Pulse

answer.
    “I thought we were planning a party,” Wade said.
    A few of the students chimed in support of the party-planning route, but Miss Newhouse didn’t say anything. She started nodding her head up and down slowly, like she’d come to some important conclusion, then she looked out at the class, and the confusion in her expression was gone.
    “You don’t need me,” she said.
    “Already knew that,” Wade joked, getting a few scattered laughs. But it was more sad than funny. Miss Newhouse pressed the screen on her Tablet, and everyone understood that she was about to abandon them. Wade sat up straighter in his chair, looking at Miss Newhouse like she was about to make a decision that would change not only her life, but also his.
    “Should have done this a long time ago,” she said, moving toward the door. “Because you’re right, Mr. Quinn. You don’t need me. You don’t need anybody . All you need is your Tablet.”
    A few seconds later Miss Newhouse was gone, and everyone expected Wade to take control of the group. He sat there in silence. Everyone did. And then he looked up, smiling, as if a great adventure was about to begin.
    “Looks like our party just got started,” he began as he walked to the front of the room. He nudged Faith on the shoulder with his hip as he passed by, trying to be flirty, but the only thing Faith felt was disgust. It was at that moment that her own resolve began to crumble. Even if her parents were still out here, she was getting to the point where she couldn’t go on with business as usual any longer. She decided then and there, as Wade called out instructions about music and drinks, that when Old Park Hill closed and the students who remained were reassigned to a new school, she wouldn’t be attending. Inside or outside the State, school just didn’t make sense anymore.
    Faith couldn’t stand listening to Wade take over the class, so she stared at the floor instead, hoping it would just be over soon. Her shoe was untied, and though she’d been told not to, she couldn’t help thinking about the laces. The edge of one side lifted off the floor slightly, and when it did, she heard a cough from the back of the room. When she turned, she saw Dylan staring at her, shaking his head slowly, as if she’d done a very dangerous thing.
     
    Clara Quinn was a perceptive girl. Nothing at Old Park Hill got past her. She felt things other people didn’t feel and knew things other people didn’t know. And as the school got smaller, she was spending more time in the proximity of Faith Daniels. She was, in fact, in the same room when her brother boldly took over the class. She was there when Miss Newhouse left the room. She understood the gravity of that decision as much as Wade did, even if no one else had a clue.
    She’d long been crushing on Dylan Gilmore. He had a certain kind of energy she liked. She could imagine the two of them doing all sorts of crazy things. It was a preoccupation. But he was so quiet and brooding, getting him to talk was like pulling teeth. She was extremely beautiful and highly athletic, a goddess among mortals. And she knew this, which didn’t contribute to a winning personality. And so she couldn’t bring herself to court Dylan Gilmore. She only watched him from afar and thought of him in her quieter moments alone. It was for this reason that she’d experienced a series of two unexpected events that felt connected, though she knew they couldn’t be. She’d watched as Dylan coughed, looked up, and shook his head slowly, like he was warning someone to stop doing whatever it was he or she was up to. Simultaneously—and this was the strange part—she’d felt something.
    A pulse .
    Soft but real.
    Someone had moved something. She knew this because she had been told to be ever aware, ever searching for a pulse that was not her brother’s or her own. It was a feeling she could sense better than her brother, although he, too, could feel it if he had half a mind to pay attention, which he had not been doing very much of late.
    Clara looked around the room, wondering, Did Wade do that? Was it someone else? Or am I so bored I imagined it?
    She couldn’t definitively know the truth, but looking back at Dylan once more, she was troubled by the fact that he had seemed to respond to it as well. Either that or the timing had simply been coincidental. It wasn’t until after class while she was walking with her brother that she got her answer.
    “Did