Secrets Are For Keeping

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The doctor stared down at the block letters, not doing anything. Then he placed his clipboard with my packet down on the desk next to the laptop, and laid his thin blue pen down on top of the white paper, that was slowly being eaten up by the blue off the pen.

The scariest part was the fact that he wasn't writing anything down at all about my last statement. It was like he'd already made a decision, and he didn't even need any notes that he could use to review with later.

"I'll be right back. Do not move," the doctor said, as he stood up from his desk, sweeping his white lab coat off of the swiveling chair. Then the door opened and shut, and he was gone.

I stared at the seat where he had been, tempted to lean over and read all of his comments that had been left in the open. And even that scared me. That he'd been so careless as to drop his notes all over the table and leave, so I could easily look at them as much as I wanted to.

I knew what came next. I'd already seen it with my own eyes. I'd already been listed off in the warning category and I could already imagine the inspectors going to that laptop and highlighting my name bright red instead of the light yellow color it had been when Pepper had last seen it.

But hadn't I already been expecting this outcome the entire time? I knew that it would come. I knew I wouldn't be able to avoid the inevitable for long. Because even if I had escaped the inspection, even if I'd made it through the school's attempt at filtering out all the criminals from the rest of the school body, it was likely I still would've been caught anyway. Someone would've found out, maybe by me accidentally thinking about what had really happened.

What happened after the man had held up the gun and pointed it directly at Beckam.

How I'd ended up cradling his head in my arms, blood slowly seeping from the wound in the direct center of his chest. And rather than just watching him get shot, his eyes staring up at mine, deeply into mine in the last seconds of his life, it'd felt like I'd also been shot. Like the bullet had hit him and also me at the same exact spot and was now shredding apart my heart, allowing the burning hot blood to gush out from my shirt. And at that moment, I'd wished it had been me. How could anyone have done something so terrible? Just shoot someone. Right in their heart without even considering the idea that the person could've had a life, that the person could've had a family, friends, an entire world sitting in front of them for their future to unfold. But that had ended, the minute the bullet had pierced his flesh, his future died with it, the great span of field that had been laid out for him had burned to the ground, leaving nothing but broken rocks and ashes.

And there was no way to rebuild.

The doctor suddenly came back into the room, smiling as he did, that special doctor's smile meant to make people feel at ease, yet never really working in doing so. I wished he didn't have to lie to my face. I wished he could've just walked in the room with a gun in his hands and handcuffs in his pocket, and forced me into them so that I could just be taken away to wherever everyone else had been taken.

But he was only the doctor, and all the dirty work would be done by the inspectors. That didn't stop him from smiling kindly at me, folding his hands together in front of him and saying, "Nova, you may step outside now."

Outside there would be inspectors, around three probably: two to try forcing me into the handcuffs, a third to oversee the process, lead the way, and be used as backup if necessary.

And if I got my way, it would be necessary.

I had doubts though, that I was strong enough to fight them off. I'd never had any training like the guards had, I'd never even really punched somebody in my life.