"Oh, my god..." I whispered, my face draining to white. Kids passing by between classes stared at me, making my skin crawl.
Bryan clutched my arm and steered me into an empty classroom. "I'm so sorry, Cady."
"What is that? A shrine?" I shouted, my voice breaking like a twelve-year-old boy. I started to hyperventilate, the air in my lungs heaving in and out, in and out.
Bryan pulled me into his arms, his hand patting my hair. My tears soaked into the cotton of his White Stripes t-shirt, leaving dark gray blotches.
"I'm so sorry. I had no idea that was there. I never come down this hallway."
I didn’t wrap my arms around him; rather I drew them in tightly to my sides, my fists balled up clutching his shirt. I hadn’t noticed how cold I was until I was snuggling against him, basking in his body heat. Maybe I should have been embarrassed, but at that moment, all I could focus on was his calm warmth. He could have been anyone, I just needed to be held.
"It's okay, Cady," he whispered. "You stay here. I'll go get the janitor to take it all away."
As soon as he drew away, an irrational wave of anger rolled through me that even Bryan's calming influence couldn't touch.
"How could they? Don't they realize she was my sister? That my locker is right there, too? It's bad enough I have to live down the hall from her empty bedroom. Do they expect me to step around that —that altar between every class?”
A small rational part of me knew I was being a bitch, that those students lost someone too, but my emotions were out of control with selfish need. I started pacing and Bryan just stepped back and watched.
Mr. Small, the computer arts teacher, poked his head in to see what all the shouting was about.
"Oh, Miss Day! Is everything all right?" He snatched a box of tissues from the window sill and held them out to me as if he didn’t want to come too close.
“It's fine," Bryan assured him, "She just wasn't prepared to see that memorial at her sister's locker."
"Oh, well... I guess I can call the custodian and have it removed."
"Forget it!" I said. "I'll do it myself."
Before they could stop me, I went out into the hallway and plucked a poem off of the metal. It was some sappy thing that struggled to rhyme. I ripped it and let the pieces float to my feet. I could feel the eyes of the crowd on my back, boring into my skull. A cold cloud of grief wafted around me. Without realizing it, my fingers started ripping the pictures and notes stuck to the locker with Scotch tape. My pinky ran along the edge of a Post-It which read “I’ll miss you,” slicing a tiny, painful cut in my skin. As I was shaking my hand, my foot knocked over the vase of flowers, spilling gunky water and soaking the largest of the teddy-bears.
Around me, kids stopped and stared, ignoring Mr. Small's pleas for them to keep moving. Murmurs wrapped around me, “Whoa! Cady’s losing it.” “Think we should try to help?” “I miss Lony too, but what a drama queen!” Their anger blended with mine until I shivered and all I could see was red. I tore at a photo of Lony standing in her cheerleader uniform, her pom-poms in the air as she stood on the shoulders of her teammates. When it was shredded beyond recognition, I moved on to a group shot of Lony and Cane with a bunch of their friends piled on top of each other on a couch in some anonymous basement rec room. The confetti of Kodak paper fluttered to the floor like a ticker-tape parade.
Bryan placed a tentative hand on my shoulder. His touch poked a hole in my anger, letting it diffuse, slowly, until it was gone altogether. My fingers stopped frozen in mid-rip. I looked down at the mess around my feet. My jaw dropped and my wild eyes latched onto his in shame. Just as my knees gave out, Bryan caught me and lowered me to the floor in a heap of limbs. He pulled me onto his lap and turned my sobbing face into the crook of his neck to shield me from our nosey classmates staring and whispering excitedly. The disdain they felt for me was tangible. The bell rang for second period, and a few more teachers arrived to usher everyone along to their classes.
I couldn't look at the mess. My body curled up and huddled into Bryan's as if I could make myself small enough to disappear. He stroked my hair and rocked me gently.
A janitor in a denim uniform showed up with a push broom and a large, rubber garbage can. He waited off to the side quietly, unable to clear the mess away with us sitting in the middle of it.
Once the hall was mostly empty of students, Mr. Small crouched down and whispered something to Bryan.
I felt his head bob in a nod. "I'll take her home now." Bryan bent his mouth to my ear. "Let's get you out of here."
As Bryan helped me to my feet, I caught a pair of green eyes, blazing with molten hatred staring right at me, causing my body to jerk in shock. Cane Matthews stood across the hall. It was the first time I’d seen him since the funeral. His face appeared to have aged, gray smudges spread beneath his eyes and his jaw clenched tightly. He bent down and picked up a torn photograph of Lony that had been taken over the summer at cheerleading camp. His gaze softened slightly on the photo, but when he looked at me again, I felt a stab in my gut. The icy pain rolled off Cane so thickly the air felt like water, making my lungs heave for breath. I shivered uncontrollably.