—a hundred feet that might as well be a chasm—the aching would vanish. But I can’t, can I? In order to respect her boundary, I have to pay the price of my own comfort. She comes first, because she must.