Chance Harbor Read Online Free Page B

the cafeteria. “So that girl with the phone is Nola?”
    “Right. Nola Simone. Senior,” Willow said.
    “Mean girl alert?”
    “Not really. Don’t worry about her. Nola doesn’t bother with the small stuff. She probably won’t even notice you.”
    “I am but dirt on her shoe?”
    “A speck,” Willow corrected. “One speck of dirt on her Jimmy Choo.”
    Henry laughed as they kept moving with the flow to the cafeteria, where they sat with Willow’s only two friends at school, Kendrick and Carly.
    Lunch was surprisingly okay. Not because of the food, but because it was different, sitting with a guy instead of being three fringe chicks. Kendrick was seriously Goth, all in black: eyeliner, T-shirt, hair dye, boots. Willow and Carly went more for grunge, both of them wearing hoodies and high-tops like a uniform. Easy, cheap, and your body was camouflaged. Nobody could say you were too fat or too skinny or had booty or whatever. They just wrote you off as artsy freaks and geeks.
    By the end of the day, Willow was feeling like she might survive sophomore year. Mrs. Lagrasso had shown them slides from a MET exhibit of Matisse’s paintings and the textiles that had inspired them. Then she’d given them free time and Willow had made progress on her sketches. She booked time in the darkroom for Monday.
    She usually rode the subway home with Russell. He stayed after school for office hours or faculty meetings while she worked with the newspaper staff or went to Spanish club, but none of the after-school activities would start until next week. Willow thought about hanging out in the music room, where Kendrick played drums in a way that made Willow’s entire spine feel like it would crumble into dust.
    No, too nice a day to waste more of it inside. She’d rather go to the Common with her camera and sketch pad, maybe wait for Russell by the Park Street station. Catherine wouldn’t be home until dinner, and Willow still got freaked-out in empty houses since that time her mom passed out on the couch and set the apartment on fire with her cigarette. Willow’d had to call the fire department when she was like seven years old.
    A better idea: she’d find Russell and see if he wanted to go to the North End for pizza. Catherine could meet them in Boston when she was finished at her clinic.
    By now nearly everyone was gone. The deserted hallways suddenly seemed too wide. The light streamed in ribbons through the classroom windows, and the wood floors had turned to gold. A few lockers gaped open. Nobody locked anything at Beacon Hill School. What would be the point? They could all buy ten or fifty of whatever they wanted, here in this prep school that squatted in the shadow of the State House’s gilded dome.
    The carpet was tongue colored and spongy beneath her feet. In the east wing, where most of the faculty offices were located, the teachers’ lounge had an overstuffed sofa and flowered chairs in front of a fireplace. The doors were heavy wood, each with a brass nameplate.
    Russell’s office was at the very end of the faculty hallway. She never came down here—usually they just texted if they wanted to meet up—but her feet had carried her along while she’d been intent on her pizza plan. She could almost taste the cheese.
    Willow was close to Russell’s office when she heard a noise from inside it like somebody choking. The hair on the back of her neck rose like needles, prickly under her T-shirt.
    “But I can’t wait anymore,” a girl moaned. “You have to tell her.”
    The girl’s voice sounded deep and sad, Willow decided: not scared. So nobody was being mugged or stabbed.
    Willow crept forward, listening hard. The crying was definitely coming from Russell’s office. That made sense. Russell had won Best Teacher of the Year two years in a row because he could make history as exciting as
Game of Thrones
. It was like Russell actually knew the people on the pages of your history book personally.
    “William