Chapter 14
The last bell had rung ten minutes earlier and the hallway was emptying fast. I came around the corner by the science wing with my hands jammed in my hoodie pocket, not expecting anyone. The green lockers on the right caught the fluorescent light the same way they had that first morning, cool and flat, and then I saw him.
My dad was leaning against them.
He had his shoulder to the metal right around locker 214, where I'd stood crying while Tyler held his phone up. He wore his work shirt, sleeves pushed to his elbows, and he held a paper coffee from the diner on Main in one hand, the other in his pocket. He wasn't on his phone. He wasn't looking around like he was lost. He was just waiting, breathing steady, eyes on the hallway as kids streamed past with their backpacks.
He saw me and lifted his chin a little. "Hey, kiddo."
I stopped a few feet away. My mouth was open before I found anything to say. "You got off early?"
"Swapped shift," he said. "Marty covered the last two hours. Thought I'd pick you up instead of you taking the bus."
I hadn't told him to come. He hadn't texted that he would. That was the point. For a second I just stood there, taking in how calm he looked in the exact spot where I'd been frozen and tear-streaked, clutching my backpack to my chest while Tyler said, "Call your dad. Go on. Call him."
"You didn't have to wait in here," I said. "You could've waited in the parking lot."
He pushed off the lockers, just enough to stand straight. "I know," he said. "Wanted to see your hallway for a minute."
Kids brushed past us. A couple of sophomores I recognized slowed when they saw an adult by the lockers, then kept going. No one stared. The hallway was just a hallway again, scuffed tile, buzzing lights, the smell of dry-erase markers and floor wax.
My dad held out his hand. "You want me to carry that?"
I looked down. I hadn't realized I'd pulled my worn gray backpack up onto both shoulders again out of habit, the brown leather patch faded at the edge where I always gripped it. I slipped one strap down.
"Just one side," I said. "I can get the other."
He took the strap I offered, not the whole bag, so the weight hung between us. My hand was free. It felt strange at first, lighter than it should have. I flexed my fingers.
We started walking.
It was slow. Not because we had to be, but because the hallway was crowded and because we fell into the same pace. Side by side. That first day the camera had pushed in on me alone, tight and shaky, with Tyler and Jace flanking me. Now the same fluorescent lights ran overhead and the same lockers passed on our right, but we moved together down the center, Dad's work boots and my sneakers hitting the tile in no particular rhythm. A teacher coming the other way nodded at him. Dad nodded back.
"You remember where you stood?" he asked after a few steps, quiet.
"Right there," I said, tipping my head back toward 214. "Tyler was here. Jace was there. I couldn't move."
"I stood there for about five minutes before you showed up," he said. "Kid bumped me with his trumpet case. Thought I'd be in the way."
I laughed before I could stop it. Short, real. "You were leaning."
"I was," he said. "Your mom says I slouch when I wait."
The coffee steam curled up between us. He didn't drink it, just carried it.
Halfway down the hall the crowd thinned. The double doors to the parking lot were propped open and October air came in. I could see his old truck out past the sidewalk, parked under the same light where the buses lined up.
"Does it feel different?" he asked.
I thought about it. I didn't want to make it bigger than it was.
"Yeah," I said. "I thought this hall would always feel like that morning. Like I was about to get filmed again."
"And now?"
"Now it just feels like the way to the doors," I said. "Like where you pick me up."
He looked at me then, really looked, and his eyes did that thing where they got tight at the corners before he said something careful.
"I'm not always going to be able to leave work," he said. "You know that, right? Can't do this every day."
"I know."
"But when I can, I will," he said. "And when I can't, you know where I am. Same place. You call, I'm here. Not because they dare you. Because you want to."
I felt the weight of the backpack shift as we walked. He had the one strap, I had the other. It didn't pull on my shoulders the way it used to when I clutched it to my chest.
"Okay," I said.
We reached the doors. He used his coffee hand to push one open and held it with his shoulder for me. Outside, the parking lot was loud with buses idling and kids yelling, but the strip of sidewalk by the lockers inside was already disappearing behind us.
May you like
I let go of my strap for a second to zip my hoodie against the wind, and he took the extra slack without me asking, so the bag didn't drag. My hand was free again. I put it in my pocket.
We crossed to the truck together, the hallway behind us just a hallway with green lockers and buzzing lights, waiting for tomorrow.
