He had already been anxious, had barely made it through the night, but now his anxiety was shifting to fear. Okxxx He glanced at the clock—less than a minute before the bell would ring. She stayed home sick, my mother had gone to work, and when I came home from school I found her in the basement. ‘Meet me by the baseball diamond,’ it read. As a general rule, Jason kept to himself. Afterwards, the woman kissed his forehead and thanked him, and disappeared. Always dressed casually in jeans and tank tops, but she would walk past him and he could smell her; it was a mix of Nag Champa and a kind of spicy rose.
