“Clearly I’m not,” he says, throwing the quilt back over his head.
“Well, now you are, so let’s talk.”
He groans and rolls over onto his back, reaching for his new glasses on the bedside table. “I don’t know if I can talk about it yet.”
“You said tomorrow.”
“You said tomorrow.”
“What happened?” I ask, unable to help myself. “What did he do?”
Leo props his pillow against the wall behind him and sits up, a look of annoyance flashing across his face. “Why do you assume it was him?”
“Because you’re you,” I say, expecting to draw a smile out of him, but instead his expression darkens.
“Yeah, well, I’m not sure Max would agree anymore.”
I’m afraid to hear whatever’s coming next, but I ask anyway. “Why not?”
“Because,” Leo says in a small voice, “I’m the one who broke up with him.”
“Oh,” I say softly, the word landing heavily between us.
“It was inevitable,” he says with a shrug, almost eerily calm now, as if he’s talking about someone else entirely. “All we’ve been doing is fighting about next year. Then I go up there, and I see him with his new friends and his new band and his new life, and I realized we’ve been holding each other back.”
“But you love him.”
“I want to go to art school,” he continues, as if he hasn’t heard me. “I just do.”
“Okay,” I say. “So go to art school.”
“Whenever I thought about Michigan, I started to feel claustrophobic, like I was being pushed into it. And that’s because I sort of was. And I just didn’t want to go.”
“So you told Max that?”
He lowers his eyes. “No, I told him about how I never applied.”
“What?” I stare at him. “But I thought—”
“No,” he says flatly. “I couldn’t do it.”
“Leo…”
“I know,” he says in a tight voice. He speaks slowly, as if trying to keep the words from spilling out at once. “I filled out the application. I just never sent it. It was like, as soon as I decided not to, this huge weight came off me. But I didn’t want to lose him—”
“Because you love him.”
He ignores this. “So I was gonna wait to tell him. I wanted to have one more week together without having to think about all this, but then I got up there, and he was so excited to show me around campus, and after a while, I just couldn’t keep lying to him.”
“Because you love him.”
“And then we got into a huge fight about all of it, and I realized that everything had been building up, and it just felt like too much.” He looks down at his hands, blinking a few times. “So I ended it.”
“But you still love him.”
“It’s not that easy.” He shakes his head. “I messed everything up.”
“Yeah, but you—”
“Yes,” Leo snaps, and something seems to crack in him, his eyes filling with tears. “I love him, okay?”
“That’s not nothing,” I say softly, unable to keep from thinking of Teddy. “To love someone and have them love you back.”
“I don’t think it’s enough.” He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes with the heel of his hand, and it strikes me how sad it is, the way a relationship can be so unexpectedly fragile. If two people who love each other as much as Leo and Max can fall apart so easily, what hope is there for anyone else?
“I was reading about the curse of the lottery on the bus ride home,” Leo says, slipping his glasses back on. “Do you think it extends to friends and family too?”
“Like a phone plan?” I joke, but when he doesn’t smile I shake my head. “I don’t think so. I don’t believe in curses.”
He gives me a funny look, and I know what he’s thinking: that with a past like mine, choosing not to believe in curses is a pretty impressive piece of magical thinking.
But it’s not that.
Bad luck exists; I’d be crazy to think otherwise. But what I believe in—what I have to believe in—is randomness. Because to imagine that my parents died as a result of curses or fate or the larger workings of the universe, to imagine it was somehow meant to happen that way—even I don’t think the world is that cruel.
“There are so many articles,” Leo continues, “about winners whose lives got completely ruined by it. Suicides, overdoses, family rifts. And a lot of them went broke too. It didn’t matter how much they won. Somehow it all ended in disaster.”
“Those are just stories,” I say, but I’m thinking about Teddy and everything that’s already happened, how I’m the one who put it all in motion, for better or worse.
Leo leans back against his pillows with a sigh. “I think I need some ice cream.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to—”
“Ice cream,” he says firmly, and I nod.
As he hops out of bed, he catches me glancing at my phone and raises his eyebrows. I give him a sheepish look. “I got an email from Stanford.”
“The email?”
“I haven’t opened it yet,” I tell him. “I couldn’t do it alone. But I wasn’t sure if you’d be in the mood.”
“Just because I broke up with my boyfriend, who hates me, and only applied to one college, which I probably won’t get into, and will most likely still be living in this room for the next four years, stuck letting Teddy pay every time we go out, and—”
“Stop,” I say, holding up a hand. “You’re going to be fine. You are.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do. You’re an amazing person. And you have the biggest heart of anyone I know. Whatever happens next, you’ll be fine.”
“When did you get to be such an optimist?”
“I think it’s your fault.”
“I think it’s Teddy’s.”
I laugh. “It’s usually one or the other.”
“So,” he says, eyeing my phone, and I pass it to him. He glances at my inbox, then lifts his eyes to check with me once more, and when I nod he taps at the screen. For a few long seconds, his face is impossible to read, but then a smile moves from his eyes down to his mouth, and I breathe out.
“Really?”
His grin broadens. “Really.”
“Wow,” I say, feeling almost weak with relief. I blink fast as I think of my mom. I know she’d be so proud of me. I know they both would. But this is one of those times when I really, really wish they were here to tell me that themselves.
“So, California, then,” Leo says, handing back my phone.
“I guess so,” I say, and we both stand there for a moment, imagining what it will be like to be so far away from each other, half a country apart, just like it used to be, like all these years in Chicago never even happened.
“Maybe we should go downstairs and tell the others,” he says, and I have a feeling he’s not just talking about Stanford; he’s talking about his own news too.
“Can I ask you something?” I say, and he nods. “Were you ever really going to apply to Michigan?”
He hesitates, looking uncertain. “Yes,” he says, then changes his mind. “No. I don’t know. Maybe.”
I nod at this; I’d expected as much. “It’s not a crime, you know.”
“What?”
“That your head and your heart are in two different places. I mean, you were trying to psych yourself up to spend the next four years in the most un-Leo-like place in the world just so you could be with Max. That’s a lot of love.”
“You’re making me sound way more selfless than I am,” he says, pointing at the back of the door, which is covered in printouts of his digital animations. “My heart is in this stuff too. That’s the problem. That’s probably why it feels so broken.”
“It’ll get fixed again,” I say. “Eventually.”
“Is yours?” he asks, and I don’t know if he’s talking about Teddy or if he means what happened with my parents. Bu
t either way, the answer is the same.
“Not yet,” I tell him.
Downstairs, Uncle Jake and Aunt Sofia are sitting in the living room with mugs of coffee, already dressed for work and reading different sections of the Chicago Tribune. They both look up when Leo and I appear in the doorway. “What are you doing here?”
“I live here,” Leo says, flopping onto the second couch, his hands folded neatly over his chest like a mummy.
Aunt Sofia frowns. “We weren’t expecting you back till this weekend. Did something happen?”
“Yes,” he says, but when he doesn’t say anything else both of them turn to me, their faces full of questions. I shake my head, and Uncle Jake just stares harder, but something clicks with Aunt Sofia and she covers her mouth with her hand, her eyes big.
“Where’s Teddy?” I ask, because it’s clear that Leo doesn’t want to talk about Max. At least not yet.
Uncle Jake still looks confused. “Mexico?”
“No, he came back early too. He was asleep on the couch when we went up last night.”
“So that explains why there’s popcorn everywhere,” he says, brushing a few crumbs off the cushion where Teddy was sitting just a few hours ago.
“Leo,” Aunt Sofia says, setting her mug down on the coffee table and leaning forward. “Is everything okay?”
“You should ask Alice about Stanford,” Leo says without looking over, and once again their gazes shift in my direction, then back to Leo, their eyes moving between us as if they’re watching a particularly slow-moving tennis match.
“I got in,” I tell them, and before I can say anything else they’re both up and off the couch—Uncle Jake’s coffee splashing, Aunt Sofia’s reading glasses falling to the floor—and they have me wrapped in a hug that’s noisy with the sound of their celebration. From where I’m smashed between them, I can’t help smiling.
“That’s incredible,” Uncle Jake says, and Aunt Sofia is nodding hard, her eyes wet with tears. Behind them, I can see Leo stand up from the couch, then head off toward the kitchen, presumably to get some ice cream. He gives me a wink as he passes by.
“I’m so proud of you,” Aunt Sofia is saying. “And you know your parents would’ve been proud too.”
I swallow hard. “Thank you.”
“We’ve got to celebrate tonight,” Uncle Jake says. “I’ll make dinner.”
We both stare at him, an uncomfortable silence settling over the room as we contemplate his terrible cooking.
“Fine,” he says, holding up his hands. “We’ll go out.”
“Good idea,” Aunt Sofia says, turning back to me. “So what are you thinking?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Italian?”
“No, about Stanford,” Uncle Jake says with a laugh. “Though for the record, I’m fully on board with Italian.”
“Oh,” I say, surprised by the question. “Well, I’m going. Obviously.”
Aunt Sofia nods, but there’s something strained about her smile. “When do you have to let them know?”
“Just by May first. But I’m obviously—”
“We should at least talk about some of the other options before you accept. Just so you can see what else is out there. I know you’ve always wanted this, but…”
I frown at her. Last fall, when my early application to Stanford was deferred, Aunt Sofia had encouraged me to apply to a range of other schools. But I always thought this was just in case I didn’t ultimately get in. Now that I have, how could she think I might pass up the chance to go to Stanford? After all these years of hoping and planning, how could she imagine I’d choose anywhere else?
“Fine,” I say impatiently, suddenly anxious to escape the living room, which feels too small and too warm right now. “But it’s not gonna make a difference.”
“That’s okay,” she says. “I just want to make sure you consider everything. Maybe it would even help to go spend a few hours at Northwestern this weekend—”
“I’m going to Stanford,” I say, not bothering to hide my exasperation.
“I know that. But just humor me, okay? It can’t hurt to check it out before you commit to anything. At least think about it.”
I sigh. “Fine. But can we finish talking about this later? I’ve got to go, or I’m gonna be late for tutoring.”
“With Caleb?” Aunt Sofia asks, glancing at the clock. “It’s not even nine a.m.”
“Spring break,” I say, and Uncle Jake laughs.
“You party animal, you.”
On the bus I try calling Teddy twice. I’m eager to tell him about Stanford, but more than that I’m dying to know how it went with his dad this morning. He doesn’t pick up, so I text him, just to make sure he knows he’s supposed to call me back.
When I get to the library I head straight to the children’s section, where Caleb is waiting for me like always, hunched over a table that’s shaped like a cloud, beneath the watchful eye of the children’s librarian. He’s in second grade, but he’s small for his age, and he looks much younger, his feet still dangling off the tiny blue chair.
“Hi, buddy,” I say, sliding into the miniature seat next to him, where my knees come up halfway to my chin. “How’s it going?”
His round eyes are very serious as he considers the question. “Okay.”
“Just okay?”
This gets a little smile out of him. He fidgets with the drawstring of his hoodie, then shrugs. “Good.”
“C’mon,” I say. “You can do better than that.”
He scratches at his forehead. “Excited to read?”
“Bingo,” I say with a grin. “Me too.”
When I decided to volunteer with the program, which pairs foster kids with reading buddies, Caleb’s was the first profile I considered. As soon as I saw that his parents had recently been killed in a car accident, I moved on to the next one. The word orphan still unnerves me more than it probably should, and the prospect of working with a kid in a similar situation to mine seemed an awful lot like holding my hand against a flame.
But as I was scrolling through the next profile, I couldn’t stop thinking about the way my dad used to read Harry Potter to me before bed and how my mom would lean against the doorway, laughing as he did all the voices.
I’ve now spent the past couple of months reading story after story with Caleb. But I haven’t told him my own yet, or how much I can relate to his. This hour we have, it’s his escape. It’s a time for wizards and mice, spies and magicians. A time when the only orphans are the ones between the pages, and they usually end up being the heroes.
Now he pulls a copy of Charlotte’s Web out of his backpack.
“One of my favorites,” I tell him. “Do you know the story already?”
Caleb shakes his head.
“You’re gonna like it,” I say, but even as I do, it occurs to me that this is a book about death as much as about talking pigs and spiders. Although so is everything, I guess, once you’ve been through what Caleb’s been through.
We open to page one, and he places his finger beside the first line. “ ‘Where’s Papa going with that ax?” he reads, then turns to look at me from beneath his dark lashes.
“That was great,” I say, giving him an encouraging nod.
“Why does he have an ax?” he whispers, alarmed.
“It’s okay,” I tell him, because it will be in a few pages. At least for a little while.
We keep going, both of us breathing out when Fern manages to talk her father into rescuing the tiny runt of a pig. Caleb even offers up a smile when Mr. Arable announces that he only gives pigs to early risers.
“…and Fern was up at daylight,” he reads slowly, his finger moving across the page, “trying to rid the world of…”
He pauses, and I lean closer to see the word. “Injustice,” I say quietly, bracing myself, because I already know what his next question will be.
“What does that mean?”
“It means something that isn’t fair.”
&nbs
p; His head is lowered, but I see him shift as he thinks about this, and I want to tell him that I understand; that even though it will never stop hurting, what happened to him, it will get better someday; with the right amount of time and the right combination of people it will still burn like crazy, but the heat of it will come in and out like a radio signal and he’ll learn to live in the spaces in between.
But I don’t. Because it won’t mean anything to him—not yet. I know this, because people tried to say it to me. Instead I watch him consider this a moment. Then, when he’s ready, he turns the page.
Afterward we sit on the steps of the library, waiting for his foster mom to pick him up. When he sees the car, he gives me a wave, then trots down the rest of the stairs, the book tucked under his arm.
“See you next week,” I call after him.
Even once they’ve driven off, I don’t move. I just sit there as it starts to rain. There’s something gentle about it, a drizzle that gets shifted around by the breeze, moving this way and that like a great curtain. The air is heavy with it, a smell like mud, like spring, and I breathe it in, listening to the insistent thrum on the sidewalk.
When I dig my phone out of my bag, I find a voicemail from Sawyer, asking if I want to hang out tonight. But there’s nothing from Teddy, which means either things with his dad are going really well or else they went really badly.
I stand up and walk down the rest of the rain-slicked steps. At the bottom I take a left, heading toward home. But as I do a bus pulls up to the stop right in front of the library, windshield wipers squealing.
It’s pointed in the direction of Teddy’s apartment.
Before I can change my mind, I climb on.
There are three photographers outside Teddy’s building; their eyes follow me as I hurry through the rain toward the entrance. I don’t have an umbrella, so I’m relieved when someone pushes open the glass door just as I get there. I step into the vestibule and do my best to shake the water off my fleece. My shoes squeak on the linoleum floor as I jog up the stairs to number eleven. I knock three times, the way I always do. But when the door swings open, it’s not Teddy who is standing there. It’s his dad.
I blink at him, caught off guard. It’s been six years since I’ve seen Charlie McAvoy, but he looks about twenty years older, his jaw softened by gray stubble, his face scrawled with deep lines. To my surprise he’s wearing an expensive-looking suit and tie instead of the jeans and old flannel shirts that used to be a uniform of sorts.
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