The Boy on the Bridge

Chapter Three

Days pass like they always do, but now I’m worried about Hunter and I have no way of knowing whether or not things are changing for him. He insists his mother is handling the situation and kicking his stepdad out, but that’s not how it looked to me.

All I want is for him to run up to me the next day at school and assure me his mom has kicked his stepdad out and that vile, awful man won’t be around anymore. I want the problem to go away so I don’t have to keep thinking about that stupid, thoughtless promise I made not to tell Hunter’s secret.

A secret like this shouldn’t be kept.

When someone is getting hurt, when someone is in danger…

Someone needs to intervene, and I’m worried Hunter’s mom isn’t going to.

He still has faith in her though, so maybe I’m wrong. I hope I’m wrong. I hope next time I see him, that weight will be off his shoulders and I won’t have to feel terrible about keeping my mouth shut about his dysfunctional home life.

Over the next few days, though, Hunter doesn’t say a single word to me. I try to catch his eye a couple times in class or in the cafeteria, but it’s like I don’t exist again.

I don’t know if I like that he has that power. I don’t know if I like that he dictates whether or not I exist on a whim, that he can show me attention and fill me up with butterflies and nervous energy, or he can ignore me right out of existence. What’s worse is I don’t know why he does it. Is it because he’s afraid of what I know about him? Or is it just because he’s a jerk?

I spend entirely too much time thinking about it, and clearly he spends no time at all thinking about me.

Thursday at lunch, I’m sitting where I always sit, in the cafeteria on the emptier side of one of the long tables with my best friend, Sara. Since we became friends in first grade, the only time we don’t sit together is when one of us is out sick. Sara misses more school than I do, so normally I’m the one who ends up alone, but today both of us stare wistfully at the cool table.

Sara, because she has a massive crush on one of the basketball players, Wally Kazinsky. Me, because, well, that’s where Hunter sits. I’m not saying I have a crush on Hunter, but I’m definitely preoccupied by him.

“You know how you can just tell that some guys will be really handsome older men?” Sara asks suddenly.

I glance over at her in question.

Nodding decisively, she says, “You can just tell Wally will be so handsome when he gets older. I mean, he’s so handsome now, but he always will be. You can just tell.”

I adore Sara, but I don’t understand why she likes Wally so much. He hardly knows she exists, and not in the way Hunter sort of pretends I don’t exist—I doubt Wally even knows her name.

I’ve also heard about her obsession with him for so long, I struggle to show continued interest in her repeated Wally talking points. “Yeah, probably,” I offer, glancing down and picking at the offerings on my plate. Some cold fries and a truly mediocre chicken patty sandwich.

Giving up on trying to muster any enthusiasm for my meal, I push the tray away and pull my can of fruit punch in front of me. It’s not food, but I need something in my stomach to hold me over until I get home from school.

“We should be studying for our science quiz instead of wasting our time looking at boys who don’t know we exist,” I tell Sara.

Her gaze drifts back to me, but at that, she looks bored. “Why? It’s going to be so easy.”

For her, maybe. Sara is a science whiz, but I am far from it. “Then you should give me all the answers,” I joke.

“And Wally totally knows I exist,” she tells me, her dark eyebrows rising. “The other day at recess, he looked at me.”

I heard that story the other day, and the day after that, and again on the phone over the weekend.

“Like, really looked,” she says knowingly.

Sara is adorable, and I think he’s a fool not to look at her since she’s so head over heels for him, but he doesn’t. She’s a thin, petite girl with chin-length brown hair and stylish black-framed glasses. She’s a science geek though, and Wally is a shallow, popular jock, so honestly, unless she starts sashaying around in one of the short skirts the cheerleaders wear on Fridays, Wally will never notice her.

Then again, I would have said the same thing about Hunter Maxwell not so long ago, and just a couple days ago I was at his house, in his bedroom.