by Trisha Leigh
“Jude asked me if I wanted to hang out after the game tonight.” Blood rushes to my cheeks at the memory.
“And you said no why? I mean, he’s like my brother but it’s not like I’m blind, Norah. He’s gorgeous, has a killer body for a seventeen-year-old, and his looks aren’t even the best part about him.”
She doesn’t elaborate, but she doesn’t have to. I’ve known him five days and could make a list of at least six things that make Jude attractive, and that’s after he told me he’d been my friend because his dad told him too.
As much as I still want to be angry about that, the truth of his issues at home left me with a sizable soft spot. Jude’s dealing with so much more than he lets people see.
None of which should change my desire to not get involved. Knowing what I know.
“I have plans with my father after the game. We’re going to start some old television show he likes. Or movie. Something.”
“Okay, lame, but whatever. He’s going to ask you again, you know. Are you going to say yes?”
“Who am I supposed to be interested in instead? I mean, according to wherever this information came from in the first place?” I change the subject slightly, well aware that my new friend is too perceptive not to notice, but too confused about my feelings for Jude Greene to discuss it.
“Dane Kim, of course. You guys have been as thick as thieves the last couple of days, and Savannah heard from Jessie Brady, who heard from Annie Simmons, who sits behind you in Lit, that he sounded pretty jealous asking you about Jude.” Maya licks the Nutella off another apple slice. “Annie also thinks you’re a know-it-all because you answered all of the questions on the pop quiz even though you’ve only been in class a few days, FYI.”
“Great.” I read Gravity’s Rainbow at Darley, along with pretty much every book in the library. Photographic memory or not, that book has about fifteen different layers, so reading it again isn’t terrible. “He’s not jealous, Maya. We’re kind of… friends, I don’t know. We have the new-kid bond. He just asked why I said no, that’s all.”
“Hmm.” She nods, wearing an expression of disbelief so overdone it’s as though she’s auditioning for a part on some horrible soap opera. “I think he likes you. Which, as much as j’adore Jude, is pretty interesting. Tres mystérieux, like I said the other day.”
I dip a slice of apple into the Nutella jar, swirling it in an attempt to get as much stuck on as Maya had. “I think I’m just… figuring things out. I’m not ready for any additional complications.”
“You’re very mature. It’s annoying.”
I laugh, chomping a slice of apple and then sticking my tongue out to display the half-chewed snack to disprove her statement. She shakes her head and we chat a little about what electives I might take next semester, then clean off the dishes.
“Let’s go up to your room and see if you have anything to wear to the game tonight.”
“What if I don’t?”
“We’ll see if you can borrow something from Savannah. You and I are never going to be able to share closets, sadly.”
We stomp up the stairs and I show her my room, which she seems to like. It’s strange, this feeling of wanting to impress her, or at least have her like my taste in clothes and decorations. With the Cavies it’s often about competition and approval, but not for anything superficial. Not for anything I could hope to change. I’ll always be the one who doesn’t measure up, who isn’t “cool” enough because my mutation isn’t in any way useful, but now it’s as though I have power over my own destiny.
Everything I told Reaper in the courtyard today is still true, of course. There are mornings and nights and times in between when I miss Darley and our lives there so much it aches in my gut like bad egg salad. But the opportunities we’re getting in exchange for giving up our safety are worth something. We just have to figure out what.
And we have to stop people such as Jude’s dad and the syringe-bearers, who want to take it away.
“This. I love this, Norah, where did you find it?”
I turn away from my phone, which buzzed a second ago with a text from Mole asking if I’ve gotten my results. We all have cell phones now, which is nice for texting one another like normal teenagers, but we still have to be careful. Nothing about Darley, or mutations, or anything suspicious unless we’re in the Clubhouse or together in real life.
Maya’s holding an old Charleston Academy shirt. It’s faded, the white fabric threadbare and clingy and the purple rings around the sleeves and neck at least three shades too light. An old logo with the school’s mascot, an eagle perched inside a decorative C, is barely visible on the front.
My mouth is dry. The shirt came out of a box on the floor of my closet, one I haven’t had the guts to open yet. “It was my mother’s.”
Her fingers curl around it, bunching the thin material into her fists. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone digging through your things.”
“No, no.” I cross the room and run my fingers over the soft relic. “I’ve been meaning to go through it, just haven’t had time.”
Relief passes through her lips in a sigh. “Okay. Good. You looked like you were going to burst into tears there for a minute. I know we haven’t been friends that long, but crying of pretty much any kind sends me backing away slowly, hands in the air. I’m kind of a dude.”
“How’s that?” I think she means emotionally but am disinclined to assume anything.
“I mean, not a real dude with parts and stuff. Just on the inside. In my hard lil’ heart.”
Her delivery loosens the tension that crackled in me when she held up that shirt. I take it from her, holding it in front of myself and checking the mirror. It is a cute top, better than anything they’re selling in the school-spirit store, and I decide to wear it tonight with one of my new pairs of jeans.
Maya flops on the bed and checks her phone. I take the opportunity to return Mole’s text.
Yes. Everything OK. Details later.
The little ellipses that say he’s replying appear before I hit send.
You with someone?
Maya. Going to a basketball game later.
Can I come?
I don’t know whether he wants to see me, or if he wants to hear firsthand about the results, or if there’s some other reason for the request. He’s been acting weird since we left Darley, but then again, we all have been in one way or another. Regardless of why he asked, joy hops through me at the idea of seeing him. Of not being alone with a bunch of new people, in a place where they’re all at home but I’m not. Yet.
Sure. Be here at 630.
K.
“Who are you talking to?” Maya leans over my shoulder, taking a peek, but not before I close my texts.
“A friend from Darley. He’s going to meet us and come to the game. Is that okay?” I’m worried it’s not, as though it’s some kind of faux pas to invite a random, non-CA student.
“Sure. The more the merrier.” She grins, wicked again. “And did you say he? Could this be the mysterious reason behind your lack of interest in dating at CA?”
“What? No! Mo—Shiloh and I are just friends. Like, since forever.”
“Mm-hmm, that’s what the heroine always says in the movies, and then less than two hours later she’s admitting she’s been madly in love with the boy next door all along. Who’s suddenly not so boring when he’s naked.”
“Maya!”
“I’m just saying.” She bounces to her knees. “Plus, now you have, like, perspective. And friends who haven’t known you your whole life! I can watch and tell you what I think.”
None of that sounds like a good idea. The memory of Mole’s odd reaction the other night to my new… friendship with Jude dampens my excitement. The thought of anything else shifting is too much. I need the Cavies, at least, to stay the same.
“Hey, speaking of changing plans, do you care if Savannah meets us here?”
Of everyone at their lunch table, she’s the one that still eludes me. Sa
vannah’s smart, and she watches more than she talks, which makes it hard to get a handle on her. I don’t not like her, and if I had to guess, I think she feels pretty much the same way about me.
“I don’t care.”
“Good, because she’s going to be here in ten.”
Chapter Fourteen
The final buzzer signals the end of the game, and the Eagles have managed to win despite Maya’s insistence that it will take a miracle from the heavens, thanks mostly to Jude and his thirty-plus points. He’s really good, and more than that, it’s easy to see that he loves playing. Then again, I haven’t seen Jude in any situation that doesn’t seem to make him happy, so maybe he’s good at making the best of whatever. Or faking it.
Most of the student section cleared out after the half, as Savannah promised it would, but since Maya claims to feel guilty and want to stay as penance, we all stay. To my surprise, Savannah also lingered after her dance performance, perched on the other side of Mole, who I’m still having trouble calling Shiloh even when everyone else does.
His presence casts a strange cloak of both comfort and anxiety over the night, because when it’s just me at school, I can be Norah. Having Mole here makes me Norah and Gypsy, and it’s dangerous not being able to see where one stops and the other starts.
“Well, that was quite a show,” he comments, facing the court.
“You’re funny,” Savannah replies, watching him with a grin. They’ve taken to each other, maybe because she refuses to treat him differently. She started cracking blind jokes in the first ten minutes. “How impressive is our Jude Greene, am I right?”
“Oh, I’ve already heard tales of his impressive assets.” He waggles his eyebrows at her, the quip burning my pride and having an effect he couldn’t possibly predict.
Storm clouds rumble across Savannah’s pretty face, and the fact that she refuses to look my direction tells me everything I’ve been wondering about her and Jude. She may not dislike me, but she’s not a fan of the attention Jude’s shoveling my direction.
But seriously, if she thinks he’s beneath her because he doesn’t have money anymore, or because his dad’s mentally troubled, then she so doesn’t deserve him.
“You guys don’t have to wait with me if you don’t want,” Maya says for the third time since the game ended. “I promised Jude we’d go get ice cream afterward.”
“We’re here. We might as well congratulate the hero of the day. But I would like to use the bathroom first, in case I get too excited and try to pee myself. Norah?”
Mole’s dry humor makes me snort. “Sure.”
“We’ll be in the hallway,” Maya comments. “By the trophy cases.”
Mole’s hand finds my shoulder and together we maneuver down the bleachers and into the hall. Him fitting in with the CA kids gives me hope for the future.
“I like them. Your friends,” he offers as we round a corner. “They seem… I don’t know, sort of real. Not like movie kids, or like they’re only hanging out with you because you’re a novelty.”
“Yeah.” I don’t mention Jude’s reason for befriending me, or Maya’s curiosity. We’ll need to talk about Jude’s dad in private, all of us, since he’s the reporter who found us. Not only that, he’s after more. “It’s hard to think about really settling in or relaxing when there are so many questions about… us.”
Mole knows I’m talking about the Cavies, not only the two of us, but the way his gait stiffens makes me wonder if he’s thinking about what us really means, like I am for some reason.
Before he can reply, the sound of a male voice, speaking a foreign language that could be Korean, tickles my ears in the empty hallway. It’s wafting from what should be a closed classroom even though the lights are out. I pause, thinking if Mole’s meeting my CA friends tonight, that should include Dane.
“Which way’s the bathroom? Because I’m about to piss my pants.”
“Hold on a sec.”
The strange cadence of syllables and inflection coming from the dark room tug me closer, as though a string is tied to my belly button. His voice bounces off the empty walls, the linoleum floor, the metal desks, and echoes out into the hall.
I can’t understand any of it, but it doesn’t stop me from trying. If a person could learn a new language by concentrating or wishing, I’d be fluent in seven languages instead of six.
Even though Asian languages have no commonality with Romance or Germanic languages, human beings speak in similar manners. It’s obvious that Dane’s conversation is winding down, and I’m backing up so it won’t look as though we’re eavesdropping when I hear the word Cavies.
It freezes me in place. Mole tenses beside me, but even so, if Dane didn’t say it again thirty seconds later, I would have thought I’d imagined it the first time. But I didn’t.
Dane Kim knows about us.
Mole and I scoot away from the door when Dane’s conversation ends abruptly, fleeing into separate bathrooms. The hallway is clear when we emerge five minutes later.
“Who is that guy?” Mole hisses.
“He’s new, too, and he’s been showing Reaper and me around and stuff. We’re friends.” It twists my heart to think we’re not. “At least, I thought we were friends. But the first day of school he touched me and nothing happened. I didn’t see anything.”
Mole makes a face at the part of the story about me touching yet another person, but doesn’t comment. “What do you mean, you didn’t see anything? No number? No details?”
“That’s what nothing means, Mole.”
We’re silent for a few seconds. Dane knows about us. My ability doesn’t work on him. Those are facts, but there’s a missing connection.
Mole shakes his head, looking as lost as I feel, then closes his eyes. “Do you think he could be with the people who injected us?”
“I have no idea. I had no idea he was anything but another new kid until five minutes ago.”
Thinking Dane could be part of the attacks makes me want to barf, but the idea that more than one group of people knows about the Cavies seems like a big leap, too.
Mole and I make our way back into the atrium—because acting casual is paramount now—and find Savannah and Maya waiting next to the glass trophy cases. The entrance to the locker rooms is to our right, next to a short flight of stairs that leads out into the evening.
“So, Shiloh, tell us everything about Norah.” Savannah nudges him with her elbow, a little harder than necessary, as we stop and complete their circle.
I’m starting to realize she does most things a little harder than necessary, but the distraction works wonders for the pale sheen of sweat on Mole’s forehead.
“What do you want to know?” Mole looks torn, as though he wants to ingratiate himself with my friends but doesn’t want to piss me off in the process.
“The embarrassing things, of course,” Maya explains. “We can trade in kind. I know some toe-curling horror stories about the things Savannah used to do in the pool.”
“Maya, jeez! Manners!” The tips of Savannah’s ears turn red. “No one wants to hear about that.”
“No one wants to hear about what?” Jude’s voice rubs the spot between my shoulder blades, soft but insistent.
I turn, and my breath catches at the sight of his shower-damp hair, the scent of soap and boy, never mind the way his maple-syrup eyes seek me out.
“We were just getting ready to discuss Savannah’s—”
“No, we were not,” Savannah insists through clenched teeth, cutting off Maya.
Jude’s gaze hangs onto mine. Nervous energy spreads through me, leaps off, and swirls in the air. It feels as though everyone else is staring at us staring at each other. Our conversation in the common area today altered the hesitant relationship we’ve formed—knocked it down, tightened it up, then laid a fresh foundation beneath it.
He’s not just a cute guy who makes me nervous anymore. He’s someone with troubles of his own, a sweet devotion to his family, and what see
ms like an endless capacity to care.
Someone with a father who turned my world upside down once and seems intent on doing it again.
“Good game,” I tell him, feeling lame.
He breaks into a grin. “Thank you. I’m glad you came.”
“I swear, Norah, your manners are abominable.” Mole shifts, sticking his hand in the direction of Jude’s voice and breaking the spell that was keeping everyone else silent. “I’m Shiloh.”
“Jude.” He cuts a glance at me. “You’re a friend of Norah’s? From Darley?”
“Guilty. From what I heard, it sounded like a bang-up performance.”
“Not bad.”
There’s a new kind of tension, a sizing up of sorts, which is odd considering neither Jude nor Mole is a confrontational, puffing-chest kind of guy. At least, I don’t think they are.
I see Mole through Jude’s eyes, through Savannah’s, and realize he’s good-looking. He’s funny, too, and quick to laugh at himself, and a lot of other qualities I’ve taken for granted.
“It was better than not bad, Jude. Come on,” Maya chimes in, giving him a side-hug.
“Where are you going to school now?” Jude directs the question to Mole, giving Maya a squeeze back but otherwise ignoring her attempt to distract him. “I’m not. They suggested I take an equivalency exam and I passed. The social worker insists I either get a job or apply to college, but I have until after the holidays to decide.”
This is news to me, and I gape at him. “How could you not tell me that?”
He shrugs. “Didn’t come up.”
It’s true that we’ve had a ton of things to discuss and the details of our new personal lives are relegated to the back burner, but it still feels as though he kept this a secret on purpose. My aversion to being the center of attention stops me from confronting him here and now, but we’re definitely going to talk about it later.
“Do you still have plans with your dad, Norah? Maybe we could all grab ice cream together?” The hopefulness on Jude’s fresh face makes it harder than ever to keep my distance.
I don’t know anything about relationships, or liking a boy, or whether the jumping-bean nerves in my stomach are normal. I just know that the idea of spending time with him makes me feel light.