The Quiet Between Bells

I walked into school during second period like it was nothing.

Head down. Hoodie up. Just another ghost in a hallway full of sleepwalkers.

Mr Halpern didn’t even look up from his attendance sheet when I slipped into the back of history class. The lights buzzed like a hive above us, and the air smelt like pencil shavings and sweat. Someone had carved SUCK IT into the desk I landed in. Pretty sure it’d been there since ninth grade.

I didn't look across the room.

Not at first.

But I felt him.

Like static. Like a storm just outside the frame.

Then I looked.

He was there.

Back row. Two desks from the window. Arm draped over his chair like he owned it, like he hadn’t disappeared from this town without a word four years ago and then reappeared like a damn fever dream.

Eli McDowell.

He wasn’t looking at me.

Which meant he probably was.

He had a pencil in his hand but wasn’t writing. Just tapping the eraser against his knee, slow and steady, like a clock ticking in reverse. His eyes were on the front board, but his jaw was tight. I could tell by the way he kept licking the corner of his lip that something tasted wrong.

I dropped my eyes fast and opened my textbook to the wrong chapter just so I had something to stare at.

The words blurred.

All I could hear was the eraser tapping.

The rhythm of it lodged somewhere under my ribs.

Mr Halpern started droning about the Louisiana Purchase.

I couldn’t have repeated a single sentence if he paid me.

The bell rang, and everyone moved like cattle.

Backpacks slammed. Sneakers squeaked. Someone dropped a binder full of loose-leaf and swore loud enough to get laughed at.

I moved slow, slipping into the flow of bodies without thinking. Just kept my head down and my hands in my hoodie pocket, drifting like a ghost through linoleum and locker metal and the smell of cheap cafeteria meat.

Then I saw him.

Up ahead, near the vending machines—Eli. Leaning against the wall like he’d always belonged there. Legs crossed at the ankle. Arms folded tight.

He was talking to no one.

Not really looking at anything.

But his shoulders were tense under that ironed button-up like he was bracing for a hit.

I kept walking.

Closer. Closer.

Three steps from him, I felt it.

The charge.

Like lightning had made a home behind my ribs and wanted out.

I didn’t look up. Not directly.

But I saw him shift.

A twitch at the corner of his eye.

A breath held and released in half a second.

Then I passed him.

Neither of us spoke.

The static stretched thin between us... then snapped.

I didn’t turn around.

I don’t think he did either.

But the hallway never felt louder than it did in that second.

Like every sound was scraping against something raw inside me.

I didn’t bother going to the cafeteria.

Didn’t feel like pretending to eat or pretending to talk or pretending not to watch who was watching me.

Instead, I took the side stairwell near the science wing. The door to the roof was supposed to be locked, but someone had jammed a coin in the latch last semester, and the janitor hadn’t noticed. Or didn’t care.

The roof was flat and blistered, and tar spots baked under the July sun. There was a busted-up HVAC unit in the corner and a low brick ledge that overlooked the back field where kids smoked weed after gym.

I dropped my bag, climbed up onto the ledge, and lit a cigarette with fingers that still felt too tight from earlier.

The wind tugged at my hoodie, hot and lazy.

I pulled my sketchpad from the bag and flipped past the ruined pages. I didn’t know what I wanted to draw. Just that my hands needed something to do besides shake.

I started with a tree.

Didn’t care which one. Just a tree. Something old and knotted. Something that didn’t feel like anything.

Then the shape changed.

The curve of a shoulder.

The line of a jaw.

I didn’t even notice I was doing it until I’d already dragged the pencil down in that slow, deliberate slope.

Not a tree anymore.

Not even close.

I swore under my breath and flipped the page.

Tried again.

Eyes this time. Just eyes.

Dark. Tired. Watching me from the quarry ledge like they knew something I didn’t want said out loud.

I snapped the pencil in half.

Let the pieces fall to the gravel at my feet.

Didn’t matter.

Wasn’t like I could draw him out of me anyway.

The door creaked behind me, but I didn’t turn.

Only one person knew I came up here.

Jessie Leigh slid onto the ledge beside me like she’d been invited. She didn’t speak right away, just pulled a half-crushed pack of menthols from her jacket and lit one with a lighter shaped like a tiny skull.

“Hell of a lunch hour,” she said, exhaling slowly.

I didn’t answer.

She leaned back on her palms, legs swinging a little over the edge like she didn’t care if she fell.

“You look like you’re about four thoughts deep into a breakdown,” she said casually. “You want me to piss off, say the word.”

I flicked my ashes over the side. “Not in the mood to talk.”

“Wasn’t going to make you.”

We sat in it.

The quiet.

Her smoke curled into mine, the wind catching pieces and scattering them over the field below. Somewhere out past the gym, someone screamed, “Screw you,” followed by laughter. Jessie didn’t flinch.

She glanced sideways at my sketchpad, now face down in the gravel beside my foot.

“Been drawing again?”

I shrugged.

“Anything good?”

“No.”

“You always say that.”

This time I didn’t argue.

She let a few beats pass before speaking again, voice a little lower. “Heard someone moved back to town. Eli McDowell, right?”

My jaw tensed before I could stop it.

She saw.

Jessie always saw.

“I figured you’d know,” she said, her tone unreadable. Not teasing. Not judging. Just... observing. “You two were thick, back in middle school. Before he disappeared.”

“Yeah, well,” I muttered. “A lot’s changed.”

“Has it?” she asked.

I didn’t answer.

Not because I didn’t have one.

Because I had too many.

We sat there a little longer.

Jessie leaned back and squinted at the sun like it had personally insulted her.

Then she said it. Soft. Almost like she was asking about the weather.

“Is he the reason you’re acting weird?”

I didn’t even flinch.

“No,” I said.

Quick. Flat. Automatic.

She didn’t nod. Didn’t frown. Just sat still and watched me like she was waiting for a better version of the truth.

But she didn’t push.

Jessie never pushed.

She smoked the rest of her cigarette in silence, then flicked the butt out over the ledge. It arced into the wind, bright for a second, then gone.

“I’m heading back,” she said, standing.

I didn’t.

“You going to stay up here brooding, or do you want to look tortured somewhere else?”

“I’m good here.”

She gave me a long look. Not pity. Not suspicion. Just... recognition.

“Alright”, she said.

Then she left.

The door clicked shut behind her, and the room was quiet again. Just me, the wind, and the truth I hadn’t said.

Not because I couldn’t.

Because I didn’t want to hear how it sounded out loud.