Some Quiet Place

know. I don’t have time today; my dad wants me home right after school. But we can start talking about it at lunch tomorrow if you want.”
    “What’s wrong with lunch today?” he counters, challenging me. He brushes his hair out of his face. I wonder why he doesn’t just cut it.
    We walk again. “I’m going to the library to do research.”
    “Research for what?”
    He steps in front of me, stopping our progress in the middle of the hall. Kids part around us like a wave, some bumping into us, changing and evolving to the disturbance without thinking about it.
    I arch my neck to look up at Joshua, studying his resolute expression. His scent drifts to my nose, a mixture of pine and hay and soap. “My past,” I say.
    Joshua absorbs this for a moment, pursing his full lips. “Okay.” He nods. “I’ll go with you. We have to stop at my locker first, though.”
    Where’s the timid boy I’ve known most of my life? He disappeared so quickly, and the Emotions that used to always surround him are now absent in this new assurance he’s found. “I never said I wanted company,” I inform him with raised brows.
    Now he reddens. So a part of that shy boy is still there, I see. He’s a strange combination of grins and blushes and silent contemplation. “If you want to be alone … ” he begins to say, stopping in relief when I shake my head.
    “It’s fine. Let’s go, then. We have twenty minutes.”
    Browsing through the papers every day during lunch hasn’t given me any of the answers I’ve been looking for. I’m halfway through the year 2000 and I still haven’t been able to find a copy of the newspaper Fear showed me.
    “You know,” Joshua says as we rifle through the yellowed documents, “it seems like I’m always helping you with your projects and we never actually work on the project we’re getting graded on.” His lunch rests by his elbow, and as he turns a page he sinks his teeth into an apple. Crunch .
    My eyes scan an April edition, the front headline reading, Child Drowns in River. “We’ll get to the portfolio,” I mutter. I set the paper aside and reach for the next one. But before I can, Joshua stops me, his palm warm on the back of my hand. My fingers curl on the tabletop, and I absorb the sensation of his skin against mine. No human has ever touched me so willingly …
    Fear said the exact same thing, about me.
    The thought is jarring, and I lift my eyes to Joshua, gauging his expression. Again, he doesn’t give me time to study the angles of this moment. “I’m sorry about how I acted last week,” he says sincerely. “I was … frustrated. But that doesn’t give me an excuse to call you a liar. If you don’t want to share something, that’s your business.”
    I can smell the sweetness of the apple on his breath. I pull my hand out from under his. It reminds me of Fear, and his obsession, and one Fear is enough. Is that really why you’re pulling away? my mental voice challenges. What other reason would there be? I ask placidly. In answer, an image of Fear’s tender kisses bursts and vanishes like the flash of a camera.
    Realizing that Joshua is still waiting for a response, I shrug and say in a neutral tone, “You didn’t call me a liar, exactly. You just said I lie a lot. Which is true.”
    Joshua shakes his head, smiling faintly. “You’re so weird, you know that?”
    I smile in return, finding for the first time that the pretending isn’t so hard. “I could say the same about you.”
    We sit in compatible silence for a time. The only sounds in the room are the papers crinkling in our hands and a pair of girls whispering to each other at the computer desk. I close my ears to it and concentrate on my search, but just as I accomplish complete isolation to the world all around, Worry appears next to the table, a twitching, distracted Emotion with frizzy curls and stick-thin legs. I set a paper down, examining the top of Joshua’s head. He got his red hair from his mother. I don’t know why that random thought pops into my head.
    “How are things on the farm?” I ask, my tone gentle. If I’m going to be able to focus, he needs a steadying hand.
    My words startle him; his head jerks up. He brushes that wild hair away, frowning at me. “What?” He heard me, though. I just sit, waiting.
    Joshua squints at me, resigned but bewildered. “Sometimes you know things you shouldn’t. You say things. I don’t suppose you’ll tell me how that is?”
    I shake my