Gwendy's Button Box

20

The first thing Gwendy notices when she strolls into Castle Rock High on the last Thursday morning of the school year are the somber expressions on the faces of several teachers and a cluster of girls gathered by the cafeteria doors, many of them crying.

“What’s going on?” she asks Josie Wainwright at the locker they share.

“What do you mean?”

“Kids are crying in the lobby. Everyone looks upset.”

“Oh, that,” Josie says, with no more gravity than if she were talking about what she’d eaten for breakfast that morning. “Some girl killed herself last night. Jumped off the Suicide Stairs.”

Gwendy’s entire body goes cold.

“What girl?” Barely a whisper, because she’s afraid she already knows the answer. She doesn’t know how she knows, but she does.

“Olive… uhh…”

“Kepnes. Her name is Olive Kepnes.”

“Was Olive Kepnes,” Josie says, and starts humming “The Dead March.”

Gwendy wants to smack her, right in her pretty freckled face, but she can’t lift her arms. Her entire body is numb. After a moment, she wills her legs to move and walks out of the school and to her car. She drives directly home and locks herself inside her bedroom.