The Fifth Room

by A J Rushby

  ‘Ugh, Miri! Why don’t you just use a laptop, like a normal person?’ I stop writing and look up at my roommate, Emily, who’s sitting on the couch opposite me in our favorite coffee shop. My pen hovers as I watch her slowly pour gingerbread syrup into her coffee from the little bottle she always keeps in her backpack. Emily has a nasty habit of drinking several gingerbread lattes every day. Year round.

  ‘What?’ She sees me eye the bottle. ‘It’s Christmas in a cup.’

  ‘It’s January and you’re an atheist.’

  She grins, shrugs and keeps right on pouring.

  ‘To answer your laptop question, there was a study at Princeton that showed students who took longhand notes had a better grasp of the subject they were studying. And anyway, what would you know about normal people?’

  The fact of the matter is, neither of us comes even close to being normal. The whole reason we’re sitting here—that we met at all—is because we’re so far from normal it’s not funny. Technically, this should be our senior year of high school, but we were both headhunted in our sophomore year to join an accelerated pre-med program called—unofficially—the Thirty, its name gifted because of its yearly intake. Thirty students. The best. The brightest. Students who had shown a distinct aptitude for medicine from a young age. At the end of this year, medical schools all over the country will fight it out to see who will claim us for college. It’s kind of like the NBA Draft, just with more brains, less height, much punier muscles and glasses (okay, it’s nothing like the NBA draft).

  Knowing she’s beaten, Emily takes a very large, very noisy slurp from her mug. I go back to my notes.

  I’m interrupted only a few minutes later by a whump on the seat beside me.

  ‘Writing about me again?’

  I snap my notebook closed as swiftly as I can without looking like I’m worried Steen will see what I’m writing. Which I am. ‘What else is there to write about?’ I tell him, gripping my notebook tightly. Yes, it’s in my special shorthand, but he could decipher it in five minutes if he wanted to. I’ll type up my notes tonight, which will then be safely encrypted on my laptop.

  Steen leans over to kiss me and I look at him through my lashes for as long as I can because I still can’t really believe he’s mine.

  We’d met on campus in week two, bonding over someone else’s truly stupid question about lithium in a tute group. By week four, we were all over each other. By week five we were inseparable—and probably sickening, depending on your relationship status. Steen is smart. So. Smart. Some people are attracted to pecs, or abs or calves or whatever. But for me, it’s always been about the grey matter. Sometimes I notice that other people think he’s too inquisitive. I see the look on people’s faces when we’re out shopping or at a restaurant. Why is he asking so many questions? Does he have to have the entire menu explained to him? Discuss the care tag on that sweater he was thinking of buying with the sales assistant? But I totally get it. I’ve finally met someone who understands the strange looks I’ve been getting all my life, care of my overactive mind.

  We’re interrupted by Emily’s groan as she watches us kiss.

  ‘I’d tell you to get a room, but it would probably be my room,’ she says.

  Steen laughs at her and rises from his seat. ‘More coffee?’

  ‘No thanks,’ I say. ‘We have a class in ten minutes. Not to mention caffeine only brings out Emily’s evil side.’

  Emily’s mouth opens to say something, but then her gaze moves to the coffee shop door behind me. She freezes. There’s something about her expression that makes me whip my head around. And that’s when I see him.

  Ryan.

  As Steen turns, my hand darts out and grabs on to his jeans. I hear him mutter something in Danish.

  ‘Don’t,’ I say, under my breath. ‘Just ignore him. Sit down.’

  But Steen doesn’t sit down and Ryan doesn’t retreat, as he’s been warned to by the Dean.

  ‘I seriously can’t believe he’s still here,’ Emily says, finding her voice.

  But I can. I know why he’s still here. Or I can guess why. He’s here because the Society made it so. The Society decided he could stay.

  Ryan waves at the three of us as he passes by. ‘Good to see you guys,’ he says, flashing that insincere grin of his. All his facial expressions are eerily similar—it’s as if his brain remembers to tack them on to whatever he’s said that little bit too late. Insert smile here.

  I grab on to Steen’s jeans tighter.

  But it’s Emily who ends it.

  ‘Hi, Ryan!’ Emily calls back, really loudly, so that everyone in the coffee shop can hear. ‘Did your STD clear up? I hope so!’

  We win this round—Ryan orders to go and leaves. We wait until he’s gone and then Emily and I pack up our things while Steen grabs a coffee.

  ‘Sorry, we’ve got to run,’ I say as he comes back to place his coffee and muffin on the low table in front of us.

  He pulls me in close to him. ‘Eight o’clock?’

  I nod and then he kisses me on the forehead. I have to force myself not to act like a giddy teenager. Which is exactly what I am. Seriously, I sometimes consider throwing in all my other research ambitions to focus on sequencing the Danish gene for hotness, because I now know there has to be one. I am, however, still sane enough to remember my schedule and what I have to do at six o’clock.

  ‘Eight o’clock should be fine,’ I tell him. I’ll have plenty of time to get back and meet Steen for eight o’clock.

  We pull away from each other to see Emily take a large bite out of Steen’s muffin. She stares back at us, completely unrepentant.

  ‘Sometimes there are advantages to being the third wheel,’ she says, her mouth full.

  Emily talks my ear off about Ryan all the long way across the quad to our class. But I barely listen to her. I can’t stop thinking about Ryan’s fake smile. And the past.

  I’d noticed Ryan on my very first day on campus. I don’t know why. There was just something about him. He was very … intense. You could feel when he was in a classroom. He gave out this sort of weird energy.

  At first I thought he might just be on the spectrum, but that thought left my mind pretty quickly as I got to know him better. People said he was charming, but I wasn’t so sure—to me his ‘charm’ seemed to be calculated, and based on too-long stares and perfectly timed, insincere laughs. When I found out he had a special interest in infectious diseases, I knew I truly needed to avoid him. That had been my mom’s area of interest and she had been famous for it.

  But I couldn’t avoid him for long.

  When he finally found out who my mother was, he hunted me down immediately to talk to me about her. The experience was beyond creepy. It was as if he had no idea I might be uncomfortable talking about my mother. Or he just didn’t care. And I was incredibly uncomfortable talking about my mother with him. My mother who died in a lab experiment gone wrong. Worse, when he located me, I was actually in a lab, working alongside a lab partner I barely knew. As if this wasn’t bad enough, he then asked me if I wanted to get dinner. Tonight. At first I couldn’t quite believe what I’d heard. I thought I must have got it wrong. ‘Did you just ask me on a date?’ I’d replied, bewildered. He hadn’t even blinked. He just gave me one of those smiles of his. I told him that was never going to happen, turned and left the lab. I decided then and there that he had to be some kind of sociopath and I gave him an extremely wide berth.

  I knew I’d been right about him when Steen told me Ryan had found out about his grandfather. Steen’s parents weren’t like mine, who were both doctors. His mother was an artist and his father taught Russian literature at a university in England. But his grandfather had been quite the eminent medical researcher and a Nobel Prize winner.
Ryan hadn’t liked that. And he’d made it pretty clear he didn’t like Steen either.

  It was then that Ryan began appearing everywhere. Swapping tutoring groups so he’d be in mine. Sitting behind me in lectures. Just enough to remind me he was always there. Watching. Waiting. Though not enough, it seemed, when I approached the Dean, to warrant a caution. I was furious, as was Steen. I’m still not entirely sure what happened, but one day Steen and Ryan had an altercation in the quad. Go figure—Steen ended up with the caution, while Ryan was only unofficially warned by the Dean to steer clear of us both.

  But that wasn’t all. There was more to the story, I found out later. Ryan had been cautioned before, about something else.

  ‘Hello?’ Emily jumps in front of me, interrupting my thoughts.

  ‘What?’ I almost drop my phone.

  ‘Are you even listening to me?’

  ‘Since when do I listen to you?’

  Her mouth twists. ‘True. But come on. We’re going to be late.’

  My phone is on silent, sitting on the edge of my desk, when the text comes in during class. I glance at it, but Emily reads it before I can grab it. Her eyes widen and she gives me a look before tapping away on her laptop. I TOLD YOU YOU’RE HER FAVORITE she writes, changing the font size to 36pt.

  Emily’s middle name is subtle.

  I roll my eyes at her, but the truth is, I’m secretly thrilled. Professor Ling has just asked me to join her on her ward round at five o’clock to see a rare case.

  I call Professor Ling straight after class. The thing is, after Ryan started stalking me—after I thought he truly might be some kind of freaky sociopath—I decided I needed to be more careful. But the offer is for real. I meet up with Professor Ling, we see the patient and end up discussing the case for a while afterwards.

  It’s so fascinating that I completely forget the time and it’s not until I accidentally see a wall clock on the ward that I realise it’s six-forty-five.

  It’s six-forty-five and I’ve completely forgotten about what I had to do at six o’clock.

  I thank Professor Ling and bolt. But when I get outside, I stop dead.

  It might be dark, but there are still plenty of people around. It’s not that I feel unsafe. The problem is, it’s now six-forty-seven and I don’t know what to do.

  The thing is, four months ago I received a hand-delivered letter I had to sign for. Inside were directions to pick up mail from a private mailbox. I was given a strict time slot—Thursday evening from six to seven. I was told to speak to no one about my actions. And that’s what I did—I told no one what I’d received—not even Steen. I waited for Thursday, made sure Ryan was in the tute group he was meant to be in, then caught the bus to the secure mail centre. There, I used my two keys—one for the front door and one for the mailbox itself—and picked up my invitation to join the Society.

  Thursday, six to seven, is still my allocated time to pick up my mail.

  I check the time again on my phone. Six-forty-eight. The mail centre is a fifteen-minute bus ride away.

  I don’t have time. But I have to pick up that mail.

  I take off, running towards the street, hailing an Uber as I go. My phone tells me my driver is two minutes away. He gets there in one and a half.

  ‘Hi,’ I say, jumping in the passenger seat.

  He offers me gum. Mints. A bottle of water. Before he can offer me his firstborn child, I cut in. ‘I’m really late,’ I tell him. ‘Really, really late.’

  ‘No problem,’ he says, pulling out from the kerb.

  I close my eyes and pray for good traffic.

  The traffic is terrible and my palms are sweaty by the time we pull up outside the mail centre at seven minutes past seven.

  ‘I …’ I say, looking out the window. It’s January. It’s cold. No one’s in sight.

  I don’t know whether to go in there or not.

  The Uber driver looks at me expectantly.

  ‘Right, sorry,’ I say, and get out of his car.

  I go and stand half hidden behind a tree, my hand gripping the two keys in the depths of my coat pocket.

  Surely a few measly minutes can’t matter?

  But I know they do. The Society has rules. Rules that you don’t break if you want to remain a member. Rules that you don’t want to break considering you’re a member of an illegal society.

  I also know there might be a letter waiting for me. A letter from the Society asking me to self-experiment. Semester break is coming. The youth experimentation period usually occurs over the longer summer break, but you never know your luck. The application I’d put in was good. Better than good. This might be my opportunity.

  I don’t stop to think for a second longer. I sprint across the grass, my decision made, not willing to waste another second. I’m in the security door in less than a minute and inside the mailbox in just a few moments more, my nails scraping against the inside of the metal box.

  There’s nothing there.

  I stare at the grey metal box blankly for a second or two, unable to process what I’m seeing. I’d almost convinced myself the letter was really here. But it’s not. Recognising this fact, I then lock the box again and whirl round. I have to get out of here. Fast.

  Back out of the security door, I step onto the path, my head down, and almost run straight into somebody, I’m in such a hurry to leave. ‘Sorry, I …’ I look up.

  It’s Steen.

  We stop dead and stare at each other, saying nothing. And, in that moment, we know. We know there can only be one reason we’re both here.

  As I stare at his silent lips, I remember kissing them only hours before, in the coffee shop. It feels like eons ago. Like it happened in a different time and place, to someone else.

  ‘Miri,’ he says.

  My eyes locked on to his, I bring my hands up and cover my ears.

  No. I can’t listen to what he has to say. I can’t be here.

  My hands still over my ears, I take a step back. Then another.

  Then I turn and run.

  FOUR MONTHS LATER

  I run all the way to England.

  My admission to a university is swiftly organised thanks to inf luential friends of my mother’s. Inf luential friends who understood my predicament when I’d lied and told them a relationship had gone badly and was affecting my studies. Friends who fixed things for me. In exactly the same way that things had surely been fixed for Ryan.

  Don’t think I didn’t hate myself for this.

  Now it’s a Saturday in spring, and because it’s not raining as it usually does every single day here in England, I’ve gone out with some other American students. We’ve driven out to a nearby village for the day to go crazy photographing red telephone boxes and drinking tea. I’ve been trying to get out more lately, to stop thinking about my previous life. About my friends. About Steen. I know I have to move forward and make the most of being in the UK. Make new friends. Maybe even a boyfriend, though it still hurts a lot to even consider that. I need to look towards the future. Not back at the past.

  We’re sitting in low-slung deck chairs in the Orchard Tea Garden, apple blossoms bobbing above our heads, when I get a call on my phone.

  ‘Dad?’ I say, his number appearing on the screen.

  ‘Hello, sweetheart. Are you busy?’

  I get up from the table and walk away. ‘No, it’s fine.’

  ‘I was hoping we might be able to meet up tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow? Where are you?’

  ‘In London. I was at a conference in Berlin and I thought … Well, I suddenly thought I might stop off and see you. Do you have plans?’

  ‘Um, nothing I can’t cancel. If you’re in London I can come down to you, if you like. It’s less than an hour on the fast train. Where are you staying?’

  ‘At the Dorchester. I’ll book us in for lunch.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say slowly. ‘I’ll give you a call when I get to Kings Cross.’

  As I take my seat on the fast
train to London and plug in my laptop, I’m still wondering what my dad wants.

  Because he has to want something. We don’t do intimate father–daughter lunches.

  I rest my head back and close my eyes for a moment.

  The big question is: does he know? Does he know about my involvement with the Society?

  After I’d been invited to join, I’d often wondered if my dad was a member as well. Now I wonder if he’s a member who knows his daughter has been asked to experiment.

  I feel my heartbeat start to quicken as I recall the day I found out it was really going to happen. It had been at my new private mailbox. The one that was worlds away from the Thirty and Steen and Emily and that other mail centre. I’d opened up the lock on the small black box nestled within the sea of small black mailboxes and spied it immediately. It was a thick letter—thick and full of promise, the envelope a creamy, lush cardstock.

  I’d held it in my palm, staring at it as if it wasn’t quite real. But it was real and it was addressed to me—Miri Eastman.

  My hands shook like crazy as I opened the envelope.

  Before I even read the enclosed letter, I knew. I saw the boarding pass that would take me to Vienna, Austria.

  I’d had to force myself to keep it together after that. Because what if someone from the Society was secretly watching and saw me lose it? Losing it wasn’t an option. I’d rested my forehead against the cool black metal exterior of the mailboxes, closed my eyes and told myself to breathe. In, one two three. Out, one two three.

  ‘Are you all right, dear?’ Back on the train to London, a hand comes to rest on my shoulder and my eyes flick open.

  A middle-aged woman peers down at me. Behind her, seated, I see a man in a suit watching us intently.

  How embarrassing. I guess I must have been recalling that memory of mine a little too vividly.

  I stare at her blankly and she stares back as if she’s waiting for something. Finally, I remember that she’s asked me a question.

  Am I all right?

  In less than a week’s time I will drop everything and f ly to Vienna to meet my ‘cell’—the four other students I’ve been grouped with—and my cell supervisor. Then, not long after this, we’ll all be taken in a private plane to the Society’s research bunker. All six of us will travel to its secret location along with a team of the world’s top surgeons and physicians and other staff, squirrelled away somewhere else in the plane, sight unseen.