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waiting.
One morning, between English class and
social studies, I was walking down the hall, and I
got a text message. I never got calls in school, we
weren t allowed to. Just having your phone ring in
class even if you didn t take the call meant
automatic detention.
But that morning, for some reason, I d left the
phone on. I didn t even look at the number to see
who was calling. I assumed it was Mom. These days,
she was the only person who ever called me on my
cell. Sometimes she d just text-message me to say,
Hi, it s me, I love you.
And that s what it said, Hi, it s me. I smiled,
thinking of Mom. And it made me a little less ner-
vous as I walked down a hall crowded with kids
who seemed not to see me and into a class with a
teacher who didn t seem to like me much, either.
A few seconds later, the phone vibrated again.
And the message said, It s hot. Maybe it wasn t
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Mom. Mom never talked about the weather. She
said it was boring to talk about the weather. And
now that I thought about it, Mom never text-
messaged me about anything except to say that
she loved me.
Still, the next time the phone buzzed, I
checked the message.
Okay, here s the truth. It s embarrassing, but
there s no other way to explain why I kept check-
ing the phone. The fact was, I wouldn t have paid
it any attention if I hadn t just read an article in
the newspaper about how they d recently discov-
ered some new way to download porn sites onto
your phone. So I was sort of wondering if they d
found out my number, and if this was a test run.
What else could It s hot mean?
A few seconds passed. The phone vibrated
again. The letters spelled out, It s very hot. Okay,
fine, I d stay with it long enough to see where all
this was going. I had a few minutes before class.
Another message came in. All right, let s give this
one last chance. Then I had to bounce.
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This time the message was longer, and I
watched the letters spell out: It s hot. It s very hot.
It s burning hot. I m burning up. Love, Dad.
It took me a weirdly long time to understand
what I was reading. And the strangest thing was
that, for a few minutes, I believed it. I thought it
really was a message from Dad, because Dad used
to text-message me all the time. Even after he
moved in with Caroline, he d still send messages
telling me he loved me and asking how I was
doing, but mostly I didn t answer, because I was so
mad at him for leaving us. That s what I thought
about now, how guilty I felt for not having
answered all those messages when now I d never
have the chance to message him back and ask how
he was doing and when he was coming home. And
to tell him I loved him, too.
Everything seemed be happening in slow
motion. So slow that it seemed to take me about
an hour to realize that of course it wasn t Dad. It
couldn t have been Dad. My dad was dead.
Someone wanted me to feel as bad as I could,
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though of course whoever it was couldn t know
how bad I felt. No one could imagine. Then it all
came pouring in on me at once: missing Dad and
being in this terrible place where someone for
no reason, and not because of anything I could
have done to him someone wanted me to be in
as much pain as it was possible to feel and still be
walking and talking.
And then finally it was too much, way too
much. I couldn t take any more. I looked around,
took a quick left turn, bypassed the social studies
classroom, and headed for the boys bathroom.
And maybe there really were miracles, because by
some miracle no one was in there to see me or
hear me. I went into one of the stalls and burst
into heaving, choking sobs. I was crying for
myself, and for Dad, and for everything I d lost,
and for how lonely and scared I was, and how I
couldn t tell anyone, and how no one could help
me. Or even understand.
I washed my face. I pulled it together. But I
never went to social studies class. I thought: If
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anyone asks, I ll tell them I had some kind of
stomach attack. Maybe I should go to the nurse
and stay there until school lets out. I could fake it,
I knew. By now my face was all streaked and
swollen from crying. I could tell the nurse that the
stomach cramps were so bad they d made me cry.
I waited in the bathroom, all alone, feeling
sorrier and sorrier for myself. But the thing is,
even at the worst times, there s only so long you
can pity yourself. And after a while, my sadness
began to change. It was almost if someone had lit
a fire under all that grief, and it was heating up,
simmering, and then boiling over into anger.
Rage, actually. What I felt was rage, pure rage.
I wanted to hurt someone, I wanted to kill some-
one, I wanted revenge for everything that had been
done to me. I would have liked to get the guys
who flew into the towers, but they were already
dead, so I d take the nearest substitutes: Tyro
Bergen and his friends. They d do fine to take
revenge on. What the bullies were doing to me
was as pointless and heartless and cruel as flying
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an airplane into a building and killing all those
innocent people.
I knew I couldn t kill Tyro and the others,
even if I d wanted to. I couldn t even beat them
up. I was way outnumbered. I had no allies, no
backup. Besides, no matter how mad I was, I knew
I could never kill anyone, ever. I had to think of
something else.
And then I did.
I hid in the bathroom till lunch period, when
everyone was occupied, busy waiting on the lunch
line and chewing and swallowing and yelling and
pouring ketchup all over some other kid s burger.
Then I sneaked outside. I was a little worried that
the secret-service hall monitors might catch me,
but they must have taken a lunch break, too. They
weren t anywhere around. I went down the stairs
and out the door to the parking lot. And now I
really was lucky. The gods and maybe there were
gods of justice, or at least revenge must have been
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