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Jocelyn and asking questions and snooping around. That’s why I’ve been careful. Why I act this way.”
    “I’ve been warned too,” I tell him.
    “Yes, but—Chris, for some reason you’re different. I don’t know. You just—you are.”
    “Why?”
    “Because people are looking out for you. And because—because they haven’t gotten to you.”
    “Says who?”
    He just looks at me, the eyes behind the spectacles, the scar on his cheek, the flustered face.
    He is the picture of a warning sign.
    “They got to Oli just like they got to Stuart. Or to Jocelyn. Or to others. But not you, Chris. You’re different.”
    I shake my head. I don’t believe it. “So—what’s that have to do with anything?”
    “So you can’t stop,” Newt says with as much strength as his little form and feeble voice can muster. “Not after everything. That’s what they want you to do. You have to keep going.”
    “Keep going? Keep going where?”
    I think of the pictures I found of Jocelyn dead and bloody. I think of Pastor Marsh, of the blade I thrust into his chest, of the realization that I’d killed a man in cold blood.
    But you didn’t. He’s still around, still preaching some kind of message on Sunday mornings, still smiling his creepy smile.
    As if everything that happened to us in the woods was just a dream. Or a nightmare.
    Is there a difference?
    I think of the following days and nights where I walked around as if a ghost or a goblin might grab me at any moment. Where I tried to make sense of it all.
    I still can’t. It doesn’t make any.
    “There’s nowhere left to go,” I say.
    “Chris—”
    “Newt, no. Enough.”
    “You just can’t—stop.”
    I laugh. It’s probably a little bit too loud and too crazy, because Newt suddenly looks scared.
    “This is not my problem. I’m—I’m sorry to hear about Oli. Really. But I didn’t have anything to do with it. And this—all of this—I didn’t sign up for this. I’m done. With all of it.”

14. Similarities
     
    I get to Harrington High a bit late and see Brick standing by the entrance, smoking. He watches me get off the bike and then offers me a cigarette when I get near him.
    “No, thanks.”
    “You do drugs, Buckwheat?”
    I never know what exactly I’m gonna get from Brick.
    “Just got out of rehab, so I gotta cut down, you know,” I say.
    For a brief second he thinks about what I’m saying, then he laughs. “Funny.”
    “I try.”
    “You know, they don’t like drugs around here.”
    “I hear they sure like them in Nebraska, though.”
    This time he really doesn’t get my joke. Or he doesn’t think it’s funny.
    “I’m serious. Like—it’s kinda weird.”
    “People not liking drugs?”
    He flicks his cigarette away and then shakes his head. “Nah, man. It’s how they leave you alone. If you’re part of that crowd.”
    “Who’s ‘they’?”
    He opens the door to the school. “Look, you’re still new. I’ll show you sometime. Okay?”
    I’m not so sure I want Brick showing me anything. “Yeah, sure.”
    “That guy Staunch. I know all about him. I could write some books.”
    He says this with a laugh.
    The very mention of the name makes my skin crawl. I want to ask what he knows, but I don’t. Part of me wonders if he’s trying to get me to ask him, then he’ll fill me with lies.
    “They don’t mess with me,” Brick continues. “Think I’m just a useless druggie, you know. But those are the ones you gotta watch. ’Cause thoseare the ones watching you.”
    Mr. Taggart is standing by the chalkboard with his wrinkled long-sleeved dress shirt sticking half out of his pants. He’s writing something in really messy cursive. Brick glances back at me and gives me a What now? expression. I take my new seat close to Lily and Harris but don’t get much of a greeting. Especially from Lily.
    The teacher turns and looks at us. “I don’t know what I’m doing up here.” Then he curses.
    I look at Harris, who is looking at