The Marbury Lens by Andrew Smith Read Free Book Online

sure as hell didn’t want to stay anywhere near the place where Conner and I had accidentally killed someone. Even if that someone was a murderer himself.
    Stella and Wynn asked me to wait with them before leaving for my departure gate.
    “Let’s find a place to get some coffee,” Stella said.
    “I want to try to sleep on the plane.” It was my way of trying to push them all away from me, like they were holding me back from falling off a cliff and I wanted them to just let go.
    “Coffee sounds good,” Wynn said.
    I pulled out my cell phone to check the time.
    Two hours to go.
    “I need to go to the bathroom first,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”
    “I’ll go with you,” Conner offered.
    I sighed. “Whatever.”
    I left my small black carry-on at Stella’s feet, and Conner and Ipushed our way through the hundreds of anonymous people who were coming and going. And I felt like every one of them was watching us, like they knew what we’d done.
    “I’m going to be sick.” I leaned over the sink and splashed cold water on my face.
    Conner stood behind and watched me in the mirror.
    “It’s going to be okay, Jack. The more distance and time we put between us and Monday night…” His voice trailed off. “We’re going to be okay. I know it.”
    I shrugged and pulled some paper towels from the steel dispenser on the wall.
    I didn’t want to look at my friend, and he could tell. Conner grabbed my shoulders and shook me a little.
    “Look. Let’s try and have the greatest time we can when I get over there with you. Let’s try, Jack. I’ll be there in just a few days.”
    “I don’t know if I can do this, Con. I can’t sleep thinking about it.”
    We didn’t notice, but a man with a gray jacket folded over one arm had come out from a stall and just stood there, silently watching us. Conner looked at me, then at the man, and he smiled at me and said, “Yeah? So, we’re gay. Do you have a problem with that, creep?”
    The man glanced down at the floor, embarrassed, and hurried away.
    I gave Conner a push.
    “You’re messed up.”
    Conner laughed. “You can’t honestly say that wasn’t funny, Jack. Did you see how that guy was looking at us?”
    I tried to smile back at him.
    I balled up a wad of soggy towels and tossed them into the metal bin on the way out to find Wynn and Stella.
    I’ve never walked on a frozen lake. I can only imagine what it would feel like—wondering if the next time I plant my foot would bring me plunging down between knife-sharp, icy edges into a smothering black, to fight against the cold, the dark, straining to find a way back to the surface so I could take another doubtful step forward.
    Because I felt exactly like that when I walked away from Conner and my grandparents to pass through the first checkpoint on my way to the plane.
    No turning back.
    Even the crew on the plane who greeted me as I entered, holding my ticket in a shaking hand, looked like they knew who I was, as though they had whispered to one another while I made my way down the boarding chute, “Look, here’s the kid who killed Dr. Horvath.”
    I felt myself turning pale.
    I stowed my bag beneath the seat and wedged a pillow between my shoulder and the foggy plastic window. I looked out at the California sky, caught in the between-worlds nowhere of an airplane that would take me into a different day.
    Then the man who had been watching me and Conner in the restroom said hello, stuffed his jacket in the overhead bin, and took the seat right next to me.
    It was going to be like this, wasn’t it?
    I tried telling myself that it was crazy to think that everyone else in the world knew, they were all following and watching me. I felt myself struggling to catch my breath; I was sweating and felt sick again.
    “Traveling by yourself?” he said.
    I turned my eyes toward him, trying to give him a look that said leave me alone. He smelled like a lavatory soap dispenser and looked like any other middle-aged,