59 Chapter 59th

Quietly, I began wandering the courtyard again, sneaking as fast as I could, creeping close to the wall, like a scared animal. If I strayed too much, Chris would definitely see me from the upper floor. And while I strived to put some distance between us, I tried thinking, coming up with a plan – where could I find a phone down here?

"Think! Think!" I mumbled, knocking my temples for the answer. It returned a mental map of the first floor, and I began surveying my memories of it, looking for a way out.

Down there we had the gym court, patio, courtyard, bathrooms and the reception office. There was a phone in the gym, hanging on the wall by the dressing room… but it was an internal line, with no possibility of making calls to the outside. Of course there was a phone in the reception, but that room was always locked, because it was where all of the school's documents were stored. The metal bars around the window were enough to erase it from my list of considerations.

"The maintenance room!" the thought occurred to me, as if God-sent! That room where Chris had taken me – us, but it seemed like no one else mattered at the time. It's where he taught us how to play cards, and smiled at me, and saw me… as if there was anything to see. The memory weakened my knees, weakened my will with a despondent arrow to my bleeding heart. I craved his attention so much, and how my stomach swirled to receive it! What a suicidal urge! How could I have been so wrong?

Danilo was right… he always was! He was lucky to get out of Chris's way as he did, by leaving me, too, and never asking another question. It seemed everyone was constantly making better choices! I sucked in air, then I sighed, trying to deal with the pain those recent yet overlooked memories inflicted… Overlooked, because there had been so little time to linger on them. So little time to think of anything but death lately…

And speaking of death - the milk that had been spilled, and which I could now only try to wipe before it spoiled - I willed my knees to straighten, to keep on forward, close to the wall, swiftly and silently too! In fact, I didn't know if there was a phone in the maintenance room, it was the only place in that school I was not used to, and therein lay my hope: I wasn't sure there wasn't one. Feeble foundation for optimism to build upon, but all I had at that point.

It was silent all the way there. Uneventful, nothing but cold air stinging my elbows… precisely because of that, because of that idyllic emptiness, my legs shook with growing apprehension, with consuming pessimism, with a keen sense of impending doom!

I walked around the main building, onto the backside, into a shadowy corridor behind the courtyard. That was a dark, grey, cold area, unremarkable during the day and now, eerily creepy at night, like a big tomb! Tomb! Why would that word come to mind, of all I could use? The thought gave me a fresh gush of panic, it robbed me of the little composure I used for silence… I couldn't take it slow anymore: it felt like a dangerous gamble. I needed to run! And run I did, clumsily, tired, stumbling all my way, now accepting Chris had certainly heard me – anything could be heard in that dead-silent school.

Expecting his imminent approach, I made it my priority – my sole goal, actually – to simply get there before he could get to me, to find a phone and to place a call, if it's the last thing I do! Even if the effort amounts to nothing but my aiding them find my dead body!

Crossing that corridor, I found myself on the shady back of the gym block, outdoors. Where was it again – the maintenance room? I recalled going through a corridor much like this one, behind the building and secluded from light. There was a door, and it led down some stairs into that room I had never been before. I couldn't quite remember.

If only my head had been in the right place all the while. I only thought of Chris then… I only saw him. Not that it was much different now… - I sarcastically reminded myself. Through it all, I could only think of him, for better or for worse! My thoughts trailed far, they couldn't decide between chiding my present or condemning past behavior, they couldn't drop their judgement, they wouldn't let me be, not even to survive! I chose the wrong way… the wrong door. Perhaps it was more to the left? I'd turn back, retrace my steps, follow ahead…

…if only I had never met him. If only I had never come to that stupid school that day, if Danilo hadn't insisted so much, none of this would be happening. What an irresistible pastime: to picture the many ways by which I could now be safe! Treacherous, too: I got so caught up in those thoughts, that for a deadly second I forgot about care:

Turning back around that corner, around the gym, eyes down, I didn't so much run into him as I was caught in his shadow – in its depth. I lifted my eyes: Chris stood there, his face fixed, unsurprised: expecting, amused, calmly drinking my horror as I gasped, losing my breath and falling back at my first attempt to move away.

'Fast recovery!' I recalled the exhausting P.E. classes, I turned as I fell and landed on my hands, and used the poise to fling myself forward and escape from his very hands as they snatched the air for me.

I ran noisily, clumsily, fast, colliding against every corner, scraping against every wall, just moving my body into the easiest direction that presented itself to me. I mindlessly entered the building through the main double doors, I ran up the stairs. Whichever door I passed by slammed hard against its frame, whichever stairs I mounted thudded loudly beneath my stomping feet. I whimpered, and I moaned, and I heaved so laboriously I could hear nothing but my own state of sheer terror.

But surely enough – though shaking to my very last bone – I intelligently found my way around the building, and at last made it to the Principal's office, third floor, where this whole mess had started.