Cycler

by Lauren McLaughlin

  I pull the door handle and Ramie and Tommy face me in perfect synchronicity. Ramie starts to walk over, but I hold up my hand. Opening the door, I get out and stand on my own two wobbly legs.

  “You feel okay?” she says.

  As I walk toward them, I’m about to say that I feel like a catastrophe still unfolding, but those words seem inadequate.

  “You look good,” Ramie says. “I mean, the suit’s a bit Annie Hall, maybe.”

  I stand between them and finger the lapel of the suit. “D and G,” I say. “I think Jack stole this from Mr. Wilbur.”

  “The twins’ dad?” Ramie says.

  I nod.

  She looks at me for a few seconds; then we both stare at the lake, its smooth black surface spread out into a near-perfect circle.

  The black dot, at last.

  But I no longer seek its oblivion. For the moment, anyway, I am content to stand here at the edge, knowing that what comes next is beyond my control.

  I let my fingers touch the back of Tommy’s hand. He starts at first, then wraps his warm fingers around mine. When he’s summoned the courage to do so, he pulls his hypnotic brown eyes from the lake and lays them right on me. This time I don’t count.

  I can feel Ramie watching us, noticing our hands. She wants to reach out to me, but for once, she’s waiting for me to take the lead.

  I touch the lapel of Tommy’s suit. “What does your shirt say?”

  He pulls the jacket open, revealing a navy blue T-shirt with the words “Prom Is for Losers” written in glitter.

  “Nice,” I say. I hold on to his hand, and when I’ve summoned the courage to do so, I reach my other hand back toward Ramie. Without any hesitation, she takes it with long cool fingers.

  “So,” I say. “Are you ready for the truth and nothing but the truth?”

  They both look at me and nod.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes,” Tommy says.

  “Born ready,” Ramie says.

  “All right,” I say.

  And then I begin.

  LAUREN MCLAUGHLIN grew up in a small Massachusetts town called Wenham. She had a normal, crisis-free upbringing, which has utterly deprived her of personal horror stories from which to draw for her fiction. The parents in Cycler are very definitely not based on her own parents.

  After college and a short stint in graduate school, she spent ten “unglamorous” years in the film industry, both writing and producing, before abandoning her screen ambitions to write fiction full-time. Cycler is her first published novel and she is currently working on the sequel.

  Lauren is passionate about writing, women’s rights, and technology. She lives with her photographer husband, Andrew Woffinden, in Brooklyn. Her Web site and blog can be found at www.laurenmclaughlin.net.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2008 by Lauren McLaughlin

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  McLaughlin, Lauren.

  Cycler / by Lauren McLaughlin. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Seventeen-year-old Jill is a fairly normal high school senior whose focus is on getting a certain boy to ask her to prom, but four days a month she transforms into surly Jack, who decides it is time he had his own life and a chance with the girl he wants.

  [1. Sex—Fiction. 2. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 3. Family problems— Fiction. 4. High schools—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction. 6. Massachusetts—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.M2238Cyc 2008

  [Fic]—dc22 2007042304

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89247-9

  v3.0