If only he would look at me, but his eyes are firmly fixed on a spot on the linoleum.
“I need to go back to the hospital,” he says. “It’s been almost five hours. Vivianne must be going crazy with Cousin Alice.”
“You should eat something first,” Finn says.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Too bad.”
I want to shake him. Look at me! But he doesn’t, and the sick feeling in my stomach builds. Was Finn right? Am I really so stupid that I was about to start picking out baby names when what happened meant nothing to James?
From the back of the house, a door opens and a bang-shuffle-bang sound moves toward us. Finn shoves the skillet of eggs and spoon into my hand. I stare at it for a moment and then push the eggs around uncertainly.
“Mom,” Finn calls. “What do you need?”
Mrs. Abbott, leaning heavily on a walker, her sweatpants and sweater hanging off her thin frame, enters the kitchen. “Just getting some juice.”
“I’ll bring you a glass. Get back to bed.”
I glance at James and see he’s as surprised about Mrs. Abbott’s condition as I was.
“I want to say hello to your friends,” she says, resisting Finn’s attempts to steer her back toward her bedroom. “It’s good to finally meet you, James. I’m so very sorry about your brother.”
James fidgets. “Thank you, ma’am.”
I think the eggs are beginning to burn, so I take the skillet off the stove.
“Mom,” Finn says softly. “You’re going to wear yourself out.”
“I’m fine, honey. Quit fussing.” She takes a few labored steps toward the refrigerator and leans hard against her walker with one hand while she uses the other to pull it open. Finn fetches her a glass, and she reaches inside the fridge for a carton of orange juice. “How is he doing, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“The doctors, um, they say he’s critical, and he’s still unconscious.” James’s voice is barely audible, and he doesn’t look at Mrs. Abbott. He’s never been good with strangers, even under the best conditions. “I’m heading back to the hospital now.”
“Yes, of course,” Mrs. Abbott says. Finn scoops the juice carton out of her trembling hand and pours her a glass, and she pulls his face down to kiss his cheek. “There are some travel-size board games in the closet that are good for waiting rooms. You should take them. Finn, go get the games to take with you.”
“I will.” Finn takes his mother’s elbow and helps her from the room. But it’s a small house, so James and I still hear every word they say as they make their way down the hallway back to the master bedroom.
“I’m staying home,” Finn says softly. “I’m not leaving you alone again.”
“Oh, honey, I’ll be fine. And your father will be home soon. You should be there for your friend.”
“But what if you need something—”
“Finn.” It’s a tone of voice I recognize from Luz. “I’m the parent here, okay? You don’t need to worry about me.”
When they’re gone, the master bedroom door closed behind them, I turn to James. “You didn’t know, either?” I ask, trying to sound normal.
He shakes his head and doesn’t meet my eyes. “Looks like MS.”
“Why didn’t he ever tell us?”
“Probably didn’t want things to get too serious.”
I shrivel. I hurled those words at Finn like a weapon only hours ago, with no idea of how serious his life actually is. I can’t imagine what he thinks of me, how selfish and spoiled I must look to him. Selfish, spoiled, and in love with a boy who will never love me back. Selfish, spoiled, and completely delusional.
I am starting to hate myself.
Morris and Spitzer drive us back to the hospital, and James calls Vivianne on the way.
“Anything?” I ask when he hangs up.
“The same. They said once he’s stable enough, they’re going to move him to Walter Reed, where the security is better.”
“Did they say anything about the person who shot at you?” Finn asks. I look over at him sharply. “I mean, uh, the people.”
“People?” James says.
“Yeah. Marina saw them.”
“You did?” James looks at me for the first time since I climbed into his bed. “I didn’t know that.”
I shrug. The whole episode is just another reminder of how useless I am. “No one believed me anyway.”
“Why?”
“Because she says the shooters looked just like her and me,” Finn says.
James frowns. “What do you mean, just like you?”
“I mean there was a boy and a girl with a gun, and they looked exactly like Finn and me, okay?” I say. “Whatever, it doesn’t matter. Obviously I was just being stupid.”
“The agent in charge thought she was nuts,” Finn says.
“Thanks a lot!”
He laughs. “Well, he did. But I believe you.”
“I’m so very comforted by that,” I say. “Because what you think about anything really matters to anyone.”
Finn smiles, but there’s no mirth in it. He looks out of the window, and I push down my brief rush of guilt. My foul mood isn’t his fault, even if he started it by needling me about James, but it’s so easy to take it out on him.
Between us, James has bowed his head and is running his fingers over his brow. Wheels are starting to turn in his head over something, but if we lose him to his thoughts now, who knows when we might get him back? I have to stop him before he gets in too deep.
“So, did Viv say anything about the shooters?” I ask. “Have they caught them?”
James looks up at me, and it takes him a second to latch on to my question. “Not sure. They won’t tell her anything. Of course.”
“I’m sure they’ll find them.”
“Yeah.” He sits up straight again. “Yeah.”
When we arrive at the hospital, we find it no longer in lockdown. They must not be too worried about the shooting in the parking lot. Even the third floor has people on it again, although there’s a healthy buffer of Capitol Police between Nate’s room and the rest of the floor. Maybe the whole thing really was a coincidence, just like Agent Armison said.
As soon as we step into the waiting room, Cousin Alice descends on James, fussing with his hair and screwing up her face at his wrinkled clothes, like it’s beneath a Shaw to look like a normal human being who’s had a rough night. A couple of other Shaw relatives I vaguely recognize from the annual Christmas party also stand when we come in. Aaron Shaw, who’s shouting something lawyer-y into his cell phone, and Julia Shaw-Latham, who I thought was still in rehab, greet James but ignore Finn and me. Only Uncle Perry—who isn’t really their uncle, just a family friend who used to give me hard candies from his pocket and taught James and me the sign language alphabet so we could send each other secret messages from across the room—comes over to give me a hug. Behind their backs, Vivianne sags in relief at not being alone with them all anymore.
“I’m fine, really, Alice,” James says, ducking away from her as she tries to examine the stitches on his head. “It’s nothing.”
“Nothing! It’s a bullet wound.”
“It’s just a scratch from some debris—”
“I never liked the idea of you in this city, practically on your own,” Alice says, sitting him down beside her. “Nathaniel—God have mercy on him—is too young and too busy to have a teenager under his guardianship. You’re coming to live with me.”
James’s eyes widen in alarm. “I can’t leave Nate. Besides, I have school—”
“School you’re too young for. And your brother is in no position to take care of you right now!”
Vivianne rubs her temples wearily, like she has a headache she can’t shake. “Alice, we discussed this—”
“Yes, but no offense, Vivianne, this is a family matter—”
“Please don’t fight—”
Finn and I sit on the opposite side of the room, and I t
ry to blend in with the wall. Alice doesn’t approve of me any more than she does James, who’s a saint. Finn picks up a magazine and starts doodling on the back, and I turn on my cell phone to wade through the dozens of texts waiting for me. The phone dings with a new one the second it comes alive.
Tamsin: Are you still w/ J??
I text back: Yes, at hospital.
Tamsin: MARINA! THERE YOU ARE! What’s going on??
Me: Just waiting. Nate’s still unconscious. Can you tell everyone I’m okay and to stop texting me?
Tamsin: Ok, but I’m DYING to know what’s going on!
My stomach lurches. Tam’s not exactly the world’s most sensitive person, but I can’t believe she just said that. A little voice in the back of my head, which I’ve tried to muffle and strangle for years, has always wondered if Tamsin and Sophie decided to be my friend back in seventh grade just to get closer to James. This text—and the dozens of others I’ve received, many from people I don’t even know—makes me feel like this is just entertainment for her, like I’m her personal People magazine. I silence my phone and jam it back in my pocket.
“Tamsin?” Finn says.
“Yeah.”
“That girl’s a bitch,” he says mildly. “I don’t know why you’re friends with her.”
Normally a statement like that would piss me off, but since I agree with him right now, it’s hard to get too worked up. “Me neither.”
Finn smiles, and for once I don’t feel like he’s mocking me. I even smile back a little.
A nurse soon comes and tells us it’s okay for Nate to receive visitors again. The whole family clambers to their feet, and she quickly adds that there isn’t room for all of us.
“You go, James.” Vivianne gives him a weak smile. “We saw him a little while ago.”
“Okay.” James looks a little pale and turns to Finn and me. “Will you guys come with me?”
We stand and follow him to Nate’s room. Just outside the door, James says, “Sorry. I just feel kind of weird being alone in there with him.”
“It’s okay, man,” Finn says. “We understand.”
Finn and I stand against the back wall to give James a semblance of privacy. He holds Nate’s hand and talks to him in a low voice, while Finn goes back to his doodle and I chew the last of the pink nail polish off my thumb.
“Hey, you know you don’t have to be here,” I whisper. “If you’d rather, you know, be at home.”
“You don’t have to be here, either,” Finn says.
The thought had honestly never occurred to me. I’m here as long as James is here.
“James is my best friend, too,” he says, looking down at his crude drawing of a dog dressed in a suit, “and his family is scary as hell. If our places were reversed, he wouldn’t leave me.”
“You’re right, he wouldn’t,” I say. “He’d never make you go through something like this alone. If you told him what was going on.”
Finn only glances up at me before looking back down at his drawing and adding a bow tie to the dog’s neck.
“. . . is absolutely unacceptable!” Alice’s voice comes ringing down the hall.
“Don’t raise your voice to me today, Alice!” That’s Vivianne, sounding frayed.
James groans and stands from his seat at Nate’s bedside. “I’ll be right back. Can you . . . ?”
“Sure,” Finn says, and goes right to Nate’s bedside. I follow a few steps behind as James rushes away to deal with his family. Nate looks better today, at least. Someone has cleaned him up, and his skin looks less gray.
“Hey, Congressman,” Finn says. “James’ll be right back. So, Cousin Alice is a handful, huh?”
I think about taking Nate’s hand but can’t quite make myself do it. For some reason, I’m afraid it will be cold.
“You’re really good at this,” I say softly.
“Well, I’ve had some practice.”
“Did you mean what you said earlier,” I say, “when you said you believe me about the shooters?”
Finn shrugs. “You may be a drama queen sometimes, M, but you’re not crazy. And if you were going to hallucinate something, I don’t know why it would be the two of us shooting at James, so yeah, I guess I do. There must be at least one extremely handsome delinquent with a handgun out there.”
I roll my eyes but can’t quite stifle my smile.
“But they’ll never catch him,” I say, “since everyone thinks I imagined it.”
“Are you kidding?” he says. “There are about ten thousand CCTV cameras in that parking lot. The shooter’s face is going to be everywhere.”
“Really?” Now that he’s said it, I vaguely recall Agent Armison mentioning the security cameras last night, but obviously it didn’t sink in. I go to the window and look out over the parking lot, and Finn’s right. On each light post is a cluster of cameras pointing in all directions. A tightness I didn’t realize I was carrying in my chest eases. “I forgot. That actually makes me feel—”
“Marina!”
I turn around. Finn is perched on the edge of his chair, leaning over Nate.
Whose eyes are fluttering.
“Congressman?” Finn says. “Can you hear me?”
I rush back to Nate’s bedside. His eyelids continue to move and then open halfway, like that’s all he has the energy for. His fingers jerk in Finn’s hand. I cover my mouth to stop the sob in my throat from escaping.
“I’m going to get a doctor,” Finn says. “Stay with him.”
Finn runs from the room, and I take Nate’s hand. His fingers scrabble at my skin, and his lips move, like he’s trying to say something.
“You’ve got a tube helping you breathe, okay, Nate?” I say. “You can’t talk just yet. Finn’s gone to get a doctor.”
But Nate doesn’t relax. He seems to be struggling with his body, his eyes that won’t open all the way, his fingers that won’t grasp, his voice that won’t work. He looks up at me with urgent intensity, like he’s desperately trying to communicate something to me.
“It’s okay, Nate,” I say, maybe more for my own comfort than his. He’s scaring me. “Shh, it’s okay.”
Nate moves his head in an almost imperceptible shake against the pillow, and his hand clenches to a fist inside of mine. I snatch my hand back, afraid I’ve hurt him. Slowly, he raises a shaking pinky finger.
It’s not a natural movement. At first I wonder if he’s having some kind of spasm, but then I look down into his face and see that look in his eye, that one that begs me to understand. I remember James and me signing painstaking words to each other across a crowded cocktail party. Nate signing with Uncle Perry’s wife, Gretchen, who is deaf, whenever they came to visit.
A fist. A.
A fist with the pinky straightened. I.
“A-I. Right, Nate?”
He closes his eyes briefly, and I understand the gesture as relief. With great effort, he straightens his fingers and crosses the first two. What is that? I don’t remember. God, why didn’t I pay more attention? Why am I not smarter?
“T?” I say. “U?”
He keeps making the sign.
“Oh!” Suddenly I remember. “R?”
He closes his eyes again.
“A-I-R?” I say. “Oh God, can you not breathe?”
I look at all of his machines, as if I’d be able to tell if something was wrong or know how to fix it, but the hiss of the ventilator is as even as it’s always been. Nate shakes his head again and makes another sign.
“J,” I say. I remember that one. “James is coming. I’m sure Finn went to get him.”
Nate shakes his head. Nate makes his hand into a curve against the stiff bedsheets and then tucks his thumb between his first and second fingers.
“C-T? Connecticut?”
Nate closes his eyes.
“What’s in Connecticut, Nate?” My blood goes cold, like I’m standing out in the snow in my pajamas again. I remember the odd conversation I had with Nate beside his car the nig
ht they got home from his home district. I told Nate he looked tired, and he said . . .
I’ve just been busy with this investigation, ate up my whole recess.
And then, right on the heels of that, Nate asked me to keep an eye on James. Said he was worried about him and would I let him know if he started acting differently. I thought it was a strange request, and odd that Nate would jump from the topic of an investigation to his brother’s behavior, but maybe—
I look down at Nate’s hand again, and he’s tracing a shaky J against the sheet with his pinky. Maybe the two things—whatever he was investigating and his brother’s well-being—were linked in Nate’s mind.
“Is there something in Connecticut?” I say.
Nate closes his eyes and opens them again.
“Something that—” My voice dries up, and I have to swallow. “Something that explains why you were hurt?”
Eyes close and open.
“Something that could put James in danger, too?” I don’t want to tell him James was shot at, not with him in this condition.
His eyes close again and just barely open this time. I can see the strength draining out of him.
“I understand,” I say, taking his hand in mine again. “We’ll go to Connecticut and find out who’s behind this. We’ll catch them, and James will be safe.”
Nate squeezes my hand, and his head sinks back into the pillow. His lips twitch, like he’s trying to say something or maybe just smile, and then he closes his eyes.
“Nate?” I put a hand on his shoulder. “Nate, wake up!”
I panic, sure he’s dead, but then register the continued beeping of his heart monitor. He’s still alive, just unconscious. A doctor rushes into the room with James, Vivianne, and Finn at his heels. It feels like Nate and I have been alone for hours, but it couldn’t have been more than a minute. Vivianne falls into the chair beside him, taking his hand, while the doctor checks the machines hooked up to Nate and lifts his eyelids to check his pupils.
“What happened?” Vivianne says. “He was awake?”
“F-for a little while,” I say with difficulty. I’m still trying to process what just happened. I have no spare brain cells left for speech.
“Is he okay?” James asks. “Why isn’t he still awake?”