by Melissa Grey
“I don’t know, Bex, that’s an awful lot of things,” Chase said. “Wanna narrow it down a bit?”
Her smile was more genuine this time. “I want to go to Egypt and see the pyramids. I want to run a marathon just to see if I can finish. I want to eat strawberry crepes and drink gross, bitter, fancy coffee as I sit at a wrought-iron table overlooking the Seine.”
“That is extremely specific.”
“I could settle for a chocolate crepe, I’m not picky,” Bex said. “What about you? What do you want to do with your life? Do you want to play baseball professionally?”
“Not really,” Chase said. It was oddly liberating, admitting that out loud. “I want to play in college because I’m pretty sure that’s the only way I’ll get into a decent one. But to be honest, baseball’s just the means to an end for me.”
“What sort of end?” Bex asked.
“I have this idea,” Chase began. “But … it’s stupid—never mind.”
“No! I want to know. Tell me,” Bex pleaded. “My roof, my rules. You have to.”
“Well, if you’re gonna twist my arm …” Chase steeled himself. He’d never shared this with anyone either. “I have this idea that if I can just get into a good school—find my way and maybe become successful enough to have people listen to me—then I can use that platform to make a difference. I want to help kids like me who are stuck in bad situations and don’t have anyone else.”
“You have me now.” Chase met Bex’s gaze. Her eyes were wide, as if she’d surprised herself with that statement. But she nodded resolutely. “And that’s not stupid. That’s brilliant. I’m in total support of this plan.”
Chase was glad it was dark enough to hide his blush. He’d told Bex more about his inner thoughts than he’d ever shared with anyone. And she’d welcomed them. But then reality pressed in, as it always did.
“Yeah, well, none of it’s going to matter if I lose my scholarship before the championship at the end of the year,” said Chase. “Coach told me some scouts already made it clear they were interested in me, but it’ll all be for nothing if they don’t see me play.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Bex said. “I’m going to make sure you’re at that game, scoring goals and nailing free throws, if it’s the last thing I do.”
Chase laughed. The knot that had been forming in his gut loosened. “Okay, now you’re just messing with me.”
“Yup.” Bex offered him the last curly fry. He accepted it, then offered her the last regular fry. She accepted that. “You know, I think this is the start of something good. You’ve got a bright future ahead of you.”
“Let me guess,” Chase said, “you feel it in your bones?”
“You know the bones. They’re never wrong.” Bex wiped her palms on her jeans and fixed Chase with a determined smile. “Now grab your chemistry textbook. We have work to do.”
Noah’s lips were still tingling long after Javi had left that day in the darkroom. They’d texted almost constantly after his departure, about everything from the little old ladies gossiping on the bus behind Javi, to Noah’s worry for Cece, to their mutual love of truly terrible B movies. (The campier, the better.)
Over the course of the next week, Javi became a constant presence in Noah’s life, even outside school. He was always there, one short text away. Noah had been so distracted that morning that he forgot to pay the bus fee as he got on, prompting the driver to huff and send him a negative. But his rating didn’t matter. Not when he felt like he was walking on air.
His thoughts drifted to Javi as he set the table for dinner. Noah’s mother had made his favorite food (macaroni and cheese, elevated by the addition of expensive Gruyère). He wondered if Javi was also just sitting down for dinner. What he’d be eating. What it would sound like to have so many siblings clustered around a dinner table. Would the noise be louder than the overwhelming silence of the Rainier household? Noah adjusted the napkin at his seat and fiddled with the fork and knife. His mother placed the dish of fancy mac and cheese on a trivet in the center of the table. She sank a serving spoon into it with an obscene squelch. His father lowered himself onto his chair at the head of the table, and then said the worst four words in the English language.
“We have to talk.”
Noah paused, a heaping spoonful of cheesy pasta frozen between the Pyrex dish and his plate. A small clump toppled off the mound and landed on the tablecloth.
“Noah, honestly,” his mother said, snapping him out of his state of frightened suspension.
He mumbled an apology and tried to wipe away the stain with his napkin. All he succeeded in doing was smearing it around even more. It was her fault really, for buying a white tablecloth. It begged for stains. Noah plopped the remaining mac and cheese on his plate. It looked vastly less appetizing than it had a mere forty-five seconds ago.
Nothing good ever came after someone said we have to talk. Not once in the history of their species.
Noah looked to his mother when his father remained silent. She looked somber, but not surprised. Whatever it was his dad had to say, his mom already knew. The news, then, was meant specifically for Noah. Cold dread coiled in his gut. There weren’t many things that could put that strained look on his mother’s face.
“Is it Cece?” Noah asked. “Is she okay? Did something happen?”
“Your sister’s fine,” his dad said. “It’s just … there are going to be some changes in the near future.”
Noah’s eyes darted between his parents. He didn’t like how cagey this sounded. He especially didn’t like that they were tiptoeing around the announcement. He much preferred the truth dealt in a single blow. An immediate impact hurt less than prolonged torment.
“Dad, what happened?”
“I lost my job.”
With a wordless sound of disgust, Noah’s mother threw her napkin down on the table and stood. The news didn’t appear to shock as much as infuriate her. So it wasn’t news to her. She grabbed a bottle of wine from the rack on the sideboard and left. Noah’s father didn’t watch her leave. His eyes remained on the congealing macaroni at the center of the table.
“What?” Noah asked. He’d heard, but he couldn’t quite wrap his head around it. For as long as Noah could remember, his father had been a photographer for the largest newspaper in Jackson Hills. He’d given Noah his first camera, a dinky little point-and-shoot, and taught him everything about lighting and exposure and f-stops. “Why? Was it something you did?”
That earned a startled chuckle from his dad. “No. At least I don’t think so, unless I have the power to topple large corporations all on my own. No, it wasn’t me. At least it wasn’t just me. The whole staff was let go. The paper is being shuttered.”
That seemed even more unthinkable. A copy of the Jackson Hills Tribune was delivered to nearly every home in the city each morning. Their subscription rate, at least according to the last time his dad had boasted about it, was higher than ever.
“Why?” Noah asked. “I thought it was doing well.”
His dad shrugged. “It was, but that’s just the way of the times. Print is dying.”
Noah wasn’t convinced. It sounded like his father was repeating a line. Something he’d been told to repeat. Noah thought about the school paper closing. They couldn’t be connected—a high school paper and the Tribune were such different beasts they were barely the same species—but the thought was there, tying them together like a flimsy string.
But was it so flimsy?
Bex, the Lantern’s intimidating editor in chief, had believed that the paper was shuttered because the administration didn’t want them talking about the vandalism. Noah had assumed the school simply wanted to silence the rumor mill. But perhaps there was something more to it. Perhaps everything was connected.
Noah poked at his rapidly cooling macaroni. It had fused into a small mountain, held together by Gruyère they probably wouldn’t be able to afford in the future.
“We’ll all have to tigh
ten our belts for now, at least until I can find something else. Your mother might go back to work, but …”
He didn’t have to finish his sentence for Noah to know what he meant. His mother had quit her job as an adjunct instructor at Jackson Hills Community College when Cece fell ill. She was at the hospital more often than she was home. She still covered the occasional class as a substitute, but she’d devoted her life to her daughter, at the expense of all else. Reentering the work force after an extended absence was no simple thing. It wouldn’t be easy.
“But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“It gets worse?” Noah asked.
His dad sighed. “Everything’s going to be fine,” he said without an ounce of conviction. “But Cece is going to have to move to a different hospital.”
Noah gripped his fork so hard, he thought he might actually bend the metal. “Why?”
He knew why. But he needed to hear. He needed his father’s voice to shape the words, to give them sound. To air the wild injustice that was about to be done to a sick child, who had deserved none of the rotten luck fate dealt her.
“Without a steady job, my rating isn’t what it was.” His dad held up his wrist and tapped on the screen of his smartwatch. The display lit up.
Noah’s throat constricted, like he might throw up.
52.
His father’s rating had fallen thirty points since that morning.
Thirty points lost, through no fault of his own.
“The hospital,” his father went on, though his voice sounded distant and muffled, like he was speaking through a heavy curtain, miles away, “is the best in the state. It has a minimum rating for its patients. Cece’s just a kid, so it’s ours that matters.”
As a stay-at-home mom, Noah’s mother’s rating was also tied to his father’s. One bad day, and their fortunes had shifted. They’d never been rich, not really, but they had never suffered for want of a thing. The inheritance his mother’s family had left her paid for their house and his tuition. It provided enough of a cushion to make their lives comfortable. Cece’s hospital bills had been covered by their father’s insurance. By the Tribune.
“Where’s she gonna go?” Noah had to force the words out.
“She’ll be moved to Jackson Hills General by the end of the month, unless I can get this”—he tapped on the smartwatch, where the damning number was still glowing—“back up to seventy-five. There’s a grace period …”
Noah stopped listening. The public hospital was open to all, regardless of rating, but nobody wanted to go there. Nobody wanted to work there either. The best pediatric oncologists went to Magnolia Children’s Hospital. The ones who’d graduated at the bottom of their classes, with the lowest ratings, wound up at Jackson Hills General.
“I don’t want her to go there.” Noah hated the way his voice sounded. Like a child. Like a dumb kid, crying about how unfair the world was. The sight of his father went blurry at the edges. Noah blinked rapidly, clearing away tears he would not allow to fall. They weren’t sad tears. They were angry ones, and those burned even worse.
“I don’t either, kid. But it’s going to be okay.” His father reached for his hand, the one still gripping the fork hard enough to bend stainless steel. Noah slowly loosened his hold on the utensil. It clattered onto porcelain, the tines poking into the mass of cheese and pasta. “I’ll find another job soon.”
Noah did not believe him. He didn’t think his father believed himself. But maybe that was just what parents had to say. When the world was too ugly to bear, they peddled flimsy little lies to their children.
Noah bit his bottom lip so hard he felt the skin break under his teeth. He sucked his lip into his mouth, tasting the metallic tinge of his own blood. He didn’t want to sit there a moment longer, but his father was finally being honest with him. Perhaps now was the time to ask the question that had been plaguing him since his meeting with Dr. Lowe.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Noah asked.
His father frowned. “Tell you what? About my job? It just happened. It caught me by surprise, too.”
Noah shook his head. “No, not about that.”
“Then about what?”
“That I was adopted.”
Silence fell between them, stretching unbearably long. Noah stared at his plate. He didn’t want to look at his father. He couldn’t. If he did, he’d fall apart.
Finally, his father spoke. “How did you find out?”
“I had my bone marrow tested.” Noah’s tongue had gone dry. It felt oddly thick in his mouth. “I wanted to find out if I was a match for Cece. I wanted to know if I could save her.”
“Oh, Noah …”
Only then did Noah look up. His father had buried his face in his hands. The silver of his wedding band stood out starkly against his skin. He scrubbed at his face before finding Noah’s gaze.
“It’s not your job to save her.” His dad extended his hand, as if contemplating taking Noah’s again. But he let it fall to the table. “That’s not on you.”
“I know,” Noah said. “Even if we were related, it was still a long shot, but—”
“You are related,” his father interrupted, “in all the ways that really matter.”
“But why didn’t you tell me?” Noah’s voice broke halfway through the question.
“Because I didn’t know how. I know that sounds like a cop-out, but it’s the truth. You were our first kid. We were flying blind on everything, not just that. You mother and I talked about telling you. We’d planned to do it. And then Cece got sick and everything else sort of fell by the wayside.”
Noah wished the reason didn’t sound so … reasonable.
But his father wasn’t done.
“Yes, we adopted you. We chose you when you were just a little baby. A newborn. You were a sickly little thing back then. You’d been born a few weeks premature. Your skin was a little bit yellow, too. Jaundice. The doctors had to keep you under special lights to get you back to normal. But after that, you were fit as a fiddle.”
Unlike Cece.
“The older you got, the harder it became to tell you,” his father continued. “I put it off. Your mother’s been overwhelmed with Cece’s illness.” His father rested both hands flat on the table. “We screwed up. We should have told you, but we didn’t. And for that, I’m sorry.”
Noah swallowed past the lump forming in his throat. The mac and cheese blurred as he gazed upon it.
When he didn’t speak, his father asked, “Do you think you can forgive me?”
His father’s question sounded so plaintive.
Noah wanted to say no. His anger and his disappointment and his hurt all wanted him to say no.
But he didn’t.
“Yeah,” Noah said. “I just … I need some time with this. Is that okay?”
His father nodded. He reached across the distance between them to clasp Noah’s shoulder. “Of course, buddy. Take as much time as you need.”
Noah nodded. The motion was jerky enough to dislodge some of the tears clinging to his eyelashes. He wasn’t even sure why he was crying. For himself. For his sister. For his parents, maybe. “May I be excused?”
His dad sighed. It was such an alien sound coming from his father. It made him sound old and tired in a way Noah had never encountered before.
“Yeah. Sure.”
Noah pushed away from the table, not knowing where he was going, but knowing he couldn’t stay there.
Javi was just logging into Polaris when his phone buzzed. He glanced down at it to find a text message alert.
From Noah.
He bit his bottom lip to prevent himself from smiling like a lunatic. Not that there was anyone around to see.
Can I come over? Please say yes.
Yes, Javi typed back quickly. He added his address a second later.
It wouldn’t take Noah long to get here from his house. They were only a few stops away on the bus. Javi could probably squeeze in a quick rou
nd of PvP if he was brutally efficient.
He loaded Polaris with that stupid smile still on his face. Noah was coming over. Noah was coming over.
“Feels good, man,” Javi said to himself, because he was apparently a lunatic.
Once the game loaded, he looked at the team roster. Rouge’s name was grayed out, which meant she wasn’t online. He clicked through to her profile to see how many days it had been since she’d last logged in.
Seven. That was odd.
The team had enough members that there was always someone available to step in if they needed the numbers for PvP or a raid, but Rouge was one of their constants. The only times she ever disappeared like that were during her exams, and as far as Javi knew, her university wouldn’t have those for months.
His eyes fell on his phone, sitting on the desk beside his large bottle of intensely caffeinated soda. In her last message, Rouge had said that she was going to look into the graffiti on her campus, but then she’d never followed up. He’d told her to be careful, not really believing she would need to be, but maybe …
He didn’t want to think any further than that. Speculation was a fool’s game, and Javi was no fool. He pulled up the team chat and switched his mic on.
“Hey, guys, has anyone heard from Rouge lately?”
“Nope,” Domino said. “I was just wondering the same thing. You know something we don’t?”
He did, but he didn’t. Not really. There were any number of reasons for her absence. Maybe she was just busy. She was probably just busy. Probably.
“Nope,” Javi said, perhaps a little too quickly. He hoped he sounded convincing. “Who’s up for some PvP?”
It was as good a distraction as any. From Rouge, and from Noah.
Javi did have enough time to get in a quick round, but he wasn’t his usual self. They still won but not by the large margin they were used to. Even so, his rating ticked up a point, likely from the people watching his team stream their game. Livestreams were always good for that sort of thing.