Chapter 5 What He Knows

Paul's POV

I dodge him at the breakfast table by shoving my chair back so fast it scrapes the floor and saying I'm going to be late for school, which is a lie, because we still have twenty minutes, but it's the only escape I can find before he says something in front of our parents that neither of us can take back. He doesn't chase me down the hallway. He doesn't get the chance, because my mom needs help finding her car keys, and he needs help finding his cleats, and by the time we're both in separate cars heading to the same school, I think maybe I bought myself a few hours.

I am wrong almost the second I walk through the front doors.

Westbrook hallways have a rhythm I learned a long time ago. Stay close to the wall. Keep your eyes on your own feet. Don't take up space that anyone might notice. I've had three years of practice being furniture in this building, and most days it works fine. Today, my whole body feels like it's made of static electricity, like everyone can somehow see what's sitting folded up in my backpack, even though there's no way they can.

Garrett comes down the hallway from the opposite direction, surrounded by the usual crowd of teammates who follow him around like satellites. We pass each other the way we always do at school, like strangers, as if nothing happened between our families, like there isn't a folder in my backpack with both our parents' names attached to a dead woman.

That's the deal. Don't look. Don't talk. Keep it invisible.

Sloane Pierce ruins it before either of us can even fully pass each other.

"Wait, is that your new sister?" Her voice carries on purpose, pitched loud enough that half the hallway turns to look, the exact kind of loud she's famous for. She says sister like it's the funniest word she's ever used, drawing it out, looking straight at me with a smile that doesn't reach anywhere near her eyes. "Garrett, oh my gosh, I didn't even clock that you guys live together now. That's so weird. Does she follow you around the house, too?"

A few people laugh. Not as many as Sloane probably wanted, but enough to make my face go hot.

I brace myself for the old version of Garrett, the one from the assembly three years ago, the one who laughs along even when he doesn't say the cruel thing himself. I've spent three years convinced that version of him is the only version that exists. I get ready to duck my head and keep walking, the way I always do, the way that's kept me safe since freshman year.

He doesn't laugh.

He doesn't say anything at all. He just looks at Sloane for a second too long, something unreadable on his face, and then he keeps walking like she didn't say anything worth answering. Sloane's smile falters, just slightly, surprised by the lack of an audience for her joke, and the hallway moves on before anyone can make it weirder.

I stand there for half a second longer than I should, watching his back disappear into the crowd, feeling something shift in my chest that I don't have a name for yet. He didn't laugh. After three years of watching him laugh at exactly this kind of thing, he didn't laugh, and I don't know what to do with that information except carry it with me into first period like a stone in my pocket.

It follows me through two classes. By the time the bell rings for third period, I've almost convinced myself I imagined the whole thing, that I'm reading too much into one hallway moment because I'm exhausted and scared and looking for any reason to feel less alone in this.

Then I turn the corner toward my locker, and he's already there, leaning against the one next to mine like he's been waiting.

"We need to talk," he says, low, glancing both directions down the hallway before he says anything else. "Not at home. Not with our parents listening. Here."

My heart does something complicated and fast. This is the first real conversation we've had, just the two of us, with nobody else around, in three entire years. Three years of sitting two rows apart in AP Lit without him once asking to borrow a pencil. Three years of him being a stranger wearing a familiar face. And now he's standing close enough that I can see he didn't sleep much last night either, dark circles under his eyes that match mine.

"There's nothing to talk about," I say, but my voice comes out smaller than I want it to.

"My dad got a text this morning. From Halverson Investigations." He watches my face carefully when he says it, like he's testing something. "You know that name. I saw it on your face at breakfast."

I don't answer fast enough, and that silence is its own confession.

"Paul." He says my name the same way he said it in the hallway two nights ago, careful, like he's handling something breakable. "What was in that folder?"

I open my mouth to lie again, to give him the same tired line about old paperwork, but something in his face stops me. He's not performing right now. He's not the quarterback everyone watches in the hallway. He's just a guy who found out his dad might be lying to him, standing two feet away from the only other person who knows why.

"I can't tell you," I say, and it's the most honest thing I've said to him in three years. "Not because I don't want to. Because if I do, it doesn't just blow up your life, Garrett. It blows up mine too."

His jaw tightens. For a second, I think he's going to push harder, demand an answer right here in the hallway where anyone could hear us.

Instead, his phone buzzes in his pocket. He glances down at the screen, and whatever color is left in his face drains out completely.

He turns the phone around so I can see it.

It's a text from his dad's number, but it isn't his dad's words. Three lines, sent by mistake to the wrong contact, never meant for Garrett's eyes at all.

She's asking questions again. We need to handle this before the kids find out the truth about that night.