“Why do you help him?” I ask, and I leave my eyes on Mr. Chessman’s. My look, it’s pleading with him, begging him to give me an answer. His expression drops before he turns to look out his window again, his hands wrapped around the corners of his table, his forearms flexing and letting go. Of every teacher at this school, Mr. Chessman was always the one to stand up for Owen. He was Owen’s advocate, and I need to know why. “Please…” I say, leaning forward, my hands pressed together.
“Bill had these quirks,” he begins, his back to me while he speaks. “His face would sometimes tick, and he’d talk to himself. I asked Shannon about it one day when we were eating alone; Bill got called back to repair something. She told me he was bipolar, had hallucinations. His medication took care of it most of the time, but sometimes he’d go a few weeks without taking something. Our insurance at the job was crap, and the pills—they were expensive. The hallucinations would get really bad when he’d go a few weeks.”
Mr. Chessman turns to look at me again, his face washed in grief, a look I’ve only seen one other time—on Owen, the day James killed himself.
“They were laying people off at the warehouse,” he says, his lips parted, a small breath escaping, his jaw working side-to-side. The anger from the memory he’s sharing is still fresh for him after all theses years. His eyes snap to mine. “It was between Billy and me, and I was a couple years younger…a couple years cheaper. So he got the pink slip, sent home early.”
Mr. Chessman sucks his top lip in, his eyes squarely on mine as they grow with redness. His jaw muscles are working, still trying to understand the rest. His head slowly starts to nod, and my breath shakes when the rest of the story becomes apparent to me, too.
Bill Harper came home early—fired from a job that didn’t pay enough to begin with, his brain already confused from his illness, his pockets too empty to afford the medicine he needs.
And then he took his son to a festival…and stepped away from life.
We sit there in silence, and the sounds of students milling outside grows louder, feet scuffling along the sidewalks just beyond the door, lockers slamming against the nearby walls. I entered this room twenty minutes ago, proof in my hands that there was more to Owen’s story, hope in my heart that Mr. Chessman was the key—that he would help me find Owen’s place. Yet all I feel now is crushed, hopeless and heartsick.
“He’s going to leave,” I say, my eyes looking to the few minutes I have left, my mind able to draw enough gumption to search for a miracle. “Owen’s moving to Iowa, and he’s going to turn down an offer from DePaul. He’s going to quit school, go work in some print shop with his uncle, so he can send money to his mom to help pay for his grandpa. Mr. Chessman…please. I need your help. He needs to see that none of these things are because of him, that he isn’t cursed. He needs to stay.”
“Kensi, I don’t have a lot of money. Not the kind they need. If I did, believe me, I’d find a way to give it to that family,” he says.
The door opens behind me, and the sound of students filing in drowns what’s left of my hope. I stand my ground, not leaving the desk I’m in and leaving my eyes on Mr. Chessman’s for as long as I can, until a girl asks me to get out of her seat. I look at him when I stand, and we continue a silent conversation until I back up to the door—my eyes begging him to find a way, his telling me there isn’t one.
Chapter 22
The way the sky looks outside—bleak and gray, like a giant blanket over the sun—that’s how I feel inside.
Two days go by. Two more days that Owen and I don’t talk about Iowa. Two more nights that I sneak Owen into my house at night, that I cling to his arm, forcing myself to keep my eyes open so I can look at his skin, smell him—know he’s here.
Mr. Chessman never says anything to me, but there are glances. I stare at him during English class, daring him to break away before me. I always win. There is no prize, though.
The FOR SALE sign shows up while I’m at school, and when I get home, it’s standing there in Owen’s lawn, the red-and-blue stripe, the bold white letters—a wake-up call that we can’t live in pretend much longer. Reality is going to smack us both in the face. Owen sits in his truck, staring at it when I pull into my driveway. I kill the engine and walk over, sliding into the passenger side and into his open arm.
“Well, that sort of makes shit real, doesn’t it?” Owen says. I chuckle against him.
“Yep,” I say, my eyes on the same letters as his.