by Nicola Yoon
“So,” she says.
“I’m sorry I canceled, Mom. I’m just feeling out of sorts.”
She immediately presses the back of her hand to my forehead.
“Mentally, not physically,” I clarify. I can’t get the image of Mystery Girl’s hand on Olly’s shoulder out of my head.
She nods but doesn’t remove her hand until she’s satisfied that I’m not feverish.
“So,” I say, prompting her. I really do want to be alone.
“I was a teenager once. And an only child. I was very lonely. I found being a teenager to be very painful.”
This is why she’s here? Because she thinks I’m lonely? Because she thinks I’m having some sort of teenage angst?
“I am not lonely, Mom,” I snap. “I am alone. Those are different things.”
She flinches but doesn’t retreat. Instead, she lets go of whatever she is holding and caresses my cheek until I meet her eyes.
“I know, baby girl.” Her hands are behind her back again. “Maybe now is not a good time. Do you want me to go?”
She’s always so reasonable and understanding. It’s hard to be angry with her.
“No, it’s OK. I’m sorry. Stay.” I pull my legs up, making room for her. “What are you hiding?” I ask.
“I brought you a present. I thought it would make you feel less lonely, but now I’m not so sure.”
She pulls a framed photograph from behind her back. My heart squeezes inside my chest. It’s an old photograph of the four of us—me, my mom and dad and brother—standing on a beach, someplace tropical. The sun has set behind us and whoever took the picture used the flash and so our faces are bright, almost glowing, against the darkening sky.
My brother is holding on to my dad with one hand and clutching a small brown stuffed bunny rabbit with the other. For the most part he’s a miniature version of my mom with her same straight black hair and dark eyes. Really the only difference is that he has my dad’s darker skin. My dad’s wearing a matching Aloha-print shirt and shorts. Goofy is the only word I can think of to describe him. Still, he’s so handsome. His arm is wrapped around my mom’s shoulder and he seems to be pulling her closer. He’s staring straight into the camera. If ever there was someone who had everything he wanted, my dad was him.
Mom is wearing a red, strapless, flower-patterned sundress. Her damp hair curls around her face. She’s not wearing makeup or jewelry. Really, she looks like an alternate-universe version of the mom sitting next to me now. She seems to belong on that beach with those people more than she belongs stuck here in this room with me. She’s holding me in her arms, and she’s the only one not staring into the camera. Instead, she’s laughing at me. I’m grinning that silly, gummy smile that only babies can smile.
I’ve never seen a photo of myself Outside before. I didn’t know such a thing existed.
“Where’s this?” I ask.
“Hawaii. Maui was your dad’s favorite place.”
Her voice is almost a whisper now. “You were just four months old, before we knew why you were always sick. A month before the accident.”
I clutch the photo to my chest. My mom’s eyes fill with tears that don’t fall.
“I love you,” she says. “More than you know.”
But I do know. I’ve always felt her heart reaching out to protect mine. I hear lullabies in her voice. I can still feel arms rocking me to sleep and her kisses on my cheeks in the morning. And I love her right back. I can’t imagine the world she’s given up for me.
I don’t know what to say, so I tell her I love her, too. It’s not enough, but it’ll have to do.
After she leaves I stand in front of the mirror holding the photograph next to my face. I look from the me in the photo to the me in the mirror and back again.
A photograph is a kind of time machine. My room fades away, and I’m on that beach surrounded by love and salt air and the fading warmth and lengthening shadows of sunset.
I fill my tiny lungs with as much air as they can take and I hold my breath. I’ve been holding it ever since.
LATER, 9:08 P.M.
OLLY’S ALREADY WAITING for me when I go to the window. In big, bold letters he writes:
LAB PARTNER
I pantomime my complete and utter lack of jealousy.
MADAM, I’M ADAM
SOMETIMES I REREAD my favorite books from back to front. I start with the last chapter and read backward until I get to the beginning. When you read this way, characters go from hope to despair, from self-knowledge to doubt. In love stories, couples start out as lovers and end as strangers. Coming-of-age books become stories of losing your way. Your favorite characters come back to life.
If my life were a book and you read it backward, nothing would change. Today is the same as yesterday. Tomorrow will be the same as today. In the Book of Maddy, all the chapters are the same.
Until Olly.
Before him my life was a palindrome—the same forward and backward, like “A man, a plan, a canal. Panama,” or “Madam, I’m Adam.” But Olly’s like a random letter, the big bold X thrown in the middle of the word or phrase that ruins the sequence.
And now my life doesn’t make sense anymore. I almost wish I hadn’t met him. How am I supposed to go back to my old life, my days stretching out before me with unending and brutal sameness? How am I supposed to go back to being The Girl Who Reads? Not that I begrudge my life in books. All I know about the world I’ve learned from them. But a description of a tree is not a tree, and a thousand paper kisses will never equal the feel of Olly’s lips against mine.
THE GLASS WALL
A WEEK LATER, something startles me awake. I sit up. My head is foggy with sleep but my heart is awake and racing. It knows something that my head doesn’t yet know.
I glance at the clock. 3:01 A.M. My curtains are closed, but I can see a glow from Olly’s room. I drag myself over to the window and push aside the curtains. His entire house is ablaze with lights. Even the porch light is on. My hearts speeds up even more.
Oh, no. Are they fighting again?
A door slams. The sound is faint but unmistakable. I gather the curtains in my fist and wait, willing Olly to show himself. I don’t wait for long because just then he stumbles onto the porch as if he’s been pushed.
The urge to go to him fills me up like it did the last time. I want to go to him. I need to go to him, to comfort him, to protect him.
He regains his balance with his usual speed and spins to face the door with fists clenched. I brace along with him for an attack that doesn’t come. He remains in fighter stance, facing the door, for a full minute. I’ve never seen him so still.
Another minute passes and then his mom joins him on the porch. She tries to touch his arm but he jerks away and doesn’t even look at her. Eventually she gives up. As soon as she’s gone, all the tension leaves his body. He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and his shoulders begin to shake. He looks up to my window. I wave, but he doesn’t respond. I realize he can’t see me because my lights are off. I run to the switch. But by the time I return to the window, he’s gone.
I press my forehead, my palms, my forearms against the glass.
I’ve never wanted out of my skin more.
THE HIDDEN WORLD
SOMETIMES THE WORLD reveals itself to you. I’m alone in the darkening sunroom. Late-afternoon sun cuts a trapezoid of light through the glass window. I look up and see particles of dust drifting, crystal white and luminous, in the suspension of light.
There are entire worlds that exist just beneath our notice of them.
HALF LIFE
IT’S A STRANGE thing to realize that you’re willing to die. It doesn’t come in a flash, a sudden epiphany. It happens slowly, a balloon leak in reverse.
The sight of Olly crying alone on his porch will not leave me.
I pore over the pictures that he sent from school. I make myself a place in every single one. Maddy in the library. Maddy standing next to Olly’s lock
er waiting to go to class. Maddy as Girl Most Likely To.
I memorize every inch of my family photo, trying to divine its secrets. I marvel at the not-sick Maddy, baby Maddy, her life stretching before her with endless possibility.
Ever since Olly came into my life there’ve been two Maddys: the one who lives through books and doesn’t want to die, and the one who lives and suspects that death will be a small price to pay for it. The first Maddy is surprised at the direction of her thoughts. The second Maddy, the one from the Hawaii photograph? She’s like a god—impervious to cold, famine, disease, natural and man-made disasters. She’s impervious to heartbreak.
The second Maddy knows that this pale half life is not really living.
GOOD-BYE
Dear Mom,
The first thing is that I love you. You already know that, but I may not get the chance to tell you again.
So. I love you. I love you. I love you.
You are smart and strong and kind and selfless. I couldn’t have wished for a better mom.
You’re not going to understand what I’m going to say. I don’t know if I understand it myself.
Because of you I’m alive, Mom, and I’m so, so grateful for that. Because of you I’ve survived this long and gotten a chance to know my small part of the world. But it’s not enough. It’s not your fault. It’s this impossible life.
I’m not doing this just because of Olly. Or maybe I am. I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s Olly and it’s not-Olly at the same time. It’s like I can’t look at the world in the old way anymore. I found this new part of myself when I met him and the new part doesn’t know how to stay quiet and still and just observe.
Do you remember when we read The Little Prince together for the first time? I was so upset that he died in the end. I didn’t understand how he could choose death just so he could get back to his rose.
I think I understand it now. He wasn’t choosing to die. His rose was his whole life. Without her, he wasn’t really alive.
I don’t know, Mom. I don’t know what I’m doing, only that I have to. Sometimes I wish I could go back to the way I was before, before I knew anything. But I can’t.
I’m sorry. Forgive me. I love you.
- Maddy
THE FIVE SENSES
HEARING
The alarm’s keypad tries to announce my escape by emitting a loud BEEP each time I press a number. I can only hope that the sound is too unexpected and my mom’s room too far away from the door for her to hear it.
The door unseals with a sigh.
I’m Outside.
The world is so quiet it roars.
TOUCH
The front-door handle is metal-cool and smooth, almost slippery. It’s easy to let go of it, and I do.
SIGHT
It’s 4 A.M. and too dark for detail. My eyes take in only the general shape of things, fuzzy silhouettes against the night sky. Large tree, smaller tree, steps, garden, stone path leading to a gate with a picket fence on either side. Gate, gate, gate.
SMELL
I’m in Olly’s garden. The air is full, ripe with scent—flowers, earth, my expanding fear. I store it away in my lungs. I toss pebbles at his window, willing him to come out.
TASTE
Olly’s in front of me, stunned. I don’t say anything. I press my lips to his. At first he’s frozen, uncertain and unyielding, but then he’s not. All at once, he pulls me tight against him. One of his hands is in my hair and the other one is gripping my waist.
He tastes just like I remember.
OTHER WORLDS
WE COME TO our senses.
Well, Olly comes to his. He pulls away, grips my shoulders with both hands. “What are you doing out here? Are you all right? Is something wrong? Is your mom OK?”
I’m all bravado. “I’m fine. She’s fine. I’m running away.”
The light from his room above casts just enough light so I can see confusion across the planes of his face.
“I don’t understand,” he says.
I take a deep breath, but freeze midway.
The night air is cold and moist and heavy and completely unlike any air I’ve ever breathed.
I try to unbreathe it, to expel it from my lungs. My lips tingle and I’m light-headed. Is that just fear, or is it something else?
“Maddy, Maddy,” he whispers against my ear. “What have you done?”
I can’t answer. My throat is blocked like I’ve swallowed a stone.
“Try not to breathe,” he says, and starts guiding me back to my house.
I let him pull me for a second, maybe two, but then I stop moving.
“What is it? Can you walk? Do you need me to carry you?”
I shake my head and pull my hand from his.
I take a sip of night air. “I said I’m running away.”
He makes a sound like a growl. “What are you talking about? Do you have a death wish?”
“Opposite,” I say. “Will you help me?”
“With what?”
“I don’t have a car. I don’t know how to drive. I don’t know anything about the world.”
He makes another sound halfway between a growl and a laugh. I wish I could see his eyes in the dark.
Something slams. A door? I grab his hands and pull us both flat against the side of his house. “What was that?”
“Jesus. A door. From my house.”
I press myself flatter against the wall, trying to disappear. I peek over to the path leading from my house, fully expecting to see my mother coming down it. But she’s not there.
I close my eyes. “Take me to the roof.”
“Maddy—”
“I’ll explain everything.”
My entire plan hangs on him helping me. I didn’t really consider what would happen if he refused.
We are quiet for one breath. And then two. And then three.
He takes my hand and guides me around to the side of his house farthest from mine. There’s a tall ladder leading to the roof.
“Are you afraid of heights?” he asks.
“I don’t know.” I start climbing.
I duck down as soon as we get to the roof, but Olly says there’s no need.
“Most people don’t look up anyway,” he says.
It takes a few minutes for my heart to return to normal.
Olly folds himself down with his usual unusual grace. I’m happy to watch him move.
“So, what now?” he asks after a time.
I look around. I’d always wanted to know what he did up here. The roof is gabled in parts, but we’re sitting on a flat section toward the back. I make out shapes: a small wooden table with a mug, a lamp, and some crumpled papers. Maybe he writes up here, composes bad poetry. Limericks.
“Does that lamp work?” I ask.
He wordlessly turns it on, and it casts a diffuse circle of light around us. I’m almost afraid to look at him.
The crumpled papers on the table are fast-food wrappers. Not a secret poet, then. Next to the table there’s a dusty gray tarp covering something, or somethings. The ground is littered with tools—wrenches, wire cutters in various sizes, hammers, and a few others that I don’t recognize. There’s even a blowtorch.
I finally look over at him.
His elbows are on his knees and he’s staring out at the slowly brightening sky.
“What do you do up here?” I ask.
“That can’t possibly matter right now.” His voice is hard and he doesn’t look at me. There’s no trace of the boy who kissed me so desperately a few minutes ago. His fear for me has crowded everything else out.
Sometimes you do things for the right reasons and sometimes for the wrong ones and sometimes it’s impossible to tell the difference.
“I have pills,” I say.
He’s barely moving as it is, but now he grows completely still. “What pills?”
“They’re experimental, not FDA-approved. I ordered them online. From Canada.” The lie is eas
y, effortless.
“Online? How do you know they’re even safe?”
“I did a lot of research.”
“But still, you can’t be sure—”
“I’m not reckless.” I hold his eyes. These lies are for his own protection. Already he looks relieved.
I press on. “They should give me a few days outside. I didn’t tell my mom because she wouldn’t want to risk it, but I—”
“Because it’s risky. You just said they’re not FDA—”
“They’re safe enough for a few days.” My tone holds no doubt. I wait, hoping that he will swallow the lie.
“Jesus.” He drops his face into his hands and holds it there. When he looks up, it’s a less obstinate Olly staring back at me. Even his voice softens. “You could have told me this five minutes ago.”
I make my best effort to lighten the mood. “We were kissing! And then you were getting angry with me.” I’m blushing from the talk of kissing and from my easy lying. “I was going to tell you. I am telling you. I just did.”
He’s much too smart to fall for this, but he wants it to be true. He wants it to be true more than he wants the truth. The smile that breaks across his face is cautious, but so beautiful that I can’t look away. I would lie to him again for that smile.
“Now,” I say. “What’s under that thing?”
He hands me a corner of the tarp and I pull it aside.
At first I’m not sure what I’m looking at. It’s like reading a seemingly random collection of words before the sentence becomes clear.
“It’s beautiful,” I say.
“It’s called an orrery.”
“This is what you’ve been doing up here? Making universes?”
He shrugs.
A small wind blows and the planets spin slowly. We both watch their motion without speaking.
“Are you sure about this?” Doubt has crept back into his voice.
“Please help me, Olly. Please.” I point to the orrery. “I need to escape, too, just for a little while.”