He squints at me through the windowpane when I close the door.
I walk fast through the hall and commons, but I slow down when I get to the dorms, suddenly scared again.
By the time I get to her door, my nerves have settled in. My chest is tight and my palms are sticky. I wipe them on my pants and force myself to breathe deep before I knock.
“Yeah?” She sounds busy.
“It’s me. Alex.” I’m ready to turn and run.
“Hey! Come in.” She doesn’t sound annoyed, which is a relief. I open the door and step through. “Leave the door open, though.”
Disappointing. I guess I was hoping that she’d want some private time with me.
Corina’s room is exactly like mine, except there’s only one bed and instead of the other bed, there’s a couch against the other wall. She’s on it, leaned against one armrest with her legs tucked under her. She’s reading through papers. I move closer to get a look but instead of hiding them, she holds them up so I can see them better.
She shrugs. “Glide schedules. Matching breaks for Maddie and me.”
There’s nothing on any of the walls, like she’s only passing through.
“What’s up?”
I shrug. I need to tell you something. I need to tell you how I feel about you, that I can’t think around you, that you . . . a partner. My partner . . . It all crumbles and my mind blanks. “I . . . I just . . .”
“It’s cool,” she says before I finish. “Company.” She reaches over her shoulder to drop the papers back on her desk. Her shirt rides up a bit, showing her stomach and her belly button. She brings her arm back and gestures at the couch for me to sit.
I sit, but I don’t have anything to say.
Awkward silence.
She pushes at me with her foot. It leaves an impression on my thigh that I feel throughout my body. She doesn’t pull it back all the way, leaving it just barely touching me. It’s like fire. “What’s up, Plugzer?”
I open my mouth to tell her about needing a partner, but it suddenly sounds ridiculous, selfish, small. She doesn’t need a partner. She’s solid on her own, strong without one.
What seemed so obvious in the glide chamber now feels embarrassing, something a child would say. If I open my mouth, I’m just going to make a fool of myself.
But I can’t say nothing, can’t keep pretending I don’t have feelings about her. I’ve told girls I like them before—it’s always been easy, but this isn’t like before. Corina’s older, wiser, smarter than the other girls. Than me. And I’m tongue-tied because unlike with other girls, if she says no, it’ll be real, something I can’t just walk off.
She’s seen me up close when I wasn’t together. She’s seen me cry.
She’s already made me stronger. She’s already a partner, she just doesn’t know it yet.
Say it. But when I start speaking, dumb shit comes out. “I dunno. I was bored and I wanted to come by, see what’s up with you.”
Corina likes that I can’t hide my emotions, but hiding them is all I ever try to do.
“There’s nothing up with me but schedules and romance novels,” she says. My heart sinks, but then she reaches back over her shoulder for a book, which she tosses at me. “But I like having you here, so just read and don’t talk while I finish up.”
I look at the book. It’s a ghetto romance, one of those things that girls read where there’s a criminal with a good heart. Mostly, though, they’re just filled with sex scenes. “You read these?”
“I read all sorts of books, so don’t judge.” She doesn’t look up. “Anyways, sometimes a girl gets lonely.”
“I don’t judge.” I flip the pages to find a good section to read aloud. “‘His breath touched her like a hot feather. Veronica pushed into it as his mouth closed around her breast . . .’”
“Shut up,” she says still not looking up.
“‘Martin’s tongue pushed hard against her nipple, and then his teeth—’”
“You better be done.” But she’s smiling.
“‘Pleasure and pain coursed across her in waves, leaving her swimming . . .’”
She kicks me. “You stop that,” she says, but she’s laughing.
“‘. . . in her own ocean of ecstasy . . .’”
“Shut. The. Hell. Up.” She moves to grab the book, but I pull it over my head so she misses. She lands on top of me.
I can feel every part of her pressed against me and I have to move quickly to keep her from feeling me. Our faces are inches apart and now neither of us are laughing.
Or moving apart.
I bring myself closer. Our noses brush, and then our lips. While the moment lasts, there is nothing in my mind but Corina. Her lips are soft, but there’s muscle behind them that makes her kiss firm.
Our tongues touch, and I wrap my arms around her. Pull her tight and close.
We separate a little and look at each other. The hunger in her eyes makes it a struggle for me to breathe. I move my hand from her back. I’m trembling.
“Alex,” she whispers. “What are we doing?”
“I can’t help it,” I tell her. “I’ve . . .” I don’t want her to know how much I’ve thought about this, how much I think about her, how much I . . .
“I know,” she says before I finish. “Me too.” She shakes her head slowly back and forth. “We’ll have to be very quiet about this.”
For a second I’m not sure I heard her right. “You really want to . . .”
She nods, leans lower. Our lips touch again, she opens her mouth slowly, her bottom lip below mine, her mouth surrounding it.
My hand is on her lower back. I slide it up slowly, feeling each notch in her spine until I’m touching the back of her neck, feeling the first hairs of her head. She pulls up slightly. “No hints. If they find out, they’ll send us away.”
There’s a noise in the hallway and we sit ourselves back up. She grabs the papers and smooths them out.
I pick up the book. I can’t read anything. It’s hard to even sit.
Thirty-Eight
I’m eating lunch with Paul in the kitchen when Richard walks in and points at me. “Hey, man, can you come with me?”
I look at Paul, who’s just taken in a huge mouthful of Cap’n Crunch. He shakes his head. He doesn’t know what this is about.
Corina. I don’t know how they could’ve found out so soon. I make myself nod at Richard, stand up and start to clear my plate, but he stops me. “Actually, leave that—Paul, can you take care if it?” He bobs his head. “Bit of a hurry.”
Paul watches me as I walk over to Richard. He doesn’t officially know about me and Corina, but I think he’s probably guessed. When I get to Richard, he ushers me past him into the gym and points toward his office. “What’s up?” I ask, my voice cracking.
“We need to talk,” he says. He doesn’t sound angry or disappointed. Guarded. That’s the word.
“About something bad?”
He opens the door to his office, turns, and looks at me. He shakes his head. “About something different.” He points at the chairs across from his desk. “Have a seat. I have to get one other person, so I’ll be right back.”
I’m still standing when he steps back out the door. I don’t know how he found out about me and Corina so fast. I try to think of all the things I might’ve said or done where people might have seen me, but aside from the kiss . . .
I can’t think clearly, it’s all a jumble of Corina and me and glides and color and fear. However he learned, it’s over. I’m getting sent away.
I sit down and wait, tapping my foot hard against the floor because I can’t stop. Out of desperation I try and go deep, down to the Jungle to find my Voice, to change what’s happening. It seems hopeless at first. The drain is gone.
I need the drain! I think it hard to try and make it
happen. I picture it and then it’s there, a storm drain, but it’s secured with a thick metal grate. I can hear noise from underneath, but I’m too big to fit through the gaps.
I can’t get in, but what I see when I’m down is what I expect to see. If I made the drain cover like I made the walls and the path, then I can change it. I imagine hinges for it, a padlock. Then a key to the padlock.
The lock opens and I pull the grate. It gives, moves, leaving a hole large enough for me.
I descend. The Jungle’s noise is the sound of home to me right now. I follow it.
And then I’m in it. No glide room, just me, out in the open.
I’m free, and momentarily, the excitement overwhelms my worries about Richard.
The strands around me are screaming, pulsing, moving, thick ones like Corina’s, smaller ones like floss, and thread spread everywhere, a mesh of life that covers everything. I focus on the strands closest to me, identify them.
I find Richard, his music like him—a predictable rhythm. There are undertones of emotion, but they’re not what I expect. There’s no anger, no disappointment.
Just concern. He’s worried.
I’m pretty sure closeness in the Jungle reflects closeness in our world, so I turn to the strand closest to him.
It’s not Corina. It’s familiar, but its noise fills me with discomfort and then I know who it is.
I have no idea what’s happening here.
I surface, open my eyes, turn to face the door, ready for Richard and Damon.
Damon has no more idea why he’s here than I do—I got that much from his music. He sees me and wrinkles his forehead a little bit.
“Have a seat,” Richard says, pointing at the chair next to me.
“What’s this about?” Damon asks as though it’s not the first time he’s asked it.
“Why’s he here?” I add.
Richard holds up a palm to each of us as he settles into his chair. “Damon, sit down, man. Nobody’s in trouble, and you’ll both probably find this to be a positive development overall, so let me tell you about it.”
I look at Damon out of the corner of my eye, and he’s doing the same to me so it’s hard for us to ignore each other. He sits.
“So, guys, this is something we’ve never had happen before, and it’s taken some time for us to figure out how to handle it.” He settles back in his chair. “A while back, Alex saw something in a glide that was, to be frank, very strange.”
Vegas. It all clicks. “Why’s he here, though?”
Richard nods. “I’m getting to that.” He looks at Damon. “Essentially, Alex saw himself, in Las Vegas, interacting with a glide target.”
Damon squints, looks at me, then back at Richard. “What does that mean?”
“It means that Alex has to go to Las Vegas”—he points at his wrist like he’s wearing a watch—“and he’s got to go right now, and we cannot send him alone.”
“Hell no!” I don’t know which of us says it first, but we end together like we’re singing.
“I don’t need him,” I add, talking over whatever Damon says, which I don’t hear.
Richard wipes stray hair away from his face. “This isn’t a discussion. We’ve expended a serious amount of Oracle device time and glide resources on figuring out what needs to happen, and this is how it goes. You”—he points at me—“are going to Vegas and you”—he points at Damon—“are going with him. This is the way it’s been seen, so this is how it works out in the way we need it to, understand?”
I wait a moment or two before I nod.
He looks at Damon. I don’t. I stare straight ahead until I hear Damon agree. “When do I leave?”
Richard smiles. “Thirty minutes. Go pack.”
Thirty-Nine
We’re only going to be gone for a day, but it takes me a long time to pack because I don’t know what to pack. I’ve never flown anywhere before and I don’t know what to expect. It’s April, I think, but I don’t know what the weather’s gonna be like in Las Vegas.
I pull my backpack out of the bottom drawer and fill it with random clothes. The photograph stuffed in the lining crinkles when I shove in my pants, and I stop for a moment to take it out and look at it.
The girl in the picture—the one who saved me from the car accident—looks happy. I’m smiling, too, but I look a little scared. The water in the background is almost white like the beach; the hills and mountains on the other side are brown. There’s still nothing that looks familiar.
But I don’t know what there is near Las Vegas.
When I get out to the patio, Damon’s already there, waiting. He’s got an actual suitcase. When he sees me he looks up, raises an eyebrow. “T’sup.”
I’m going to have to spend the next day with him. I raise my chin at him and sit down on a lounge chair nearby. “You been to Vegas before?”
He looks startled by the question. He shakes his head. “Nah.”
“It’s pretty chill.” I don’t say chill. I don’t know where that came from.
“You’ve been there?”
I shrug, nod. “Yeah. With my mom a while back. We drove there from LA.”
He smiles. “Longer drive from Ohio.”
“That where you’re from?”
He nods. “Yeah. New Lebanon, actually.”
“New Lebanon?” I squint at him.
“It’s small, man. Between Dayton and the Indiana border.”
“I’m from LA, went to Belmont High School.” I immediately feel dumb because it’s not like he has any idea what Belmont is.
“You play anything?”
I shake my head. “Nah.” Then: “Handball, but . . .” Then: “You?”
He nods. “Football, but I played basketball and baseball, too.”
I nod. I’ve watched him play one-on-one with Calvin. He’s good enough that I wouldn’t have played him if I’d been invited.
“Mr. Mata?”
I turn around. Bishop is standing at the entrance to the Long Hall. He waves me over and when I reach him, he hands me a bag. “What’s this?”
“Your waiter’s uniform and the ID you’ll need to get into the hall.”
I take the bag and open it, pull out the ID. “How will I know what to do?” I put the ID in my wallet.
He looks at me like I’m stupid. “You don’t have to. You’ve already done it.” He turns around and walks back into the Long Hall, leaving me holding the bag.
When I return, Damon looks at the bag. “What’s that?” But he doesn’t wait for an answer. “Never mind. I don’t need to know.”
Richard comes out the gym door, sees us, smiles. “Grab your gear.” He points to the hallway door. “We’re hitting the road.”
Richard drives us back to the city, and to an airport that looks too small to be the main one. “What airline are we flying?” I ask to try and sound like I’m not completely new to this.
“Not an airline,” Richard says, pulling up to a security gate. “You’re flying on Jeff’s plane.”
I keep quiet and examine the planes around us. There are a bunch with propellers off to one side and on the other there’s a scattering of private jets. Richard pulls up near a big one with six windows. There’s a staircase leading up to a door, and a woman standing at the top watching us. When Richard gets out of the car, she smiles and waves. I sneak a glance at Damon. He looks as nervous as I feel, which makes me feel better.
“You ever flown before?” I ask him.
He doesn’t take his eye off the plane, but nods quickly. “Once.” Then: “Had to fly to Wisconsin for a Great Lakes Division tournament.” He turns to look at me. “You?”
I shake my head. “Nah.”
Richard’s talking to the lady from the plane. She gestures to the car and laughs. Richard turns around and rolls his eyes before waving for us t
o get out of the car.
“You ready?” I ask Damon.
He nods. “Yeah,” he says, then grabs his bag from the seat between us. “Let’s go.”
The lady on the plane introduces herself as Claudia. She shakes each of our hands as we walk on board. She’s all smiles and chat, but I’m so distracted by the inside of the plane that it’s hard to even be polite. There’re couch-chairs facing each other across wooden tables. There’s a bench seat along one side wall of the plane that faces the windows across from it. It doesn’t even make sense until I notice the huge screen that’s lifted like a shade above the windows.
“Damn.” I look at Damon.
He’s already looking at me. He smiles. “This is different from the last time I flew.”
Claudia tells us about the fridge and snack center and that she’ll be taking care of us for the duration of our flight. We both nod.
She tells us to get buckled in because we’re ready to take off.
As soon as the plane starts to move, my excitement shifts and I’m suddenly nervous. It’s not just me, either. Damon’s looking scared. “You scared?” I ask him, hoping he’ll say yes.
He shakes his head, but then there’s a thump somewhere on the plane and he jumps. He laughs. “Little bit.”
“Me too.”
He looks at me. “Why are you scared?” He points at me. “You’re guaranteed to survive—you’ve been seen.”
He’s right. I feel myself relax. “Yeah.” Then: “You can relax, too. It didn’t look like I’d recently survived a plane crash.”
The plane takes off. The movement pushes me into my seat like I’m on a coaster at Six Flags, and then we’re in the air. The plane pushes up through the clouds quickly, and then we’re above them and the sun is shining bright. I smile, feeling deep relief. I didn’t even realize how much I missed the sunshine. It seems like it’s always cloudy in Seattle, so it’s literally been months since I’ve seen it.
Claudia shows us how to bring down the big screen, and Damon and I spend the flight playing games. He may be better at real sports, but I absolutely own him in Madden.
Strange Days Page 21