I'm Thinking of Ending Things

~ ~ ~

“Do you want to stop for something sweet?”

We were on a mini roll there, conversationally, but I’ve stopped asking questions. I haven’t mentioned Jake’s family again. I shouldn’t pester him. Maybe privacy is a good thing. I’m still thinking about what he said, though. I felt like I was starting to really understand him, appreciate things he’s been through. Sympathize.

I also haven’t mentioned my headache again, not since we got in the car. The wine made it worse, maybe. The air in that old house. My whole head is sore. I’m holding it in such a way, with my neck taut and slightly forward, so that the pressure is relieved somewhat, only somewhat. Any movement, bump, or twitch is uncomfortable.

“We could stop, sure,” I say.

“But do you want to?”

“I’m indifferent, but happy to if you want to.”

“You and your nonanswers.”

“What?”

“The only place open this late is Dairy Queen. But they’ll definitely have some nondairy stuff.” So he does remember. About my intolerance.

It’s dark outside the car. We’ve been talking less on the drive home than on the drive there. Both tired, I guess; introspective. Hard to tell if it’s snowing. I think it is. Not heavily, though. Not yet. It’s just starting. I laugh, more to myself, and look out the window.

“What?” he asks.

“It’s pretty funny. I can’t eat dessert at your parents’ place because there’s dairy in it, and we’re stopping to get something to eat at Dairy Queen. And it’s the middle of winter. It’s freezing out; it’s snowing, I think. It’s fine; it’s just funny.” I think it’s other things, too, but decide not to say anything.

“I haven’t had a Skor Blizzard in ages. I think that’s what I’ll get,” he says. Skor Blizzard. I knew it. So predictable.

We pull in. The lot is empty. There’s a pay phone booth in one corner and a metal garbage bin in the other. Don’t see too many pay phones anymore. Most have been removed.

“I still have a headache,” I say. “Think I’m tired.”

“I thought it was better.”

“Not really.” It’s worse. It’s bordering on a migraine.

“How bad? Migrainous?”

“It’s not too bad.”

Outside the car, it’s cold, windy. The snow is getting heavier now for sure. More swirling than falling. It’s not staying on the ground yet. It will once it gets going. Hopefully I’ll be in bed by then, with some Advil. If my headache is gone tomorrow, I’ll spend the morning shoveling. The cold feels nice on my head.

“Has the feel of a big storm,” says Jake. “Wind is freezing.”

Looking into the brightly lit Dairy Queen makes me feel nauseated. Of course the Dairy Queen is empty. You have to wonder why it’s even open tonight. I noticed the hours on the door and calculated that they’re closing in eight minutes. There is no bell chime or the expected overhead Muzak upon entry. The empty tables are clean, no balled napkins or empty cups or crumbs. The store is prepped for close. The dull, metallic drone from the machines and freezers creates a cumulative noise. It reminds me of a dial tone. There’s a scent in here, too, almost chemical. We wait, looking up at the glowing menu.

He’s reading the menu. I can tell by his eyes, the way he’s touching his chin. “I’m sure they’ll have something nondairy,” he says again.

Jake’s already holding a long, red plastic spoon he grabbed from a bin. It’s kind of irritating how he grabbed a spoon for himself and we don’t even know if there’s anything I can eat. We still have plenty of driving ahead of us. A longer trip if the storm gets worse. Maybe we should have stayed the night at the farm. But I just wasn’t totally comfortable. I don’t know. Jake yawns.

“Are you good, or do you want me to drive the rest of the way home?” I ask.

“No, no, I’m fine. I had less to drink than you did.”

“We had the exact same.”

“But it affects you way more. Subjectivity and all that.” He yawns again, wider, this time bringing his hand up to his mouth. “Yeah, see, they have different flavors of lemonade. And it’s iced, dairy-free lemonade,” he says. “You’ll like that.”

“Like. Sure,” I say. “I’ll have one.”

Two employees have emerged from a back room. They look displeased that we’ve disturbed them. Youngish, teenagers, both of them. They have different shapes, different body types, but in all other facets are identical. They have the same dyed hair, the same tight black pants, the same brown boots. Both would so clearly rather be anywhere else, and I don’t blame them.

“We’ll have a small lemonade. And actually make it two lemonades. How big is your medium?” Jake asks.

One of the girls grabs a largish-looking paper cup and holds it up. “Medium,” she says, flatly. The other girl turns away and giggles.

“That’s fine,” he says. “One small, one medium.”

“The small should be a strawberry lemonade, please, not just the normal lemonade,” I say to the girl. “There’s no dairy in that, right?”

The girl asks the other girl: “There’s no ice cream in the lemonade, is there?” She is still giggling and has a hard time answering. Now the first girl is laughing, too. They’re exchanging glances.

“How bad is the allergy?” asks the second girl.

“It won’t kill me. I just wouldn’t feel well.”

It’s almost like they recognize us, and it’s weird for them, the same way it would be if a friend of one of their parents came in, or one of their teachers showed up unexpectedly and they had to serve them. That’s how they’re reacting. I look at Jake. He seems oblivious. The first girl looks at him, then whispers something to the second girl. They both laugh again.

A third girl now. She comes from the back. She must have been listening, because without a word she starts to make my lemonade. The other girls don’t say anything to her, either, or acknowledge her presence.

The third girl looks up from the machine. “Sorry for the smell,” she says. “They’re doing some varnishing in the back.”

Varnishing? In a Dairy Queen? “No worries,” I say.

It’s a sudden feeling, but unmistakable. I know this girl. I recognize her but have no idea from where or when. Her face, her hair. Her build. I know her.

She doesn’t say anything else. She just sets to work making the lemonade. Or she preps the cups, anyway. She pushes some buttons, turns some knobs. She stands in front of the machine like she’s waiting in line at a store. As the machine does the work, the girl holds her hand on one of the empty cups underneath, waiting for the machine to dispense the fluid.

This has never happened to me before, recognizing a perfect stranger. I can’t say anything to Jake. It would sound too weird. It is weird.

She’s skinny and frail, this girl. Something’s not right. I feel bad for her. Her dark hair is long and plain and falls over her back and much of her face. Her hands are small. She’s not wearing any jewelry, no necklace or rings. She appears fragile and anxious. She has a rash. A bad one.

Starting an inch or so above her wrist are raised bumps, just large enough for me to see. They get worse, redder, up her elbow. I’m looking intensely at her rash. It looks sore and itchy. It’s dry, too, and flaky. She must be scratching it. When I look up she’s looking at me. Staring. I feel my face blush, divert my eyes to the floor.

Jake isn’t paying any attention. I sense that she’s still looking at me, though. I hear one of the girls snicker. The skinny one lids the cup and puts it down on the counter. Her hand moves up and her fingers start to scratch her rash. Not aggressively. I don’t want to keep looking. She’s sort of picking at the bumps, almost trying to dig them out of her arm. There’s a tremble, now, in her hand.

The machine whirls on. Of course, none of these girls wants to be here. This antiseptic Dairy Queen with fridges and freezers and fluorescent lighting and metal appliances and red spoons, straws wrapped in plastic, and cup dispensers and the quiet but constant buzz overhead.

It would be even harder if two of your coworkers were picking on you. Is that why the skinny girl seems distraught?

It’s not just this Dairy Queen — it’s this place, this town, if it is a town. I’m unclear what makes a town a town, or when a town becomes a city. Maybe this isn’t either. It feels lost, detached. Hidden from the world. I’d go moldy out here if I couldn’t leave, if there was nowhere else to go.

Somewhere inside the silver machine, ice is being crushed and blended with concentrated lemon juice and lots of liquid sugar. No dairy, but it’ll be sweet, I’m sure of that.

The icy lemonade flows out of the machine into the second cup. When it’s full, the machine stops, and the girl puts a plastic cover on it, too. She carries them over to where I’m standing. Up close, she looks even worse. It’s her eyes.

“Thanks,” I say, reaching for the lemonade. I’m not expecting an answer, so I am taken aback when she speaks.

“I’m worried,” she mumbles, more to herself than me. I look around to see if the other girls hear her. They aren’t paying attention. Neither is Jake.

“Excuse me?”

She’s looking down at the floor. She’s holding her hands in front of her.

“I shouldn’t be saying this, I know I shouldn’t. I know what happens. I’m scared. I know. It’s not good. It’s bad.”

“Are you okay?”

“You don’t have to go.”

I can feel my pulse skipping ahead. Jake is getting straws, I think, and napkins from the dispenser. We won’t need spoons after all.

One of the girls laughs, louder this time. The skinny girl in front of me is still looking down, hair covering her face.

“What are you scared of?”

“It’s not what I’m scared of. It’s who I’m scared for.”

“Who are you scared for?”

She picks up the cups. “For you,” she says, handing me the cups before disappearing back into the kitchen.

JAKE IS OBLIVIOUS, AS USUAL. We get back to the car, and he doesn’t mention anything about the girls in the Dairy Queen. At times he can be very unaware, very self-obsessed.

“Did you see that girl?”

“Which one?”

“The one who made the lemonades?”

“There were several girls.”

“No, only one girl made the drinks. Skinny. Long hair.”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know. Weren’t they all skinny?”

I want to say more. I want to talk about that girl and her rash and her sad eyes. I want to tell him what she said. I hope she has someone to talk to. I want to understand why she’s afraid. It doesn’t make sense for her to be afraid for me.

“How’s your drink?” Jake asks. “Too sweet?”

“It’s okay. Not too sweet.”

“That’s why I don’t like getting those iced drinks, the lemonades and slushies, because they’re always cloyingly sweet. I should have gotten a Blizzard.”

“It must be nice to be able to have ice cream when you want it.”

“You know what I’m saying.”

I shake the cup in my hand and push the straw down and up, the friction making a squeaking sound. “It’s sour, too,” I say. “Fake sour, but sour. It evens out the sweet.”

Jake’s drink is melting in the cup holder. Soon it will be completely liquid. He’s drunk about half.

“I always forget how hard these are to finish. I only needed a small. There’s nothing medium about the medium.”

I lean forward and turn up the heat.

“Cold?” asks Jake.

“Yeah, a little. Probably from the lemonade.”

“We’re also in a snowstorm. Whose idea was it to get iced drinks, anyway?”

He looks at me and raises his eyebrows.

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” he says. “I get sick of these after four sips.”

“I’m not saying anything,” I say, raising both hands. “Not a word.”

We both laugh.

This will probably be the last time I’m in a car with Jake. It seems a shame when he’s like this, joking, almost happy. Maybe I shouldn’t end things. Maybe I should stop thinking about it and just enjoy him. Enjoy us. Enjoy getting to know someone. Why am I putting so much pressure on us? Maybe I will eventually fall in love and lose any fears I have. Maybe it will get better. Maybe that’s possible. Maybe that’s how it works with time and effort. But if you can’t tell the other person what you’re thinking, what does that mean?

I think that’s a bad sign. What if he was thinking the same things about me right now? What if he was the one thinking about ending things but also was still having fun, or not entirely sick of me yet, so was keeping me around just to see what would happen. If that’s what was going on in his head, I’d be upset.

I should end it. I have to.

Whenever I hear the “it’s not you, it’s me” cliché, it’s hard not to laugh. But it really is true in this case. Jake is just Jake. He’s a good person. He’s smart and handsome, in his way. If he were an asshole or stupid or mean or ugly or anything, then it would be his fault that I end things, kind of. But he’s not any of those things. He’s a person. I just don’t think the two of us are a match. An ingredient is missing, and, if I’m being honest, it always has been.

So that’s probably what I’ll say: It’s not you, it’s me. It’s my issue. I’m the one with the problem. I’m putting you in an unfair position. You’re a good person. I need to work through some things. You need to move on. We tried, we did. And you never know what’ll happen in the future.

“Looks like you’re done,” says Jake.

I realize I’ve put my lemonade in the cup holder. It’s melting. I am done. Done.

“I’m cold. It’s interesting to watch things melt and feel cold.”

“That was a bit of a wasted stop.” He looks at me. “Sorry.”

“At least I can say I’ve been to a Dairy Queen in the middle of nowhere in a snowstorm. That’s something I’ll never do again.”

“We should get rid of these cups. They’ll melt and the cup holders will get sticky.”

“Yeah,” I say.

“I think I know where we can go.”

“You mean to throw them out?”

“If we keep going, up ahead, there’s a road on the left. Down that road a bit is a school, a high school. We can get rid of the cups there.”

Is it really that important to get rid of these cups? Why would we stop just to do that?

“It’s not far, is it?” I ask. “The snow’s not gonna get any better. I’d really like to get home.”

“Not too far, I don’t think. I just don’t want to throw the cups out the window. It’ll give you a chance to see a bit more of this area.”

I’m not sure if he’s joking about “seeing” more of this area. I look out the window. It’s just a mix of blowing snow and darkness.

“You know what I mean,” he says.

Several more minutes down the road, we come to the left turn. Jake takes it. If I thought the original road was a back road, this one redefines the concept of back road. It’s not wide enough for two cars. It’s heavily treed, a forest.

“Down here,” says Jake. “I remember this now.”

“You didn’t go to this school, though, did you? It’s far from your house.”

“I was never a student here. But I’ve driven down here before.”

The road is narrow and snakes back and forth. I can see only what the headlights allow. The trees have given way to fields. The visibility is still almost zero. I put the back of my hand on my window. The glass is cold.

“How far along is it, exactly?”

“I don’t think much farther. I can’t remember.”

I’m wondering why we are doing this. Why don’t we just leave the drinks to melt? I would rather get home and clean up myself than spend however long driving deeper into these fields. Nothing makes sense. I want this to end.

“I bet it’s nice during the day,” I say. “Peaceful.” Trying to be positive.

“Yeah, definitely remote.”

“How’s the road?”

“Messy, slick; I’m going slow. It hasn’t been plowed yet. It shouldn’t be much farther. Sorry, I thought it was closer.”

I’m starting to feel anxious. Not really. A bit. It’s been a long night. The drive there, the walk around the farm, meeting his parents. His mom. What his dad said. His brother. And thinking about ending things this entire time. Everything. And now this detour.

“Look,” he says, “I knew it. Up there. I knew it. You see? That’s it.”

A few hundred yards ahead, on the right, is a large building. I can’t make out much beyond that.

Finally. After this, maybe we can get home.

HE WAS RIGHT IN THE end; I’m glad to see this school. It’s massive. There must be two thousand students who attend every day. It’s one of those big, old, rural high schools. I have no idea, obviously, what the student body is, but it’s got to be huge. And down such a long, narrow road.

“You didn’t think it would look like this, did you?” he says.

I’m not sure what I was expecting. Not this.

“What’s a school doing out here in the middle of nowhere?”

“There’ll be somewhere to get rid of these cups.” Jake slows the car as we pull up in front and drive by.

“There,” I say. “Right there.”

There’s a bike rack with a single-gear bike locked up and a green garbage bin up in front of a bank of windows.

“Precisely,” he says. “ ’Kay, I’ll be right back.”

He grabs both cups in one hand, using his thumb and index finger as pincers. He knees open his door, gets out, and swings it shut with a loud thud. He leaves the car running.

I watch Jake walk past the bike rack toward the garbage can. That pigeon-toed walk, stooped shoulders, head bent. If I saw him for the first time right now, I’d assume his hunch was because of the cold, the snow. But that’s just him. I know his walk, his posture. I recognize it. It’s a lope, indelicately long, slow strides. Put him and a few others on treadmills and show me their legs and feet. I could pick him out of a police lineup based only on his walk.

I look through the windshield at the wipers. They make this motorized friction sound. They’re too tight on the glass. Jake’s holding the cups in one hand. He has the lid of the garbage can in his other hand. He’s looking into the bin. Come on, hurry up, throw them out.

He’s just standing there. What’s he doing?

He looks back at the car, at me. He shrugs. He puts the top back on the garbage and walks straight ahead, away from the car. Where’s he going? He stops at the corner of the school for a moment, then continues right, out of sight around the side of the school. He still has the cups.

Why didn’t he throw them out?

It’s dark. There are no streetlights. I guess there haven’t been since we turned onto this back road. I hadn’t really noticed. The only light is a single yellow flood from the school’s roof. Jake had mentioned how dark it is in the country. I was less aware of it at the farm. Here it’s definitely dark.

Where is he going? I lean over to my left and flip the headlights off. The lot in front of me disappears. Only a lone light for the entire school yard. So much darkness, so much space. The snow is getting really heavy.

I haven’t spent much time outside of any school at night, let alone such a rural one in the middle of nowhere. Who actually goes to this school? Must be farmers’ kids. They must be bussed in. But there are no houses around. There’s nothing here. One road, trees, and fields and fields.

I remember once I had to go back to my high school late at night. I was sometimes there during the first hour or so after school for events or meetings. That never felt much different from normal school hours. But once I returned after supper, when everyone was gone, when it was dark. No teachers. No students. I’d forgotten something, but I can’t remember what it was.

I was surprised the front door was open. At first I’d knocked on the double doors, assuming they were locked. It seemed weird to knock on the school doors, but I tried anyhow. Then I grabbed the handle, and it was open. I slipped inside. It was so quiet and deserted and the very opposite of what school was normally like. I’d never been alone in school.

My locker was at the other side of the school, so I had to walk along the empty halls. I came up to my English classroom. I was going to walk right by, but stopped at the door. All the chairs were up on the desks. The garbage cans were out in the hall, near me. A custodian was in there, cleaning up. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be in there, but lingered anyway. For a moment, I watched him.

He had glasses and shaggy hair. He was sweeping. He wasn’t moving fast. He was taking his time. I’d never considered before how our classrooms were perpetually tidy. We came in every day for our lesson, occupied the room, and then left for home, leaving our mess behind. The next day, we’d arrive and the classroom was clean. We’d mess it up again. And the next day, all traces of our mess were gone. I didn’t even notice. None of us did. I would have noticed only if the mess had not been cleaned.

The custodian was playing a tape on a ghetto-blaster thing. It wasn’t music but a story, like a book on tape. It was cranked up so loud. A single voice. A narrator. The custodian was meticulous in his work. He didn’t see me.

THOSE GIRLS. THE ONES FROM the Dairy Queen. They are probably students at this school. Seems like a long way for them to come. But back where the Dairy Queen was must be the closest town. I flip the headlights back on. Where is Jake? What’s he doing?

I open my door. It’s snowing harder for sure, hard enough to land, melt, and wet the inside of the door. I lean out, squinting into the darkness.

“Jake? What are you doing? Come on.”

No answer. I hold the door open for several seconds, face in the wind, listening.

“Jake, let’s go!”

Nothing.

I close the door. I have no idea where I am. I don’t think I could point out my location on a map. I know I couldn’t. This place probably isn’t on a map. And Jake has left me. I’m alone now. By myself. In this car. I haven’t seen a single vehicle pass, not that I’ve been paying attention. But clearly no cars come down this road, not at night. I can’t remember the last time I was sitting in a car in an unknown place. I lean over to honk the horn, once, twice. A third, long, aggressive honk. I should have been in bed hours ago.

Nowhere. This is nowhere. This isn’t a city or town. This is fields, trees, snow, wind, sky, but it isn’t anything. What would those girls at the Dairy Queen think if they saw us here? The one with the rash on her arm. The raised bumps. She would wonder why we’d stopped here at this time of night, why we were at her high school. I felt for that girl. I would have liked to talk to her more. Why did she say that to me? Why was she scared? Maybe I could have helped her. Maybe I should have done something.

I imagine school isn’t a nice place for her. It’s probably lonely. I bet she doesn’t like being here. She’s smart and capable, but for various reasons prefers leaving school to arriving. School should be a place she likes, where she feels welcome. I bet it’s not. That’s just my feeling. Maybe I’m reading into things.

I open the glove box. It’s full. Not with the usual maps and documents. Balled-up Kleenex. Are they used? Or just balled up? There are lots of them. One has something red on it. Spots of blood? I move the Kleenex around. There’s a pencil in here, too. A notepad. Under the notepad are some photographs, and a couple of discarded candy wrappers.

“What are you doing?”

He’s leaning into the car, about to sit, red-faced, snow on his shoulders and head.

“Jake! Jesus, you scared me.” I shut the glove box. “What were you doing out there for so long? Where’d you go?”

“I was getting rid of the cups.”

“Come on,” I say. “Get in, quick. Let’s go.”

He closes his door, then reaches across me and opens the glove box. He looks in, and then shuts it again. The snow on him is melting. His bangs are messy and stuck to his forehead. His glasses fog up from the warmth of the car. He is pretty handsome, especially with red cheeks.

“Why didn’t you just throw the cups out in that garbage can? You were right there. I saw you.”

“It wasn’t a garbage can. What were you looking for in the glove box?”

“Nothing. I wasn’t looking. I was waiting for you. What do you mean it wasn’t a garbage can?”

“It’s filled with road salt. For when it’s icy. I figured there was probably a Dumpster back there,” he says, removing his glasses. It takes him a few tries to find a piece of satisfactory shirt, under his coat, to dry and defog his glasses. I’ve seen him do this before, dry his glasses on his shirt.

“And then there it was. The Dumpster. But I went a little farther. It’s a huge field back there. It just seems to keep going on and on forever. I couldn’t see anything beyond it.”

“I don’t like it here,” I say. “I had no clue what you were doing. You must be freezing. Why is there such a big school out in the middle of nowhere, anyway, with no houses around? You need to have houses and people and kids if you’re gonna have a school.”

“This school’s old. It’s been here forever. That’s why it’s in such rough shape. Every farm kid in a forty-mile radius goes here.”

“Or did.”

“What do you mean?”

“We don’t know whether it’s still open, do we? Maybe this school is closed and hasn’t been torn down yet. You just said it’s in crap condition. I don’t know. It feels empty here. Void.”

“It might just be closed for the holidays. That could be. Have schools started up again?”

“I don’t know. I’m just saying it’s the feeling I get.”

“Why would they have road salt in the bin if the school wasn’t operational?”

This is true. I can’t explain it.

“It’s very humid in here,” Jake says. He’s using the bottom of his shirt to dry his face now, still holding his glasses in one hand. “There was a truck back there. So, sadly, your theory that the school is derelict and void of life is bunk.”

He’s the only guy I know who uses the word sadly in conversation like he just did. And bunk.

“Back where?”

“Back behind the school. Where I found the Dumpster. There’s a black truck.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, a rusty old black pickup.”

“Maybe it’s abandoned. If it’s a beater, behind an old shitty school way out in the middle of nowhere, this would be an ideal place to trash it. Maybe the best place.”

Jake looks at me. He’s thinking. I’ve seen this expression before. Seeing these mannerisms of his that I know, that I like, am attracted to, it’s endearing and comforting. It makes me glad he’s here. He puts his glasses back on.

“The exhaust was dripping.”

“So?”

“So, the truck has been driven. Condensation from the exhaust pipe means the engine was running recently. It hasn’t just been sitting there. I think there were tracks in the snow, too, maybe. But definitely exhaust drips.”

I’m not sure what to say. I’m losing interest. Fast. “What does that mean anyway, a truck?”

“Means someone’s in there,” he says. “Like a worker, maybe, I don’t know, something like that. Someone’s in the school, that’s all.”

I wait for a while before I speak. Jake’s tense, I can tell. I don’t know why.

“No, it could be anything. Could be—”

“No,” he snaps. “That’s what it is. Someone is in there. Someone who wouldn’t be here if he didn’t have to be. If he could be somewhere else, anywhere else, that’s where he’d be.”

“Okay, I’m just saying. I don’t know. Maybe there was a car pool and a vehicle was left behind. Or something.”

“He’s in there alone, working. A janitor. Cleaning up after all those kids. That’s what he does all night while everyone sleeps. Clogged toilets. Garbage bags. Wasted food. Teenage boys piss on a bathroom floor for fun. Think about it.”

I look away from Jake, out my window to the school. It must be hard to keep this big building clean. After all those students have spent a day in there, it would be in shambles. Especially the bathrooms and cafeteria. And then it’s up to one person to clean the whole thing? In just a few hours? “Anyway, who cares, let’s just go. We’re already late as is. You have to work tomorrow.”

And my head. It’s starting to throb again. For the first time since we’ve left Dairy Queen, Jake removes the key from the ignition and pockets it. I forgot we were still idling. Sometimes you don’t notice sound until it’s gone. “What’s the rush all of a sudden? It’s not even midnight.”

“What?”

“It’s not that late. And with the snow. We’re already out here. It’s kinda nice and private. Let’s just wait for a bit.”

I don’t want to get into an argument. Not now, not here. Not when I’ve made my decision about Jake, about us. I turn away again and look out my window. How did I end up in this situation? I laugh out loud.

“What?” he asks.

“Nothing, it’s just…”

“Just what?”

“Really, it’s nothing. I was thinking about something funny that happened at work.”

He looks at me like he can’t believe I could tell such an obvious lie.

“What did you think of the farm? Of my parents?”

Now he asks me? After all this time? I hesitate. “It was fun to see where you grew up. I told you that.”

“Did you think it would be like that? Was it how you pictured it?”

“I don’t know what I thought. I haven’t spent much time in the country, or on a farm. I didn’t really have an idea of what it would be like. It was about what I thought, I guess, sure.”

“Did it surprise you?”

I shift in my seat, to the left, toward Jake. Strange questions. Out of character for Jake. Of course it was not really what I thought it would be like. “Why would you think it surprised me? Why?”

“I’m just curious what you thought. Did it seem like a nice place to grow up?”

“Your parents were sweet. It was kind of them to invite me. I liked your dad’s glasses string. He has an old-timey appeal to him. He invited us to stay over.”

“He did?”

“Yeah. He said he’d make coffee.”

“Did they seem happy to you?”

“Your folks?”

“Yeah, I’m curious. I’ve been wondering about them lately. How happy they are. They’ve been under stress. I worry about them.”

“They seemed fine. Your mom is having a tough time, but your dad is supportive.”

Were they happy? I’m not sure. His parents didn’t seem explicitly unhappy. There was that argument, the stuff I overheard. The vague bickering after dinner. It’s hard to say what happy is. Something did seem a little off. Maybe it had to do with Jake’s brother. I don’t know. As he said, they seemed to be under stress.

A hand touches my leg. “I’m glad you came.”

“Me, too,” I say.

“Really, it means a lot. I’ve been wanting you to see that place for a long time.”

He leans in and kisses my neck. I’m not expecting it. I feel my body tense and brace against the seat. He moves closer, pulling me in. His hand is up my shirt, over my bra, back down. It moves over my bare stomach, my side, my lower back.

His left hand strokes my face, my cheek. His hand is around to the back of my head, brushing hair behind my ear. My head falls against the headrest. He kisses my earlobe, behind my ear.

“Jake,” I say.

Jake pushes my coat aside and pulls my shirt up. We pause as the shirt blocks us. He rips it the rest of the way over my head and lets the shirt drop at my feet. He feels good. His hands. His face. I shouldn’t do this. Not when I’m thinking of ending things. But he feels good right now. He does.

He’s kissing near my bare shoulder, where my neck and shoulder meet.

Maybe it’s too soon to know. It doesn’t matter. God. I just want him to keep doing what he’s doing. I want to kiss him.

“Steph,” he whispers.

I stop. “What?”

He moans, kissing my neck.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

Did he call me Steph? Did he? I lean my head back as he starts kissing my chest. I close my eyes.

“What the fuck!” he says.

Jake tenses, recoils, and then leans over me again, shielding me. A shudder runs through me. He rubs his hand on the window, clearing some condensation away.

“What the fuck!” he says again, louder.

“What?” I’m reaching now for my shirt on the floor. “What’s wrong?”

“Shit,” he says, still leaning across me. “Like I said, there’s someone in the school. Sit up. Quick. Put your shirt on. Hurry up.”

“What?”

“I don’t want to startle you. Just sit up. He can see us. He was looking.”

“Jake? What are you talking about?”

“He was staring at us.”

I feel unease, a pit in my stomach.

“I can’t find my shirt. It’s down here on the floor somewhere.”

“When I looked up, over your shoulder. I saw someone. It was a man.”

“A man?”

“A man. He was standing at that window, there, and he wasn’t moving or anything, just staring, right at the car, at us. He could see us.”

“This is creeping me out, Jake. I don’t like this. Why was he looking at us?”

“I don’t know, but it’s not right.”

Jake is rattled, upset.

“Are you sure there was someone there? I can’t see anyone.”

I turn in my seat toward the school. I’m trying to stay calm. I don’t want to upset him further. I see the windows he’s talking about. But there’s no one. Nothing. If someone had been there, they could have seen us, easily.

“I’m positive. I saw him. He was… staring at us. He was enjoying watching us. It’s sick.”

I’ve found my shirt and slip it on over my head. The car is getting cold with the engine off. I need to put my coat back on.

“Relax; let’s just go. Like you said, probably some bored old janitor. He probably hasn’t seen anyone out here this late before. That’s all.”

“Relax? No, this is fucking bullshit. He wasn’t concerned. He wasn’t wondering if we were okay. He wasn’t bored. He was staring at us.”

“What do you mean?”

“He was leering. It’s fucked-up.”

I put both hands over my face and close my eyes. “Jake, I don’t care. Let’s go.”

“I care. He’s a fucking pervert. He was doing something. I’m sure of it. The guy’s fucked up. He liked looking at us.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw him. I know him. Or guys like him, I mean. He should be ashamed of himself. There was a wave or a movement of his hand, a wavelike gesture. He knows.”

“Calm down. I don’t think he was doing anything. How can you know for sure?”

“I can’t just ignore it. I can’t. I can see him.”

“Jake, can we please just go? Listen, I’m asking you. Please.”

“I’m going to give him shit. He can’t do this.”

“What? No. Forget it. Let’s go. We’re going.”

I reach over but Jake shoves my hand, not softly. He’s shaking his head. He’s mad. It’s his eyes. His hands are trembling.

“We’re not going anywhere until I talk to him. It’s not right.”

I’ve never seen Jake like this, not even close to this. He pushes my hand away, violently. I need to calm him down.

“Jake. Come on. Look at me for a second. Jake?”

“We’re not leaving until I talk to him.”

I watch in disbelief as he opens his door. What’s happening? What’s he doing? I reach over, grab his right arm.

“Jake? It’s a snowstorm! Get back in the car. Forget it. Jake. Let’s go, seriously.”

“Wait here.”

It’s a command, not a suggestion. Without looking back at me, he slams the door shut.

“What? So stupid,” I say to the empty, quiet car. “God.”

I watch him march around the side of the school until he’s out of sight. Almost a minute goes by before I even move. What just happened?

I’m confused. I don’t understand. I thought I knew Jake better, thought I could at least predict his moods and reactions. This seems entirely out of character. His voice and language. He doesn’t usually swear.

I had no idea he had a temper.

I’ve heard about people with a short fuse, road rage and things like that. Jake just had one of those moments. There was nothing I could say or do to bring him back to his senses. He left all on his own and wasn’t going to listen to me.

I don’t get why he needed to talk to this guy, or yell at him, or whatever it is he’s going to do. Why not just leave it? The guy saw a car out front and wondered who was in it. That’s all. I’d be curious, too.

I guess I didn’t realize Jake was capable of such emotion. It’s actually what I’ve wanted, I think. He’s never shown any sign of it. He’s never shown extreme anything. That’s why it’s so weird. I should have gone with him. Or at least suggested it. That might have made him realize how stupid it was to go storming in there.

I find my jacket on the floor of the backseat and put it on.

I could have tried to relax him more. I could have made a joke or something. It just, it all happened so fast. I look toward the school, the side where Jake went. Snow still falling. Heavy and windy. We shouldn’t even be driving, not when it’s like this.

I guess I can understand why it upset him. He did have my shirt off. We were going to have sex. We could have. Jake felt vulnerable. Vulnerability makes us lose our ability to think straight. But I was the one with my shirt off. And I just wanted to leave. Just drive away. That’s what we should have done.

Jake saw the guy. If I’d looked up and seen a man staring at us through the school’s window when we were like that, in that position, regardless of what the man was doing, maybe I would have lost my temper, too. Especially if this guy was a weird-looking man. I definitely would have been freaked out.

Who is this guy?

A night worker? A janitor, as Jake suggested? That’s the only thing that makes sense, but seems outdated somehow.

What a job, night custodian. In there all alone, night after night. And especially this school. Out here in the country, no one around. Maybe he likes it, though, enjoys the solitude. He can clean the school at the pace he wants. He can just do his job. There’s no one to tell him how or when to do it. As long as he gets it done. That’s the way to work. He’s developed a routine over all these years and can do it without even thinking. Even if there were people around, no one would notice the custodian.

It’s a job I can appreciate. Not the cleaning and sweeping. But being alone, the solitude. He has to be up all night, but he doesn’t have to deal with any of the students, doesn’t have to see how careless they are, how messy, sloppy, and dirty. But he knows better than anyone because he has to deal with the fallout. No one else does.

If I could work alone, I think I’d prefer it. I’m almost certain I would. No small talk, no upcoming plans to discuss. No one leaning over your desk to ask questions. You just do your work. If I could work mostly alone, and was still living alone, things would be easier. Everything would be a little more natural.

Regardless, alone in there all night, especially in such a big school. It is a creepy job. I look back at the school, dark and quiet, like inside the car.

The only book Jake has given me, and he gave it to me about a week after we met, is called The Loser. It’s by this German author, somebody Bernhard. He’s dead now, and I didn’t know about the book until Jake gave it to me. Jake wrote “Another sad story” on the inside cover.

The entire book is a single-paragraph monologue. Jake underlined one section. “To exist means nothing other than we despair… for we don’t exist, we get existed.” I kept thinking about what that meant after I read it. Another sad story.

I hear an abrupt metallic clang from somewhere to my right, from the school. It startles me. I turn toward the sound. Nothing but the swirling snow. No sign of movement or light, beyond the yellow flood. I wait for another sound but it doesn’t come.

Was there movement at the window? I can’t tell. I definitely heard something. I’m sure I did.

The snow is everywhere. It’s hard to see the road we came in on. It’s only about fifty yards or so away. It’s frigid in here. I instinctively put my hand up in front of the vent. Jake turned the car off. Took the keys with him. He did it without thinking.

Another loud clang. And another. My heart skips ahead, beating faster, heavier. I turn and look out my window again. I don’t want to look anymore. I don’t like this. I want to go. I really want to go now. I want this to end. Where is Jake? What’s he doing? How long has he been gone? Where are we?

I am someone who spends a lot of time alone. I cherish my solitude. Jake thinks I spend too much time alone. He might be right. But I don’t want to be alone now. Not here. Like Jake and I were talking about on the drive, context is everything.

There is a fourth bang. It’s the loudest yet. It’s definitely coming from inside the school. This is stupid. It’s Jake who has to work in the morning, not me. I can sleep in. Why did I agree to this? I shouldn’t have come with him. I should have ended things long ago. How did I end up here? I shouldn’t have agreed to visit his parents, to visit the house he grew up in. That wasn’t fair. But I was curious. I should be home, reading, or sleeping. It wasn’t the right time. I should be in bed. I knew Jake and I weren’t going to last. I did. I knew from the beginning. Now I’m sitting in this stupid, freezing car. I open my door. More cold rushes in.

“JAAAAAAAKE!”

No answer. How long has it been? Ten minutes? Longer? Shouldn’t he be back by now? It happened so fast. He was obsessed with confronting that man. Does that mean talking to him, or yelling or fighting or…? What’s the point?

It is almost like Jake is upset about something else, something I’m not aware of. Maybe I should go in and look for him. I can’t wait here in the car forever. He told me to stay here. It was the last thing he said.

I don’t care if he’s mad. He shouldn’t have left me out here all alone. In the dark. In the cold. Thinking of ending things. It’s crazy. We’re in the fucking middle of fucking nowhere. This is really unfair and shitty. How long am I supposed to sit here?

But what else can I do? I don’t have many other options. I have to stay. There’s nowhere to walk to from here. It’s too cold and dark, anyway. There’s no way to call someone, because my stupid phone is dead. I have to wait. But I don’t want to just sit here in the cold. It’ll just keep getting colder. I have to find him.

I turn around and run my hand along the floor behind the driver’s seat. I’m trying to find Jake’s wool hat. I saw him put it there when we first got into the car. I feel it. It’ll be a bit big for me, but I’ll need it. I put it on. It’s not too big. It fits better than expected.

I open the car door, swing my legs out, and stand up. I shut the door without slamming it.

I move slowly toward the school. I’m shivering. All I can hear are my feet on the pavement, crunching snow. It’s a dark night. Dark. It must always be dark out here. My breath is visible but evaporates around me. The snow is falling on an angle with the wind. For a few seconds, a moment, I’m not sure how long, I look up at the sky, all the stars. It’s unusual that I can see so many stars. I would have assumed the storm would bring clouds. Stars. Everywhere.

I get up to the school window and peer in. I visor my eyes with my hands. There are blinds, from floor to ceiling. I can’t see anyone through the cracks. It looks like a library or an office. There are bookshelves. I knock on the cold glass. I look back at the car. I’m about thirty feet from it. I knock again, harder this time.

I see the green garbage can. I walk over to it and remove the lid. Jake was right. It’s half full of beige salt. I replace the lid. It doesn’t fit. It’s dented and warped. I can’t go sit in that car again. I have to go look for Jake. I walk toward the side of the school where Jake went. I can still make out his steps, barely.

I was expecting to find a play structure out here. But this is a high school; they wouldn’t have one. I turn the corner, following Jake’s path. I begged him to stay in the car with me. We don’t have to be here.

I see two green Dumpsters up ahead, and beyond them, more darkness, fields. Those must be the Dumpsters where he got rid of the cups. Where is he?

“Jake!” I call, walking toward the Dumpsters. I’m feeling uneasy, skittish. I don’t love it here. I don’t like being here alone. “What are you doing? Jake? JAAAKE?”

I can’t hear anything. The wind. On my left is a basketball court. There’s no mesh or chain on the bent rims. I see soccer goalposts ahead in the field. There is no netting on them. Rusty soccer posts at either end of the field.

Why did we stop here? Did I really need confirmation to end things? I’m going to be single for a long time, probably forever, and I’m fine with that. I am. I’m happy on my own. Lonely, but content. Being alone isn’t the worst thing. It’s okay to be lonely. I can deal with loneliness. We can’t have everything. I can’t have everything.

I see a door ahead, just beyond the Dumpsters. Jake must be in the school.

The wind is worse behind the school. It’s like a wind tunnel. I have to hold the top of my jacket together. I walk steadily, head down, toward the windows by the door.

We weren’t going to last. I knew it. I did. He was excited about this trip under the perception of our advancing relationship. He wouldn’t have wanted me at his parents’ place had he known everything I was thinking. It’s so rare for others to know everything we’re thinking. Even those we’re closest to, or seemingly closest to. Maybe it’s impossible. Maybe even in the longest, closest, most successful marriages, the one partner doesn’t always know what the other is thinking. We’re never inside someone else’s head. We can never really know someone else’s thoughts. And it’s thoughts that count. Thought is reality. Actions can be faked.

I get up to the windows and look in. A long hall. I can’t see all the way to the end. It’s dark. I knock on the glass. I want to yell but know it won’t do anything.

Something moves at the far end of the hall. Is it Jake? I don’t think it is. Jake was right. Someone. Someone’s in there.

I duck down, away from the window. My heart almost explodes. I peer back in. I can’t hear anything. There is someone! It’s a man.

A very tall figure. There’s something dangling from his arm. He’s facing this way. He’s not moving. I don’t think he can see me. Not from so far away. Why isn’t he moving? What’s he doing? He’s just standing there. Motionless.

It’s a broom or mop that he’s holding. I want to stare but am suddenly too scared. I pull my head back to the brick wall. I don’t want him to see me. I close my eyes and cover my mouth with my hand. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t. I’m breathing through my nostrils, sucking air in and pushing it out forcefully, anxiously.

I feel like I’m underwater, weighed down, helpless. I can feel my pulse jumping, jumping. Maybe he can help me. Maybe I should ask him where Jake is. I wait for twenty seconds or so and very slowly lean my head forward to get another look.

He’s still there, in the same spot. Standing, looking this way. Looking at me. I want to yell out, “What have you done with Jake?” But why would I? How do I know if he’s done anything to Jake? I need to keep still, quiet. I’m too scared. He’s a tall, skinny figure. I can’t see clearly enough. The hall is so long. He looks old, maybe stoop-shouldered. He’s wearing dark-blue pants, I think. A dark shirt, too: looks like work clothes.

What’s on his hands? Yellow gloves? Rubber gloves? The yellow extends halfway up his forearms. There’s something on his head. I can’t see his face. It’s a mask. I shouldn’t look. I should stay down, hidden. I should be looking for a way out of this. I’m sweating. I can feel it on my neck, my back.

He’s holding the mop. He might be moving it around the floor now. I’m squinting hard. He’s moving. Almost like he’s dancing with the mop.

I lean back against the wall, out of sight. When I look again, he’s gone. No, he’s there! He’s on the floor. He’s lying facedown on the floor. His arms are tucked along his sides. He’s just lying there. His head might be moving, from side to side. Up and down a bit, too, maybe. I don’t like this. Is he crawling? He is. He’s crawling, slithering down the hall, off to his right.

This isn’t good. I have to find Jake. We have to get out of here. We have to leave right now. This is seriously wrong.

I run to the side door. I have to go in.

I pull the handle. It’s open. I step through. The floor is tiled. The hall is very dimly lit and stretches out in front of me, endless.

“Jake?”

There’s a distinct smell in here, antiseptic, chemical, cleaning products. It won’t be good for my head. I’d forgotten about my headache but am reminded of it. A dull ache. Still there.

“Hello?”

I take a few steps. The door closes behind me with a heavy click.

“JAKE!”

There’s a wood-and-glass display case to my left. Trophies and plaques and banners. Farther ahead, on the right, must be the main office. I walk up to the office windows and look in. It looks old, the furniture, chairs, and carpet. There are several desks.

The rest of the hall ahead of me is all lockers. Dark ones, painted blue. As I move down the hall I pass doors in between the lockers. All the doors are closed. The lights are out. There’s another hall at the end of this one.

I go up to one of the doors and try it. It’s locked. There’s a single, vertical rectangular window. I look in. Desks and chairs. A typical classroom. The overhead lights in the hall seem to be on a dim setting. Maybe to conserve energy. They aren’t very bright in this hall.

My wet shoes squeak on the floor with each step. It would be hard to walk quietly. There’s a set of open double doors at the end of the hall. I get to those, look through, right, then left.

“Jake? Hello? Is anyone here? Hello?”

Nothing.

I walk through and turn left. More lockers. Except for the pattern on the floor, which is a different design and color, this hallway is identical to the other. Down the next hallway, I see an open door. It’s a wooden door, no window. But it’s wide-open. I walk down the hall and take a small step inside. I knock on the open door.

“Hello?”

The first thing I see is a silver bucket with grayish water in it. There’s something familiar about this room. I knew how it would look before I got here. The bucket’s the kind on four wheels. And there’s no mop. I think about calling for Jake again but don’t.

The room — it feels more like a large closet — is mostly empty, dingy. I take a couple of steps in and see there’s a calendar taped on the far wall. There’s a drain in the middle of the concrete floor. It looks wet.

At the back and left of the room, against the wall, is a wooden table. I don’t see a chair. Beside it is a closet. It’s not elaborate, just a tall closet. It looks like a coffin standing on its end.

I walk carefully, stepping over the drain, to the back. There are pictures on the wall, too. Photos. A dirty coffee cup on the table. One set of silverware. A plate. A white microwave on a desk. I lean in to look at the pictures. In one of the photos taped to the wall is a man and woman. A couple. Or maybe brother and sister; they look alike. The man is old. He’s tall, much taller than the woman. She has straight, gray hair. They both have long faces. Neither is smiling. Neither looks happy or sad. They’re stiff, expressionless. It’s an odd photo to display on a wall. Someone’s parents?

A few of the other photos are of a man. He doesn’t seem aware that his picture is being taken, or if he does, he’s reluctant. The top of his head isn’t in the photo; it’s cut out of the frame. In one, he’s sitting at a desk and it could be this desk. He’s leaning away and covering his face with his left hand. The quality isn’t very good. All the pictures are blotchy. Faded. This must be him, the man Jake saw, the one I saw in the hall.

I look closer, examining his face in the photos. His eyes are sad. They’re familiar. Something about his eyes.

My heartbeat has become noticeable, speeding up again. I can feel it. What was he doing before we arrived? There’s no way he could have known we, or anyone, would be here. I don’t know him.

In the middle of the desk, besides a few papers, is a piece of cloth, a rag, rumpled into a ball. I hadn’t noticed it at first. I pick it up. It’s clean and very soft, like it’s been washed hundreds, thousands of times.

But no. It’s not a rag at all. Once I unravel it, I see it’s a little shirt, for a child. It’s light blue with white polka dots. One of the sleeves is ripped. I turn it over. There’s a tiny paint stain in the middle of the spine. I drop it. I know this shirt. The polka dots, the paint stain. I recognize it. I had the same one.

This was my shirt. It couldn’t be my shirt. But it is. When I was a kid. I’m sure of it. How did it end up in here? On the other side of the desk is a small video camera. It’s attached to the back of a TV with two cables.

“Hello?” I say.

I pick up the camera. It’s old but still fairly light. I look at the TV and push the power button. It’s static. I want to leave. I don’t like this. I want to go home.

“Hey!” I yell. “Jake!”

I carefully put the camera back down on the desk. I try the play button. The screen flickers. It’s not just static anymore. I lean in toward the TV. The shot is of a room. A wall. I can hear something in the shot. I find the volume button on the TV and turn it up, loud. It’s like a humming or something. And breathing. Is it breathing? It’s this room. It’s the room I’m standing in. I recognize the wall, the photos, and the desk. The shot moves down now, lower, to the floor.

The image starts moving, leaves out the door, travels along the hall. I can hear slow steps of the person filming, steps like rubber boots on the tile floor. The pace is methodical, deliberate.

The camera enters a large room, what appears to be the school’s library. It moves purposefully, straight ahead, through rows of communal desks, stacks and shelves of books. There are windows at the back. It goes all the way to the windows. They are long, with floor-to-ceiling horizontal blinds. The camera stops, stays very still, and continues recording.

A hand or something, just out of the frame, moves one of the blinds slightly to the left. They jingle. The camera moves up and looks through a window. Outside is a truck. That’s the old pickup out back.

The shot zooms in on the truck. It draws in closer, shakier. The quality, zoomed in like this, isn’t great. There’s someone in the truck. Sitting in the driver’s seat. It almost looks like Jake. Is that Jake? No, it can’t be. But it really looks like…

The shot ends abruptly. Back to loud, fitful static. It startles me and I jump.

I have to get out of here. Now.

I walk back, fast, to the door I entered. I don’t know who the man in here is or what’s going on or where Jake is, but I need to get help. I can’t be here. I’ll run back toward the town; I don’t care if it takes me all night. I don’t care if I half freeze to death. I need to talk to someone. Maybe I can wave someone down when I get back to the main road. There have to be some cars out there, somewhere.

I’ve needed help since I got here.

I turn left and then right. I’m walking fast. Or trying to. I can’t get going as fast as I want, as if I’m walking through wet mud. The hall is empty. No sign of Jake.

I look around me. Darkness. Nothing. I know I’m not, I can’t be, but I feel alone. This school, busy and full during the day. Each locker represents a person, a life, a kid with interests and friends and ambitions. But that doesn’t mean anything right now, not a thing.

School is the place we all have to go. There is potential. School is about the future. Looking forward to something, progression, growing, maturing. It’s supposed to be safe here, but it has become the opposite. It feels like a prison.

The door is at the end of the hall. I can go back to the car and hope Jake returns, or try to get back to the main road on foot. Maybe Jake is already back at the car, waiting for me. Either way, I can regroup in the car, figure something out.

I get past the main office and see something glimmer from the door. What? Is that a chain? It can’t be. That’s the door I just came in. It is. A metal chain on the door. And a lock.

Someone’s chained the door and locked it. From the inside.

I turn and look back down the hall. If I stop moving, there’s no sound. No sound in here. This is the same door I came in through. It was open. Now, he’s locked it. It has to be him. I don’t understand what’s happening.

“Who’s in here? Who’s here? Hey! Jake! Please!”

Silence. I don’t feel well. This isn’t right.

I let my forehead fall against the door’s glass. It’s cold. I close my eyes. I just want to be out of here, back at my apartment, in my bed. I should never have gone with Jake.

I look out the window. The black pickup is still there. Where is he? “Jake!”

I run back down the hall, my shoes squeaking, to the windows at the front of the school. No! It can’t be. The car is gone. Jake’s car isn’t there. I don’t understand. He wouldn’t have left me here, not Jake. I turn away and run back down the same hall, back past the lockers to the door I came in, the door that’s now chained.

“Who’s here? Hey! What do you want?”

I see it. There’s a piece of paper. It’s stuck in one of the loops of the metal chain. A small, folded piece of paper. I take it, unfold it. My hands are shaking. A single line of messy handwriting:

There are more than 1,000,000 violent crimes in America every year. But what happens in this school?

I drop the paper and step away from it. A surge of deep fear and panic runs through me. He’s done something to Jake. And now he’s after me. I need to get away from this place. I have to stop yelling. I need to hide. I shouldn’t be yelling or making noise. He’ll know I’m right here, know where I am. Can he see me right now?

I need to find somewhere else to go. Not out in this open hall. A room, a desk to hide under.

I hear something. Steps. Slow. Rubber boots on the floor. The sound’s coming from the other hall. I need to hide. Now.

I run away from the steps, left down the hall. I go through a set of double doors into a large room with glowing vending machines at the back and long tables, a cafeteria. There’s a stage at the front of the room. There’s a single door at the far side. I run past the tables and through the door.

It opens into a stairwell. I need to keep going, farther away. My only option is to go up. I need to be quiet as I climb, but there’s an echo. I’m not sure if he’s following. I stop halfway up the stairs and listen. I can’t hear anything. There are no windows in this stairwell. I can still smell that same smell, the chemical scent. It’s even stronger in here. My head hurts.

Once I reach the landing, I’m sweating more. It’s pouring off me. I unzip my jacket. There’s a door to my right, or I can climb the stairs to a third floor. I try the door. It’s unlocked, and I go through. The door closes behind me.

Another hall of lockers and classrooms. There’s a water fountain directly to my left. I didn’t realize how thirsty I am. I bend down and take a sip. I splash some water onto my face and some around to the back of my neck. I’m out of breath. The hall up here looks very much like the one downstairs. These halls, this school, it’s all just a big maze. A trap.

Music starts playing through the PA system.

It’s not very loud. An old country song. I know it. “Hey, Good Lookin’.” The same song that radio station was playing in the car when Jake and I were driving to the farm. The same one.

There’s a long bench at the side of the hall. I get down on my knees and half lie, half crouch behind it, on my side. I’m mostly hidden here. The floor is hard. I can see if anyone comes through the door. I’m watching the door. The song plays through until the end. There is a second or two break, and then it starts up again from the beginning. I try to cover my ears but can still hear it, the same song. I’m trying, but I can’t hold it in any longer. I start to cry.

BEFORE RIGHT NOW, BEFORE THIS, before tonight, when anyone asked me about the scariest thing that ever happened to me, I told them the same story. I told them about Ms. Veal. Most people I tell don’t find this story scary. They seem bored, almost disappointed when I get to the end. My story is not like a movie, I’ll say. It’s not heart-stopping or intense or bloodcurdling or graphic or violent. No jump scares. To me, these qualities aren’t usually scary. Something that disorients, that unsettles what’s taken for granted, something that disturbs and disrupts reality — that’s scary.

Maybe the Ms. Veal incident isn’t scary to others because it lacks drama. It’s just life. But to me, that’s why it was scary. It still is.

I didn’t want to go and live with Ms. Veal.

The first time I met Ms. Veal was in my kitchen. I was seven. I’d been hearing her name for years. I knew she called my mom a lot. She called my mom to tell her all the bad things that had been happening to her. Mom would always listen. It wasn’t like Mom didn’t have her own issues. And these calls would go on for hours at a time.

Sometimes I’d answer when she called, and as soon as I heard her voice, I felt uneasy. Sometimes I would try to listen after my mom picked up another phone, but always within a few seconds she would say, “Yes, okay. I’ve got it, you can hang up now.”

Ms. Veal had a cast on her right hand. I remember Mom saying there was always something wrong with Ms. Veal, a tensor bandage on her wrist or a brace on her knee. Her face was the way I’d pictured her voice on the phone — sharp and old. She had curly reddish-brown hair.

She was over at our house because she was collecting our bacon fat. Mom used to keep our bacon fat in a container in the freezer. Ms. Veal made Yorkshire pudding with bacon fat but never cooked bacon herself. Every so often, Mom would meet her somewhere or go over to her house with the fat.

This one time, Mom invited Ms. Veal over. I was home sick from school and was sitting in the kitchen. Mom made tea; Ms. Veal brought her oatmeal cookies. The fat exchange took place, and then the two ladies sat and chatted over tea.

Ms. Veal never said hello to me or even looked at me. I was still in my pajamas. I had a fever. I was eating toast. I didn’t want to be sitting at the table with that woman. And then, Mom left the room. I can’t remember why; maybe she went to the bathroom. I was alone with her, that woman, Ms. Veal. I could barely move. Ms. Veal stopped what she was doing and looked at me.

“Are you good or are you bad?” she asked. She was playing with a strand of her hair, curling it around her finger. “If you give up, you’re bad.”

I didn’t know what she was talking about or what to say. No adult, especially one I didn’t know, had ever talked to me like that before.

“If you’re good, you can have a cookie. If you’re bad, then maybe you’ll have to come live with me instead of living here in this house with your parents.”

I was petrified. I couldn’t answer her question.

“You shouldn’t be so shy. You have to get over that.”

Her voice was just like it had been on the phone — whiny, high-pitched, and flat. There was nothing put on, nothing friendly or gentle about her. She glared at me.

I could barely talk to a stranger at the best of times. I didn’t like strangers and often felt humiliated when having to explain something or discuss even the smallest trivialities. I had trouble meeting people. I had a hard time making eye contact. I put my crust down on the plate and looked past her.

“Good,” I said after a while. I felt my face blush. I didn’t understand why she asked me this, and it scared me. I would get hot when I was scared or nervous. How does a person know if they are good or bad? I didn’t want a cookie.

“And what am I? What does your mom tell you about me? What does she say about me?”

She smiled in a way I’d never seen before. It stretched across her face like a wound. Her fingers were shiny and greasy from handling the fat jar.

When my mom came back into the room, Ms. Veal began transferring more fat from Mom’s jar to her own. She gave no indication that we’d been talking.

That night, Mom had food poisoning. She was up all night, vomiting, crying. I couldn’t sleep and heard the whole thing. It was her. It was Ms. Veal’s cookies that made Mom sick. I know it. Mom later said it was a fluke stomach issue, but I know the truth.

Mom and I ate the same thing for dinner, and I wasn’t sick. And this was no flu. Mom was fine by morning. A little dehydrated, but back to herself. It was food poisoning. She’d eaten a cookie. I hadn’t.

We can’t and don’t know what others are thinking. We can’t and don’t know what motivations people have for doing the things they do. Ever. Not entirely. This was my terrifying, youthful epiphany. We just never really know anyone. I don’t. Neither do you.

It’s amazing that relationships can form and last under the constraints of never fully knowing. Never knowing for sure what the other person is thinking. Never knowing for sure who a person is. We can’t do whatever we want. There are ways we have to act. There are things we have to say.

But we can think whatever we want.

Anyone can think anything. Thoughts are the only reality. It’s true. I’m sure of it now. Thoughts are never faked or bluffed. This simple realization has stayed with me. It has bothered me for years and years. It still does.

“Are you good or are you bad?”

What scares me most now is that I don’t know the answer.

I STAYED BEHIND THE BENCH for probably an hour. It could have been much longer. I’m not sure. How long is an hour? A minute? A year? My hip and knee went numb from the way I was positioned. I had to contort myself in an unnatural way. I’ve lost track of time. Of course you lose track of time when you’re alone. Time always passes.

That song kept replaying: “Hey, Good Lookin’ ” over and over and over. Twenty or thirty or a hundred times. It might have gotten louder, too. An hour is the same as two hours. An hour is forever. It’s hard to know. It’s only just stopped. It stopped halfway through a verse. I hate that song. I hate the way I had to listen to it. I didn’t want to listen. But now I know all the words by heart. When it stopped, it shocked me. It woke me up. I’d been lying down using Jake’s hat as a pillow.

I’ve decided I have to keep moving. No good lying down, hiding behind this bench. I’m a target. I’m too visible here. That’s the first thing Jake would tell me if he were here with me. But he’s not. My knee is really sore. My head is still aching, and spinning. I almost forgot about it. It’s just there. Jake would tell me to stop thinking about the pain, too.

You never think you’ll be in a situation like this. Being watched, stalked, held captive, alone. You hear about these things. You read about them from time to time. You feel sick about the possibility that someone would be capable of inflicting this kind of terror on another human. What’s wrong with people? Why do people do these things? Why do people end up in these situations? The possibility of evil shocks you. But you aren’t the target, so it’s okay. You forget about it. You move on. It’s not happening to you. It happened to someone else.

Until now. I stand up, trying to ignore my fear. I creep down the hall, silently, moving away from the bench, away from the stairwell I came up. I try a few doors. Everything’s locked. No exit from this place. These halls are bleak. There’s nothing on the walls, no sign of student existence. I’ve been down these same halls so many times. They repeat themselves, turn in upon themselves like an Escher drawing. When you think about it like this, it’s almost grotesque that some people spend so much time here.

All the garbage cans I’ve come across are clean and empty. Fresh bags. There’s no sitting waste. I look through them thinking there might be something I can use, something that might come in handy, something to help me move forward, to help me escape. They are all empty. Just empty black bags.

I’ve made my way to what must be the science wing. Have I been here before? I look in through the doors. Lab stations.

The doors are different in this hall. They’re heavier and blue, sky blue. There’s a large banner at the end of the hall, hand-painted. It’s an advertisement for the winter formal. A school dance. They’ll all be in here together, the students. So many of them. It’s the first sign of student existence that I’ve seen.

Dancing the night away. Tickets are $10. What are you waiting for? the banner reads.

I think I hear rubber boots. Footsteps somewhere.

It’s like I’ve been given a drug. I can’t move. I shouldn’t move. I’m incapacitated with fear. Frozen. I want to turn and scream and run, but I can’t. What if it’s Jake? What if he’s still here, locked in like me? If he were here, that would mean I’m not alone, that I would be safe.

I can get back to the stairwell. It’s just across the hall. I can get up to the third floor. Maybe Jake is there. I squeeze my eyes shut. I make fists with my hands. My heart is thumping. I hear the boots again. It’s him. He’s looking for me.

I exhale in a burst and feel sick. I’ve been in here too long.

I can feel my chest tightening. I’m going to vomit. I can’t do this.

I dart into the stairwell. He hasn’t seen me. I don’t think. I don’t know where he is. Upstairs, downstairs, over, under, somewhere else. I feel like he could be hiding, waiting, in my own shadow. I don’t know.

I just don’t know.

AN ART ROOM. UPSTAIRS. A different hall. A door that isn’t locked. This could be anywhere. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt relief like I did when the door to this room opened. I close it behind me, very slowly, but don’t latch it. I listen. I can’t hear anything. I might be able to hide in here, at least for a while. The first thing I do is try the phone fastened to the wall, but as soon as I dial more than three digits it beeps at me. I tried dialing nine first and even 911. It’s hopeless. Nothing works.

The teacher’s desk at the front of the room is tidy and neat. I open the top drawer. There might be something in the desk that I can use. I quickly rummage through the drawers and find a plastic retractable X-ACTO knife. But the blade has been removed. I drop it on the ground.

I hear something in the hall. I duck down behind the desk, close my eyes. More time. There are bottles of paint and brushes and supplies lining the back and side walls. The whiteboards are wiped clean.

I wonder how long I can stay in here. How long can a person last without the essentials, with no food, no water? Staying hidden like this is too passive. I need to be active.

I check the windows. The bottom window opens, but only enough to let in a little air. If there were a ledge or something out there, maybe I would consider jumping. Maybe. I open the window the full couple of inches. The cold air feels good on my hand. I leave my hand there, feeling the breeze. I bend down and breathe in what small amount of fresh air I can.

I used to love art class. I just wasn’t any good at it. I desperately wanted to be. I didn’t want to be competent and successful in math only. Art was different.

High school was such a strange time for me. For some people, it’s a peak. I did the work and got high marks. That wasn’t an issue. But all the socializing. The parties. The attempts to fit in. That wasn’t easy, even then. By the end of the day, I just wanted to get home.

I was unremarkable in the ways that matter in school. It was the worst type of oblivion, for years. I was scentless, invisible.

Adulthood. Late blooming. That’s me. Or it was supposed to be. That’s when it was supposed to finally get better. I’d get better then, everyone said. This is when I would start coming into my own.

I’ve been so careful. So self-aware. I’m confused less. I haven’t been reckless. I understand myself. My own limitless potential. There is so much potential. And now this. How did I get here? It’s not fair.

And Jake. It wasn’t going to work out between us. It’s not sustainable, but that’s irrelevant now. He will be fine without me, won’t he? He’s coming into his own. He’s going to do something big, that I know. He doesn’t need this. Me. His family doesn’t need this, either. They aren’t my kind of people, but that doesn’t matter. They’ve been through a lot. I probably don’t know the half of it. They probably think we’re back home now. They’re probably sound asleep.

This is not the end. It doesn’t have to be. I need to find him. And then I can back out, start again, try again. Begin at the beginning. Jake can, too.

It feels good to rest, by the window, to feel the air on my skin. I feel tired suddenly. Maybe I need to lie down. Go to sleep. Maybe even dream.

No. I can’t. No sleep. No more nightmares. No.

I have to move. I’m not free yet. I leave the window open and slink to the door.

My right foot hits something. A bottle. A plastic bottle of paint, lying on the floor. I pick it up. It’s half-empty. I have paint on my hands. There is paint on the outside of the bottle.

It’s wet paint. Fresh paint. I can smell it. I put the bottle down on a desk.

He was here. Recently, he was right here!

My hands are red. I rub them on my pants.

I see more paint on the floor. I smear it with my toe. There’s writing, in small letters:

I know what you were going to do.

A message. For me. He wanted me to come in here and see it. That’s why this door was open. He led me here.

I don’t know what this means.

Wait. I do. Yes, I do.

He saw Jake kissing my neck. He saw us in the car. He was at the window, watching. Is that it? He knew that we were going to do it in the car. And he didn’t want us to have sex? Is that it?

There’s more writing on the floor up ahead.

Just you and me now. There’s only one question.

Terror fills me. Absolute terror. No one knows what it’s like. Can’t know. You don’t know unless you’ve been so alone like this. Like I am. I never knew until now.

How does he know? How does he know the question? He can’t know what I’ve been thinking. He can’t. No one can ever really know what someone else is thinking.

This can’t be real. The pain in my head is getting worse. I bring a trembling hand to my forehead. I am so tired. I’m not doing well. But I can’t stay here. I have to keep moving, I have to hide, get away. How does he always know where I am, where I’m going? He’ll be back.

I know it.

I WISH THIS WERE MORE supernatural. A ghost story, for instance. Something surreal. Something from the imagination, no matter how vile. That would be much less terrifying. If it was harder to perceive or accept, if there was more room for doubt, I would be less scared. This is too real. It’s very real. A dangerous man with bad, irreversible intentions in a big, empty school. It’s my own fault. I should never have come here.

It’s not a nightmare. I wish it were. I wish I could just wake up. I’d give anything to be in my old bed, in my old room. I’m alone, and someone wants to hurt me or hunt me. And he’s already done something to Jake, I know it.

I don’t want to think about it anymore. If I can find my way to the gym, there might be an emergency door or some other way out of here. That’s what I’ve decided. I need to get back to the road even if it’s too cold out there. Maybe I won’t last long. But maybe I won’t last much longer here, either.

My eyes have adjusted to the darkness. You get used to the dark after a while. Not the quiet. That metallic taste in my mouth is getting worse. It’s in my saliva or deeper. I don’t know. My sweat feels different in here. Everything is just off.

I’ve been biting my nails. Chewing my nails. Eating them. I don’t feel well.

I’ve also started losing hair. Maybe it’s the stress? I put a hand up to my head and when I pull it back, there are strands of hair in between my fingers. I run my fingers through my hair now and more comes out. Not handfuls, but close. This must be some kind of reaction. A physical side effect.

Stay quiet. Stay calm. In this hall, the bricks are painted. The ceiling is made of those large rectangular removable tiles. Could I hide up there? If I could get up there.

Keep moving. Slowly. Sweat drips along my spine. The gym is down the hall. It has to be. I remember. Do I? How could I remember that? I make out the double doors with the metal handles. That’s my goal. Get there. Get there quickly, quietly.

I keep my left hand, my fingers, against the brick wall as I walk. Step after step. Carefully, cautiously, softly. If I can hear it, he can hear it. If I can, he can. If I, then he. If. Then. I. He.

I reach the doors. I look in through the tall, skinny windows. It’s the gym. I grab the handle. I know these doors. They sound like a cowboy’s spurs when opened and closed. Loud, cold metal.

I push just wide enough to slip in.

The climbing ropes hang. The metal rack holds orange basketballs in the corner. A strong smell. Chemical. My eyes are watering. More tears.

I can hear it. It’s coming from the boys’ locker room. I’m finding it harder to breathe in here.

The locker room. It’s not as dark in here as in the gym. There are two overhead lights on. Now I recognize it — the sound is water running. One tap is on full blast. I can’t see it yet, but I know.

I should wash my hands, get the paint off. Maybe take a drink. That cool, soothing water in my mouth and running down my throat. I turn my hands over, looking at my palms. Streaked red. Trembling. My right thumbnail is gone.

There’s an opening up ahead to my left. That’s where the sound of water is coming from. I trip on something. I pick it up. A shoe. Jake’s shoe. I want to yell out, to call for Jake. But I can’t. I cover my mouth with a hand. I have to be quiet.

I look down and see Jake’s other shoe. I pick it up. I keep walking toward the opening. I peek around the corner. No one. I bend down and look under the stalls. No legs. I’m holding a shoe in each hand. I take another step closer.

Now I can see the bank of taps. No running water. I move toward the showers.

One of the silver showerheads is on full blast. Only one. There’s lots of steam. It must be hot water, very hot.

“Jake,” I whisper.

I need to think, but it’s so warm here, humid. Steam all around me. I need to figure out how I can get out of here. There’s no point trying to figure out why he’s doing this or who he is. That doesn’t matter. None of it matters.

If I can somehow make it outside the school, I can run for the road. If I make it to the road, I’ll run. I won’t stop. My lungs will burn and my legs will be jelly and I won’t stop. I promise. I won’t stop. I will run as far and as fast as possible. I’ll get away from here to somewhere else, anywhere else. Where things are different. Where life is possible. Where everything isn’t so old.

Or maybe I could last in here alone. Maybe longer than I think. Maybe I could find new places to hide, to blend into the walls. Maybe I could stay in here, live here. In a corner. Under a desk. In the locker rooms.

Someone is there. At the far end of the showers. The floor’s slippery. Wet, steamy tiles. I have an urge to stand under the jet, the steaming water. Just to stand there. But I don’t.

It’s his clothes. By the last stall. I pick them up. Pants and a shirt, balled up, wet. Jake’s clothes. These are Jake’s clothes! I drop them. Why are his clothes in here? And where is he?

An emergency exit. I need one. Now.

Leaving the changing room, I hear the music again. The same song. From the beginning. In the locker rooms, the classrooms, the halls. The speakers are everywhere, but I can’t see them. Does it ever stop? I think so, but I’m not sure anymore. Maybe the same song has been playing this whole time.

I KNOW PEOPLE TALK ABOUT the opposite of truth and the opposite of love. What is the opposite of fear? The opposites of unease and panic and regret? I’ll never know why we came to this place, how I ended up confined like this, how I ended up so alone. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Why me?

I sit down on the hard floor. There is no way out. There’s no way out of this gym. No way out of this school. There never was. I want to think about nice things, but I can’t. I cover my ears. I’m crying. There’s no way out.

I’VE BEEN WALKING AND CRAWLING around this school forever.

I think there’s a perception that fear and terror and dread are fleeting. That they hit hard and fast when they do, but they don’t last. It’s not true. They don’t fade unless they’re replaced by some other feeling. Deep fear will stay and spread if it can. You can’t outrun or outsmart or subdue it. Untreated, it will only fester. Fear is a rash.

I can see myself sitting in the blue chair beside my bookshelf in my room. The lamp is on. I try to think about it, the soft light it emits. I want this to be in my mind. I’m thinking of my old shoes, the blue ones I wear only in the house, like slippers. I need to focus on something outside this school, beyond the darkness, the crippling, oppressive silence, and the song.

My room. I’ve spent so much time in that room, and it still exists. It’s still there, even when I’m not. It’s real. My room is real.

I just have to think about it. Focus on it. Then it’s real.

In my room, I have books. They comfort me. I have an old brown teapot. There’s a chip in the spout. I bought it at a garage sale for one dollar a long time ago. I can see the teapot sitting on my desk amid the pens, pencils, notepads, and my full shelves.

My favorite blue chair is imprinted with my body weight. My shape. I’ve sat in it hundreds of times, thousands. It’s molded to my form, to me alone. I can go there now and sit in the quiet of my mind, where I’ve been before. I have a candle. I have one, only one; I’ve never lit it. Not once. It’s a deep red, almost crimson. It’s in the shape of an elephant, the white wick rising out of the animal’s back.

It was a gift from my parents after I graduated high school at the top of my class.

I always thought I would light that candle one day. I never did. The more time passed, the harder it became to light. Whenever I thought an occasion might be special enough to burn the candle, it felt like I was settling. So I would wait for a better occasion. It’s still there, unlit, on top of a bookcase. There was never an occasion special enough. How could that be?