“It feels like a thousand years since breakfast,” Brandon groaned. He cast a glance at the Magrathea table and shook his head. “Floor?”
“Floor,” I concurred.
We stepped into the stacks and sat down next to each other, our backs against one of the redwood bookcases. Brandon’s eyelids were heavy as he stared, unfocused, at the floor in front of us.
“Style largely depends on the way the chin is worn,” I quoted, tapping lightly on his chin.
“You quote that play more than you think you do,” he said with a smile.
“I doubt that.” I combed my fingers through his hair, delighting in the closeness of it. “I think I quote it more than I want to, but not more than I think to.”
“What a Wildean turn of phrase.” He stroked his thumb against the soft skin behind my ear. “If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.”
A Gwendolen line. Maybe that was why it made the insides of my eyelids scratchy and my throat constrict, even as he lifted his face to mine and kissed me. It had been almost a full twenty-four hours since the last time we kissed, and twice as long since we’d been without an audience. It was a relief to sink into him, not worrying about being spied on or judged. Contentment swept away that flare-up of sadness and let an unfinished blueprint as to what might happen next take its place.
“Was it hard seeing your principal again?” I asked during a breather. I’d never made out with anyone for so long that I needed to take breaks to regain the strength in my lips and the oxygen to my brain. It was a good problem to have.
“Not as hard as I would have thought,” he said. His eyebrows drew together into one long black line, visible under the bangs that I’d mussed. “It would have been nice to be warned, but the counselors probably didn’t think we could handle the pressure.”
“I don’t know if they’re wrong.” I stretched my legs out until the muscles warmed from the tension. I’d been dreaming about running, for days, and waking up with my legs curled at painful angles underneath me. There was so much pressure—to stay, to win, to remember every single thing that was happening—and so few places to exert it.
“I can’t believe we have three more rounds of that to go,” he said. He set his head heavily on my shoulder, his eyelashes tickling the underside of my jaw. He set a nibbling kiss against the curve of my neck. “Four, if we’re lucky.”
“Let’s not talk about it,” I said, closing my eyes. “The Melee or the after or any of it. It’s too depressing.”
A chuckle bubbled out of his chest and another kiss, stamped between my neck and the collar of my shirt. “The entire future is too depressing to talk about?”
“Yes,” I said definitively. “Other people moving into our dorms? Or the tree house getting torn down? Other people claiming the Magrathea table?”
He patted the carpet underneath us. “We aren’t even using the Magrathea table. And the tree house is probably already torn down. It was full of alcohol.”
“You know what I mean. Everything about this summer is going to disappear. I want to hold on to the you-and-me part while I can. It’s bad enough we’re on lockdown and can barely see each other while we have the time. We only have a few more days.”
“Yeah, but that means in a few more days our brains won’t be full of binder bullshit anymore. I can forget everything I barely know about classical music. And then we can…” He trailed off and lifted his head off of my shoulder. “Wait. You mean we only have a few more days? You and me?”
I stared back at him, shock ringing between my ears. Balls and bollocks. Was this what Leigh had meant on the first day, about IQ tests not measuring common sense? He couldn’t possibly have not already thought of this. He was a genius. A genius who flunked out of genius school, maybe, but still. Certifiably smart.
“Ever,” he said, not taking my silence as an answer. “If we don’t win the scholarships, you’re going to give up on us?”
“I told you flat out before the first time we kissed that you were one of the things I was going to miss about being here. You don’t miss something you have.”
“I thought that…” his hands flailed, indicating the two of us and the room around us, “having me would change that!”
“How?” I asked. “I can’t keep you. You live in Oregon! Four hundred and eighty miles apart. One twelve-hour train ride. One very expensive three-hour flight!”
“I get it,” he said flatly. “You ran away. You did your research.”
I ignored this. “And even if we win the scholarships, college is a year away. You don’t even know where you’re going to finish your senior year yet. Things change. People change. And—”
His eyes were giant pudding cups of quivering hurt. “You want to end this.”
I clasped my hands on either side of his face. “It’s not about what I want, Brandon. It’s what’s going to happen. Some things are inevitable. Haven’t you ever heard of a summer romance before?”
He shook off my hands, his hair flying around his forehead in wrathful tendrils. “Haven’t you ever heard of long-distance?”
“I’m not even your girlfriend!” God, I didn’t want him to think that I’d been staying up at night wondering why we weren’t putting labels on this, so I barreled ahead. “Because we’ve only known each other for two weeks. Maybe in two more weeks we’d hate each other.”
He looked scalded. “That’s ridiculous. I really like you. And I thought the feeling was mutual.”
“It was. It is! But it won’t have time to grow into something else. You can’t fall in love with someone you’ve known for two weeks. This isn’t a Disney movie, and there’s no white horse to ride into the sunset.” I wished I’d never started talking. I wished that, instead of coming into the sci-fi section, I’d asked Hari for permission to run laps around the quad. I wished that Brandon and I were back in the pumpkin, watching Independence Day and breathing each other’s CO2. Because I couldn’t stop what came out of me next. “We aren’t Ben and Trixie. They get to go home together, even though they can’t stay here. Or Hunter and Jams—they can stay together if they want to because they live so close together. But when this is over, I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again. And not everyone gets a high school sweetheart. Most people don’t! In all honesty, it’s actually really weird that your friends all decided to stick it out.”
He moved a single scoot away from me, but it felt like a gorge. “So, the second camp is over, we’re nothing? We’re strangers?”
My voice was tired and thin. “What else could we be?”
He scrubbed his hands over his face. “We could be two people who like each other, who care about each other. I want to know you. I want to know what happens when you go home. I want to know what you think about things and what you’re reading and what you see.”
I shook my head. “You want to be Facebook friends. That’s what you’re describing.”
“No! Fuck. I don’t even have a computer,” he growled, digging his fingertips into the corners of his eyes. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “You said your mom lives in Colorado. When was the last time you lived with her?”
I frowned. “When I was five?”
“And is she still your mom?”
“Yes,” I said. “But that’s not the same—”
“But it’s similar enough for a chance.” He reached out and scooped up my hands. He brushed his lips over my fingertips and I could feel him shaking. “Don’t give up on me, Elliot. I won’t give up on you, either. I want you! Just you!”
“I can’t promise you that,” I said, internally punching down every impulse to cry. Crying meant something was broken. Crying meant that I couldn’t win. “I like you so much. More than I’ve ever liked anyone. I wouldn’t be here with you if that weren’t true. But you can’t promise me that you’ll be all mine forever, either. It’s not realistic. So, why can’t we have this?” I squeezed his hands, and I wasn’t sure which of our pulses was hammering against my palm. “Just
this. You and me.”
“For the next five days.”
I nodded.
He dropped my hands. They fell back into my lap, heavy and forgotten.
“That’s not fair,” he said in a harsh whisper. He looked away from me and through the books on the wall. “Every second we’re together, I’m more invested in you. I want you to win the scholarship. I want you to get away with running away. And you’re planning on forgetting everything about me.”
“That’s not what I said,” I snapped.
“But it’s true,” he said. “You want to do the same thing as Perla: come in, get what’s yours, and leave. Why did you even bother making friends with anyone? Why would you spend time alone with me?”
“Not everything has to last forever!” I said. Maybe I was shouting, but it was hard to tell over the sound of my rising panic.
“Not everything has to end immediately!” he shot back. “You’re burning everything behind you as you go. Why even bother running away from home and spending time here? You’re always looking to the end. What is the point of having a beginning or a middle?”
“I-I don’t know,” I said.
“Great. Cool. Good. Thanks for clearing that up.” He got to his feet, his face hidden in the shadow of his hair. “Next time, maybe stick to the kick to the stomach. It’s a cleaner finishing move.”
I leaped to my feet as he started walking for the door. I ran to the end of the aisle and called after him, “Brandon!”
He paused under the archway, his face in profile under the binary clock. He looked up at the posters on the wall. “What’s the difference of a couple of days, Elliot?”
The answer spread out inside of me, filling up my lungs and asphyxiating me in three syllables.
Everything.
34
“Something is up with you,” Leigh said, nipping at my heels like a yellow-haired Chihuahua, as we headed toward the dining hall for lunch after our second skirmish. The rest of the team was far behind us. “Is this about having to go up against Isaiah tomorrow?”
“No,” I said, kicking a pinecone off of the path in front of us. It skittered and rolled toward the trees that blocked Mudders Meadow from view. “I’ve had weeks to deal with the fact that Isaiah and I are going to have to go up against each other. I’m ready for it.”
Although, in all honesty, after the last two miserable days of hours and hours of skirmishes and rereading the books that had become mostly decorative on my desk, I didn’t know if I cared about beating Isaiah anymore. Before, facing my cousin on the battleground of the Melee had felt like the culmination of all of my accomplishments and fears and risks tangled up into one three-hour-long proctored trivia challenge.
And now I wasn’t sure.
Did I deserve to win because I’d run away first? Because I’d kicked him in the stomach to prove how much I wanted the scholarship?
Or were those the reasons that I shouldn’t be here at all?
I didn’t want to let my team down by taking a dive. We were currently leading the board in points.
The board itself had started out figurative. The counselors were kept up to date on the teams’ points by the proctors, and that information was disseminated to us during dinner.
But then Bryn Mawr tracked down some lime-green poster board and started writing out the day’s points, team by team, in oddly elaborate calligraphy. It was pinned up in the lobby of the residence hall, next to the elevator.
It made me think of Brandon’s stories about the Messina publicly ranking its students. I couldn’t begin to imagine how horrified I’d be if my personal points were listed, rather than those of our team as a whole. One of the best things about the Melee was that questions were thrown around so randomly that it was hard to get a sense of how many you, personally, had answered. I didn’t need to know what percentage of our wins I was responsible for.
I didn’t care.
“Okay,” Leigh said, dragging the second syllable out into a needle point. She skipped in front of me, putting her tiny frame between me and my next step. “Then are you ready to tell me what happened with Brandon?”
I gripped my hands into fists, holding back the urge to pick her up by the shoulders and move her out of the way. It wasn’t neighborly to put your hands on other people. Or so Beth always said when I threatened to practice my Muay Thai on Ethan.
“No,” I said. “I’m not.”
“Because something happened,” she said, pretending not to have heard me. Or possibly actually having not heard me. It was hard to tell with her. She started skipping toward the dining hall again, leaving me to jog to keep up. “There’s no point in denying it. You guys were holding hands like you were teddy bears with magnets sewn into your paws.”
I couldn’t help imagining a magnet being cut out of my palm. Gross, yes, but not entirely inaccurate. It was a constant kick in the teeth to realize that all of my Brandon privileges had been revoked in the span of one conversation. No hand-holding. No secret smiles. No murmured comments during meals or team meetings. Like the Langoliers had come in and eaten all of the first two weeks of camp, leaving us with only the worst of it. I’d hurt him, too. Even more than I’d hurt Isaiah. At least Isaiah never had a reason to expect me to be anything but what I was.
And Brandon had liked Ever. She hadn’t felt that much different than me for the first couple of weeks of camp, but it turned out that she was. Ever wasn’t the kind of girl who kicked her brother in the stomach. She wasn’t the kind of girl who pushed away the boy she liked.
But I was. Apparently. Because I had done all of that without even thinking about it.
“I’m not denying it,” I said. “I’m just not talking about it. It doesn’t need to be talked about.”
Talking about it wouldn’t fix it. It wouldn’t fix me or undo what I’d done.
Leigh made a sound of disagreement, but let it drop. Together, we dashed up the dining hall stairs. Lunch was already in full swing for the teams that hadn’t had skirmishes that morning. Chatter bounced off the wooden beams on the ceiling, filling the entire room with cheer. It had been like this all week. Once the final skirmish of the day was completed, everyone seemed so free.
I wondered if that was why the binders had been stolen from us. Having no opportunities to study after lunch meant that everyone’s days opened up for hanging out or recreation or the occasional Cheeseman event.
Kate had come in second place in yesterday’s extreme hokey pokey, which I had recused myself from because I was zero percent interested in sticking my Jordans ankle deep in a mud pit. Onobanjo had won again, tying us for the lead in the Cheeseman, with only two more events to go.
You’re always looking to the end.
Brandon’s voice was starting to slip in with Oscar Wilde’s, both of them finding the perfect combination of words to make me feel like I’d been slugged in the face with the power loader suit from Aliens.
The buffet was filled with sandwich and salad makings. While Simone was a better cook than Ben had been, it was rare that our meals needed much actual cooking. There wasn’t much to be done in the way of classing up the deli meats and iceberg lettuce selection.
“God, I would kill someone for a nonlettuce option,” Leigh said, picking up a plate. She used a pair of plastic tongs to toss some turkey onto her plate. “Like spinach or kale or arugula.”
I grudgingly reached for a dusty-looking slice of wheat bread. “What about a nonsandwich option? I can barely remember meals that weren’t served between two wads of old bread.”
She gave a gasp and faked a swoon. “Oh, to be close to the rest of the food pyramid. I wish I still had my binder just so I could dig through the bylaws and see what the rules about outside food are. I would pay like fifty bucks to have a different kind of grain option delivered. Barley or couscous or rice. Oh God, I miss rice. Do you think we could have food delivered without being disqualified?”
It was almost depressing that something so small could spark s
o much hope in my chest, but I would take any glimmer at this point. “Would restaurants come all the way out here?”
“All the way out to one of the five universities in town?” Leigh snored. “Uh, yeah. Delivery was basically invented to get food to the dorms.”
The front door of the dining hall opened. Hari and Meg came in, with the rest of our team in tow. I ignored the way my organs tightened at the sight of Brandon, even when he was scowling and hiding under his hair. I abandoned my plate on the buffet table and turned my attention to the smaller of the two counselors.
“Meg,” I blurted. “You have all of the camp rules memorized, right?”
She frowned at me. “Yes? It is my job, Ever.”
“Right. So, is it against the rules to have food delivered to campus?”
Her mouth quirked to one side as she considered this. “In what quantity?”
“A pizza or two?” Leigh said. “Or fifty pounds of sushi rice?”
“You could do the first one,” Hari said, drolly. “Not the second.”
“You’re such a spoilsport, Hari.” Leigh pouted at him. “But pizza is always a morale boost. Sleepovers, Academic Decathlon tournaments, little league soccer. Everyone deserves a pizza of victory!”
Hunter pushed forward. “Pizza? Like real pizza? Not the gross crunchy thing that they’ve been putting out and calling a pizza?”
“I think it’s matzo crackers with ketchup and cheese on it.” Jams shuddered.
“I’ve had better pizza in a Lunchable,” Galen said, joining the growing clump.
“Can we get a vegetarian pizza?” Kate asked, clambering toward us. “With real vegetables?”
“And name-brand sodas?” Galen asked.
Perla’s eyebrows rose and she took a couple of steps toward the group. “I’d put in money for a real Coke.”
“Bran,” Hunter said, turning to Brandon, who was still hovering near the door. “You must know a good pizza place in town. We deserve a real victory dinner before we move on to the finals tomorrow morning!”
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