by Nicola Yoon
I tell her no, over and over again.
“I had to trash your clothes,” she says after I’ve taken the shower that she insisted I take. She doesn’t look at me as she says it. “And we’re going to have to be extra careful for the next few days to make sure nothing’s—”
She breaks off, unable to say the words.
“It was less than a minute,” I say, for both our benefit.
“Sometimes a minute is all it takes.” Her voice is almost not there at all.
“Mom, I’m sorry—”
She holds up a hand and shakes her head. “How could you?” she asks, finally meeting my eyes.
I’m not sure if she’s asking about my going Outside or lying to her. I don’t have an answer for either question.
*
As soon as she leaves, I go to the window in search of Olly, but I don’t find him. He’s probably on the roof. I get into bed.
Was I really just Outside? What did the air smell like? Was there wind? Did my feet even touch the ground? I touch the skin on my arms, my face. Is it different? Am I?
My entire life I’ve dreamed about being in the world. And now that I have, I don’t remember any of it. Just the sight of Olly doubled over in pain. Just his voice telling me to go back.
THE THIRD MADDY
I’M ALMOST ASLEEP that night when my door opens. My mom hovers in the doorway and I keep my eyes closed, pretending to be asleep. Still, she comes in and sits on the bed next to me.
For a long time she doesn’t move. Then she leans over and I’m sure she’s going to kiss my forehead like she used to when I was a little girl, but I roll away from her, still feigning sleep.
I don’t know why I do it. Who is this new Maddy that is cruel for no reason? She gets up, and I wait to hear the door close before opening my eyes.
A single black rubber band sits on my nightstand.
She knows.
LIFE IS A GIFT
THE NEXT MORNING I wake to yelling. At first I think it’s Olly’s family again, but the sound is too close. It’s my mom. I’ve never heard her voice raised before.
“How could you do this? How could you let a stranger in here?”
I can’t hear Carla’s response. I open the bedroom door quietly and tiptoe out onto the landing. Carla’s standing at the foot of the stairs. My mom is smaller than her in every way, but you wouldn’t know it from the way Carla’s shrinking away from her.
I can’t let Carla get blamed for this. I fly down the stairs.
“Did something happen? Is she sick?” Carla catches my arm, pats my face, her eyes scanning my body for signs of trouble.
“She went outside. Because of him. Because of you.” She turns to face me. “She put her life at risk and she’s been lying to me for weeks.”
She turns back to Carla. “You’re fired.”
“No, please, Mom. It wasn’t her fault.”
She cuts me off with a hand. “Not only her fault, you mean. It was your fault, too.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, but it has no effect on her.
“So am I. Carla, pack your things and go.”
I’m desperate now. I can’t imagine my life without Carla in it. “Please, Mom, please. It won’t happen again.”
“Of course it won’t.” She says it with absolute certainty.
Carla starts up the stairs without a word.
Mom and I spend the next half hour watching Carla pack. She has reading glasses and pens and clipboards in almost every room.
I don’t bother to wipe away my tears because they just keep coming. Mom holds herself more rigid than I’ve ever seen her. When we finally get to my room I give Carla my copy of Flowers for Algernon. She looks at me and smiles.
“Isn’t this book going to make me cry?” she asks.
“Probably.”
She pulls the book close to her bosom and holds it there and doesn’t take her eyes off me.
“You be brave now, Madeline.” I run into her arms. She drops her medical bag and the book and holds me tight.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
She squeezes me even tighter. “It’s not your fault. Life is a gift. Don’t forget to live it.” Her voice is fierce.
“That’s enough now,” my mom snaps from the doorway. Her patience has run out. “I know this is very sad for you both. Believe it or not, it’s sad for me as well. But it’s time for you to go. Now.”
Carla lets me go. “Be brave. Remember, life is a gift.” She picks up her medical case.
We all walk downstairs together. Mom hands her a final check, and she’s gone.
MADELINE’S DICTIONARY
as•ymp•tote (ˈasəm(p)ˌtōt) n. pl. -s. 1. A wish that continually approaches but never achieves fulfillment. [2015, Whittier]
MIRROR IMAGE
I PULL THE curtains aside as soon as I’m back in my room. Olly’s standing at his window, his forehead pressed into his fist, his fist pressed into the glass. How long has he been waiting? It takes him a second to realize I’m there, but it’s enough time for me to see his fear. Evidently my function in life is to strike fear into the hearts of those who love me.
Not that Olly loves me.
His eyes roam over my body, my face. He makes a typing gesture with his hands, but I shake my head. He frowns, makes the gesture again, but I shake my head again. He disappears from the window and returns with a marker.
R U OK?
I nod. Are you? I mouth.
YES. IM?
I shake my head.
GROUNDED?
I nod.
NO INTERNET?
I nod.
HOW LONG?
I shrug.
SURE YOU’RE OK?
I pantomime excellent health, existential angst, regret, and an enormous sense of loss, all via a single nod.
We stare mutely at each other.
I’M SORRY?
I shake my head. A gesture that says: No, don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault. It’s not you. It’s this life.
SCHEDULE CHANGE
MORE THAN THIS
MY MOM WORDLESSLY kneels to gather scraps of drawings from our game of Honor Pictionary and stacks them into a neat pile. She keeps the best (defined here as either really good or really bad) ones from each game. We sometimes look through our collection nostalgically, the way other families look through old photos. Her fingers linger atop a particularly bad drawing of some sort of horned creature hovering above a circle with holes in it.
She holds the drawing up for me to see. “How did you guess ‘nursery rhyme’ from this?” She chuckles with effort, trying to break the ice.
“I don’t know,” I say, and laugh, wanting to meet her halfway. “You are a terrible drawer.”
The creature was supposed to be a cow and the circle was supposed to be the moon. Truly, my guess was inspired, given how awful her drawing was.
She pauses stacking for a moment and sits back on her heels. “I really had a good time with you this week,” she says.
I nod but don’t say anything back. Her smile fades. Now that Olly and I can’t see or talk to each other, my mom and I spend more time together. It’s the only good thing to come out of this mess.
I reach out and grab her hand, squeeze it. “Me too.”
She smiles again, but less fully now. “I hired one of the nurses.”
I nod. She offered to let me interview Carla’s potential replacements, but I declined. It doesn’t matter who she hires. No one’s ever going to be able to replace Carla.
“I have to go back to work tomorrow.”
“I know.”
“I wish I didn’t have to leave you.”
“I’ll be OK.”
She straightens the already perfectly straight stack of drawings. “You understand why I have to do the things I’m doing?” Besides firing Carla, she’s also revoked my Internet privileges and canceled my in-person architecture lesson with Mr. Waterman.
We’ve mostly avoided talking about this al
l week. My lies. Carla. Olly. She took the week off from work and tended to me in Carla’s absence. She took my vitals every hour instead of every two and slumped with relief each time the results were normal.
By day four she said we were out of the woods. We got lucky, she said.
“What are you thinking?” she asks.
“I miss Carla.”
“I do, too, but I’d be a bad mother if I let her stay. Do you understand? She put your life in danger.”
“She was my friend,” I say quietly.
The anger that I’d been expecting from her all week finally sparks.
“But she wasn’t just your friend. She was your nurse. She was supposed to keep you safe. She wasn’t supposed to endanger your life or introduce you to teenage boys who are going to break your heart. Friends don’t give you false hope.”
I must look as stricken as I feel, because she suddenly stops and wipes her palms down the front of her thighs. “Oh, baby girl. I’m so sorry.”
And that’s when it really hits me and all at once. Carla’s really gone. She won’t be here tomorrow when my mom leaves for work. Instead, it will be someone new. Carla’s gone, and it’s my fault. And Olly’s gone, too. I won’t ever get a chance at kiss number two. I gasp against the pain of the thought, against the end of something barely even begun.
I’m sure my mom will eventually allow me access to the Internet and we’ll be able to IM again, but it won’t be enough. If I’m honest with myself, I’ll admit that it was never going to be enough.
I’ll never get to the end of all the ways I want to be with him.
She presses her hand against her own heart. I know we’re feeling the same pain.
“Tell me about him,” she says.
I’ve wanted to tell her about him for so long, but now I’m not sure where to begin. My heart is so full of him. So, I begin at the beginning. I tell her about seeing him for the first time, about the way he moves—light and fluid and certain. I tell her about his ocean eyes and calloused fingers. I tell her how he’s less cynical than he thinks he is. About his awful dad, about his dubious wardrobe choices.
I tell her that he thinks I’m funny and smart and beautiful in that order, and that the order matters. All the things I’ve wanted to say for weeks. She listens and holds my hand and cries along with me.
“He sounds wonderful. I see why you think so.”
“He is.”
“I’m sorry that you’re sick.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I know, but I wish that I could give you more than this.”
“Can I have my Internet privileges back?” I have to try.
She shakes her head. “Ask me for something else, honey.”
“Please, Mom.”
“It’s better this way. I don’t want you to have a broken heart.”
“Love can’t kill me,” I say, parroting Carla’s words.
“That’s not true,” she says. “Whoever told you that?”
NURSE EVIL
MY NEW NURSE is an unsmiling despot with a nursing degree. Her name is Janet Pritchert. “You may call me Nurse Janet,” she says. Her voice is unnaturally high, like an alarm.
She emphasizes the word Nurse so that I understand that simply calling her Janet will not do. Her handshake is too firm, as if she’s more used to crushing things than caring for them.
It’s possible that my view of her is biased.
All I see when I look at her is how much she’s not Carla. She’s thin where Carla was stout. Her speech is not peppered with Spanish words. She has no accent at all. Compared with Carla, she’s altogether less.
By the afternoon I’ve decided to adjust my attitude, but that’s when the first of her notes appears, stickied to my laptop.
My mom has reinstated my Internet access but only during the school day. She says I’m only supposed to be using it for schoolwork, but I’m sure the fact that Olly has started school and only gets home after 3 P.M. has something to do with it.
I check the time. It’s 2:30 P.M. I decide not to adjust my attitude. Nurse Janet could’ve at least given me a chance to break the rule before assuming that I would be a rule breaker.
Things don’t improve the next day:
Over the next week, I give up any hope I had that she could be persuaded to my cause. Her mission is clear—monitor, contain, and control.
Olly and I settle into a new rhythm. We IM in short bursts during the day in between my Skype classes. At 3 P.M., Nurse Evil turns off the router and our communication ends. At night, after dinner and after my mom and I spend time with each other, Olly and I stare at each other out the window.
I plead with my mom about the rule, but she refuses to budge. She says it’s for my own protection.
The next day Nurse Evil finds another reason to leave me a note:
I stare at the note, remembering that Carla had said the same thing as she was leaving: Life is a gift. Am I wasting mine?
NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH #2
OLLY’S SCHEDULE
6:55 AM – Stands at window. Writes GOOD MORNING on the glass.
7:20 AM – Waits for Kara to finish her cigarette.
7:25 AM – Leaves for school.
3:45 PM – Returns home from school.
3:50 PM – Stands at window. Erases GOOD MORNING and writes HI on glass.
9:05 PM – Stands at window. Writes a few questions.
10:00 PM – Writes GOODNIGHT MADDY on the glass.
MADDY’S SCHEDULE
6:50 AM – Waits for Olly to appear at window.
6:55 AM – Is joyful.
7:25 AM – Despairs.
8:00 AM–3:00 PM -Ignores Nurse Evil. Attends classes. Does homework. Reads. Compulsively checks for IM messages. Reads some more.
3:40 PM – Watches for Olly’s car to arrive.
3:50 PM – Is joyful.
4:00 PM – More homework. More reading.
6:00 PM–9:00 PM – Dinner/hang out with Mom.
9:01 PM – Waits for Olly to appear at window.
9:05 PM – Is joyful. Pantomimes answers to questions.
10:01 PM – Despair, cont’d.
HIGHER EDUCATION
WITH OLLY BACK in school, our IM sessions are even more limited. He IMs when he can—in between classes or, sometimes, right in the middle of one. During his first week back he does his best to make me feel as if I’m right there with him. He sends pictures of his locker (#23), his class schedule, the library and the librarian, who looks exactly as I imagine a high school librarian would, which is to say bookish and wonderful. He sends pictures of math proofs from his AP math class, his AP English required reading list, pictures of beakers and petri dishes from his biology and chemistry classes.
I spend that first week—and it does feel like spending, like not seeing him is costing me something—doing all my normal things: reading, learning, not dying. I write alternate titles for the books on his reading list. A Tale of Two Kisses. To Kiss a Mockingbird. As I Lay Kissing. And so on.
Nurse Evil and I settle into a grudging routine where I pretend she doesn’t exist and she leaves ever more obnoxious sticky notes to let me know that she does.
But it’s not just about missing him. I’m also jealous of his life, of his world that expands beyond his front door.
He tells me that high school is no utopia, but I’m not convinced. What else would you call a place that exists solely to teach you about the world? What do you call a place with friends and teachers and libraries and book club and math club and debate club and any other kind of club and after-school activities and endless possibilities?
By the third week it becomes harder to sustain our relationship in this new form. I miss talking to him. You can only pantomime so much. I miss being in the same room with him, his physical presence. I miss the way my body was always aware of his. I miss getting to know him. I miss getting to know the Maddy that I am when I’m with him.
We continue like this until, finally,
the inevitable happens.
I’m standing at the window as his car pulls up. I wait for him to exit, to wave our customary wave, but he doesn’t get out first.
A girl that is not Kara emerges from the back of the car.
Maybe she’s a friend of Kara’s.
But then Kara slams out of the car and into the house, leaving Olly and Mystery Girl alone. Mystery Girl laughs at something Olly says. She turns, puts her hand on his shoulder, and smiles at him the way I’ve smiled at him.
I’m shocked at first, not quite believing what my eyes are seeing. Is she touching my Olly? My stomach clenches. I’m being squeezed around the middle by a giant hand. My organs are displaced until I feel wrong inside my own skin.
I let the curtain fall and duck away from the window. I feel like a Peeping Tom.
My mom’s words come back to me. I don’t want you to have a broken heart. She knew what would happen. There was always going to be someone else. Someone who isn’t sick. Someone who can leave her house. Someone he can talk to and touch and kiss and everything else.
I stifle the urge to go back to the window and assess my competition. But it’s not a competition if one person can’t even show up for the event. And it doesn’t matter what she looks like. It doesn’t matter if she’s long- or short-legged. It doesn’t matter if she’s pale or tanned, if her hair is black or brown or red or blond. It doesn’t matter if she’s pretty or not.
It matters that she feels the sun on her skin. She breathes unfiltered air. It matters that she lives in the same world that Olly does, and I don’t. I never will.
I take another peek. Her hand is still on his shoulder and she’s still laughing. He’s frowning up at my window, but I’m sure he can’t see me. He waves anyway, but I duck down again, pretending to both of us that I’m not there.
ALOHA MEANS HELLO AND GOOD-BYE, PART ONE
I’VE CANCELED YET another mother-daughter night, so my mom stops by my room.