FROM THE BURN PILE
Passed notes between Tucker Price and Tyler Miller Written in the margins of an American History study guide dude i hooked up with the Mistress of Pain herself last night at the Quiz Bowl party
Chloe Green????? what happened?
made out in the hot tub
wow haha did you like it
it was fine I guess? kinda thought I would be more into it than I ended up being
Passed notes between Tyler and Ash Scribbled in one corner of a still-life drawing exercise in art class Aren’t you friends with Chloe Green?
yeah why? btw yr interpretation of the assignment is rly cool, those grapes look really anguished. great job!
Do you know if she likes anyone?
she does but she doesn’t know it yet
wtf is that supposed to mean
why are you asking?
Because my friend Tucker told me he made out with her in his parents jacuzzi and I was just wondering if she liked him
ohhhh the one with the nose on Quiz Bowl? why doesn’t he ask her himself?
bc Chloe Green is terrifying??? also pls don’t tell her I asked. or him, actually.
genuine question: are you in love with Tucker? full support if so, his nose is very interesting to look at
What??? No?????? He’s my friend??????????
then why are you asking about Chloe, and why do you care if he finds out
Forget it!!!!!
10
DAYS SINCE SHARA LEFT: 12
DAYS UNTIL GRADUATION: 29
Rory is terrible at pretending to study.
“Can you at least like, look at a note card?” Chloe mutters across the study tables. They’ve been sitting ten careful feet apart for an hour and a half now, trying to look like two casual classmates who happen to both be spending their after-school time in the library and are certainly not going to abscond into the HVAC system as soon as the opportunity arises.
Rory scratches the back of his head and ignores her. He’s got his black Converse propped up on the nearest chair and a small tape recorder on the table in front of him. Chloe suspects he thinks it makes him look cool and alt and analog, but she’s seen that exact recorder on the Urban Outfitters website for $90, and he’s listening to it with $200 AirPods.
Chloe at least has her AP European History notes out. If Ms. Dunbury sniffs them out before they get a chance to put their plan in motion, it’ll be Rory’s fault, not hers.
She closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose, imagining Shara somewhere far away, in a corset, surrounded by cake. Gotta stay focused. The guillotine won’t drop itself.
At long last, Ms. Dunbury retreats from the front desk into the library office, and Chloe hears the pops of a fork stabbing through plastic and the beeps of a microwave. A Lean Cuisine, definitely. That gives them three minutes.
“Hey,” she hisses at Rory. When he doesn’t respond, she stands and plucks out one of his AirPods. “Let’s go.”
They gather up their bags and slip silently to the back of the stacks, to the AC vent in the ceiling over the nonfiction section. She passes her backpack to Rory, and while he’s hiding their stuff among the musty throw pillows of a reading corner, she pushes a cart of returns up to the shelf below the vent.
When she looks over at Rory, he’s stripping off his uniform polo.
“Whoa, what are you doing?”
“The less uneven parts of your clothing to get caught on something up there, the better,” Rory tells her, now in his undershirt. “I’ve watched a lot of YouTube videos about this, okay? Trust me.”
Chloe groans but doesn’t waste time arguing—she whips her oxford off and chucks it at Rory, who crams it alongside their stash and then gets down to business.
She’s never seen Rory do anything with urgency before, so it’s kind of incredible to watch him spring into his element like a cat burglar. He levers himself off the book cart with one foot and scales the shelves the rest of the way up in one fluid second, and then he’s soundlessly popping the vent off and pushing it upward into the ceiling before Chloe has finished straightening out her undershirt.
“You gotta go in first,” he whispers to her, hopping down.
“What? No, you have to go first and pull me up.”
“Chloe, look. I didn’t ever want it to come to this, but we have to be honest with each other.” He closes his eyes gravely. “You can lift more than me. It makes more sense for you to help me up.”
“Oh,” Chloe says. “Okay.”
Feeling quite pleased with herself, she follows the same route Rory did up to the opening in the ceiling, silently apologizing to the sanctity of libraries and to Millard Fillmore when she kicks his biography. She sticks her head into the dark hole, hooks her elbows over the ledge, and pushes off the bookshelf with both feet. It takes a helpful nudge from Rory, but she makes it.