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“You seen Parrish today?”
Ronan slouched against the locker next to Gansey’s. His posture and the disheveled state of his Aglionby uniform screamed apathy but his voice was heavy with concern.
“No,” Gansey said. He had been about to ask Ronan the same question. “Didn’t you have English with him?”
“He wasn’t there.”
As Ronan’s words sunk in, Gansey’s idle worry hardened into genuine anxiety. Adam Parrish did not miss school.
“Do you think….Cabeswater….” Cabeswater what? Gansey didn’t know how Adam’s connection to Cabeswater could cause him to miss school, but there were so many unknowns surrounding Adam’s bargain. Unknowns that kept Gansey up at night and that now fed the anxiety festering in the pit of his stomach.
Gansey met Ronan’s gaze and could tell from the knit of his brow that he was thinking the same thing.
“Maybe he’s sick,” Gansey offered.
Ronan raised his eyebrows in an expression of withering skepticism. They had both been in Adam’s history class junior year when he came to school red-nosed and reeking of DayQuil, determined to give his presentation on the Enlightenment despite running a fever. Their teacher took one look at him and told him to go to the nurse’s office; Adam had attempted to protest but was thwarted by a hacking coughing fit.
Gansey sighed.
Around him, Aglionby was wholly indifferent to Adam’s absence. Students jostled down the hallway, a steady stream of burgundy and khaki moving from second period to third period. Lockers slammed, whoops of laughter echoed through the hallway, shoes squeaked against the floor. Across the hall, two teachers left the teacher’s lounge with steaming mugs, leaving the smell of freshly brewed coffee in their wake.
“Uh…can I get to my locker?”
The kid who had the locker next to Gansey’s had materialized out of the stream of students and was regarding Ronan nervously. When Ronan did not move right away, the boy explained, “I just need to grab my Calc book.”
Ronan grunted in acknowledgment and reached into his backpack, which hung on one shoulder, already halfway unzipped. Crumpled papers and empty food wrappers fluttered to the ground as he pulled out a textbook, its edges soft and ratty from where Chainsaw had chewed on its cover.
“Here, just take mine.”
“Uh…”
Ronan shoved the book toward his classmate. The boy opened his mouth as if about to protest, but the trill of the warning bell interrupted him and he accepted the book and hurried down the hallway.
Gansey regarded his friend disapprovingly.
“Really? Don’t you have Calc next too?”
“Fuck Calc. I’m going to find Parrish.”
“He’s on his way to the courthouse.” They felt the chill of Noah’s presence before they saw him. The tardy bell shrilled and, save for a few stragglers sprinting to their classes, the three friends were alone in the hallway.
Noah continued, “His dad’s hearing is this morning.
“Shit,” Ronan said.
“When did he leave for the courthouse?” Gansey asked Noah.
“Like five minutes ago.”
Gansey turned to say “we have to go” to Ronan, but the other boy was already halfway down the hallway.
There was no time to discuss what they were doing or debate whether it was a good idea. They ran through the Aglionby parking lot to the BMW – they couldn’t risk the Camaro breaking down. Ronan put the car in reverse and peeled out of his parking spot before Gansey had a chance to buckle his seatbelt.
Ronan got them to the courthouse in less than ten minutes, though the drive ought to have been closer to fifteen. The two young men sprinted from the car across the parking lot, up the concrete steps leading up to the red brick building. They burst through the door so suddenly that the security guard sitting by the metal detectors jumped in his chair.
Gansey started to take off his watch to pass through the metal detector, but turned to see that Ronan was still standing a few feet back, frantically tucking in his shirt and smoothing out the wrinkles as best he could.
“We need to hurry,” Gansey said.
“I know!” Gansey could read Ronan’s frustration in the furrow of his brow and the harsh edges of his tone. “Just hold on!”
Ronan undid his tie, which had hung loose around his neck, tied with a sloppy knot. His attempt to redo the knot came out lopsided, and as Ronan once again undid the tie, he unleashed on the helpless piece of fabric a string of curses that included every variation of every colorful word in his vocabulary.
The security guard, regarding Ronan, made as if to get up and intervene, but Gansey caught his eye and stopped him with a charming politician smile that said Nothing to see here; everything is under control.
Meanwhile, Ronan’s knot once again came out askew.
“Oh, fuck this,” he declared as he yanked the tie off his neck completely. He met Gansey’s gaze, his eyes pleading.
In any other situation Gansey would have teasingly berated his friend for his incompetence, but now was not the time for that. Instead, he took the tie from Ronan, gingerly adjusted the collar of Ronan’s shirt and looped the tie around his neck. As he knotted the tie, he became acutely aware that Ronan was fidgeting anxiously. Ronan’s unease unsettled Gansey, and all at once the reality of where they were and what they were doing settled in.
Adam hadn’t asked them to be here. If anything, Adam didn’t want them there. He would have told them the court date otherwise. It occurred to Gansey that this could really be it, this could be the step too far that Adam never forgave him for. Gansey didn’t know how he could live with himself if that happened, but he also knew he couldn’t live with himself if he let Adam face this alone. He felt queasy.
As soon as Gansey finished with the tie, Ronan’s hand flew instinctively to his neck, as if to loosen the tie, but he quickly dropped his hand before his fingers touched Gansey’s magazine-cover-worthy knot.
“Ready?” Gansey said. He wasn’t sure he was ready, but he was at the very least well-practiced in feigning confidence.
Ronan took a deep, shaky breath.
“Yeah.”
“Good. Adam’s waiting for us.”