He looks at me hard for a minute like he’s deciding how much to tell me.
“Mom knew,” he says finally. “She knew that I was going to run away.”
I stare at him. “How?”
He scoffs. “She said a little bird told her.”
It sounds exactly like something Mom would say. “She was kind of infuriating, wasn’t she?”
“Yeah. A real know-it-all.” He smiles the raw-hurt kind of smile. It breaks my heart.
“Jeffrey—” I want to tell him about heaven then, about seeing Mom, but he doesn’t let me.
“The point is, she knew,” he says. “She even kind of prepared me for it.”
“But maybe I could—”
“No. I don’t need you messing up my life right now.” He looks embarrassed, like he just caught on to how rude he sounds. “I mean, I have to make it on my own, Clara. All right? But I’m okay. That’s what I came to tell you. You don’t have to worry. I’m fine.”
“Okay,” I murmur, my voice suddenly thick. I clear my throat, get a hold of myself. “Jeffrey—”
“I’ve got to get back,” he says.
I nod like it totally makes sense that he would have somewhere he needs to be at five in the morning. “Do you need money?”
“No,” he says, but he waits while I sprint up to my room to get my wallet, and he takes some when I give it to him.
“If you need anything, call me,” I order him. “I mean it. Call me.”
“Why, so you can boss me around?” he says, but he sounds good-natured about it.
I walk him to the front door. It’s chilly outside. I worry that he’s not wearing a coat. I worry that the forty-two dollars I gave him won’t be enough to keep him safe and fed. I worry that I’ll never see him again.
“Now’s when you let go of my arm,” he says.
I make my fingers release.
“Jeffrey, wait,” I say as he starts to walk away.
He doesn’t stop walking, doesn’t turn back. “I’ll call you, Clara.”
“You’d better,” I yell after him.
He rounds the corner of the building. I wait for all of three seconds before I run after him, but when I get there, he’s gone.
That stupid crow is hanging out at my happiness class, perched on a branch right outside the window, watching me. I’m supposed to be meditating right now, which means I have to sit and look like I’m chilling with the sixty or so students who are spread out in various meditative positions on the floor, letting go of all my worldly thoughts and whatnot, which I can’t do because if I did I’d start glowing like a tanning bed. I’m supposed to have my eyes closed, but I keep opening them to see if the bird is still there, and it is every time I check, looking straight at me through the glass with those bright yellow eyes, taunting me, like, Oh yeah, what are you going to do about it?
It’s a coincidence, I think. It’s not the same bird. It can’t be. It looks like the same bird, but then, don’t all crows look alike? What does it want?
This is clearly putting a major kink in my quest for inner peace.
“Excellent job, everyone,” says Dr. Welch, stretching his arms over his head. “Now let’s take a few minutes to write in our gratitude journals, and then we’ll start the discussion.”
Go away, I think at the bird. Don’t be a Black Wing. Just be a stupid bird. I don’t want to deal with a Black Wing right now.
It cocks its head at me, caws once, and flies off.
I take a deep breath and let it out. I’m being paranoid, I tell myself again. It’s only a bird. It’s only a bird. Stop wigging yourself out.
I am grateful that meditation time is over, is what I write in my journal. Just to be snarky.
The guy sitting next to me looks over, sees what I’ve jotted onto my paper, and smirks.
“I’m not good at it, either,” he says.
If only he knew. But I smile and nod.
“You’re Clara, right?” he whispers. “I remember you from that stupid introductory game we played on the first day.”
Dr. Welch clears his throat and looks pointedly at the two of us, which means, You’re supposed to be grateful right now. Not talking.
The guy grins and turns his notebook slightly so I can see what he’s writing. I’m Thomas. I’m grateful that this class is pass/fail.
I smile and nod again. I already knew his name. I’ve been privately referring to him as Doubting Thomas, since he’s always the first one to question everything Dr. Welch says. Like last week, for instance, Dr. Welch said that we have to stop chasing after material things and work to be content with ourselves, and Thomas’s hand shot up, and he said something like, “But if we all sat around content with exactly where we were in life, nobody would strive for excellence. I want to be happy, sure, but I didn’t come to Stanford because I wanted to find happiness. I came because I want to be the best.”
Humble, this guy.
My phone vibrates, and Dr. Welch looks over again. I wait a few minutes before I sneak it out of my pocket. There’s a text from Angela asking me to meet her at Memorial Church.
After class I book it down the main stairs of Meyer Library, where happiness is held, and Thomas calls after me. “Hey, Clara, wait!” I don’t have a lot of time for this, but I stop. I scan the skies nervously for the mysterious crow, but I don’t see anything out of the ordinary.
“Um, do you—” Thomas pauses, like he’s forgotten what he was going to say now that he’s got my attention. “Do you want to get something to eat? There’s this place behind Tresidder that makes these amazing chicken burritos. They put in rice and beans and pico de gallo—”
“I can’t. I’m meeting somebody,” I interrupt before he can really get going on the burritos. Which are incredibly tasty—it’s true. But I am meeting someone, and besides that, I really do not want to go out with Doubting Thomas. That much I know.
His face falls. “Some other time, then,” he says, and shrugs one shoulder like it’s no big deal, but I feel a prickle of wounded pride coming off him, a “who does she think she is” kind of vibe, which makes me feel immediately less guilty for turning him down.
Angela’s text—C, meet me at MemChu. 5:30 p.m. Important—has me jogging through the archways of the arcade, my footsteps echoing on the checkered stones. Her vision is going to take place here at Stanford, after all—it’s the entire reason we all ended up here—so important could be pretty darn monumental. I check my watch—five thirty-five—and canter across the quad, not slowing as I often do to take in the sight of the church, its gleaming golden mosaics at the front, the Celtic cross perched at the apex on the roof. I shove my shoulder against the heavy wooden door and step inside, pause for a minute in the vestibule to let my eyes adjust to the dimness within.