by Nina LaCour
“So do you want to go?” Katie asks after I’m done. “Do you think he’ll read?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t know. What about you? Do you want to go to the Exploratorium?”
Our teacher is clearing his throat, waiting for us to settle down so he can start.
“Let me get back to you on that,” Katie says.
We make it through class. It’s the end of the year; there’s no real reason to pay attention except to be polite to the teacher as he goes through the motions.
As soon as the end bell rings, I turn to Katie for an answer.
“Yes,” she says. “But only because it’s the Exploratorium.”
* * *
I went to the Exploratorium so many times with my parents and on field trips as a kid, but the last time I went was with Ryan.
It was one of our first city excursions alone, and for two hours I wasn’t worrying if we were boyfriends or best friends, or if someone was going to see us, or if this was the moment it would all click into place. No—for two hours, we got to be kids, running around and playing. We got to fool around with sound waves and pulleys. We got to pixelate ourselves and dance as a projector turned us into shadows on a kaleidoscope-colored screen. At the end of an exhibit about artwork created in a nineteenth-century mental asylum, we waded through the comment box and found a comment card written by a young kid: I have lost my turtle. His name is Charles. For weeks after, we pretended to be looking for Charles.
“He couldn’t have gotten that far,” I’d say.
“Maybe we should try the Shell station,” Ryan would say back.
Eventually we forgot about Charles and moved on to other inside jokes, other references to what we’d shared and continued to share.
Charles is still out there, I’m thinking now. He must be entering his awkward teenage mutant ninja years by now.
I don’t turn to Ryan and say this, because it’s not Ryan who’s with me. It’s Katie, and she’d have no idea what I was talking about. I could explain it to her, but it wouldn’t be the same.
I feel like I’ve lost half of all the stories I know.
I hear Katie take a deep breath; we’re about to reach the door. I’m not going to ask her if she’s sure she wants to do this, because I don’t want to give her a chance to say no.
I text June to let her know we’re here.
I get a text back almost instantly.
Meet Violet by the mirrors.
16
Kate
I can’t find the mirrors.
I’ve checked the little paper map, but there’s so much to discover in here that it’s practically useless. Mark told me he’d wait for me in the shadow room. He said he’d be in there for a while, in case I needed him, and if I didn’t come back for him that would be a fine thing. A good thing.
“Just—don’t forget about the poetry slam, okay?”
“Yeah.”
“I really need you there.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Okay. I’ll be in here for a while, I think. My shadow has infinite potential.”
The clock in the room started counting down and he rushed in. I saw him leap up, arm extended like he was catching a fly ball, and the light flashed bright and went dark again.
And now I’m making my way through the wings, looking for the mirrors. There are children and adults, tourists and members, and they are all playing. They’re all engaged or at ease and I wish I could join them, but I need to find her.
I don’t know what I’m going to say yet. I don’t know what I’ll do. But what I do know is that Kylie’s voice has been in my head since last night and that she’s right. I’m the one holding myself back. I’m the one who can make everything change.
I walk past people pressing buttons as fast as they can, watching numbers grow on a screen above them. Past a guy staring at his own reflection. Past people wearing headphones and a group of kids holding magnets over a huge table. And then I stop short because I see Lehna and June and Uma. Lehna’s back is turned—thank God—but June sees me and her eyes go wide. Slowly, she lifts a hand to her side and points me down the hallway. I nod a silent thanks and head into the center of a group of tourists to pass them.
And there, finally, is Violet in front of a giant mirror. Her reflection is upside-down. As I walk closer to her, I appear there, too.
She smiles an upside-down smile.
I frown an upside-down frown.
Not at her, at myself, at the way I’ve been acting.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s June.
Quick! We’re heading in your direction! Trying to stall!
So I grab Violet’s hand and I lead her away from there, out of the wing of the museum that’s about sounds and light and into a greener space where the air feels cooler. All around us are giant tanks full of starfish and coral and anemones, and overturned trees with their roots in the air, and the greenest plants.
I let go of her, but she grabs my hands.
“Why are you here?” she asks me.
“To see you,” I say.
“But last night,” she says. “When I gave you an out, you took it. You’ve been so elusive.”
“You’re right,” I say.
“Why?” she asks. I open my mouth to answer, but she says, “Don’t answer yet. Let me tell you why I’m asking.”
I nod, knees weak. Even being silenced by Violet is amazing. Even being told difficult things is, and I know what she’s about to say is going to be difficult by the way she’s unsmiling, by the crease between her perfect eyebrows, by how she looks away to decide which words to start with.
Whatever she says to me—I will deserve it. If she calls me fickle, I’ll know why. If she says she can’t do this, I’ll understand. But it might crush me.
“I’m asking,” she says. “Because I don’t want elusive.”
She shakes her head. There are tears in her eyes, and I see how I’ve hurt her. How much better than this she deserves.
“I put myself out there for you,” she says. “I got you a rose, but you didn’t let me give it to you. I showed up at that gallery just to see your paintings, and then I saw something even better—I saw you. We got to meet. Finally! And you were everything I wanted you to be. And then I bought your paintings! I was so reckless, which really isn’t like me, but I wanted to do something grand. I wanted to sweep you off your feet. And then laughing in the streets with you and Mark. Talking at dinner. That walk. That kiss…”
I try to speak again, but she shakes her head.
“I’m not finished,” she says. “I don’t want elusive. Remember Lars and his poem? I want a love like that. I want pure and true. I want it with you. Even though this might sound crazy, it’s part of why I came back. We never even texted or talked, but I thought we had a connection anyway, and I thought I might find that kind of love with you. But if you don’t want it—if this is how you are, always running away or just not showing up, if it turns out that I’m not who you thought I was going to be—then I’m going to get it with someone else.”
There are tears on her cheeks now, but she’s shrugging, letting me know that she’ll be okay moving on. And of course she would be. I mean, look at her. She could find someone new to love just by walking down the street.
“Okay,” she says. “I’m done now.”
“Okay,” I say. “I’m starting.”
I breathe deep. I look into her eyes. I wish I could take her face in my hands and kiss her, but I know she needs more than that right now. Even though I want to give her everything, I’ve learned enough in the last few days to only promise what I know I can deliver.
“I don’t want to let you down again,” I say. “I don’t want to be elusive. Last night, I was skeptical when you bought me that reading, but everything Kylie said made sense. All night long, all day today, I’ve been seeing those cards and wondering what they mean for me. I know that I’m holding myself back. I know that something needs to change, and that
I need to be the one to change it. And I know—I know—that if you’re patient with me, what I find on the other end of it, once the towers have burned down, will be you.”
She looks like she wants to believe me, but then her face clouds again.
“Maybe I just moved too fast for you,” she says. “Maybe it was stupid for me to kiss you like that.”
“No,” I say. “It was amazing. It was the most romantic moment of my life. I’ve replayed it thousands of times since it happened. I want to kiss you again. Please trust me. I want to kiss you right now, but you deserve to be kissed by someone who has her shit together. So I’m going to get my shit together, and then, if you still want me, I’m going to kiss you.”
She cocks her head; a smile emerges.
“And until then?” she asks.
“It shouldn’t be long. That’s what Kylie said, right? And until then, I don’t know. Let’s just be together. There’s a poetry slam tonight.…”
“Yeah, everyone’s going,” she says.
“Will you go with me?”
“Sure,” she says.
“Oh, and Mark, too.”
She laughs.
“It’s a very good thing that Mark is so charming.”
She takes my hand.
“Is this okay?” she asks, and she bites her lip, looks at my mouth. She rubs her thumb along my palm. “I need something to tide me over until you’re ready for more.”
My knees turn weak again. I’m about to lose my resolve.
And then, “Um, hi?”
My body tenses. It’s Lehna. Of course. June and Uma, both wide-eyed, stand behind her.
I move to step away from Violet, but she keeps her hand in mine.
“Look who I ran into!” she says.
Her voice is so happy.
“Wow,” Lehna musters. “What a coincidence.”
June’s face reddens. She’s lucky Lehna’s looking at us and not at her.
“You just happened to be here?” she asks me. “By yourself?”
“Mark’s here, too.”
“I should have known that, I guess.”
It weirds me out, the way she says it—all chirpy and pleasant when I know she’s neither of those things.
“We’re gonna play the button game,” Uma says. “A new round starts in three minutes. Want to come?”
“I should find Mark,” I say.
“Violet?” Lehna says.
“I’m actually going to hang out with Kate tonight. She’s going to the slam, too, so can we reconnect there?”
Shock flashes across Lehna’s face, but she transforms it into a smile.
“Oh!” she says. “Wow! Good for you guys!”
And now I realize what’s happening. Violet doesn’t know that anything is wrong between us. Lehna, for some reason, has been pretending that she and I are fine when really we aren’t fine at all. Really we’re bad enough that the awfulness of us is creeping in even in this moment, even when Violet is stepping closer to me.
A beep comes from another wing of the museum.
“It’s starting soon!” June says. “We have to find some open buttons.”
Lehna nods.
“Right,” she says. “The button game. Well, have fun, you guys. Text me later.”
And then they’re heading away from us, back into the crowd.
“Is it just me or was Lehna acting kind of strange?” Violet asks.
“Things between us have been a little … tense,” I say.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Various reasons. It’ll be fine.”
“Okay,” she says, but she sounds unsure.
“Really,” I say. “I’m going to work it out with her, but not right now. Let’s go find Mark.”
She nods and we hold hands as we make our way back to the shadow room. On our way we pass a group of people at one of the button stands. They’re frantically hitting their buttons—some red, some blue—while others around them watch the score on a screen and cheer.
“What is the button game?” Violet asks.
“There are people at these stands all over the museum. You try to get your color to win.”
“Win at what?”
“Nothing, really. Just the number of pushes.”
“What’s the point of that?”
“Exactly,” I say. “It’s like a social phenomenon or something.”
I spot Mark outside the shadow room.
“You got sick of it?” I ask him.
“No,” he says. “Just letting some other people’s shadows have turns in the spotlight.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you,” Violet says, and her smile would be heartbreakingly pretty except that I have little reason to be heartbroken. So instead it’s gloriously pretty. Spectacularly pretty. I can’t stop looking at her—that’s how pretty it is.
“So apparently things went well,” Mark says to me.
“I’m working on it,” I say, looking at Violet. “I’m trying to make things up to her.”
“And is she doing a good job?”
“So far so good,” she says.
“I’m glad, because you are clearly the girl for my friend.”
“But what about you?” Violet says. “First it was ‘I’d fight for you,’ ‘I need you,’ and now, as of last night, there’s someone new on the horizon.”
“She was pretty persuasive, wasn’t she?” Mark says. “I mean, I was skeptical, but now I can’t get it out of my head. It just feels…”
“True,” Violet says.
Mark nods.
I say, “We’ve been on the lookout for all the scenic guys at school.”
Violet laughs.
“Scenic. I love that.”
“And tonight’s this poetry slam. Has Katie invited you yet?”
“Yes, and I have accepted.”
“Ryan will be there.”
“Uh-oh.”
“But other guys, too.”
“Scenic guys,” Violet says.
“Yes. The vast majority of the guys there will be scenic.”
“Excellent.”
“But before we go,” Mark says, “we need to get a shadow shot of all three of us.”
We head into the room and strike poses, waiting for the rest of the people in there to lose interest. One by one, they do, until it’s just the three of us. It’s dark and the clock is counting down from thirty seconds.
“Let’s make a chain,” Violet says. “Stretch out our arms and touch fingers.”
She walks to one side of me and Mark walks to the other. We hold our arms straight out like wings, our fingers touching at the tips.
“Thirty seconds,” Mark says.
This doesn’t feel like the card with the burning tower. I’ve taken a risk, asked Violet to trust me. But I haven’t jumped from a burning building or crashed on the rocks. I haven’t upended my life.
“Twenty-five!”
What could I do that would be so dramatic? That would change my trajectory, that would set me free?
“Ten!” Mark says.
“Hold steady, everyone!” says Violet.
My heart is so full.
This is what’s right. These two beautiful people. Our fingers touching, counting down together.
“Five seconds!” Mark says.
“My arms hurt!” says Violet.
My arms hurt, too, but I would keep them extended like this for so much longer if it meant we could stay here. If I could have them by my side, and graduation wasn’t in a few days, and the summer wasn’t fleeting.
“Three!” Mark says.
“Two!” Violet yelps.
“One!” we all shout.
A flash of light.
A dropping of our arms.
A stepping forward to see what the wall will hold.
A few seconds pass before our shadows appear, a perfect chain of three. And in those seconds, between darkness and light, I discover what I need to do.
17
MARK
Five nights ago, Katie and I were wandering around a crowded mansion and I felt more lost than I ever had in my life. I felt like a pretender, an intruder, a party crasher, with the party being what the rich and the famous knew as life. It didn’t matter that people were calling me beautiful, offering me drinks and propositions that went along with the drinks. It didn’t matter that pretending was the point. It didn’t matter that Katie was right beside me, just as out of place as I was. I felt everyone was humoring me. I felt they could see how terrified I was, and that as soon as I left the room, they would laugh and shake their heads.
Now we’re in a completely different place, and I still can’t find my footing. We’re in the rec room of a small community center, plastic bottles of cranberry juice and Sprite taking the place of champagne, vodka, and gin. The ceiling and walls are draped with pink and purple streamers, and a dozen tables have been set up in a semicircle around a makeshift stage—basically, a mic stand with an area of space cleared around it.
Ryan is sitting at one of the tables with Taylor and his friends. I don’t want to look at Taylor too closely, but I can’t look away. He has his footing, and he’s dancing all around—keeping one hand on Ryan’s arm the whole time. It’s strange to see them, especially to see their dynamic together. Ryan is clearly the younger one, clearly the less experienced one, clearly the newbie in this arrangement. Taylor is taking care of him.
I am not used to seeing Ryan like that.
He doesn’t spot me at first. I hang back, look instead at Katie and Violet. I have no idea what they said to each other, but the result is visible: They have found each other at last. And with every minute, they are finding each other more.
I told them they didn’t have to come with me, that they could abandon their third wheel and he would be fine.
“No way,” Katie said. “We’re a tricycle, and a tricycle goes nowhere without all three wheels.”
Now both of them are studying me, seeing me trying to avoid the fact that Ryan doesn’t look up the minute I walk into a room. Like there’s any reason he would, when he has Taylor right there.
“Go say hi,” Violet prods. “Stake your claim.”
