by Amy Ross
Jek looks away and runs a finger along the carved head of an old walking stick. “I don’t know,” he says, not meeting my eye. I know he isn’t exactly comfortable with these kinds of conversations, but I feel like I need some kind of explanation, so I squeeze his hand, silently urging him to go on. “I guess I just always felt...out of sync with you,” he says with a sigh. “We were close, and then... I got caught up in my own stuff. My experiments and everything. And I just kept counting on you to be there.” He glances at me. “Then one day I looked up and you weren’t. There were these other guys, and they all wanted you, and you moved on. And I didn’t. And after that, you—you had all this experience, and I...” He stops again and swallows. “I didn’t know if I had enough to offer you.”
“And now?” I say, my throat catching a little.
“I don’t know,” he says, looking into my eyes at last. “I guess it stopped seeming so important.”
A giggle bubbles up from my chest before I can stop it.
“What?” he asks, his brow furrowed.
“No, nothing, just...” I look down, embarrassed but still smiling. “I can’t believe you kiss like that, when you’ve never done it before. But I guess that’s all part of being a genius, huh?”
Jek laughs and tips my chin up, brushing our lips together. “Must be.”
We kiss a little more until the salesclerk clears his throat.
“Why don’t you come over tonight?” Jek suggests as we separate and turn back to a crate of vinyl records. “We could watch a movie, hang out.”
I feel the hairs on my neck prickle: excitement and warning, all at once.
“Jek,” I sigh.
“What?” he says, all innocence. “We used to do it all the time.”
“Yes,” I agree carefully. “But...is that what you mean? Watch a documentary, eat some popcorn, look at funny pictures on the internet. Then you wander off to poke at your experiments while I scroll through hacker forums on my phone?”
“Maybe,” he says quickly. “If that’s what you want.” He hesitates, biting his lip. “Is that what you want?”
No, I think. That’s not what I want. And that’s what I’m afraid of. That thanks to a buildup of years’ worth of unrequited longing, I’ll fall all too easily into bed with Jek, only to realize that the person I thought I knew is actually a stranger.
I slip away from him to the other side of the crate, and he nods shortly to himself.
“Right.” He takes a breath. “Okay.”
I shake my head, not wanting him to get the wrong idea. “Jek, wait, I...I just think it’s a good idea to take things slow. We’ve known each other for ages, but this...” I make a vague hand gesture to encompass whatever is happening between us. “This is really new. And for the past few months, you’ve been—”
“What?”
I blow out a breath. “Difficult,” I say honestly. “Confusing. Secretive.”
“Jesus, Lu,” he says, pushing away from the record crate and letting his voice rise a little. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe you’re the one who’s changed? You used to respect people’s privacy and stay out of their business. When did you become so obsessed with knowing everything I do, everything I think, even when it has nothing to do with you?”
I stare at him, stung. But there’s an uncomfortable truth to what he’s saying. Experience once taught me the damage you can do by digging around in a person’s secrets—not just to them, but to everyone around them. And yet here I am, obsessing over snippets of gossip and acting like I’m entitled to know every detail of Jek’s life.
“Okay,” I say, forcing my voice calm, “maybe you’re right. Look, I’m not trying to force you to tell me what’s going on, and I’m not giving you some ultimatum. But right now...obviously we don’t trust each other very much. Doesn’t that matter to you?”
He takes a minute, rubbing at a dingy brass candlestick with his thumb. “Fine,” he says at last, exhaling slowly. “I get it. So...no movie. It’s cool.” He starts to head out of the shop, but I follow him and tug on his jacket sleeve.
“Hey,” I say. “I’m not trying to push you, but anytime you want to talk, I’m here. You know that, right? Whenever you’re ready...you can trust me. No judgment.”
He turns back to look at me, and there’s something in his eyes this time. Hesitation. Like there’s something he wants to say, but he doesn’t quite dare. I hold my breath, waiting, but just as his mouth opens, there’s a jingle of the bell on the door, announcing someone else has come in the shop. Jek’s face goes blank at once.
“Come on,” he says. “I’ll walk you back to your car.”
* * *
I’m worried after that conversation that Jek will retreat back into his shell, but I wake up that Saturday morning to a text from him, suggesting a trip to the butterfly pavilion on the London Chem grounds. I guess he took my message to heart and is trying to keep our dates as innocent as possible. I haven’t been there since I was a little kid. I did love it then, though, and it might make a nice break from the dreary sludge of winter around here.
We meet up at his house and walk together up the hill in a dull drizzle, past the soggy-looking protesters at London Chem headquarters, its pale gray towers reflecting the flat, featureless sky. I’m looking forward to warming up amid all the plants in the pavilion, but once we step inside, I’m not so sure I made the right decision. The place is almost entirely filled with overstimulated children tugging bored parents around. The shrieking and giggling sounds are somehow louder in the enclosed space, and the hot, humid air makes me instantly cranky and uncomfortable. I give Jek an uncertain look, but the one he returns is so anxious and hopeful that I can’t bear to disappoint him, so we both strip off our heavy winter coats, leave them on a rack by the entrance and head into the exhibit.
We make our careful way along the curving path, doing our best to avoid the toddlers hurtling past every minute or so, and at first I’m so distracted that I forget that this pavilion was ever meant to be something other than a sweltering, overcrowded swamp. Then Jek nudges my elbow and points, and I lose my breath because right in front of us are five beautiful butterflies lined up on an overripe banana in a feeding tray, their velvet wings pulsing to a languid beat. It’s pretty much impossible to be cranky when faced with a sight like that.
After that, my eyes feel different, almost as if I’ve been given special butterfly-viewing glasses. Everywhere I look, I see the delicate creatures, now that my vision is attuned to them, and some even seem to stare back at us with their eyelike wing markings. I’m so fixated on the butterflies, I don’t even notice the other beasts sharing their space—not until Jek points out an adorably fuzzy little guy hanging from a leaf just above my head.
“Oh,” I exclaim, “a caterpillar.” I reach out carefully to trace a fingertip along its downy back, and it curls away from me a little.
“Let him be,” says Jek softly, and he nudges me over to a display of pupae in a glass case. They’re lined up next to each other, some just plain green cylinders, but in others I can see the beginnings of wings, still damp and tightly furled.
“‘Metamorphosis occurs when the caterpillar passes through a pupal stage,’” Jek reads from the sign, “‘during which its tissues and cells are broken down and reconstructed into the form of the adult insect, or imago.’”
“How strange,” I murmur half to myself as I gaze into the case. “You see caterpillars and butterflies all the time in the world, and you take them for granted. It’s easy to forget how amazing the transformation really is.”
I turn back to Jek to find him looking at me with a bizarre intensity. I can’t put my finger on it, but it feels like there’s some kind of static charge in the air. Or maybe it’s that the pavilion is now weirdly silent.
“Where did everyone go?” I ask, glancing around th
e place. Somehow without my noticing, the whole pavilion seems to have emptied. Apparently Jek was as lost to his surroundings as I was, because he gives a start when I point it out.
“I don’t know,” he says softly.
I peer around in all the corners, but I catch only the occasional flash of color.
“Even the butterflies have disappeared.”
Jek looks up at the glass dome over our heads. “Storm,” he says succinctly. I follow his gaze and sure enough, the sky above us has turned dark and threatening while we’ve been wandering. “The butterflies think it’s night.”
The place has an eerie feel to it, and I shiver despite the heat. “Maybe we should get going before it hits,” I suggest.
Jek agrees, so we find our coats and head out into a dark gray fog intermittently pierced by a needlelike drizzle. We’ve hardly made it a few yards down the road before a massive crash startles us, and the drizzle turns into a sudden downpour. The gutters flood immediately, and eddies form around our sneakers.
“Back inside,” Jek shouts. He takes my hand and tugs me back into the pavilion.
Once inside, the heat of the enclosure seems to hit me twice as hard, the air wet and thick with the sickly sweet smell of rotting fruit. A minute ago I was shivering, soaked to the bone from being out in the rain, but now I can’t wait to peel off my sodden coat and sweater. Jek follows my lead and strips down to a thin white T-shirt. We leave everything in a soggy pile near the door and head back into the exhibit.
I’ve never been here before during a storm. The rain beats noisily against the glass structure, and the light is dim and greenish through the dense, overhanging branches with their fat, heavy leaves. Condensation beads up on every surface.
“It’s kind of creepy in here, all alone like this,” I say.
“Yeah,” says Jek, glancing at me shyly. “Sorry our date kind of took a nosedive.”
“No, it’s fine,” I assure him. “Nice, in a way.” Even though there’s not much to see now, we make our way dutifully around the little path as if on autopilot. “It beats sitting at home, researching scholarships.”
Jek “hmms” noncommittally, and I realize we’ve never talked before about his college plans, even though it’s a subject on everyone’s mind this year.
“What about you?” I prod tentatively. “Any thoughts on where you want to apply?” I try to make the question sound casual, but the truth is my heart beats a little faster to have aired this concern.
I know it’s too soon, our relationship too new, to be thinking about long-term plans together, but that hasn’t stopped me from fretting and fantasizing a bit. A little part of me likes to dream about us ending up at the same school, even though I know it isn’t likely. Jek has the brains and money to go to the very best places, and there’s no way I could swing that. But if I knew what he was picturing—Harvard? Berkeley?—then maybe I could aim for something in the same city. No matter what happens with our relationship, it would be nice to have a familiar face nearby when I’m dealing with college stress.
“I don’t know,” says Jek after a long pause. “To be honest, I’m not sure I want to go to college.”
I stop and stare at him.
“Not go? What are you talking about?” I know plenty of people who probably won’t make it to college after graduation, but only because they don’t see it as an option. As my mom says, Jek lives in a different world. And if there’s anything I know about his world, it’s that everyone goes to college.
Jek shrugs and continues a little way down the path. “It just seems like a waste of time,” he says hesitantly, as if he’s expressing aloud something that, until now, he told only himself. “I don’t know if I have much to learn from books and professors. Maybe it makes more sense to travel for a while. To see the real world for a change, instead of the inside of a lab.”
Put that way, I have to admit it makes a certain amount of sense. And Puloma is enough of a free spirit, she’d probably approve this plan. But I can’t help feeling my heart sink as I realize there’s no way for me to include myself on this adventure. I don’t have the money for that kind of thing, and besides, I can’t skip college. My own dreams depend on it. My mother would never forgive me if I gave up all that for some boy. I’d never forgive myself.
The thought dampens my mood a bit, and I trail behind Jek on the path by a few steps. After a minute or two, he turns to look for me, and a strange expression crosses his face.
“Stop,” he says quietly but firmly. “Don’t move.”
“What?” I ask, though I do as he says. “Why?”
“There’s...wait.” He walks toward me, slowly and carefully as if approaching a skittish colt. Once he’s not more than a couple of inches from me, he snaps a twig off one of the nearby branches and moves it toward my head.
“What are you—” I start, but he puts a hand on my arm.
“Shh. Don’t move.”
He slowly lowers the twig in front of me, and that’s when I finally see it: a huge, iridescent blue butterfly with a deep violet “eye,” almost like a peacock.
“Look at that,” I breathe, afraid to move a muscle. “I’ve never seen a butterfly that big.” With its wings fully extended, it’s almost the size of a paperback book, folded open.
“I know,” says Jek, still holding out the twig. “You’ve got to wonder if the scientists here have been slipping their experimental by-products into its food.”
The butterfly gives its wings a tentative flap, then flutters away into the branches. I turn to Jek and take his hand.
“It’s hard to imagine something like that could come from that fuzzy little caterpillar we saw,” I say as we continue down the path.
“Which do you like better?” he asks, his tone light. “The caterpillar or the butterfly?”
I glance over at him and laugh. “Silly question,” I say. “You can’t have one without the other. And it’s the metamorphosis that makes them interesting.”
Jek stops short and pulls me up close to him.
“What?” I say, surprised. I look up into his eyes. He’s gazing at me intently, an unplaceable expression on his face. I can’t tell if it’s the way he’s looking at me, or the damp heat of this place, but I start to feel a little light-headed and rest a hand against his chest for support.
Somewhere distant, I’m aware of thunder growling and a shuddering flash of light, but I can hardly think of that because suddenly Jek is kissing me, hard and breathless, and my arms are full of the boy I have adored for most of my life. He pushes me up against the nearest surface, and I gasp from the chill of the wet glass against my steaming skin.
“Jek,” I say, between frenzied kisses. “Wait.” I slide a hand down his chest and push gently. “We agreed...”
But Jek only crushes himself up against me more forcefully, hitches my leg up over his hip.
“Don’t fight me, Lu,” he says into my neck, his voice wrecked with desperation. “Please. I know you want this, too.”
For a moment, I let myself succumb to this temptation, my skin prickling from the electricity in his lips, his touch, in the overheated air, my whole awareness swamped with him. But as much as I want to let myself go, I know neither of us is prepared for this.
“Jek, no,” I insist, squirming in his grasp. “Stop it.” I push harder, and he breaks away from me, breathing heavily, sweat glistening on his skin. He rubs the collar of his T-shirt over his face.
“I’m sorry,” he says, his eyes wide, chest heaving. “Jesus, I didn’t mean to...” He looks down at his hands, which are trembling slightly, and tightens them into fists. “I don’t know what got into me.”
I glance up through the glass panels at a patch of lightening sky.
“It’s letting up,” I say. “Maybe we should go.”
CHAPTER 13
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br /> We walk home together from the date in silence, and even when I leave him at his door, Jek seems barely willing to look at me. A sour end to what had been a near-perfect afternoon, and I feel like I ruined things just when they were starting to work. I want to fix it, but Jek doesn’t answer any of my texts the rest of the night. I figure I can give him some time to cool off, but when he’s still not responding the next day, I get angry. Is this supposed to be punishment for pushing him away? That’s shitty and immature. Maybe my mom was right about him—that he’s no different from the other London Chem brats: only interested in girls for what he can get out of them.
But my indignation turns to concern when Jek fails to show up for school on Monday, and again on Tuesday. Maybe something else is going on? Maybe he caught a cold from that storm, but I can’t help but think that it has something to do with Hyde.
When my phone does finally ring Tuesday evening, it’s not Jek calling, but Puloma. “Lulu,” she says, “I was just hoping...” Her voice is calm, light, but I know her well enough to detect the beginnings of panic in her tone. “Have you heard from Jayesh?”
* * *
A half hour later, I’m in her study as Puloma pours tea for us both.
“Jayesh was in a terrible mood when he came home Saturday,” she explains and I feel a renewed twinge of guilt.
“Did he tell you why?” I ask. Puloma looks up, but if she notices or guesses that we fought, she’s too discreet to say.
“No,” she says. “Just a lot of slamming doors and being uncommunicative. I was trying to leave him alone, let him work out whatever it was, but Tom wouldn’t let it be.” Puloma fiddles with her teacup, not meeting my eyes. “It was my fault, in a way,” she confesses. “The day before, I texted and called Jayesh about something and he never got back to me. You know how he is—absentminded. He tells himself he’ll reply in a minute and then forgets all about it. But that day I was already annoyed because of something at work and I needed to talk to him, and when he didn’t respond, I wound up complaining about it to Tom. Tom was just being protective,” she explains. “He hates to see anything upset me, including Jayesh. But Jayesh came home in such a mood, and Tom started lecturing him about answering his phone...”