Once We Were

by Kat Zhang

  “You know what I think the perfect picture of the ocean would be?” Sabine asked. “A beach covered with snow. But it never snows here. As far as I’ve seen, it’s never even flurried. Did it snow, where you came from?”

  I nodded. “Not often, though. And never very much.”

  “Back home, it snowed several inches every year without fail.” She laughed suddenly. “Funny, isn’t it, how I still say ‘back home’? I haven’t been there in eight years, but somehow, it’s still home.”

  Sabine traced a finger down the edge of the photo frame. “Someday, when this is over, I’ll head back up there. I’ll walk right to the front door and ring the bell. And when my parents answer, I’ll ask them what they were thinking, letting Jenson take us.” She turned away from the photo. “If they’re still there, anyway.”

  “You haven’t forgiven them?” I asked quietly. If in eight years, Sabine hadn’t forgiven her parents, what did that predict for me?

  “No.” She smiled wistfully. “But I’d go back anyway.”

  She cleared some clothes from the couch and motioned for me to sit. “You and Ryan have been really amazing, Eva. You know that, right? I’m including Addie and Devon, too, of course. None of this would be possible without you guys.”

  I shrugged, more embarrassed than pleased by her praise. “I haven’t really been doing much.”

  “You drew the pictures for the posters at Lankster Square,” Sabine said.

  “That was Addie.”

  “But you two work together,” Sabine said. “You’re a team, Eva.”

  “Okay,” I said, “but since then? Neither Addie nor I have helped. Not really.”

  I wasn’t sure why I was pressing the point, other than the fact that I was getting increasingly upset and needed to lash out—about my own apprehension, my own possible cowardice, my need for Sabine to reassure me, and her inability right now to do so.

  Maybe Sabine saw that. When she spoke again, her tone had grown a little harder. Not like she was annoyed with me, but like she understood I wasn’t a child to be placated by compliments.

  “Eva, I know you’re probably having second thoughts about the plan. That’s normal. Just remember why we’re doing this, okay?” She waited until I gave a slight nod. “And remember, you don’t need to come on Friday. I think it would be better if you didn’t.”

  I imagined Sabine setting the bomb, alone. Watching it explode, alone. I could hear the screech and groan of the building as it crumpled, the roar of the fire. I could almost see the look that would shine in Sabine’s eyes: quiet, powerful satisfaction.

  “Peter—” I said.

  “Peter’s great; he is,” Sabine said, cutting me off. Sabine rarely cut people off. She was almost always patient, ready to hear others out. “But if we keep going at the rate Peter’s going, God knows when we’ll be able to stop running and hiding, and start gaining ground.” There was a frenzy to her voice I’d never heard before. She tripped over her own words. “Eva, I’ve spent so much of my life afraid—so much of it just trying to get by. Just trying to survive. I can’t keep going like this. I don’t want to be thirty or forty or fifty years old and looking at my life, and it’s still the same, and I’m still scared and hoping that other people will make things change. I want to make things change. Now.”

  She looked me in the eye. “Peter thinks we’re all children, Eva. But at some point, you’ve got to grow up.”

  Her words punched the air from my gut. Because she was right. I did have to grow up. I had to stop doubting myself, stop being so wishy-washy about things. Stop being so scared all the time.

  “It’s okay, Eva,” Sabine said. She took my hand. The look in her eyes told me she understood everything. Understood me. “In a couple days, it’ll all be over, anyway.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  A swish of white cloth

  A doctor’s coat, coarsely woven

  In our six-year-old hands

  Do you want to be a doctor when you grow up?

  No answer.

  One of us wouldn’t

  Grow up

  Horror.

  I woke to complete and utter horror. Horror that choked like fingers inside our throat.

  It took me a second to realize Addie and I weren’t being attacked. Weren’t running for our lives. We were just sitting quietly in our room. But—

  I cried.

  She tried to say something. Started to say something.

  Then she was gone. Leaving me in the echoes of her terror.

  I scrambled off our bed.

  Nothing.

 

  Something had happened. Something must have happened.

  Confusion and fear shoved me into the hallway. Made me shout, without thinking, “Emalia!”

  Emalia and Sophie’s door was half-open; I heard her humming as she folded her laundry. Her head jerked up. “Addie? What’s wrong?”

  “What was I doing?” I demanded. “Right before? A minute before? Where was I?”

  Emalia abandoned her laundry and hurried toward me. “Eva? Are you all right? Calm down. You look—”

  I backed away, too riled up to let anyone touch me. “Please—just tell me where I was a moment ago.”

  “You were in your room,” Emalia said. “I thought Addie was sketching. I didn’t—”

  The phone rang, shrill in my ears. Emalia didn’t look away from me, but she backed up a few steps and answered the cordless on her nightstand. “Hello?”

  A pause. She lowered the phone. Her eyes weren’t searching my face now. They moved over my body, taking in the faded, yellow shirt I was wearing. The jean shorts. As if she hoped to find clues in my clothes. “It’s for Addie,” she said slowly. “It’s Dr. Lyanne.”

  I reached out my hand, trying to look more relaxed. I shouldn’t have let Emalia see how freaked out I was. She was suspicious now, but still handed me the phone.

  “Hello?” I said.

  Dr. Lyanne wasted no time on pleasantries. “What the hell are you and Devon doing, Addie?”

  I didn’t correct Dr. Lyanne. Since visiting Sabine the day before yesterday, I hadn’t left the building. I’d barely left the apartment. As far as I knew, Addie had stayed in, too.

  I looked at Emalia. She’d gone back to fiddling with her laundry, making a poor attempt at pretending not to listen to my conversation.

  Quietly, I slipped out into the hall. “I’m not doing anything.”

  “Like hell you aren’t.” Dr. Lyanne spoke in a low hiss. “You know how much of a risk it is for that boy to come to my office? Then I turn around, and you’re both gone. If he needed to use a computer, he could have asked instead of going behind my back.”

  Devon and Addie had gone to Dr. Lyanne’s office? If Devon needed the computer—well, it would make sense he would search out Dr. Lyanne. Her clinic would have a computer, and knowing Dr. Lyanne might allow Devon access to it.

  But access for what reason?

  “Addie,” Dr. Lyanne snapped. “Are you even listening?”

  “I’m listening,” I whispered.

  “No, you’re not. I asked you what Devon needed a computer for so badly.”

  If only I knew. Dr. Lyanne sighed. I bit back my next sentence, waiting for her to speak again. Finally, she said, “I’m going to ask one last time. What are you and Devon up to?”

  “We’re not up to anything,” I said.

  I could almost see Dr. Lyanne on the other end of the line, standing with the phone to her ear, her sharp shoulders rigid, her eyes burning a hole in the wall. “Don’t do anything stupid, Addie. And don’t let Devon.”

  My mind whirled with questions I couldn’t ask.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “No,” Dr. Lyanne said. “Not okay, Addie. Promise me.”

  I hesitated. I was making so many promises, and this one wouldn’t even be in my own name.

  “Addie,” Dr. Lyanne prompted.

  “I promise,”
I said. I reached my room and shut the door behind me. “I won’t. And I won’t let Devon.”

  Dr. Lyanne was quiet a long time. “All right,” she said and hung up. She wasn’t one for drawn-out good-byes. I sat down on my bed, still clutching the phone.

  Addie had gone to visit Dr. Lyanne with Devon, and I had known nothing about it.

  I was still trying to process this information when Nina dashed into our room. “Eva! Emalia’s setting up the projector so we can watch my films.”

  I can’t right now, I almost said, but Nina looked so excited, I couldn’t manage it. Emalia obviously hadn’t told her about my strange behavior. I hated now to destroy any scrap of normality Nina and Kitty managed to salvage. So I just nodded and followed Nina out into the living room.

  Emalia gave me a measured look, but didn’t ask any questions. I had a feeling that she wouldn’t—at least not while Nina was there. She wouldn’t call and ask Dr. Lyanne, either. The two had never been close, and Emalia wasn’t suspicious enough. Just like how Dr. Lyanne wasn’t suspicious enough to bring up Addie and Devon’s visit with Peter, as long as I promised to behave. No one would expect our plans to be as crazy as they were. A few months ago, I wouldn’t have expected it.

  “I can’t find my old screen,” Emalia said as she carefully fed the film into the projector. “I think I gave it away after the camcorder broke. We’ll have to project it on the wall.”

  The projector emitted a soft, feathery clicking as the film began to play. I sat beside Nina on the ground. Emalia hadn’t chosen the tapes in order, and the first video to appear on the apartment wall was of Hally. She laughed at the camera, posing like she was destined for the front page of a fashion magazine. The image jumped from time to time, blackness flickering through Hally’s smiling face, her bright eyes.

  “There you are, in the background.” Nina pointed over Hally’s shoulder. And there, indeed, I was. It was the day Ryan and I had made pancakes in the kitchen. The day I’d told him about Sabine’s invitation and our plans to sneak out to meet her.

  Mom and Dad had taken pictures of us growing up, but never video. It was strange to have my body projected onto the wall. A captured memory of myself that everyone could see.

  The next segment was of Emalia. She grinned and waved at the camera, chattering about some movie she and Nina had watched. Halfway through, Nina turned the camera around and spoke into it herself, her small face made large by the lens’s proximity, her voice distorted in the microphone.

  The next shot was of the streets below.

  The next of the sky.

  The next was Addie and me. We were sketching. We didn’t notice the camera until it was nearly upon us, and then we turned and laughed and said, Kitty, stop snooping. Go away.

  Except I had never said that. I had no memory of ever saying that, or ever hearing Addie say it.

  I’m not snooping, Kitty said. And you messed up his jacket. It’s missing a button—see? Here?

  She pointed at Addie’s drawing. There, still barely more than a sketch, was a picture I recognized. A picture of—

  Well, she’s not done yet, is she? Jackson said. The camera lens swung up to catch his grin, his blue eyes. He sat, portraitlike, on a chair. The same chair as in the sketch.

  The sketch I’d seen, but didn’t remember drawing. Be-cause I hadn’t been there then. I hadn’t been awake. I’d been dreaming.

  Which morning had this been? I had no idea at all.

  Stop filming, Kitty. I’m serious, Addie said.

  Each film didn’t last long. We watched them one after another. There were more shots of Addie that I didn’t recognize: Addie tossing through our drawer for clothes, Addie putting up our hair. Addie laughing. Addie staring off into space. There were shots, too, of me when I knew Addie hadn’t been there.

  If Addie had been watching this, would she feel the same way I was feeling? What was I feeling? I couldn’t fix it into words. Not sad. Sad was too simple. This was sadness, and confusion, and longing, and more.

  Something stirred in the quiet beside my mind.

  < . . . Addie?> I whispered.

  She grew a little stronger, a little more tangible, at the sound of her name. I felt her focus on the video, on the months of our lives projected onto Emalia’s wall.

  I said.

  Nina was still entranced by her videos, Emalia smiling next to her. Neither could have guessed the silent conversation between Addie and me.

  I spoke as calmly as I could.

  Addie’s will overpowered my own. I didn’t fight it, just let her take control. Our hands tightened into fists.

 

  Addie paused. A hesitation? A hope I might encourage her onward?

  I didn’t speak. I barely let myself think. Something terrible was coming—I heard the rumblings of it in Addie’s voice.

  she said.

  Her words washed over me, trying to knock me over, but I would not I would not I would not fall.

  Addie said. There was a plea in my name. A plea and a reminder. A hand reaching out. A held breath, waiting for me to respond.

  THIRTY-TWO

  I waited and waited for the weakness to pass. For the riptide to ease and let me go. It didn’t.

  Addie said.

  I didn’t answer. But she could taste my disbelief, and I knew it. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t rein it back.

  It was Addie’s weariness that affected me more than anything. It killed my protests before I could form them into words.

  For a moment, I was not angry. I was not scared.

  I was just . . . disappointed.

  I had thought, for once, that I was fighting for something. Taking action for myself, for something I could hold on to and lift high.

  But all I’d done was entangle myself in another set of lies.

  I said quietly.

  It was a moment before she replied.

 

  She hesitated. I felt the stab of her pain.

  Murder. That’s what this would be, if the bomb went off when there were people inside the building. Murders, plural. I waited for some kind of visceral reaction, some gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, tear-inducing reaction, but none came. After the initial wave of nausea, I didn’t seem able to feel anything at all.

  Someone knocked. I shuddered back into the world beyond Addie and me and the closed circle of our minds. Emalia shut the projector off and went to answer the door.

  It was Ryan. He opened his mouth, but shut it again when his eyes focused on Addie and me. He frowned.

  Then he wasn’t Ryan anymore.

  I couldn’t tell what Devon read from our eyes and lips. I stared back at him. Somehow, control of our body had shifted back to me. I didn’t want it. I didn’t know what to do with it.

  “Devon?” Emalia said. It was hard to miss the sober intensity on his face. But she didn’t comment other than to say, “Come in.”

  I stood like I’d been waiting for him. Wordlessly, he came to me.


  “You guys go on watching,” I told Emalia and Nina before following Devon down the hall.

  “Addie filled you in,” he said once I’d shut our bedroom door.

  Ryan, I thought. Ryan, do you know? Are you numb, like I am?

  By unspoken accord, Devon and I waited in silence until we heard the projector start up again, heard the quiet mumble of Emalia and Nina speaking. I could feel Addie beside me, quiet but stronger, somehow. Bolstered. She’d accused me of being self-absorbed when I’d missed her relationship with Jackson. But I’d missed her friendship with Devon, too.

  I motioned to the spot on the bed next to us, and Devon moved to fill it. No hesitation. No extraneous motions. The mattress indented under his added weight.

  “Ryan—” I kept my voice low.

  “He knows. I just told him.” Devon met our eyes. “We need to figure out how to confront the others.”

  I kept getting flashes of emotion at the oddest moments—numbness, then a sudden wave of nausea, like someone was shoving at our organs.

  It happened now at the word confront.

  I took a deep breath. “Maybe . . .”

  Maybe it’s a mistake.

  Addie said.

  “Maybe what?” Devon said. “Maybe we’re wrong?” The lift of his eyebrow made it obvious how likely he found that to be. “Then we’re wrong. No harm in—”

  I gaped at him. “No harm in accusing someone of—of—”

  Of murder?

  His eyes were steady. “And if we don’t, and Addie and I are right?”

  I looked away. My mind felt so strange. So strange and adrift and wrong.

  “This is going to happen tomorrow,” Devon said. He reached out and took hold of our arm. Our eyes jerked to meet his. I didn’t remember Devon ever touching us before. “We don’t have time—”

  “Okay.” I pressed our fingers to our forehead and turned away. “Okay, I know. I know. I—”

  “We’ll meet with them tomorrow morning,” Devon said, and I nodded, our face still turned toward the wall. “As soon as we can get in contact with everyone.”‘