“Trust me,” they say. “I promise I won’t let you fall.”
What choice do I have? Either he saves me or I am unsaveable.
I close my eyes and let go.
I don’t know how long I’m flying, how long I float through the nowhere space between here and there. I am neither dead nor alive. In those brief moments, I become light. I am a wave and a particle. I am nothing and everything and I am nowhere and everywhere. There is no up and no down, no past and no future, no grief and no joy. I am all movement. I am plummeting through space and I am perfect.
And then Marcus catches me. Everything is solid. Marcus is solid. I am solid.
“Are you okay?” he says somewhere beneath me. Are we on the ground? Am I on top of him?
“I think so,” I say. “Nothing hurts.” My eyes focus and for a moment I think I am looking in a mirror. Whose eyes are those? Why are they so close?
I start laughing. “I tackled you.” The eyes smile. Marcus’s body is the sturdy ground beneath me. His arms and legs are tree roots. “Marcus,” I say. “I am definitely not sober.”
Then two white eyes in the distant dark, headlight beams, searching for the live people among the dead.
“Oh shit,” Marcus says, but he is not scared. This is a game and we are winning. “Let’s hide.”
A flurry of movement and we are running in the stars. I don’t know how it happens, or when, but I suddenly know that this place is the sky and we are angels; these are not gravestones, they’re clouds. This is not a hard place, not a place of stone and sadness. It is trees and grass and sky and stars. It is a place where Marcus’s hand is fused in mine and we are one body, and we are climbing, up and up the hill we go, and the shadows are pillows, just here to soften the edges of the things with spikes and points and thorns and corners. We bend in and out of darkness and light. The ghosts help us find the best hiding places. There is nothing here to be scared of. We run and dodge and dart until the lights of the security guard’s truck are a distant memory at the bottom of the hill.
“This way,” Marcus says. “We’re almost at my favorite spot.”
He takes me to a giant, round stone tomb the size of a small cottage. It is covered in moss and ivy, like something out of medieval times, like something out of Narnia. It is surrounded by a ring of grass, then bordered by a stone wall that opens to a perfect view of the sparkling Bay Area skyline. We are hidden from everything except the sky.
“Oh wow,” I say. The lights of the city are a million stars, so close I can touch them. They pulse with my heartbeat. We are connected, all of us—me and Marcus and all the little ant-people down there, doing their jobs in service to some fat queen they never even see, all because of some vague promise programmed inside them, a blind faith that their hard work and suffering will be worth it. But what if it’s not? What if the queen doesn’t even exist? What if they’re making themselves miserable for nothing?
“They should come up here,” I say.
“Who should?” Marcus says.
“The ant-people. All of them down there. They don’t know what they’re missing.”
“What if they don’t even know up here exists?”
“That is so sad.”
I am leaning in to Marcus. His fingers are in my hair. He smells like man and sky and grass.
“I wasn’t in a car accident,” I say.
“Me neither.”
“No, I mean my leg. That’s not why I had the cane. That’s not why I limp.”
The sky is pulsing. I feel the pressure change in my ears. It goes whomp, whomp, whomp.
“I had cancer. Like, really bad cancer. Like, I almost died. Like, I had two weeks to live. Like, my parents had already started making funeral arrangements.”
He doesn’t say anything. I feel his body warm behind me, but he is silent.
“Hello?”
He squeezes me and the universe melts into my blood.
“I was supposed to die. The cancer was everywhere. They did radiation and chemo treatments until I lost all my hair and had no immune system. I lived in the hospital.”
“Are you an angel?” he says, with no surprise and no fear in his voice. “Maybe you died and came back and you’re an angel.”
“Everyone said I was a miracle.” I turn around to face him. Without the sky and lights in front of me, we are suddenly enclosed. There is no opening to the night. We are bound to this place. It is solid and it is ours.
“You are.” His eyes light up and I see the moon.
“But not a good miracle.”
“Yes, Evie,” he says, cupping my face in his hands. “The best miracle.”
“But I think my friend died for me. I think she died so I could live. I think I took her life and I’m wasting it.”
And then the sky opens up and takes us in it, hands like cherry blossoms, and all the statues nod their blessing, all the skeletons in the ground dance for us, and the earth shakes, and the grass shivers, and Marcus’s breath is the world, and his arms are its bones, and his lips are the kiss of God that makes me exist, that make my life worth something.
“Was that an earthquake?” I say.
“That was you.”
The ground settles. It is his body, my body, moving. It is our limbs taking root. It is our clothes drifting away and becoming clouds. It is all the passion and truth it is possible to feel, burning through my skin and into his.
“I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want you to think I was sick. I didn’t want you to think I was weak.”
He stops kissing the valley between my ribs and touches my nose with his. “Evie. Are you crazy? You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met. I knew that before I knew. I had a feeling.”
“You had a feeling I had cancer?”
“I had a feeling you survived something. I knew you were like me. We have dark places to climb out of.”
“Sometimes I’m so tired. Sometimes I want to stop climbing.”
“You have to climb. It’s the only way to get out.”
He returns to my ribs. He kisses each one of them. He kisses the place between my breasts that is bursting with warmth. He kisses my shoulder, my throat, my ears, my face. His skin glides across my body and I wrap myself around him until there is nothing between us.
“I want you,” I say.
“I want you, too.”
“Do you have a condom?”
He nods. He says, “Are you sure?”
I say, “Yes.” I say. “Absolutely.”
“Are you sure you want our first time to be in a graveyard?”
I have never been more sure of anything in my life.
Our bodies merge and our histories swirl around us. One of us is crying but I don’t know who. I see scars but I can’t tell if they are mine or his. Our love patches up the mysteries. Our breath paints healing across our bodies. His hands are gentle, confident; they are mending me; they are putting me back together.
The dead dance around us, but they are not scary. Not sad. They tell us, Stay where you are. They say, We’re not ready for you to join us yet.
And the night explodes in every color. The lights from the city march a parade around us. I laugh at their production, at the showiness of it all. The particles and waves weave us a cocoon of light. We are wrapped in it. We are held.
“I died too,” Marcus says in the stillness that follows. “We’re the same.” We lay in each other’s arms in the grass. The city has taken a break from its pyrotechnics. It is as spent as we are. I look up and see nothing but the blackness of the sky, like a thick blanket over us.
“Who is DL?” I say. I am not scared of her. Whoever she is, she cannot find us here.
“My brother,” he says. “David. David Lyon. My brother,” he says again, as if to practice the sound of a forbidden word. I turn my head to look into his eyes. They are as deep as the sky above us.
“Tell me about him,” I say. “Tell me everything.”
“He was the greatest,” Marcus
says. “For a long time. Then he wasn’t.”
“Why?”
“He always liked to party. But I guess he got hooked. It was coke and Ecstasy at first. He stole a little money from Dad, but never got in any real trouble. But then he got in a bike accident and got prescribed Oxy, and it stopped being a party. He started going to different doctors to get new prescriptions, and filling them at different pharmacies. He got caught and Dad kicked him out of the house. He was supposed to go to Harvard. He had already been accepted early decision. But instead he started living with his girlfriend and got hooked on heroin when he couldn’t afford the street price of pills anymore.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say. I think back to all the times Marcus has mentioned his brother. I’d thought the past tense was because he was away at college or something, off to start a grown-up life.
“My dad was pissed when he found out Mom was secretly meeting with him. She’d take him out for lunch sometimes, buy him groceries. They were really close. When she left, he fell apart. If you can imagine falling farther than becoming a heroin addict.”
“Did he OD?” I say.
“No. Suicide. Even heroin didn’t numb his pain enough.”
I know I’m still tripping hard, but I feel almost ultra-sober, as if all this truth has taken me into a new realm where it is impossible for fear and hiding and lies to exist. I cuddle into Marcus and collect our discarded clothes to lay on top of us. The moist earth contours to our bodies; the grass sends up its feathery tendrils and secures us in place.
Marcus curls his body around mine. “I used to think my mom left because she didn’t care about us,” he says. “But now I think maybe the problem was she cared too much. And she didn’t want to. Because it hurt too much to care. Maybe she thought running away would help her stop caring.”
“Do you believe that?” I say.
“I haven’t decided yet. Maybe it makes it better. Out of sight, out of mind.” He pauses and the whole world inhales. “Or maybe it makes it worse.”
He squeezes me from behind and runs his fingers from my stomach to my breast, then traces a circle around the bump of the portacath implant in my chest. “It connects to my superior vena cava,” I say. “Easy access to my blood for tests and chemo and everything else so I don’t have to get stuck every single time. Plus, chemo’s too harsh to go through the little veins in the hand, which is where normal IVs go. It would burn them up.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Not at all. At first it did. Right after it got put in. It was really swollen and bruised and I remember being so embarrassed. I was pissed because I couldn’t wear tank tops or anything low-cut because it would show. It seems so stupid now. Everything does. All the dumb shit I used to worry about. Like how I looked and what I was wearing. Being home before curfew.”
“Which you’re not going to do tonight, by the way.”
“I’m totally okay with that.”
“I figured.”
“Tell me more about David.”
After a moment, Marcus says, “He was a genius. Like, certifiable. He was the one who was supposed to make my dad proud.” He pauses. “Now I’m all he’s left with.”
I pull his hand to my mouth and kiss his fingers one by one. “My sister’s the smart one too,” I say. “She’s the one who’s supposed to grow up and have a great career. I was supposed to marry someone with a great career.”
“‘Was’? Not anymore?”
“I don’t know. I used to be the pretty one. Then I was the sick one. Now nobody knows what I am.”
Marcus squeezes me tight. “I know what you are.”
I turn around to face him. The moon paints his face silver. “What am I?”
“You’re everything.”
We fill the next few minutes with slow, lazy kisses. But I want more. More secrets. More truth. “How did your brother kill himself?”
I feel him pull away. He is no longer in this world with me. “My dad has a gun,” he says from somewhere distant. “Even now. He kept it. The motherfucker kept it.”
“Marcus” is all I can think of to say. I pull him closer.
“You don’t recover from finding the person you love most in the world with his brains all over the wall.”
There is no breeze behind our little stone wall. The night has stopped its forward momentum. It is so still it almost goes backward.
I run my fingers over the crisscross of cuts on his arm. “So you did this,” I say. “To make it stop hurting.”
“Those were for my mom,” he says. “When David died, I stopped. Here, on my leg”—he points to the messy initials and date on his shin—”that was my last act of self-mutilation. The night of his funeral, I carved it into my skin as a reminder. As a promise.”
“A promise to what?”
“To not waste my life like he did. To not throw it away.” He looks at me so hard it makes the universe wobble. “And to never trust anyone. To never let anyone get close enough that they could hurt me. But—”
“But?”
“But then I met you. And I broke my promise. I let you in.”
I wrap myself around him. “You’re safe,” I say with all the air in my lungs, with every cell in my body. “I won’t hurt you. I’m not leaving.”
“Evie Whinsett,” he whispers. “I think I’m in love with you.”
“I love you too,” I whisper back.
There is something to live for. There is finally a reason for my miracle.
“It’s just us,” Marcus says. “Just you and me. It’s just you and me against the world.”
I don’t know what time it is when Marcus drops me off at home. The clock in his car is broken and both of our phones are dead. The sun hasn’t come up, but I can tell it’s closer to morning than to night. I kiss him good night and leave the warmth of his car. I must fight the magnetic urge to stay with him, to stay in the timeless space we created.
The world has stopped its swirling, but there’s still a trail of electricity following me. My body glows where Marcus and I touched. Outside, the neighborhood is so quiet, unmoving. Everyone and everything sleeps. I’m exhausted and I want to sleep too, but my mind is racing, not ready to say good night.
Mom is in the living room waiting for me, as I expected. She is lying on the couch with a blanket over her. She sits up groggily when I turn on the light.
“Evie,” she says with a sleepy voice, not yet registering my crime. “What time is it?”
“I don’t know.”
She blinks herself awake, and I watch her face turn from sleep to confusion to fear. “Where were you?” she says. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Mom. I’m great.”
“Your father’s going to be furious.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
She studies me, and I know my serenity must shock her. I can feel the peaceful smile on my lips. Her fear, my father’s anger—neither of these things seems important any more. Their feelings do not touch me. I am too happy to be bothered.
“Go to bed,” she says, and sighs. “We’ll talk in the morning.”
“Okay,” I say. “Good night.”
She looks at me like I’m a stranger and she can’t quite figure out how I got into her house.
“Good night,” she finally says, almost as a question, and I walk to my room and close the door.
It takes me a while to fall asleep because I can’t stop thinking. The night is on replay inside my head. I close my eyes and let myself drift through it. My skin tingles with the memory of Marcus. I run my finger over my lips, still soft with his kiss. When sleep finally takes me, I am in Marcus’s arms again.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
twenty-eight.
IT’S AFTERNOON WHEN I WAKE UP. MY HEAD IS FUZZY AND my stomach is empty and acidic. I can hear my parents talking with low voices in the kitchen as I b
rush my teeth. I take a deep breath and prepare myself for what I know is going to be an unpleasant conversation.
I walk into the kitchen and say, “Good morning.” Neither of my parents says anything. They look at each other as if wondering who this person is in their kitchen pouring herself a bowl of cereal.
“Are you ready to talk?” Dad says in his low, this-is-going-to-be-a-serious-discussion voice.
“Sure,” I say, inspecting the half banana I find in the fridge.
“Will you sit down, please?” Mom says.
I take a seat across from them at the breakfast table. I wonder if they’ve been sitting here all day, waiting for me, like this—hands folded in front of them, cups of hours-old cold coffee on the table as props. I look my mother in the eye, then my father. I take a big bite of cereal and chew for a few moments as they stare at me. I swallow and say, “So am I grounded? Should I call Will and tell him I can’t go to prom tonight?” I take another bite of cereal. They look to each other for help. They have already lost. I am running this show.
“Where were you last night?” Dad finally says.
“Hanging out with a friend.”
“A friend we know?” says Mom.
“No.”
“We’d like to know who you’re spending time with, Evie.” As usual, Mom is the good cop, her voice soft with concern.
“What the hell are you doing with a friend at three o’clock in the morning?” Dad growls with his bad-cop voice.
“We were just walking around and talking. I guess we lost track of time. Sorry if you were worried.”
“You should have called,” Mom says.
“My phone died.”
“You lost track of time for three hours after your curfew?” Dad says, his agitation rising. “I find it hard to believe that was a mistake.” He’s leaning forward in his seat. His hands are fists.
His energy is threatening to overpower mine, so I match it. I lean forward too. I show him I’m not scared. “So maybe it wasn’t a mistake,” I say. “Maybe I wanted to stay out that late.” Mom’s mouth opens in shock at my brazenness. “So am I grounded or what? I should tell Will.”
Mom shrinks into herself, shutting down. She does not know how to be a part of this conversation anymore. She does not know how to talk to this version of her daughter. For a brief moment, I feel sorry to be putting her through this, but then I look at Dad, at the sliver of saliva on the side of his mouth, and I am all anger once again.