More chime in now, and I sit quietly, watching, feeling the same things they’re all feeling, yet somehow I must keep myself distant from those things and stay focused. I know Sawyer is watching too. Looking for signs. Is anybody distracted? Looking out the window, watching a vision play out? It might be too early in the cycle—it’s only been a week.
When things quiet, Sawyer says, “I keep having weird nightmares . . . only . . .”
I look at him. So does everybody else.
“Only . . . what?” Trey asks.
“Only, they’re not about the shooting. And I’m not . . . actually . . . asleep.”
I hear a little shuffling in the room, but I keep my gaze fixed on Sawyer. When no one says anything, Ben says, “You mean like a daydream, only it’s scary?”
Sawyer looks at the floor. “I guess. But . . .” He shakes his head. “Never mind. It’s not exactly normal. Just . . . trauma, or something.”
“What happened to us isn’t exactly normal,” a girl says. “I guess we can expect weird shit to happen.”
I look at her, then back at Sawyer. “What’s your . . . daymare . . . about? You said it’s not a shooting?” I think I know where he’s going with this, and I hope I’m helping.
“No. Something completely different. It’s a . . . a truck. Crashing into a building. An explosion,” he says. “It’s, like . . .” He runs a hand over his eyes. “It’s, like, not a dream at all. It’s like . . .”
“More like a vision?” Ben asks.
Sawyer laughs weakly. “Well, I’m not—I mean, I wouldn’t say that . . . exactly . . . but . . .” He shrugs. “But yeah. I guess that’s pretty accurate.”
No one chimes in with a similar story. No one appears to be uncomfortable in his silence on the matter. No one flushes or blanches or reacts with their limbs or eyes or anything to indicate they can relate to what Sawyer just described. But they are sympathetic.
Sawyer deserves a Tony Award for that performance. Too bad there’s nothing admirable about being a fraud. It’s even less admirable when a few of the students hang back at the end of an hour of sharing, giving Sawyer the names of their therapists and urging him to call. Soon.
Five
The truth is, we could all probably use some therapy right now. Hell, we’re a mess.
“Well, that was good for everybody, I think,” I say later, making myself at home in Ben’s room by curling on the foot of Vernon’s bed. “I mean, we didn’t get what we needed. But at least we’ve established contact with everybody and they’ve got our phone numbers.”
“Yeah, you can’t expect somebody to come forward in front of everybody to say they’re seeing visions too,” Trey says. He sinks onto the love seat, and Ben sits next to him. Sawyer takes a desk chair.
“How many victims weren’t able to come to the meeting, Ben?” I stare at the underside of Ben’s mattress. This room smells gross, like a sack of armpits.
Ben takes the list from Trey. “There are three who have left the school completely, one still in the hospital, and one who lives here in this dorm but either couldn’t come or didn’t want to.”
Sawyer looks at me. “How are we going to handle this?”
I think about it. “Start here and work our way out to the ones who left the school, I guess. Who’s the guy in this dorm?”
“His name is Clark.”
“Should we go up and see him since we’re here? I mean, he might have avoided the meeting because he thinks he’s losing it.” I sit up and slide off the bed.
“I suppose we should,” Sawyer says. “But can we just ask him outright? I feel like a big cheat playing things like I just did in the green room.”
“Yeah. Let me take this one.” I look at Ben. “Will you show us where his room is?”
Ben’s already getting up. “Of course.”
We knock on Clark’s door, but no one answers. Ben hollers down the hallway to some guys toilet-papering the doorway to somebody else’s room. “Have you seen Clark?”
They shrug and shake their heads. One holds his finger to his lips to quiet us, and points to the toilet paper.
“Yeah, because no one else will notice what you’re doing there if we’re quiet,” Ben mutters, and I’m kind of digging his sarcasm, which we haven’t really seen before today. He looks at us. “I don’t know what to tell you. You can hang around and wait if you want.”
I look at Trey and Sawyer, and then check the time. “We should go if we want to hit up the hospital tonight, guys.”
Sawyer nods. “Yeah. Okay, thanks, Ben. We’ll have to come back later this week.” He grabs my hand and tugs, but I want to see what Trey does. Watching my big brother have a crush is the only fun I have in my life right now.
Trey smiles at Ben. “Yeah, thanks. I, um, I left my jacket in your room . . .”
I squelch a grin and Sawyer squeezes my hand, probably hoping I’ll behave. “We’ll go to the hospital and see if Tori is up to having visitors,” Sawyer says. “Meet you at the car in thirty minutes? I’m parked on Fifty-Seventh, in front of the bookstore.”
Trey waves in acknowledgment.
Sawyer drapes his arm over my shoulders and we walk down to the quad and then out to the street toward the hospital. When we get outside in the dark, he twirls my hair around his finger and smiles at me. “Five bucks says they’re making out in Ben’s room.”