Hole in the Middle

by Kendra Fortmeyer

  I cut the still-wet canvas from the frame and wrap it around myself, again and again. The paint is thick against my skin like mud, a sticky rainbow of black and blue and goldenrod.

  I stand by the window. Far away, slow-moving cars trace the veins of the city in tiny white and red lights. A blushing of the sky in the east, the world shuddering into dawn. I think the city seems exhausted, waking again and finding itself still itself. But also, incredibly, still itself.

  I let the canvas wilt from my waist like a flower. In the last glimpse of my reflection, pale in the glass before the first ray of sun strikes the window, I see myself smeared in the tones of the people I love. And, framed in my middle, a small clear ring. For a second, in the morning light, it doesn’t look like a hole. It looks like a tiny picture, a slice of the room: A pitcher. A canvas. Someone coming down my stairs with a smile.

  The rising light wipes me from the glass, and I turn to meet the future.

  Acknowledgments

  This book is dappled with the fingerprints of friends and loved ones. I owe gratitude to perhaps more people than I can count, but let us try:

  Enormous thanks to my fierce agent, Molly Ker Hawn, who never stopped believing. You are a miracle worker and the world is better for having you in it. Huge and heartfelt thanks, too, to editor Daniel Ehrenhaft, a human too overwhelmingly kind and savvy to exist, and to the entire Soho Teen team. Thank you all for giving this book a beautiful home.

  To my Clarion classmates and instructors, who came into my life after the writing of this book, but who have celebrated it more thoroughly than my glad heart can fully comprehend: teachers Kelly Link, Ted Chiang, Andy Duncan, Victor LaValle, Delia Sherman, Ellen Kushner and Shelly Streeby, and classmates Emily Cataneo, Maggie Cooper, Giovanni De Feo, Jaymee Goh, Jenn Grunigen, Marykate Jasper, Jen Julian, Kathleen Kayembe, Alan Lin, Sunil Patel, Ryan Pennington, Jordy Rosenberg, Grant Shepert, Ben Sloan, Mackenzie Smith, Derek So and Jack Sullivan. Watch them, world. They’re going places.

  To my New Writers Project and Michener classmates and teachers, who saw this novel in its earliest, shaky-leg days, particularly teachers and mentors Elizabeth McCracken, Ed Carey, Jim Magnuson and Pete LaSalle, and classmates Sara, Thomas, Ben, Hsien, Antonio, Karim, Anushka, Mary, Greg, Catherine, Lindsey and all the rest. Also to the rare and assorted geniuses in my life: Heather, Brian and Corinne, for their kind hearts and honest feedback; Taryn, for being a champion; Aly and Aubri, my passionate first readers; Brandon, whose curiosity and knowledge of immunology comprised the scientific backbone of the novel; my auntwoman Kate, who helped me muddle through the medical; and Jason and Elliot, who dreamed with me of a pop band called Yum Yum Situation at the Stonebraker Ranch in the River of No Return Wilderness during our AmeriCorps service there.

  To my Twitter loves, especially Tabitha, who is privy to my good, bad, ugly and sparkly. And to Zach Doss. I really miss you, friend.

  To my “family,” Kim, Mikey, Craig and Betny (and extended Bustadonnas), for loving me despite my prickles.

  To my real family: my parents and grandparents, who are genetically responsible for this glorious mess, who never told me what to be or not to be, and who imbued me with a love of language and puns. For my sister, Ivy, who lends her initials to the ICF-3 gene, and who helps me feel like I’m never missing in the world. And especially for my grandfather Arnold, who treated me as a serious storyteller when I was three years old, and has never stopped.

  To Blake, my partner and be-my-best-selfer and stubborn delight. Thank you for throwing that brick through that window, and for everything that came after. Some things truly are obvious.

  To myself: thank you for always being there.

  And to all of you.