“Can we talk about this tomorrow?” I said to Hink, who must’ve guessed that I was going after her.

“Yes, yes, of course. Come and see me before class.” Hink shooed me out and I jogged down the corridor, surprised to find that Grace wasn’t there. When I opened the far door and stepped out of the building, she was already at the edge of the school grounds. She could move goddamn fast when she tried. I sprinted after her, and when I was within earshot, I shouted, “Hey!” She turned briefly, looked me up and down, glared, and then kept on walking.

“Hey,” I said breathlessly when I finally caught up with her and fell in step beside her.

“What?” she said, still speed walking, the end of her cane clicking against the road with every step. A car behind us beeped. Grace pointed violently at her cane and then waved them around. I’d never seen a vehicle move in a way I’d describe as sheepish before.

“Well . . . ,” I said, but I couldn’t find the words to say what I wanted to say. I was a decent enough writer, but talking? With sounds? From my mouth? That was a bitch.

“Well what?”

“Well, I hadn’t really planned this far into the conversation.”

“You seem pissed.”

“I am pissed.”

“Why?”

“Because people work their asses off for years to get editor, and you waltz in at the beginning of senior year and have it offered to you on a platter and you turn it down?”

“Did you work your ass off?”

“Hell yeah. I’ve been buttering Hink up, pretending I’m a tortured teen writer who really relates to Holden Caulfield since I was, like, fifteen.”

“Well, congratulations. I don’t understand why you’re angry. There’s normally only one editor anyway, right? The fact that I said no doesn’t impact you at all.”

“But . . . I mean . . . Why would you say no?”

“Because I don’t want to do it.”

“But . . .”

“And without me there, you’ll get to make all the creative decisions and have the newspaper exactly how you’ve probably been envisioning it for the last two years.”

“Well . . . I guess . . . But . . .”

“So you see, this is really a win-win for you. You’re welcome, by the way.”

We walked on in silence for a couple of minutes longer, until my anger had entirely faded and I could no longer remember exactly why I’d chased after her in the first place.

“Why are you still following me, Henry Page?” she said, coming to a stop in the middle of the road, like she didn’t give a shit that a car could come hurtling toward us at any second. And I realized that, although we’d never been introduced and never spoken before today, she knew my full name.

“You know who I am?” I said.

“Yes. And you know who I am, so let’s not pretend we don’t. Why are you still following me?”

“Because, Grace Town, I’ve walked too far from school now and my bus has probably already left and I was looking for a smooth way to exit the conversation but I didn’t find one, so I resigned myself to my fate.”

“Which is?”

“To walk in this general direction until my parents report me missing and the police find me on the outskirts of town and drive me home.”

Grace sighed. “Where do you live?”

“Right near the Highgate Cemetery.”

“Fine. Come to my place. I’ll drop you.”

“Oh. Awesome. Thanks.”

“As long as you promise not to push the whole editor thing.”

“Fine. No pushing. You want to turn down an awesome opportunity, that’s your decision.”

“Good.”

It was a humid afternoon in suburgatory, the clouds overhead as solid as cake frosting, the lawns and trees still that bright, golden green of late summer. We walked side by side on the hot asphalt. There were five more minutes of awkward silence where I searched and searched for a question to ask her. “Can I read the rest of that poem?” I said finally, because it seemed like the least worst of all my options. (Option one: So . . . are you, like, a cross-dresser or something? Not that there’s anything wrong with that; I’m just curious. Option two: What’s up with your leg, bro? Option three: You’re definitely some kind of junkie, right? I mean, you’re fresh out of rehab, yeah? Option four: Can I read the rest of that poem?)

“What poem?” she said.

“The Pablo whoever one. ‘I do not love you.’ Or whatever it was.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Grace stopped and handed me her cane and swung her backpack onto her front and fished out the threadbare book and pushed it into my hands. It fell open to Pablo Neruda, so I knew then for sure that it was something she read over and over again. It was the line about loving dark things that I kept coming back to.

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,

in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

“It’s beautiful,” I said to Grace as I closed the book and handed it back to her, because it was.

“Do you think?” She looked at me with this look of genuine questioning on her face, her eyes narrowed slightly.

“You don’t?”

“I think that’s what people say when they read poems they don’t understand. It’s sad, I think. Not beautiful.” I couldn’t see how a perfectly nice love poem was sad, but then again, my significant other was my laptop, so I didn’t say anything. “Here,” Grace said as she opened the book again and tore out the page with the poem on it. I flinched as though I were in actual pain. “You should have it, if you like it. Pretty poetry is wasted on me.”