“Welcome to the Dark Ages,” I told him, “where a ringing phone is always a mystery.”
I sat down on the edge of my bed and stared out the window. The view was nothing but woods, which I’d always liked, but for the first time I wished my room was on Marina’s side of the hall, where you could see into Lane’s dorm.
“So,” I prompted.
“So,” he said. “I just got off the phone with my parents, and I sort of need a normal conversation right now. I hope that’s okay.”
I knew what he meant. There was something dreadful about the way my mom always asked how I was doing like it wasn’t just some pleasantry and she was actually afraid of the answer.
“No problem,” I said. “One normal conversation coming right up. I’ll start. Um . . . did you see the new movie that just came out?”
There was a confused moment of silence, and then I could almost hear Lane grinning through the phone.
“Yeah, last night at the IMAX,” he said. “I should have saved my money, it was so overrated. And how about the YouTube video of that animal doing the thing humans do?”
“You’re just seeing that? Like, fifty people posted it on Facebook yesterday,” I said. “Hold on, I’m getting a text.”
“It’s fine, I should probably open this Snapchat.”
We were both laughing.
“There,” I said. “A normal conversation.”
“It was great. Thank you.”
Lane chuckled, then coughed into his sleeve or something, like he thought that would muffle it.
The hall nurse was going to come by soon, so I picked up the receiver and hid it behind my pillow. Then I climbed into bed, the phone cradled against my shoulder.
“It’s almost lights-out,” I said.
“Yeah, sorry about that. Should we—”
“No, I want to keep talking,” I said. “Put the phone in your bed. We’ll sneak it.”
“Hold on,” he said, and there was a lot of banging on his end, and some muttering.
I climbed under the covers and tried to look innocent. I could hear the nurse in the hallway, making her way toward my room.
“Okay, done,” Lane said proudly.
“Wow, gold star.”
Nurse Blanca knocked on my door then and barged in the way she always did. I thrust the phone under my duvet and tried to look ready for bed while she pulled up my vitals on her tablet.
“Your heart rate’s a little high tonight, honey,” she said.
Damn it, Lane. I didn’t want the nurse to give me anything, so I tried to think of an excuse.
“There was this huge spider. It was terrifying. But I killed it with my shower shoe,” I said, pointing toward the wardrobe with such conviction that for a moment I believed it myself.
“Good for you, honey,” she said. “Sweet dreams.”
And then she switched off the light.
I waited until I heard her go into Natalie’s room, just to make sure.
“Okay,” I whispered. “I’m back.”
“What was that about a spider?” Lane asked.
“Um,” I said.
“Oh, wait, the nurse—” He must have put his palm over the speaker, because I couldn’t hear anything for a minute, and then he came back on.
“I almost hung up on you twice by accident,” he said. “These phones are ridiculous.”
“Yeah, but they’ll probably come back into style one day,” I said. “We’re just ahead of the curve.”
“Ugh, I bet you’re right. Twenty years from now, all the hipsters will have landlines. Or those other ones, from the black-and-white movies, with the circular dials?”
“And all the girls will wear vintage Ugg boots and complain how they were born in the wrong era,” I said, snuggling under the covers.
It was cold out, but the night air felt good. Fresh. Like maybe each breath was helping to fix the mess inside my body. I could hear the leaves rustling, and the insects chattering, and I wondered if any of them were having conversations as wonderful as the one I was having, in the dark, over the phone, with this beautifully strange boy.
“No one thinks they were born into the right era,” Lane said. “It’s like that movie Midnight in Paris.”
“You’re a fan of Woody Allen movies?” I asked, pleasantly surprised.
And we spent the next hour whispering into the phones about movies, and books, and music until I could barely keep my eyes open.
I could hear Lane yawning through the receiver.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Long hike.”
“I’m falling asleep, too,” I said. “We should probably . . .”
“Wait. Before you go, give me a word, and I’ll see if I can dream about it,” he said.
I wanted to say, me. Dream about me. Dream about us in a coffee shop, on a real date, and I’m wearing a cute dress, and you’re in one of those button-down shirts with the sleeves rolled, and we’ve both brought books to read, but we can’t stop smiling at each other over our cappuccinos, and instead of driving me home afterward, we go to the park and play on the swing set like kids.
“Coffee.” It was the first thing that popped into my head.
“That shouldn’t be a problem, seeing as how I’m obviously in love with coffee.”
“Well, coffee is pretty hot,” I said.
“That was terrible,” Lane said. “Awful. I’m hanging up.”
“Fine.”
But he didn’t.
“And I want you to dream about . . . hmmm.” He stopped to think for a moment. “Puppies?”
“Why puppies?” I asked.
“I don’t know!” he said defensively. “I thought girls liked puppies. I guess, just, dream about something awesome?”
“It’s a deal,” I promised.
Lane called me every night after that.
MARINA LOOKED TERRIBLE at breakfast on Wednesday morning. She was the last of us to arrive at the table, and she didn’t say anything as she slid into her seat. She just glared into her oatmeal like it was the source of all problems in the universe, and she’d already taken a bite before anyone had told her.
“What’s going on?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t what I thought. Marina usually went to see Dr. Barons on Tuesday afternoons, but she’d seemed fine at dinner.
“Yeah, what’s up with the doom and gloom?” Nick asked through a mouthful of pancakes.
I kicked him under the table, and he kicked back at me, making a face. I swear, sometimes Nick had no tact. Particularly if it was, well, bad news of the Latham kind.
“Amit called me last night,” Marina mumbled, which was just about the last thing I was expecting her to say.
“Wait, what?” I said, scandalized. “And you picked up?”
“Oh, sorry, I forgot to check my caller ID.” Marina rolled her eyes over the ancientness of our room phones.
“Who’s Amit?” Lane asked, confused.
“My ex-boyfriend,” Marina explained. “He went home from Latham and decided to dump me via the silent treatment. Anyway. He called, finally. He kept saying he had no one else to talk to and he was really sorry to bother me.”
“Please tell me you hung up on him,” I said.
Marina sighed.
“No, because that would have been somewhat self-actualized of me. I asked him to tell me all about it.”
“You didn’t!” I moaned.
“He sounded horrible,” Marina said. “Really depressed. I think he was crying, or having a mental breakdown or something.”
“Over what, getting well enough to go home?” Nick asked, not very nicely.
Marina shook her head. And then she told us what Amit had said it was like for him after going home. How his parents babied him like he was an invalid, and wouldn’t let him leave the house. How, when he’d finally gone back to school, everyone had been terrified that he’d relapse and infect them.
“He said they called him plague boy,” Marina said. “And defaced his locker. When he sat down a
t a lunch table, everyone would leave. Apparently a lot of the parents at school got really upset that they let him back in, and then last night some guys jumped him and threatened that he better not come back to school or else.”
“Or else?” Nick said skeptically.
“That’s what he said.” Marina shrugged. “Maybe it’s just his school, or whatever, maybe a lot of kids were getting sick there.”
I listened to all of this in shock. Nick looked as horrified as I felt, and Lane was shaking his head like he couldn’t believe things like this happened. But I believed it easily. I knew all too well how cruel kids could be, how relentlessly they could taunt you and make you feel like no one would ever be your friend again.
“Maybe,” Charlie said. “It can’t really be that bad, can it? Getting better, I mean?”
“It wasn’t like that at all where I’m from,” Lane said. “I never knew anyone who got sick.”
“Yeah, but all it takes is one person who wants to stir up trouble, and suddenly everyone’s panicked,” Nick said. “Look at history if you don’t believe me.”
“Game of Thrones isn’t real,” I told him, and Marina snorted.
“The weird part was that Amit said he wished he’d never left Latham,” Marina went on. “He kept saying that he didn’t have any friends out there, that he was all alone. At least here he felt like he belonged. At least here he had a life.”
“Some life,” Nick deadpanned.
“Girlfriend, friends, your own room, no homework, and no chores?” Marina laughed. “Yeah, I’d say that’s a pretty good life.”
“Well, not all of us have that,” Nick said, with a look in my direction that was almost accusative.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LANE
I FELL ASLEEP dreaming of Sadie every night that week.
Sometimes we were in the woods, and she was taking photos of a monster I couldn’t see. “No one will believe this,” she’d say, getting closer and closer while I shouted for her to run away with me to safety, even though she promised the monster wouldn’t hurt us.
And sometimes we were lying in a field surrounded by flowers, and she was holding my hand, which was covered with numbers. “Come on, Lane, let’s jump,” she’d beg, and suddenly we were at the edge of a steep cliff. I’d watch in horror as Sadie jumped off the cliff, giggling. But she’d float gently to the bottom, as though held aloft by an invisible parachute. And then I’d jump, trying to follow, and there wouldn’t be a parachute after all.
Each time, I woke up drenched in sweat, my body curled around the telephone. And each time, I looked around my dorm room with relief, convinced I was waking from a nightmare.
ON THURSDAY AFTERNOON, we were all in the library, using the router trick to get internet. Marina was at the computer, while Nick and Charlie were at the back tables.
Sadie and I had gone off together into the stacks and were sitting on the floor with our backs against the encyclopedias. Her hair was wet from the shower and knotted up in a bun. It smelled amazing, like mint and oranges and old books, although I guessed the last part was the library.
We both had our laptops out, the same MacBook everyone used. Hers was battered and dinged, like it had survived a war. I kept mine in a shell, with a silicone keyboard cover so it wouldn’t get scratched. When I’d taken it out, Sadie had laughed at me and asked why my computer was wearing a condom. Just hearing her use the word “condom” had sent my brain spiraling down all sorts of dirty alleyways, and I was having a hard time concentrating.
She was so close to me that occasionally, when she typed, her elbow brushed mine. I wanted to lean over and kiss her. I’d wanted to do that for a few days now, or maybe even longer, but I didn’t want to ruin things, and I didn’t know how to begin.
I glanced over at her screen, in case she’d found something interesting, but she was just scrolling through pictures of random pretty people posing in random pretty places with balloons and cupcakes and stuff. I was on the Stanford website, clicking around.
Dr. Barons said my vitals looked better and that my new X-ray had shown some improvement, so it turned out that not doing homework and participating in naptime and getting nine hours of sleep a night was actually a solid game plan. But he still didn’t have an answer on when, or if, I’d be able to go home. All he’d say was “as soon as you’re better,” with that bullshitty grin, like he had no idea what I was so eager to get back to, and my AP assignments weren’t still locked away in some secret drawer in his office.
Stanford listed their admissions deadlines on the website. Early action was almost up, and I knew I’d miss that, but regular decision wasn’t due until January. I’d wanted to see if it was possible, and it looked like it might be. If I got out of Latham within three months, my application would just make it. Getting in, with my name and social security number registered in the national database of active TB cases, was a completely different story. I was pretty sure Stanford wouldn’t want to risk assigning me a roommate even if Dr. Barons certified that my TB was inactive, because there was always the chance that I’d relapse. I’d tried to ask Dr. Barons what most kids did about college once they left Latham, but he’d given me a stern look and told me to “focus on the now,” which made me want to strangle him with his stethoscope.
I was focusing on the now. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t still wonder about what came after.
Sadie leaned over and asked what I was looking at, and I tilted the screen so she could see a picture of the campus.
“That’s pretty,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said wistfully, and then I clicked over to Facebook to make myself stop obsessing, which in retrospect might not have been the best idea.
The barrage of “get well soon” messages had stopped. Zero notifications. My account felt dead and forgotten, and I wondered how I’d missed the funeral. My high school’s homecoming dance had taken place over the weekend, and my feed was filled with pictures of it. Group photos in limos, everyone in suits and dresses, girls pointing their toes together to show off their brightly colored Converses.
I’d always skipped homecoming. It took place the weekend before the first big exams, and even if it hadn’t, I wouldn’t have had the nerve to ask anyone. Not when the first question they’d have would be whether my dad was one of the chaperones. I wouldn’t have known if they were turning me down, or turning down the idea of going with Mr. Rosen’s kid. It had seemed like a miracle when Hannah had been interested in me, Hannah who had transferred to our school in tenth grade, and had missed the memo that my dad sucked. Hannah who said yes to being my date that year, which was my last chance to participate in something along with everyone else.
But there weren’t any more homecoming dances. I’d missed all of them. I hadn’t thought I’d care, but now that the opportunity was gone, I sort of did. Everyone looked so happy in the pictures, and if I could have done it over last year, I would have just asked someone to go with me. I scrolled a little farther, through pictures of everyone lined up in each other’s driveways and in the backseats of limos, and then I stopped cold.
It was a photo of Hannah and this guy Parker. Her hair was in fancy curls, and Parker was wearing sunglasses with his suit, even though it was clearly dark out. They were at the dance, with a butcher-paper banner and bleachers in the background.
But that wasn’t what I was staring at. It was the Facebook announcement above the picture: Hannah Chung is in a relationship with Parker Nguyen. It had so many likes. So many comments from kids I’d sat with at lunch or competed with in Model UN, proclaiming, “Finally!” and “You guys are everything!”
If they were everything, I guessed that made me nothing.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying not to let it get to me. What did I care if Hannah was dating Parker? I knew him a little from Model UN, and he was a bit douchey, but mostly okay. He always wore a black button-up shirt with a red tie to our conferences, because red was a power color. He was forev
er saying crap like that, about how using pen on a test makes you seem more sure of yourself, and traveling to colleges to interview on their campuses looked more serious than taking a local interview.
“Hey,” Sadie said. “What’s up? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
More like I’ve just become one, I thought. We were all ghosts at Latham House, because we were all haunted by lives that were no longer ours. Only I didn’t say that. I just shrugged and tilted the screen so she could see the smiling photograph of the happy, perfect couple in the middle of their happy, perfect senior year.
“Wait,” she said, realizing. “Is that Hannah Hannah? Your ex?”
“The very same.”
I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter. That high school had never mattered to me like that, that Hannah didn’t matter, that none of it was a part of me anymore. It was October, and I was at Latham, and the rest of my life didn’t have anything to do with my former classmates’ Facebook accounts.
I had more important things to worry about. Things you weren’t supposed to worry about at seventeen, like blood tests, and X-rays, and my parents’ health insurance premiums, and the DNR forms we’d signed in Dr. Barons’s office before I was given my med sensor and removed from everything that remotely resembled my past life. And now it was too late to do anything more than march grimly forward and hope.
“It’s fine,” I said, mostly to convince myself. “Hannah can do what she wants. It’s just that I didn’t expect to be so easily deleted from my old life.”
I sighed, and Sadie put her hand on my shoulder.
“It wasn’t even that good of a life,” I went on. “I did nothing but study, and even when I had a girlfriend, we just went to Barnes and Noble to do our homework and hung out at Model UN conferences. I knew everyone else was going to these parties and dances and beach trips or whatever, but I thought it was stupid, because the moment we all got to college, high school would be erased. Except now it’s me. I’m the one erased. Or I guess I’m not even that, because the thing about being erased is that first you have to leave a mark.”
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