But if you do, I’ll be here.
R.M.
His phone number was written at the very bottom.
I read the note again. Then I read it one more time.
My teeth were chattering. The ache pounded with each pulse of my heart.
You’re awake. I dug my fingernails into the palm of my free hand as hard as I could. You’re awake.
Everything they’d told me. Everything Pierce said. Everything Sadie said.
It was all wrong.
Or this was.
My nails left pink splotches on my skin. I shivered harder. I pulled the quilt tight around me.
When had Pierce brought me the note? How many days had already gone by?
Rob had been waiting for an answer all that time. I hadn’t given one.
And that was good. That was good. Because I would have had to make the choice anyway.
The right choice.
Keep Rob safe. Keep yourself safe. Keep your promises. Make your family . . . make them all proud.
Try.
“You must be cruel only to be kind,” said Hamlet, lounging at the bottom of my bed.
I looked away.
Deep breath. Empty stage.
I ripped the letter into pieces. I tore up his phone number. I tore up my name. I read the words as they fractured—hospital—crazy—sorry—beside you—thinking about him thinking them, writing them down. Then I tore them into smaller and smaller bits, until they were as fine as a handful of snow, and my chest was full of lead.
It took three tries to rock myself out of bed. My body was too heavy, and my head was like a broken compass, the needle waggling everywhere. Finally, dizzily, I slid off the mattress and onto my feet. I shuffled across the room with the quilt wrapped around me.
The sky was a thick, sunless gray. Afternoon. Maybe already evening. The window frame was chilly, partly frozen in place. With one shoulder, I started to heave it open, getting ready to scatter the paper bits into the wind. I hadn’t moved it an inch when there was a soft thud right beside me.
A snowball had hit the edge of the window. A clot of snow still clung to the sill.
I looked down into our snowy backyard.
Standing there, his long black coat fluttering against the whiteness, packing another snowball, was Romeo.
CHAPTER 25
I laughed out loud.
I unlatched the storm window and shoved my pounding head out into the cold.
Romeo did a quick double take. The snowball dropped from his hand, leaving a fresh divot in the snow. “Hey,” he said.
I leaned my elbows on the sill. “Aren’t you supposed to say ‘What light through yonder window breaks?’”
“Sorry.” His smile widened. “I haven’t really learned my lines.”
“Then you’ll have to improvise.”
“All right. Um . . .” He ran his fingers through his wind-tangled hair. “He says something like, ‘It is the east, and Juliet is the sun,’ right?”
“Exactly.”
He raised his voice. “It is the east, and—” He stopped, pointing in my direction. “Is that the east?”
“I think so. Kind of.”
“Okay. This might be the east, and Jaye is . . .” He stopped again. “You’re not like the sun.”
“I’m not?”
“Like a giant yellow ball of burning gas? Not really. You’re more like a constellation.”
“Just so you know, we’re way off the script here,” I told him. “And ‘a constellation’? Which one? The scales? That mer-goat thing?”
He gazed up at me for a second, considering. “I’m not sure. I see something new in it every time I look.”
That made me shut up for a minute. I just beamed down at him, and he smiled up at me, and I thought how nice it was that my imagination had decided to adapt the scene this way. Then a fresh blast of wind made me pull back, shivering. The ache swirled.
“I’m freezing,” I called down to him. “Aren’t you freezing?”
“Kind of.”
“Come to the back door.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to climb up to your window? I think that’s what’s in the script.”
I waved a hand. “We’re changing the blocking. Back door.”
I slammed the storm window and yanked the inner frame down.
The bedroom swam around me as I rushed toward the hall. I nearly fell twice on the staircase. The pain had built a wall between my thoughts and my feelings, and nothing could get through to make me worry anymore. It didn’t matter if I fell. None of this was real anyway. This was just a dream. Just a much better dream.
I skidded across the dining room, through the French doors, and pulled open the sticky sunroom door.
Romeo stepped inside.
Snowflakes clung to his hair and shoulders. Between the lapels of his coat, I could see a sliver of black cotton T-shirt. Cold radiated off of his body. Snow from his boots crumbled onto the carpet. When I stepped closer, I could feel it seeping between my bare toes.
Too cold. Too real.
“Wait a second,” I heard myself say. “You’re—you’re actually here.”
“I’ll leave if you want me to.” He took a rapid step backward. “I just needed to know you were all right. I’ll go.”
“No.” I lunged past him, slamming the door shut. “I don’t want you to leave. I just . . .”
I placed my palms on his chest. His wool coat was scratchy and damp with melting snow. Beneath it, his body was solid. Alive. I didn’t even care that I was wearing drawstring sweatpants and a faded T-shirt. I could feel his breath against my face as I rose up onto my toes.
I kissed him.
The lips parting mine were warm, waiting. I breathed in soap and cloves and winter. His hands pulled me closer, and something began to glimmer through the ache. Sparks. Stage lights. Snowflakes. The shimmer filled my rib cage, my body, my head—
Swaying slightly, I pulled away.
Rob blinked down at me. “I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?”
He started to smile. “I don’t know.”
“I’m the one who kissed you. If there’s anyone who should be sorry, it’s me.”
“If there’s anyone who should be sorry.”
He moved toward me again, and I moved toward him at the same second. His hands cupped my face. My fingers laced through his hair. We kissed until I could feel my heartbeat in my earlobes. He smelled like snow.
“I just found your note this afternoon,” I finally whispered into the crook of his neck.
Rob’s whole body relaxed against me. “Oh,” he said with a giant sigh. “God. Good. When I didn’t hear from you, I thought maybe the injury was really serious. Or maybe Pierce had—I don’t know—maybe he’d told you something—”
“He said you’d left. That he found me just lying on the sidewalk. Alone.”
Rob’s body tensed again. “I’d already called 911 when Pierce drove up.” His lips were tight. “I’m not sure how long it had been. You’d blacked out. I couldn’t wake you, and I didn’t want to move you, so I just—I just sat there. Holding your hand.”
I slid my fingers into his. “I’m all right,” I whispered. “I’m fine.”
Rob squeezed my hand back.
“Then—why did you leave?” I pulled back so I could look up into his face. “Did he—like—threaten you or something?”
“He was pretty upset,” he said dryly. “He said you’d gotten hurt again because of me. And he wasn’t wrong. He said if your family found out about you sneaking out to meet me, things would be a lot worse for you. I’m sure he wasn’t wrong about that either.” Rob shook his head, aggravated. “But I couldn’t just leave. I had to know you were okay. I’ve been waiting, and wondering . . .”
>
“And I’m fine.” I smiled up at him. “I’m better than fine.”
Rob glanced around. “Wait. Am I going to get you in more trouble by being here?”
“I don’t care.” I grabbed his arms before he could back away. “Besides, no one’s here.”
“How long do we have?”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve changed my mind. I’m not—I can’t be something just because—”
His lips were distracting. I leaned toward him again.
His mouth found mine. The soft rasp of his skin against my cheek, his breath, the velvet of his lower lip . . .
I broke away again, dizzy.
“Stop looking worried.” I wove my fingers more tightly through his. I am going to hold on to this, no matter what tries to pull it away. I’m going to hold on even if it breaks my fingers.
The dining room clock chimed the quarter hour. Rob’s eyes flicked to the wall behind me. “Does your sister come straight home after school?”
“Usually. Why? Is it that late already?”
“Close. We’ve got five minutes. Maybe ten.”
“That’s not enough.”
“I know.” He let out a breath. “Maybe you can call me tomorrow. Or text me, at least.”
“I don’t want to text you. Or call you. I don’t want to sneak around, stealing tiny little bits of time.” I dropped his hand. “So. Let’s go.”
“Go?” Rob’s eyebrows went up. “Go where?”
“You’ve got your car, right? Let’s go somewhere. Anywhere that isn’t here.”
He started to grin again. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. I’ll leave a note. Just let me grab my jacket.”
When I turned away, I realized how strong the ache had grown. I just made it out of the room without stumbling. Once I was sure I was out of his sight, I sagged against the wall, fumbling over the end tables for a pen and paper.
With Rob, I scribbled, in handwriting that didn’t look like mine. I’ll be home soon. Don’t worry.
As I headed toward the coat closet, I caught sight of my phone, lying where I’d left it in the clutter of the coffee table. If I brought it along, I’d just be confronted by its constant buzzing, Mom’s number glowing on the screen. Even its weight in my pocket would be a reminder.
I set the phone beside my handwritten note. At least Mom would know not to bother calling.
“I’m parked on the corner,” said Rob as we slipped out the back door and crossed the snow-deep yard. “I thought I shouldn’t park right in front of your house, just in case.”
“Good thinking.”
The rusty blue car still held a hint of warmth. When Rob started the engine, a breath of hot air whooshed out around my ankles.
“Thanks, Merle.” I patted the dashboard.
Rob smiled.
I glanced over my shoulder. The backseat was wonderfully Shakespeare-free. Just a few empty paper coffee cups, a sliding stack of notebooks, a hooded sweatshirt with WASHINGTON printed on its chest. Relief blew over me like the warm air.
But as I started to turn back around, I spotted it. The glossy black car gliding up the street.
“Oh my god,” I whispered. “It’s him.”
Rob looked back, frowning. “Who? Pierce?”
The car was distant enough that I couldn’t get a glimpse of the driver, but I didn’t need one to feel sure. “Yes.” The ache swelled. “You see him this time, right?”
“He should be at rehearsal right now.”
Midway down the block, a turn signal flicked on. The black car coasted toward the end of our driveway.
“It’s him,” I said again. “Right there. The black car. You see it too, right?”
Rob squinted through the back window. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “I see it.”
My heart hammered against my ribs. “Just drive, please. Go.”
“All right.” Rob swung the wheel sharply to the left. The engine roared. We shot out into the snowy street.
“He’s going to my house.” I sank down into the seat, trying to compress myself below the window line. “Do you think he saw us?”
“I don’t know.” Rob kept his eyes on the road. I could hear the hint of doubt in his voice. “I didn’t see his face.”
I inched up just enough to check the side mirror. A red minivan had pulled into the street behind us. If the BMW had veered back into the road, I couldn’t tell.
“Which way?” Rob asked when we reached the next corner.
“Left, I guess. Let’s just . . . let’s just drive around for a while.” The ache was swelling again. It seemed even larger and sharper-edged than before. “Just in case.”
Rob glanced over, his eyes worried. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I managed. “Just a little carsick.”
“Tell me if you want me to pull over. Or if you need to turn around.”
“No.” My eyelids sagged. “Don’t stop.”
Gently, Rob angled the car to the left, and then left again, steering us toward the highway. When I took another glance into the mirror, the red minivan was gone. A white truck had taken its place. I could see it looming impatiently over our back bumper, even though the mirror—or my eyes—made it bleary.
“Keep going,” I mumbled into my coat collar. “I want to make sure . . . that we lost him.”
I heard the click of the turn signal. A moment later, we accelerated down an on-ramp into the stream of highway traffic.
Snow had begun to fall again. Tiny crystals skidded across the windshield, tumbling away into the dimming air. Twilight was coming fast.
“Would you—talk to me?” I asked. Both my thoughts and my voice were choppy. “I don’t want to think about—any of this anymore. I want to think about something new.”
“What do you want me to talk about?”
“Talk about your past. I want to know all the important stuff about you.”
Rob touched the brake as a car in front of us skidded slightly, its taillights casting bloody streaks over the road. “Important stuff? Like my medical history? My financial situation?”
“I know. Tell me about your very first kiss.”
Rob laughed. “My first kiss. Let me think.” One eyebrow went up. “Oh—I remember. Cal Pearson. I was seven.”
“Was Cal Pearson a boy or a girl?”
“A girl. But it was during a wrestling match.”
“Really?”
“Cal and her brothers were really into professional wrestling. They lived next door to us, and when we’d play together, no matter what we started out with—LEGOs, PlayStation, Chutes and Ladders, whatever—it eventually morphed into a wrestling match. They all had personas with pro wrestling names, so I had to have one too—”
“What was it?” I interrupted.
“I was the Grave Robber.”
“Grave Robber,” I echoed, my head rolling against the seat. “Rob, Robber. I get it.”
“Nick was the Billion-Dollar Man. He wasn’t very inventive. I can’t remember what Ethan’s name was. And Cal was the Warrior Mermaid.”
“You’d think that tail situation would make wrestling difficult.”
“Well, her tail turned into legs whenever she was on land. She’d be pulled into the ring in her aquarium, which was actually an old humidifier box covered in blue marker, and then she’d flop out and wait for her tail to transform, and then she’d headlock somebody.”
“What a showman,” I said. “Or showgirl, I guess. But not the Vegas type.”
“And she was good. For a second grader, anyway. I mean, I wasn’t much competition; I was so scrawny and awkward and afraid to touch her anywhere but the shoulders. But one day she threw me down flat on my back—the floor was carpeted, but I still landed so hard it knocked the air out of me—and I litera
lly saw stars. Exploding stars. Supernovas. And then she knelt on top of me, pinned my arms to the floor, and kissed me.”
“Wow. Body slams and supernovas? Every subsequent kiss must have seemed pretty tame by comparison.”
“For a while.” He smiled at me. “What about you? Was it Pierce?”
A sliver of cold wormed through my warm dizziness. “No. My very first was a boy named Cy. It was kindergarten gym class. We were doing this ‘Dances from Around the World’ unit, and after the hula, he just walked over and kissed me.” I paused. “Or maybe it was the polka.”
“The polka is a pretty seductive dance.”
I smiled. Then I took another glance in the side mirror. It was growing so dark, and there were so many cars around us, it was impossible to tell if any of them was a black BMW.
“Pierce was my second kiss.” I rubbed my forehead lightly, remembering. “It was this big all-school field trip. I was in fourth grade. Pierce was in fifth. A bunch of girls had been clustered around him all day, trying to sit next to him on the bus, fighting over who got to be his partner on whatever stupid confidence-building activities we were supposed to be doing, asking who he liked best out of all of them. And he told them that he liked me.” I paused again. “They all laughed. One girl pretended to laugh so hard, she couldn’t breathe.”
“Why would they laugh?”
“Because there was no good reason that somebody like Pierce would have liked somebody like me. And then, to shut them all up, he came over and gave me a quick kiss on the lips.”
“Hmm,” said Rob. “So, do you think he’s been thinking of you that way all this time?”
I snorted. “As the girl he can kiss when other girls annoy him?”
“As the girl he always thought he would end up with eventually.”
Headlights flashed over the mirrors as a car whooshed past us. I winced in the slashes of light.
“I was just his friend,” I said, after a minute. “And I wasn’t even that for a long time.” I shoved the hair off my burning forehead. “I don’t want to talk about him anymore. What’s something far away from this?”
Rob narrowed his eyes, thinking. “Rodeos. Fashion design. Tropical fruit.”