Free The Invisible by Amelia Kahaney Page B

they get when violence courses through my mind and limbs.
    I’m moving with the mob of other Cathedral students toward the chapel, everyone’s conversation a little more muted than normal, when I catch sight of Olive Ann flipping her blond hair to one side and reaching out to embrace someone. A tall boy with blond curls. Oh no . Of all the days in the calendar, today is the day Will returns from Weepee Valley?
    I speed up, cutting through groups of students, careful to keep along the rightmost edge of the crush of people filing through the courtyard, and catch him in profile.
    It’s definitely him. I circled it weeks ago on my calendar at home, but I must have forgotten. Will was released from rehab over the weekend. He looks calm and clean-cut and, if I’m not mistaken, a little bit tentative in his movements. As if he’s nervous to be back.
    Scared he’ll spot me, I peel away from the group and squeeze between two benches toward an overhanging section of roof to the right of the chapel. I wait there, my eyes glued to the back of Will’s head, until he and Olive have gone inside.
    All I can think is that he’ll find a way to get his revenge on me, for what I did to send him there.
    I pull out my phone. Where R U? I type, sending the message to Zahra.
    Panties on, Fleet. Nearly there.
    It’s ten more minutes before Z shows up, but I’m happy to be waiting out here instead of in the echo-filled cathedral full of crying kids. I can hear through the crack under the door: Principal Bang makes a speech about Martha being taken from us too soon, then goes on for a long time about grief counseling. Next, Martha’s best friend, Jojo, gets up to say a few words and basically cries through the whole speech.
    It’s awful. I feel like I might throw up again, except there’s nothing left in me but white-hot fury.
    When Z finally comes clomping over the cobblestones of the courtyard, she looks upset.
    “This is bullshit, huh?” she says, waving her hand toward the chapel, then circling it to encompass the courtyard, the whole school, the city, the world. I’m surprised to see her violet eyes are red and her eyelids swollen. Zahra never gets emotional. “Poor freaking Martha. Of all the people on Team Ice, she was the best of them.”
    “She was,” I agree. My voice is hoarse with tears, but I swallow them down.
    “Remember when she was like seven and our dads were all doing that charity golf game and she crawled inside a golf bag and got stuck?”
    I laugh and it sounds like a wail. “I remember a lot of things about Martha.” Especially the way she died, I think, trying to push the image of her frozen eyes out of my thoughts. I can’t make the memory go away, not really, but I have to try not to dwell on it or I’ll fall apart.
    “And to think I thought Invisible was going to make things interesting.” Zahra rolls her eyes.
    “You couldn’t know that this would happen.” Nobody could. Not even me, who doesn’t trust anyone and who sees danger everywhere.
    “Zahra.” I change the subject. “I saw Will.”
    She raises her eyebrows. “How’d he look? Still psycho?”
    I motion to the chapel. “Weirdly calm. Deer in headlights.”
    “An act, I’m sure,” Z sighs. “He’s milking the rehab thing. Still the same douche on the inside.”
    We finally head into the chapel and scoot into the last row, where there are a few seats left. Debbie Lunelle is sobbing at the altar, eulogizing Martha.
    “She was so good, never talked bad about anyone, it was like she was an angel, and now . . . and now—” Debbie breaks down, the sound of quiet crying breaths pushing into the mic.
    I look around. All the teachers’ eyes are shining with emotion. Mrs. Perkins, the junior World Civ teacher, is openly weeping into a pink hankie.
    Just then, something white passes in front of my face and lands on my knee, between the folds of my plaid Cathedral uniform skirt. A flower. I pick it up and examine it. It’s a cut