Then I pitch my theory. That the Suits are out for revenge. After all, the bad guys don’t like getting beat any more than the good guys do. The Jacks spent six years in prison thanks to Justicia’s Supers, and the Dealer—well, who even knows what he’s been up to. Not to mention they lost one of their own—the Jack of Hearts hasn’t risen from the dead yet—giving them something else to avenge. I look over at Jenna, but she just looks down at her feet. When she finally notices everyone looking at her, she shrugs.
“The Fox will take care of it,” she says with certainty.
Rule number four.
“That’s easy for you to say,” Mike scoffs, echoing my thoughts exactly.
The baseball diamond is deserted. The ground smells musty from last night’s rain, though the sun has at least dried the bleachers. Because Mike won’t get the cast off for a couple of months still, Eric decides to teach him the art of one-handed kung fu.
“This should be good,” Jenna says, climbing the steps.
“Yeah. Do you think Mike will break his other arm or just electrocute himself first?” I ask, sitting next to Jenna on the top bench of the bleachers, watching Eric show Mike the proper fighting stance down at home plate.
“My money’s on accidental electrocution,” she says. It’s a figure of speech, of course. Jenna never has any money.
Nikki takes one look at Jenna and me sitting on the bleachers and watches Mike strike a crane pose, though with his plastered arm and unsteady leg he looks more like a gimpy goose.
“I can’t watch,” she says. “I’m taking a walk. Please make sure Eric doesn’t kill him.”
“Oh, Mike will do himself in, don’t worry,” I say, watching the Wisp shake her head, walk straight through the fence, and then disappear into the woods beyond the field. Beside me, Jenna is sitting cross-legged, fidgeting with the pull strings of her sweatshirt, wrapping them around her fingers one way and then the other, cutting off circulation. I watch Eric practice a couple of whirlwind kicks, one right after another. He’s so graceful it’s almost hypnotizing. Then I watch Mike fall on his butt just trying to get one leg to follow orders. I realize this is the first time Jenna and I have been alone—or at least almost alone—in about a week. Since we hung out together at the pool.
Suddenly she turns to me. Her hands are in her lap, one leg tucked underneath the other. Her eyes are scrunched behind her glasses and she’s chewing on her upper lip, which is, I notice, a little chapped. I could count the cracks if I wanted to.
I’ve seen this look before. She has something on her mind. I hold my breath and wait for it.
“Do you think I’m good?” she asks. “A good person, I mean?”
I literally look behind her, wondering where, exactly, she pulled this one out of.
“You’re no Mahatma Gandhi,” I say, figuring stupid questions deserve equally stupid answers, but the look on her face tells me I need to try again.
“You’re serious?”
She nods.
“You? Jenna Jaden. Straight-A student. Award-winning athlete. Soup kitchen volunteer. Superhero sidekick extraordinaire. You seriously don’t know if you are a good person?”
She leans back, challenging me with a smile and one raised eyebrow. “Well, are you a good person?”
“Well, yeah,” I say. “I mean, I think so, don’t you?”
She doesn’t answer that one. That’s when I know I’m in trouble. She leans forward again. “When’s the last time you lied to your mother?” she asks.
Technically I don’t think I said anything to Mom that wasn’t true in the twenty minutes we spent together this morning over breakfast. So that would make it . . .
“Yesterday,” I say.
“When’s the last time you did something you knew you probably weren’t supposed to?”
I immediately think of the math test. Then skipping school and biking to the bar. Then I realize that I’m probably not supposed to be out here sitting on these bleachers talking to her during fourth period.
“Okay. What’s your point?”
“I’m just saying that you do things that some people would consider not good.”
She’s got me fixed with those green eyes of hers. There’s no way out of this one.
“Well. Yeah. Sure. I’m not perfect. I screw up every now and then. But when it comes to the really important stuff, I think I do okay.”
“You do okay.” The way she says it, I feel like I’m suddenly six inches tall.
“I don’t know. I think I’m basically good, I mean, more or less.”
“Well, which is it, more or less?” she prods.
“You know what I mean,” I tell her. “You do the right thing most of the time, and you make some mistakes, but you learn from them, and you try to help other people or at least stay out of their way, and you don’t kill anybody and you’re, you know, basically good.”
“And basically good is, what, good enough?”
“Yeah, something like that,” I say.
“But it’s not good. Not good good. Not the way we mean it when we say things like good and evil, right?”
“I don’t know, Jenna. I don’t think anyone is good all the time. Being totally good every second is just not . . . well, it’s just not reasonable.”
“So that’s a reason not to do it?”
I throw my hands into the air. The universal gesture of What the heck do you want from me?
“I’m just asking,” she says defensively.
“Well. No. I guess not.” I smile, hoping to segue into a different line of questioning or even something resembling a stupid, meaningless, middle school conversation, but Jenna is all earnestness, leaning in, eyes narrow, lips pursed. She’s not letting go. “Seriously. What is all this about? Did Mike tell you about my math test?” I knew I shouldn’t have told him about that. Of course he said he cheated on his Spanish quiz the week before, so I didn’t feel bad. But I’m guessing Jenna never cheated on anything in her life. She’s all about hard work and sacrifice.
“This isn’t really about you, Drew.”
Jenna looks down at her feet. She’s wearing sandals today, even though the air is a little crisp, and her nails are painted pale pink. Her feet smell like the wet grass she just walked through. I can see the tiny, soft blond hairs on her legs just above her ankles. She looks back at me. “It’s just that sometimes I kind of wonder . . . what’s the point, you know? I mean, every day most people don’t do a single thing for anyone but themselves. And some people, they do terrible things and get away with it. And then there are people who devote their entire lives to being good and doing what they believe in, and they end up forgotten.”
“Geez, Jenna. You’re only thirteen. I think it’s a little early to worry about this stuff.”
“I’m not talking about me, either, Drew. I mean, not really.” On the field, Mike is desperately trying to land just one punch, but Eric continues to dodge them with ease. I suddenly realize I’m Mike in this conversation. I scoot an inch closer to Jenna.
“Sometimes I don’t think there really is a good and bad,” she says. “At least, not the way we are always taught. Sometimes I think there are just choices and consequences.”
“Okay,” I say. “I can see that.” I scoot another inch, leaning back on my elbows, all casual like. I can actually smell the leaves turning, drying out, can hear them breaking free, and I’m reminded of that hippie song about seasons and times and purposes and all that. My mom loves that song, which means I am naturally inclined not to, but I kind of believe it anyway.
“But then there must be good and bad choices, right? Or at least good and bad consequences?” she asks.
“Well, sure.”
“I mean, if I blow up a building and kill the people inside, that’s bad, right?”
I can’t help but give her a look. “Um. Yeeaaahh, Jenna. I think blowing up a building full of innocent people qualifies as a bad choice.”
“And even if I make the bomb and sell it to
the guy who blows up the building, that’s bad, too, right?”
“Pretty sure. It’s a bomb. What did you think it was going to be used for? It’s not like you sold him a pack of gum.”
“Okay. Right,” she says, suddenly moving close enough to me that our knees bump. It makes me sit up straight. Our faces are probably only a foot apart. I can actually count the pores in her nose. I can’t believe none of them are clogged. I’m suddenly very self-conscious about my breath. I had oatmeal for breakfast. Apple cinnamon. I wonder how good her senses are. Still, I don’t dare move.
“So let’s say I sell him a pack of gum instead, and as I give him back his change, he says, ‘Hey, did you know I was headed over to that building across the street to blow it up?’”
“He just says that?”
“Yes.”
“As you’re giving back his change?”
“Yes.”
“In that girly voice of yours?”
“No, fart head. He sounds like Kermit the Frog.” Jenna scowls at me, but she doesn’t scoot away.
“Really. Because I can’t imagine Kermit the Frog blowing up a building.” I realize that I’m trying to be charming, which isn’t a strength of mine, but I can’t turn back now.
Jenna hits me on the shoulder. It’s meant to be playful, I think, but it actually hurts quite a bit. “He says he’s going to blow up the building.”
“And you say?”
“Nothing. I don’t say anything. Or I just say ‘oh,’ and I go back to restocking the snack cakes.”
“You say ‘oh’?”
“I say ‘oh,’ that’s it, and then half an hour later the building explodes.”
“That’s one vicious frog.”
“I’m serious,” Jenna says through gritted teeth. I’m afraid she might punch me again, less playfully this time.
“Okay. Okay. It blows up. And you never did anything to stop him? Never called the police?”
“I didn’t say a thing to anyone.”
“Well, then, yeah. That’s definitely not good.”
“Right. Because I could have stopped it, right?” She shifts a little, and our knees bump again. “Okay. Except let’s say there were no people inside, so nobody really got hurt.”
“Still bad,” I say. “Destruction of property. Maybe not as bad—”
“Except one. There’s one person,” she says, interrupting. “A terrorist.”
“Miss Piggy?” I ask.
“Drew!”
“Okay. Fine. There’s a terrorist in the building. Whatever.”
“Thank you. And the guy I sold the gum to is blowing up the building to get rid of the terrorist.”
“Right.”
“So that’s bad, right?”
“What’s bad?”
“That I didn’t call the police when the guy buying the gum told me he was going to blow up the building.”
I’m a little confused. “And you knew that there was only one person in the building and that the one person was a bad guy?”
“No.”
“No, you didn’t know, or no, you knew?”
“I didn’t know he was a bad guy.”
“Then I’m going to have to say not good.”
“Then yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, let’s say I knew he was bad.”
“Who?” I ask, confused again.
“The guy in the building. The one that got blown up.”
“And you didn’t call the police?”
“No.”
“No, you didn’t call, or no, you did?”
“No, I did, actually.” She seems to be debating it in her own head.
“You called the police?”
“Yes. And they stopped the man who bought the gum from blowing up the building.”
“With the terrorist in it?”
“Right. And he escaped.”
“The gum guy or the terrorist guy?”
“The terrorist guy. And he blew up another building that was full of innocent people.”
“I see,” I say, but I’m just saying it. I’m completely lost.
“So then which is it?”
“Which is what?”
“Good or bad—me calling the police to stop the guy who was going to blow up the first building to begin with?”
I don’t say anything this time. I’m trying to piece it together, more than anything to just try and figure out why she is asking me all of this. I wonder if this doesn’t have something to do with me somehow. Or Gavin. Or both of us. I wonder if I’m the chewing-gum guy. I hope I am. I think at least it’s better than being the terrorist.
“Good or bad?” Jenna prods.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Good or bad?”
“I don’t know, Jenna. It’s neither. You’re just a convenience store clerk, not an undercover FBI agent. You sold some guy a pack of gum. He said he was going to blow something up, so you did what you thought was right. You called the police. That’s what I would have done.”
“Even though the consequences turned out bad.”
“Yeah, I think so. I mean, it was still right at the time.”
“Even though I later found out that it wasn’t.”
“Yeah . . . but that’s not your fault. You didn’t know.”
“So then it works the other way, too.”
“What works the other way?”
“If I hadn’t called the police. And I didn’t stop the guy from blowing up the terrorist.”
“I don’t know. I mean, in retrospect . . .”
“The consequences were good,” she says.
“Yeah. I guess.”
“So that makes it right, right?”
“Um . . . right?” I offer skeptically.
“Right. Because all those innocent lives were saved. Even though what I did, by not calling the police, was wrong. Right?”
She is looking at me. And the way she is looking at me . . . it’s as if she can’t take a breath until I answer.
“Jenna,” I say, shaking my head, “what on earth are you talking about?”
She turns around and looks out over the tennis courts and the track and the school and the city and into the clouds that have just formed a thin veil between us and the sun, and I wonder just what it is she sees that I don’t see.
“I don’t know,” she says.
And that’s when I do it. I reach out and put a hand on top of hers. It could just be the bravest thing I’ve ever done in my life. She doesn’t turn around, but she doesn’t pull her hand away either.
“Don’t, some days, you wish you could be . . . you know . . . normal?”
And I want to say no. Because she’s not normal. She’s remarkable. And I don’t want her to change. And if say yes, then she won’t know just how remarkable she is anymore. She turns to look at me again.
“Every day,” I tell her.
I look at Jenna, and I can see that she is about ready to say something and then stops herself. And there is something about the look she gives me, her head a little tilted as if we’ve just met at a reunion and she’s trying to place me from a picture in our high school yearbook. She twists her hand to hold mine. Then she takes a deep breath and leans in close to whisper something.
And kisses me instead.
It lasts for two seconds. Slightly longer, if you count the half second of hovering afterward, where our lips aren’t touching but I can still feel the kinetic energy between them and still feel the moist air of her breath. It’s so sudden that I don’t have time to pull my senses together to capture it all. But I can hear her heartbeat—I can feel it through the pulse in her bottom lip, and I can just feel the tips of her bangs softly on my forehead. I can taste the remnants of the strawberry yogurt she ate on the bus that morning. And I see things, beautiful things, from behind the closed curtains of my eyes.
And then it’s gone.
I blink twice.
I glance down at Eric and Mike to see if the
y noticed, but they aren’t even looking our way.
“What was that for?” I ask, not sure I want an answer, wishing, perhaps, that it was only an impulse. That there didn’t have to be a reason.
“I needed to know,” she says.
And then she stands up and starts back toward the school, leaving me even more confused than before.
For the next three hours, I don’t know where I am. I am vaguely aware of my body walking down halls, into classrooms, squeezing behind desks. I acknowledge that at some point I will have to take control of said body again. But for now it is on autopilot.
She needed to know, she said.
Know what? How she felt about me? That she was a good person? What I had for breakfast?
When she gets up, I try to follow her, but she just smiles and shakes her head.
“I’ll call you after practice,” she says—the kind of thing she would have said to the other Drew. Pre-kiss Drew. The Drew who was perfectly content suppressing any nonplatonic feelings he might have possibly had for his best friend and fellow sidekick to avoid the risk of losing her completely. Not this Drew. Not Drew, A.K.
Which means I suddenly don’t know who I am, either.
So I sit there until Mike shakes me with his good hand, still alive despite his training, and I follow him back to earth. Nikki is waiting for us by the door.
“You okay?” she asks. Somehow she knows. Girls always know.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I think so.”
Nikki squeezes in and unlocks the door. I don’t know how Jenna managed to get back in, though I don’t think anything she does will surprise me from here on out.
“Hey, did you know that if I hit you in just the right spot I can collapse your windpipe?” Mike says. “I mean, I can’t, but Eric could.”
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