Chalk Boy
by Charlie Rogers
Three minutes before day鈥檚 end, I notice the clock鈥檚 ticking backwards.
Before clicking forward to mark a new minute, it stumbles backward for a few seconds, over and over. Am I the only one who sees this?
Mrs. Tumolo drones about doomed French monarchs, her red-rimmed glasses perched halfway on the bridge of her nose. Her dull monotone lulls me, tiptoes around a daydream that lingers behind my eyelids.
Nathan leans towards me with a whisper to break my trance. 鈥淚鈥檝e got a secret.鈥
A secret. I have one too.
I wonder if he knows mine. Is he ever suspicious of the way I let our knees touch under the desk we share in physics lab? Every time he snares me with his magnetic grin, every time I鈥檓 drawn, helpless, to the gravitational pull of his shadow-colored eyes, I wonder: does he know?
Mrs. Tumolo presses her old black eraser to the blackboard, wiping away scrawled words before I鈥檝e had the chance to read them.
鈥淚t鈥檚 big. Call me after school.鈥 His eyes dart away, as if afraid someone鈥檚 listening.
Three hours later, his mother is not concerned.
鈥淣o, Nathan鈥檚 not home.鈥 She sounds impatient; I imagine I鈥檝e interrupted her game show. A moment of silence in her chaotic house. I picture her in their kitchen 鈥 a mid-century museum I鈥檝e only seen once 鈥 with a teal mixing bowl cradled in the crook of her arm, the phone wedged against her ear.
I hang up the phone and trudge back to the school, scuffing through a faint snowfall, still in my uniform shirt and tie, my shiny shoes. My homework鈥檚 finished and my father鈥檚 not home. No one to notice or miss me.
The gate hangs open, but the surly janitor has already locked the doors. The pale green of a parked sedan disappears under restless snowflakes in the side lot. I crouch by the statue of the Virgin and fish into my parka鈥檚 inside pocket for a crumpled packet of smokes. It鈥檚 the most rebellious gesture I can conjure, to smoke beneath this venerated statue. I peer up at her carved face, her blank expression. Too young for motherhood, I think, the weight of such responsibility.
Nathan sometimes meets me here, sharing cigarettes and laughs. Not today. I wonder about his whispered secret, imagining myself mapping its walls in darkness.
Then I wander home. To nobody.
Three days later, everyone gossips and no one knows anything.
We know you鈥檙e all concerned, our teachers say. I鈥檓 sure Nathan鈥檚 fine, the vice principal tells us during an impromptu assembly. We believe he ran away. To where? I want to ask, but my leaden arm won鈥檛 rise.
When I look around the assembly, or any classroom, I don鈥檛 see concern. Nobody knew Nathan, except me. Maybe I didn鈥檛 either.
I鈥檝e got a secret.
What I notice from my classmates is their jealousy: for the attention the missing boy is getting, for his escape, for the air he must be breathing somewhere outside these stuffy rooms. Free from overbearing parents, or distant, distracted ones. Free.
Did you hear about the missing boy? They ask each other.
The missing boy. His name is Nathan. I want to tell them, remind them.
They want to understand how this will impact them. Can we get an extension on the term paper?
鈥淚 heard about your friend.鈥 My father doesn鈥檛 look at me. It鈥檚 another Sunday and there鈥檚 football on the television.
Three weeks later, Nathan鈥檚 still in the news.
And I am too, sometimes, as the last person he spoke to. In my awkward interviews, my voice cracks as I repeat his words鈥call me after school鈥攕peaking them a hundred times. I always omit what preceded them.
I鈥檝e got a secret.
In Mrs. Tumolo鈥檚 class, the clock still clicks backwards before that last bell, our release. Some of us glance around at one another, nervous. The safety promised to us by our parents and teachers has punctured like a birthday balloon. Others joke. Nathan never mattered to them.
He was beside me in most classes, passing me notes all day, caricatures of our bored teachers and self-important classmates. Or he鈥檇 sit in front of me, where I鈥檇 lose myself in the topography of his back, his faded blue shirt straining against his shoulder blades, and I, a quiet explorer, would daydream that one day I might reach out one arm, one finger, to explore further.
Those seats are all empty now, occupied with nothing but his absence, the secret he never told.
I鈥檝e got a secret, too. No, now I鈥檝e got two.
Three months later, he鈥檚 forgotten. Searches abandoned. I don鈥檛 see his face on the news, or mine. No one jokes about his disappearance anymore, or bothers to mention his name.
He鈥檚 vanished again, first his body, then his name. Like a smudge on a chalkboard, wiped once, twice.
His seats remain unfilled, a buffer of emptiness around me, a chasm I can鈥檛 cross.
I try not to forget. His dimples. The curled tendons in his fingers as he gripped a pencil, sketching words into drawings, grinning at his cleverness. I sometimes close my eyes to summon him, my palm against his heart, his fingers around my throat.
He often smelled of off-brand deodorant, except in gym class, when his scent mirrored my own, an unexpressed animal desire. His uniform would cling to his soft musculature.
The weight of his absence smothers me as I gaze into another space he鈥檚 vacated.
Nathan. Where did you go?
Our secrets remain unspoken and the clock recoils once before lurching forward, the reckless passing of time.
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