Now I can see him. Not literally. It’s not like there’s a little person waving inside his eyes. I just know he’s there.
“I promise,” he says.
He means it. I know he means it. He is in the clear—but I’m not about to let him feel like he’s there yet.
“I believe you,” I tell him. “But you’re still a jerk until you prove otherwise.”
•••
Neither of us has had lunch yet, so we decide to go eat. A tells me the boy’s mother is coming back in two hours to pick him up. We don’t have much time.
We go to the first restaurant we find, a Chinese restaurant that smells like it’s just been mopped.
“So, how was your morning?” A asks.
“It was a morning,” I tell him. “I had a math test. That can’t possibly be worth talking about. Steve and Stephanie got into another fight on their way to school—apparently, Stephanie wanted to stop at Starbucks and Steve didn’t, and because of that she called him completely self-centered and he called her a caffeine-addicted bitch. So, yeah. And, of course, Steve then skipped out of first period to get her a venti hazelnut macchiato. It was sweet of him to get her coffee, but passive-aggressive because she really likes caramel macchiatos much more than hazelnut ones. At least she didn’t point this out when she thanked him, so everything was back to its shaky normal by the time second period started. That’s the big news.”
I don’t tell him that when I saw Justin, he gave me shit for ditching him yesterday (even though it’s not like we had plans). He kept telling me he hoped I’d had an amazing night. I told him I had a really amazing time studying math. He acted like he didn’t believe me, like I ran off to some party without him.
Instead of talking about Justin, I ask A more about the girl he was yesterday. I feel I deserve credit because I ask this as if it’s the most natural question in the world. What else did you do when you were a girl yesterday?
“It was like being a grenade,” A says. “Everyone was just waiting for her to go off and do some serious damage. She had power, but it was all cultivated from fear.”
I think of Lindsay Craig and her minions. “I know so many girls like that. The dangerous ones are the ones who are actually good at it.”
“I suspect she’s very good at it.”
I picture A as Lindsay, or some other mean girl. “Well, I’m glad I didn’t have to meet her.” Because what would the point be? If A was like that, there’s no way we could ever be like this, the way we are now. This might be a cheap Chinese restaurant with grease stains on the menus and ceramic cats guarding the soy sauce on the tables, but it’s still an escape, it’s still exciting. We hold hands and look at each other and not much needs to be said. I have found someone who cares about me, and right now I can accept that.
“I’m sorry for calling you a jerk,” I say. “I just—this is hard enough as it is. And I was so sure I was right.”
“I was a jerk. I’m taking for granted how normal this all feels.”
“Justin sometimes does that. Pretends I didn’t tell him something I just told him. Or makes up this whole story, then laughs when I fall for it. I hate that.”
“I’m sorry—”
“No, it’s okay. I mean, it’s not like he was the first one. I guess there’s something about me that people love to fool. And I’d probably do it—fool people—if it ever occurred to me.”
I don’t want to sound like a complainer. I don’t want to sound like this weak girl who can’t take care of herself. But I also want him to know—I can’t stand people being mean. People playing games. I want to guard myself against it, but I make a shitty guard for my own heart. I would rather lose the game than play it. I would rather be hurt than be mean. Because I can live with myself if I’m hurt. I don’t think I could live with myself if I were mean.
I’m worried A is going to try to say something to make it all better. That he’s going to tell me it’s all in my mind. Or, even worse, like Justin, he’s going to tell me I have to learn how to take a joke. Like my lack of humor is the real offense.
But A’s not saying any of that. Instead, he’s emptying the chopstick holder.
“What are you doing?” I ask. The woman behind the cash register is giving us a strange look, and I don’t blame her.
A doesn’t answer. Instead, he works the chopsticks into the shape of a heart, covering the table. Then he takes all the Sweet’N Low packets from our table and two others in order to turn the heart a pale paper pink.
It’s too much. And it’s awesome at the same time.
When he’s done, he points proudly to the heart. He looks like a kindergartner who’s just finished a fort.
“This,” he says, “is only about one-ninety-millionth of how I feel about you.”
I laugh. I think he’s forgotten that his heart is full of Sweet’N Low.
“I’ll try not to take it personally,” I tell him.
He seems a little offended. “Take what personally? You should take it very personally.”
“The fact that you used artificial sweetener?”
Saccharine. Everything fake. But also real.
He takes a pink packet from the heart and throws it playfully at me.
“Not everything is a symbol!” he shouts.
I am not going to let myself sit undefended. I pull a chopstick from the heart and use it like a sword. He takes up my challenge, and raises another chopstick in the same way. He lunges. I parry. We are happy fools.
The waiter comes over with some plates. A turns his head and I pierce his chest.
“I die!” A calls out.
“Who has the moo shu chicken?” the waiter asks.
“That’s his,” I say. “And the answer is, yes, we’re always like this.”
After the waiter leaves, A asks me, “Is that true? Are we always like this?”
“Well, it’s a little too early for always,” I answer. Not to ruin the moment. Just to make sure we’re not carried away by it.
“But it’s a good sign,” he says.
“Always,” I tell him.
—
I forget about the rest of my life. I don’t even have to push it away—I’ve forgotten about it. It’s no longer there. There is only now, there is only me and A and everything that we’re sharing. It doesn’t feel like amnesia as much as it feels like a sudden absence of noise.
—
At the end of the meal, we get our fortunes. Mine says:
YOU HAVE A NICE SMILE.
“This isn’t a fortune,” I say, showing it to A.
“No. You will have a nice smile—that would be a fortune,” he tells me.
Exactly. A fortune has to tell you what’s going to happen, not what already is.
And, really, who doesn’t have a nice smile?
“I’m going to send it back,” I say.
A looks amused. “Do you often send back fortune cookies?”
“No. This is the first time. I mean, this is a Chinese restaurant—”
“Malpractice.”
“Exactly.”
I wave for the waiter, who comes immediately.
“My fortune isn’t really a fortune, it’s just a statement,” I tell him. “And it’s a pretty superficial statement at that.”
The waiter nods and returns with a handful of cookies, each individually wrapped.
“I only need one,” I tell him. More than one would be cheating. “Wait one second.”
I open a second cookie—and am relieved by what I find inside.
ADVENTURE IS AROUND THE CORNER.
“Well done, sir,” A says to the waiter once I show it to them both.
“Your turn,” I say. A carefully opens his cookie, and practically beams when he reads what the fortune says.
“What?” I ask.
He holds it out to me.
ADVENTURE IS AROUND THE CORNER.
I am not a superstitious person. But I’m excited to get to that corner. Wherever it may be.
<
br /> —
I know we don’t have much time left. I know that A and I are only borrowing this time from someone else, not receiving it entirely for ourselves. But I want to borrow it for as long as I can. I want him to keep talking to me. I want to keep listening to him.
Back in the library, I ask him to tell me more books to read. Because I know the answer to this question will get me to know him even more.
He shows me the book he was reading before. It’s called Feed.
“It’s about the difference between technological connection and human connection. It’s about how we can have so much information that we forget who we are, or at least who we’re supposed to be.” He takes me farther down the shelves, to the very end of the YA section, and holds up The Book Thief. “Have you read this?” I shake my head, and he continues. “It’s a Holocaust novel, and it’s narrated by death itself. Death is separate from everything, but he can’t help feeling like he’s a part of it all. And when he starts seeing the story of this little girl with a very hard life, he can’t look away. He has to know what will happen.” He pulls me back to an earlier shelf. “And on a lighter note, there’s this book, Destroy All Cars. It’s about how caring about something deeply can also make you hate the world, because the world can be really, really disappointing. But don’t worry—it’s also funny, too. Because that’s how you get through all the disappointments, right? You have to find it all funny.”
I agree. And I’d talk to him more about that, but he doesn’t want to stop. I’ve asked him the right question, and he wants to answer it fully. He shows me a book called First Day on Earth. “I know this will sound weird, but it’s about a boy in a support group for people who feel they were abducted by aliens. And he meets this other guy who may or may not be an alien. But it’s really about what it means to be human. And I read it a lot, whenever I find it in a library. Partly because I find new things every time I read it, but also because these books are always there for me. All of them are there for me. My life changes all the time, but books don’t change. My reading of them changes—I can bring new things to them each time. But the words are familiar words. The world is a place you’ve been before, and it welcomes you back.”
He shakes his head. “I’ve never said that to anyone, you know. I’ve never even said it to myself. But there it is. The truth.”
I want to take out all the books, want to start sharing those worlds with him. Then I remember: This isn’t my library. This isn’t my town.
“What about you?” A asks. “What do you think I should read next?”
I know I should show him something really smart and sophisticated, but I know he’s asking me the question in the same way I asked him—to see me in the answers, to know more about me after the answers than he did before them. So instead of pretending that Jane Eyre is the story of my life, or that Johnny Tremain changed me completely when I read it, I lead him over to the kids’ section. I’m looking for Harold and the Purple Crayon, because when I was a kid, that appealed to me so much—the power to draw your own world, and to draw it in purple. I see it on display at the front of the section and go to get it.
As I lean over to pick it up, A surprises me by calling out, “No! Not that one!”
“What could you possibly have against Harold and the Purple Crayon?” I ask. As far as I’m concerned, this is a dealbreaker.
A looks relieved. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I thought you were heading for The Giving Tree.”
Who does he think I am? “I absolutely HATE The Giving Tree,” I tell him.
“Thank goodness. That would’ve been the end of us, had that been your favorite book.”
I would say the same if he’d chosen it. The tree in that book needs to stand up for herself. And the boy needs to be slapped.
“Here—take my arms! Take my legs!” I imitate.
“Take my head! Take my shoulders!”
“Because that’s what love’s about!” Really, I can’t believe parents read the book to children. What an awful message to send.
“That kid is, like, the jerk of the century,” A says.
“The biggest jerk in the history of all literature.” It’s nice to be agreeing on this point.
I put Harold down and move closer to him. I’m not going to need a purple crayon for what’s coming next.
“Love means never having to lose your limbs,” A tells me, leaning in.
“Exactly,” I say, kissing him.
No sacrifice. No pain. No requests.
Love. Just love.
I am lost in it. Enjoyably lost in it. At least until someone yells, “What do you think you’re doing?”
For a split second, I assume we’ve been caught by the librarian and are going to be fined. But the woman who’s yelling at me isn’t the librarian, or anyone else I’ve seen before. She’s an angry, middle-aged woman spitting out words. Getting all in my face, she says, “I don’t know who your parents are, but I did not raise my son to hang out with whores.”
I’m stunned. I haven’t done anything to deserve that.
“Mom!” A shouts. “Leave her alone.”
Mom. For a second, I think, This is A’s mother. Then I realize, no, it isn’t A’s mother. A doesn’t have a mother, not in the same sense that I have a mother. No, this must be the mother of the boy whose body he’s in. The one who homeschools him. The one who let him out to go to the library, and has found this.
“Get in the car, George,” she orders. “Right this minute.”
I am expecting A to give in. I will not blame him for giving in, even though I am feeling really attacked. But instead of giving in, A looks George’s mother in the eye and says, “Just. Calm. Down.”
Now it’s George’s mother who’s stunned. This innocent redheaded boy has probably never spoken to his mom like this before, although I have to imagine there have been plenty of times when she’s deserved it.
While George’s mother is thrown for a moment, A tells me we’ll find a way and he’ll talk to me later.
“You most certainly will not!” George’s mother proclaims.
I kiss him again. A kiss that’s hello and goodbye and good luck and I’ve had a great time all at once. I know these things are in there because I am putting them in there. Usually there are also questions in a kiss. Do you love me? Is this working? But this kiss is questionless.
“Don’t worry,” I whisper when the kiss is done. “We’ll figure out a way to be together. The weekend is coming up.”
I can’t say anything more than that, because George’s mother has grabbed his ear and has begun to pull. She looks at me again, trying to cut me down with her judgment—whore whore whore—but I don’t give up any ground. A laughs at how silly it is to be dragged away by his ear. This only makes her tug harder.
When they get outside, I wave. He can’t see me waving, but he waves back anyway.
—
It’s not even three o’clock. I check my phone and find a text from Justin asking me where I am, and then another saying he’s looked everywhere. I text back and tell him I wasn’t feeling well, and left school early. I know he won’t offer to bring me soup or check up on me, unless he wants to see if I’m lying.
So I turn off my phone. I disconnect.
If anyone asks, I’ll tell them I was sleeping.
And I’ll wait for A to wake me again.
Chapter Twenty-One
I spend Friday morning thinking about the weekend. This is not unusual—most people spend Friday thinking about the weekend. But most aren’t trying to find a place to meet someone like A.
I come up with a plan. My uncle has a hunting cabin he never uses—and right now he’s in California for work. My parents have a spare key they will never in a million years know is missing. All I need is an alibi. Or a few alibis.
I get an email from A saying he’s a girl named Surita today, and not that far away. I’m ready to drop school entirely—it’s Friday, after all—but A insists on meeting after sch
ool. I get it—there’s no real reason to screw over Surita. But maybe A is a little nicer about that than I would be.
Justin’s still annoyed with me. “Feeling better, I see,” he says when we meet at his locker before class.
“Yeah. It must’ve been a twenty-four-hour thing.”
He scoffs and I get defensive.
“Sorry I didn’t text you a photo of my puke,” I tell him.
“I didn’t say a thing,” he replies, slamming his locker.
I’m not being fair. I’m getting mad at him, when I’m the liar.
Then I add another lie.
“I’m glad I’m better, since we’re going to see my grandmother this weekend. And I wouldn’t want to make her sick.”
As soon as I say this, I remember Justin’s own grandmother, who’s actually sick.
“When are you leaving?” he asks.
“Tomorrow,” I say. Then I realize what I’ve done, and add, “But I promised Rebecca I’d go over to her place tonight.”
“Whatever,” Justin mumbles. Then he walks away without saying goodbye, which is about what I deserve.
The reason I’ve mentioned Rebecca is because that’s what I’m going to tell my parents—that I’m spending the weekend with her. They like Rebecca, so they won’t mind. But I realize now I will have to at least spend tonight with her, since I’ve told Justin that’s what I’m doing.
When I see her in art class, I ask her if she has plans. I pray that she doesn’t.
“Nope,” she tells me. “Any ideas?”
“How about a sleepover?” I suggest.
Rebecca looks so excited. “You’re on! It’s been a while since we had a Mean Girls / Heathers double feature.”
“Or Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink.”
These were our go-to movies, back when we were sleepover age. It makes me happy that Rebecca remembers, since it’s been a long time. Or at least it feels like a long time. That’s my pre-Justin life. Another lifetime ago.
“I have to do a few things after school,” I tell her. “With my mom. But how ’bout I come over around six?”
“Will you bring the cookie dough?” she asks.
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