When we pull off the main road and pass under the Whittier arch, we all whoop and cheer and Franny leans into the front seat and rubs my shoulders, like I’m a boxer about to enter the ring.
I fly out of the car before Jillian has fully parked and I slip in the security door right as a red-haired kid exits and then I’m knocking on Kate’s door.
I hear movement inside.
Suddenly I wish I’d detoured at a bathroom, or at least caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror. What if I look horrible? What if there’s beef jerky wedged between my incisors? Should I pose? I reach out to lean one arm along the doorframe, but I misjudge the distance and stumble into the door, the sound of my collapse echoing down the corridor.
I pick myself up from the ground and consider leaving, but it’s too late. The door opens.
“Can I help you?” a very good-looking guy asks with a smile.
I strain to look over his athletic shoulders, but the room is empty behind him. He looks back into the room, presumably to see what it is I’m staring at, and then he shakes his head. “Kate’s not here. Are you one of her kids from the center?”
I have no idea what he’s talking about. One of her kids. But then I remember, Kate volunteers at the rec center. “No,” I say, wondering who this guy is. “I’m a friend of hers, actually.”
He smiles. “Well, friend of Kate’s, I hope you didn’t come a long way. Kate is gone until next Monday. Some family situation.”
“Is everyone okay?”
He shrugs. “Hopefully, right?” But he says so in a way that I read as he, too, is in the dark about what family situation means.
And then he says, “Well, I was just going to head out. Kate asked me to drop something in the mail for her.” He holds up a slender envelope with my name on it in swirly dark print. Below my name is my address.
“Hey, that’s me.”
The guy looks down at the envelope. “You’re Jack King? Of Elytown?”
“Yep,” I say, making a move for my wallet and whipping out my license.
He looks surprised, startled even, but then his smile returns, brighter, toothier. “Nice to meet you, Jack. I’m Xander.”
“You didn’t punch the guy?” Franny asks as we angle the car back out of the Whittier D Parking Lot. “I would’ve sent him into the next decade, happily.”
“Franny, sometimes you’re such a caveman,” Jillian announces, making eye contact with him through her rearview mirror.
“Why thank you,” Franny says. “Me love Jilly.”
“He was actually a pretty nice guy. Very attractive, too.”
“So not only did you not punch the guy, you also want to date him?”
“He gave me this,” I say, holding up the envelope. “From Kate.”
“Well, open it already,” Jillian says.
“It’s really thin,” I say. “If it was a love letter, wouldn’t it be thicker?”
Franny sucks his teeth. “It’s not a college rejection letter, man. Just open it.”
“I don’t know if—”
But Franny rips the envelope from my hands. And I undo my seat belt, lunging into the back seat like a man who has twenty seconds to disarm a bomb, but Franny transforms himself into the world’s strongest human ball, his ass pointed at me and his broad, arched back acting as a force field.
“Boys, behave! You’re gonna cause an accident,” Jillian says.
“At least read it out loud,” I plead with Franny.
“No way,” Franny says a moment later. “No goddamn way!”
“What?” I ask, feeling very delirious. “Is it that bad? Is it a restraining order? She never wants to see me again, right?”
But Franny puts his heavy hand onto my shoulder and slaps me with the other, not hard, but firm enough to make me shut up.
“Get a grip, man. Otherwise, I’m going to have to find someone else to use your ticket,” Franny says.
“What ticket?”
“These tickets,” Franny says, holding up three Mighty Moat concert tickets. “She actually came through. Even though she hates your guts, Jack, she still came through. Too bad you blew it with her, she’s actually really freaking awesome.”
“Wait,” Jillian says, studying us through the rearview. “Mighty Moat? She really got us tickets?”
“Yeah, her sister Kira’s dating the drummer. I told you guys that.”
“Uh, pretty sure I would’ve remembered,” Jillian says.
“Who cares? We’re going to Detroit,” Franny screams.
The two of them launch into a lengthy Detroit, Detroit chant.
“Was there anything else in the envelope?” I ask, reaching out for it.
“Uh, just this,” Franny says, holding out a pink Post-it note. “Whatever it means.”
Have fun, Jack.
The Eternal Cap’n to Your Crunch,
Kate.
Kate’s “note” is an entire nine words, but I can’t stop thinking about it. Dissecting it. Overanalyzing her choice in line breaks, squeezing each syllable for its drop of meaning, like that small amount of juice you get from squeezing a hundred lemons. There’s one word I keep going back to, and it’s not fun.
You got it: Eternal.
As in, she wants to be my permanent, all-time cereal-eating partner.
So maybe there’s still hope?
Not to mention the tickets themselves are a sign, no?
A peace offering, maybe.
An olive branch, extended.
But then Xander pops into my brain—Greek-God-Adonis-stunt-double-looking, easy-smile-having Xander—and all those hopeful feelings jump ship. Because why was he there? Out of all the people in the world, of all the thousands of students on campus, why did she ask Xander to go to her room while she was away? Why did she put Xander up to mailing my letter? Why is she still talking to Xander at all?
And then my favorite word eternal melds into Xander, so that every time I hear the word, every time I even think about it, Xander’s face follows.
Mighty Moat is phenomenal. When the crowd refuses to leave, the band comes back out and performs half a dozen encore songs, including my all-time fave “Home Again.” We’re second-row center and it’s a dreamscape, a horizon of stretching neon and electric bodies, rivers of smoke winding through the stadium. Franny and Jillian and I belt out each song at the top of our lungs, until our voices are gone, and even then we don’t stop singing.
Jillian gets someone to buy us beer and we toast and drink up and the arena is one giant buzz; if you stand still long enough, you feel the hum, a tremble shuddering down your spine, rattling your feet.
But the entire show, I can’t stop looking for Kate.
I keep waiting for her to sneak up on me, tap my shoulder, throw her arms around my waist. Cover my eyes with her hands and whisper guess who. But it never happens. There are times when I see her, somewhere in the crowd, but then I look harder, or blink, and she’s gone, dissolved into the frenzy, morphed into the body of some other girl, some other girl mimicking the way Kate holds her head, copycatting the way she tilts her hips.
Hours later, Jillian pulls the car into my driveway, and I say good night to my best friends, and then I’m strolling to my front door. But I stop when I see something move. And I’m mentally preparing myself for a showdown with the next-door neighbor’s crazy-ass German shepherd, Corky. But it’s not Corky. A shadow sits on the front steps, its silhouette reaching across my front lawn. And then the shadow stands, steps just inside the white glow of streetlight, and it’s her.
“How was the concert?” she asks, sliding her hands into her jeans pockets.
And it’s her.
“What concert?” I ask, reaching out for her. I say it to be funny, but mainly because seeing her makes me forget everything that’s happened up till now.
And it’s her.
“I’m sorry,” she says softly. “I shouldn’t have—”
“No,” I say. “I’m sorry. I don’t care if we can only b
e friends. I mean, I do care. But if that’s what it has to be for you to stay in my life, then I’ll take it. Your friendship is like—every time, I’ll take it, Kate.”
She touches my arm, glides her fingers down to my hand. “There’s so much we need to talk about. So much I need to tell you.”
“And we will. And I’ll listen. How’d you get here?”
“I walked.”
“But that’s like forty miles,” I exclaim.
She laughs. “I took the bus, silly.”
“Just to see me?”
“There’s nothing just about seeing you, Jack.”
And I don’t know if the thumping I feel between us is her heart or mine, but I’d put big money on mine. And it feels right. Like it’s about to happen, like we’re finally going to come together—and then we hear whooping and clapping.
Also known as Franny.
Evidently, my friends are still in the driveway.
“Come on, guys,” I say. “A little privacy.”
Jillian pokes her head out the window, making kissing noises.
“Jackieeeeeeeee,” Franny’s yelling. “The kid’s back!”
“The boy’s so smooth, y’all,” Jillian sings.
“You’re going to wake up my parents,” I say, waving them off.
But try as I may, I can’t help but smile.
I’d forgotten my face knew how to.
We’re sitting in my car, parked in the lot outside Kate’s dorm, the engine running although Kate normally hates that, emissions and fumes poking holes into the ozone—but it’s a brutally cold late-spring night, so she makes an exception.
She looks as amazing as always, sporting a new haircut. It’s funny because I thought her previously very long hair was perfect for her face, but now that she’s cut it, I realize she just looks perfect. Dad jokes that Mom could wear sackcloth and still be radiant. Maybe that’s what this is—me caught in Kate’s glow. And I’m good with that. Caught is cool.
“What,” she says.
“What what,” I say back.
She laughs. Touches her nose. “Do I have something on my face?”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because you’re staring and you haven’t blinked in like eight minutes.”
“I guess I was just thinking.”
“About what?”
About you. About whatever forces brought us together. Just kiss her already, Jack, I think to myself. “I don’t know. This and that.”
“Must be far more interesting than what I have to say.”
I sit up in my car seat. “No way! Why would you say that?”
“Because I asked you a question just now and you didn’t even notice.”
I was too busy trying to figure out how to make my long-awaited, highly anticipated go on and kiss the girl move. “I’m sorry, Kate. What did you ask me?”
Her laughter vanishes and she frowns. Which sucks because I hate the idea that she’s sad because of me. “Never mind. Just forget it.” And the next thing I know she’s jumping out of the car and heading toward her dorm building.
I hop out of the car after her. “What’s happening here?”
She pauses on the sidewalk, her back to me. And it feels like something important is happening here, something of magnitude, the air charged between us.
Kate whirls around. “You’re a giant douchebag sometimes, Jack, that’s what’s happening.”
I jam my hands into my pockets. “I feel like we’ve had this conversation before.”
“Nope. I would’ve remembered feeling like you were a douche and then calling you one.”
I shrug. “Oh. Probably just a conversation I had with myself then.”
“Probably,” she concedes.
I take a few steps closer. “I’m sorry about not listening to you, Kate. About whatever it is you wanted to tell me.”
“You don’t have to pretend like you don’t know, Jack.” Her eyes are dark and intense, like they could absorb an entire constellation.
“Oh,” I say softly, spreading some loose gravel around with my shoe. “Right. So should we talk about it now?”
“No,” she says flatly. “You killed the I’m going to die from my genetically inherited illness vibe back in there.”
“I hate when I do that,” I say.
She cracks a grin, just barely. “I have sickle cell.”
“Oh,” I say because I’m an idiot. And because, while I’ve heard of it, I don’t really know what sickle cell is. “I’m sorry,” I say. Because what else can you give?
“Listen, I don’t want you to act different with me now, okay?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because everyone who knows does.”
“I’m not everyone. I’m just one someone,” I tell her. “Besides, I only know one way to act with you, Kate.”
She raises her eyebrows in that sexy, inquisitive way she does. “And how’s that?”
“Like I never want to be apart from you.”
And she hits me with a you’re impossibly corny groan, then walks back to my car, climbing into the driver’s seat.
“Well, are you coming?” she asks.
I hop in before she can change her mind. “Where are we going?”
“Where the night takes us,” she says, backing the car out of the driveway, narrowly dodging a pair of trash cans and a scraggly cat. “Or to Moe’s for a big, fat, juicy burger and fries. Whatever happens first.”
“Hey,” I say. “Just one thing.”
“What?” she says, tapping the brake just in time to avoid a slew of mailboxes.
“This,” I say, leaning over and taking her face in my hands. Our lips pressed together, well, it’s explosive. Like if you could somehow kiss a burning asteroid right before it smacked into Earth. You know, without being vaporized.
Except when I kiss Kate, I also hear trumpets.
And we’re swallowed in blinking white light.
As if the love gods are saying, Hey, you two, it’s about damn time.
Or maybe it’s because the light we’re sitting at has turned green and the cars behind us are flashing their headlights and honking their horns to get us to move.
Nope. It was the kiss.
When we finally release each other from lip-lock captivity, Kate drives us to the gorges. Tonight the sky’s so low, and we sit there, a canopy of stars exhaling above us, and Kate tells me what it’s like knowing you’re going to die.
“I’m dying, Jack. And not in the we’re all going to die eventually way. It’s not a question of when, just how soon.” She shrugs. “Years, days, I don’t know.”
My brain feels like it’s been tossed off a steep cliff.
“So, what is sickle cell, exactly?”
“My red blood cells don’t stay neat red circles. Instead, they sickle, which means they’re not as flexible as normal cells. And sometimes if too many of them clump together, they can block oxygen from making it to the rest of my body. And, well, you go long enough without oxygen and . . .”
A beat where neither of us says a word, where I am hyperaware of every sound coming from Kate’s body—the flit of her eyelashes, her breathing, her heartbeat, her teeth grazing her bottom lip.
“There’s no cure?” I ask, my voice cracking.
“They’re starting to do these stem cell transplants, but you need a donor match. Thing is, less than ten percent of us have a match, so—”
She looks away. “So, for now, there’s no surefire cure. For now, you manage. Try to avoid the crises, try to control the onset. But there’s no secret formula, no magic potion. You eat painkillers like they’re trail mix, which make your head feel like a helium balloon floating away from your body, and you wear oxygen twenty-four hours a day, and your best friends are your nurses because, if you’re like me, with recurring episodes, you spend more time in a hospital bed than your actual bed. And you sit there, waiting, watching enough reruns to write a Fresh Prince dissertation, and you wait and wai
t to feel better, and sometimes you do in a few days, and sometimes it’s weeks. Because you hurt all over.” Her face turns back to me. “Your body’s at war against itself so, no matter what, you always lose.”
“Someone has to be working on something else, somewhere.”
“They are, but . . .” Her voice trails off.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell me.”
“There is this one doctor,” she begins. “But—”
“But what?”
“He costs more than what my parents make in a year combined.”
And I haven’t the slightest idea what to say. But I wonder if I could (peacefully) rob a bank or somehow rig the lottery. Or—
“You know, the crazy thing is, at the hospital, they’re always asking you to rate your pain, one to ten. Except no one’s asking about the pain in here.” Kate points to her head. “Or here.” She moves her finger to her chest, left of center. “Because there’s no rating for that. Numbers don’t go high enough.”
I wipe away her tears.
I pull her into me.
I feel her nose burrow into my shoulder.
I’m happy she’s told me. I am.
But mostly, I’m afraid.
“Listen, Kate,” I say. “If we’re gonna do this thing, you and me, then you’ve gotta promise me one thing.”
“What?”
“You’ve gotta stop running away.”
“I think I can do that.”
“It’s just that, well, you’re too fast for me.”
She laughs.
I keep going. “I can barely keep up, I’m telling you. I mean, you really move.”
“Jack?”
“Yeah?”
“You’ve gotta promise me something, too.”
“What’s that?”
She grins. “Promise me that you’ll kiss me again within the next four seconds. One . . . two . . . three . . .”
And I promise her. Over and over again.
I Google everything I can find on sickle cell when I get home.
I’m so focused I don’t even hear Mom come into my room.
“Sickle cell, huh,” she says. “What made you think of that?”
“Oh, uh, Kate, it turns out, she has it. I didn’t realize how serious it is.”
Mom pulls the chair out from my desk, sits down. “I’m a carrier.”
Opposite of Always Page 16
