The phone vibrating in my hand wakes me at two in the morning. It takes me a second to pull out of my dream and figure out what’s happening. I sit up on one elbow and answer it.
“Hey, are you okay?” I whisper, my voice full of sleep and air.
He doesn’t answer for a second and I think maybe it’s an accidental roll-over-on-his-phone-in-the-night call. But then he says in a quiet voice, “Jules, I’m—I’m just— I’m freaking out a little.”
I glance at Rowan and she hasn’t even moved. “What’s happening?” I turn my face away from the door, as if that’ll keep my whispers from slipping under it.
“It’s, well, I had a chance to watch the vision on TV a few times. Like fifty, I mean, and it’s—” I can hear the whir of anxiety in his voice notching up. He takes a breath. “It’s really horrible. It almost made me puke. I swear.”
I press my lids shut with my fingertips. “Oh, God,” I say. There are no other words. “Are you taking notes? Writing it all down?”
“Yeah. Some.”
I think I hear a creak of the hallway floor, but it’s nothing. I pull the blankets over my head. “What can I do? How can I help you?”
I hear the tightness in his throat as he swallows hard, hear the air rush from his nostrils into the phone, a tiny blast of emotion. And then it comes again, and he doesn’t speak, and I know he’s trying to hold it together.
“Shit, I remember this,” I say. My gut twists. “I know how tough it is.” I cringe, thinking I sound like a condescending jerk when what I really mean to say is, It’s okay to cry with me.
It turns out he doesn’t need my permission. After a few minutes of him in not-quite-silent sobs and me star
BANG ing into the caverns of my blankets, wishing I could be with him, remembering and remembering, he blows out a breath and says, “I don’t think I can do this alone.”
“You’re not alone, Sawyer.” His silence tells me he feels otherwise, and suddenly I’m furious. Not at him. At my parents, and at his parents. And at the ridiculousness of this. I can’t see or help my friend, my boyfriend, because of something gross my father did.
“This is nuts,” I mutter, throwing my blankets off and sitting up on the side of the bed. I can hardly contain the surprise tsunami of anger that floods me. “Where are you?”
“In my room.”
“Do you want me to come over?” I cringe again, imagining the trouble I could get into, but the anger is bigger than that fear, and the boy across town is more important than the man in the next room.
“No. I mean yes, of course, obviously. But no. I’m okay now, and we don’t need any more trouble with the proprietors. I’m just glad . . .” He trails off for a moment, and his voice goes soft. “I’m just glad you answered. And that you’re there.”
I can hardly stand it. “I’m here. We’ll figure out something. I can’t take this either. I need more than a few minutes at my locker with you.” I don’t think I would have said that if it weren’t for the cover of darkness.
“Oh, God, Jules,” he says, and it sounds like he’s about to break down again. “I miss you like you have no idea. I know I sound like a basket case, and I’m sorry for—jeez, for slobbering all over—but this has been the longest week, and everything’s so . . . fucked-up. . . .”
“Yeah.”
“I need to tell you about it. There’s stuff I haven’t told you.”
I nod. “I want to hear it all. I want to help you. I will be there, helping you. Okay? I mean, do you know when it’s going to happen? Probably not . . .”
“No idea.”
I close my eyes, feeling defeat. “We’ll get it. I just need to figure out how to get out of here. I’m suffocating.”
“We both are.”
We’re quiet for a minute.
“Stay on the phone with me,” he says. “Please?”
“I will.” I climb back into bed and pull the blankets over me, keeping the phone to my ear. “I’ve never slept with a boy before,” I say.
He laughs a little and it makes me feel better for him. We whisper a little bit, and soon we’re quiet. My eyelids droop.
In an instant, it’s morning.
Nine
“What happened to your face?” Rowan asks as we stand in the bathroom together, putting finishing touches on our makeup.
I glare. “Nothing.” The imprint of the cell phone remains on my cheek, though it’s not nearly as pronounced as when I first got up.
She narrows her eyes at me, suspicious. “You know,” she says, “I don’t mind picking up shifts for you in case you’re, like, feeling a little overtired. Or if you need to go to the library for a project or something. I like money.”
I pause and look at her in the mirror. “Or maybe you want to, I don’t know. Volunteer somewhere on Saturday mornings.”
I set my can of hairspray down. “Hmm.”
“You need to get a little creative is all I’m saying. Don’t you want to join a club after school? Try out for a sport?” She blinks her lashes rapidly and smiles.
I snort. “Yeah,” I say, waving my cast. “Sports.”
“Well, I’m just trying to help.” She puts away her makeup and glances at one of the seventeen clocks—the top one, which actually works—that the hoarder decided would look great piled on the towel rack above the toilet. “Let’s go.”