I smile. Miller sounds like himself for the first time today. Just before I text James to tell him it’s on, I glance once more at Miller, catching what he’s drawing in his notepad. A large, black spiral, taking over the entire page. I turn toward the front, pretending not to notice. In my pocket, my phone vibrates.
I covertly slide it out and check the message. KEEP MILLER CLOSE. EXTRA HANDLERS ON CAMPUS.
“Miller,” I whisper. “James says there are more handlers today. Do you think they’re here for you?”
Miller licks at his bottom lip, as if considering, then he nods. “Could be. Let’s leave before lunch then,” he says. “We’ll go to my house.”
I agree and text James, glad to leave. The last thing I want is to see my best friend get taken away. Again.
• • •
I sit next to Miller on his flower-patterned couch as James is in the kitchen rummaging through the refrigerator. Miller chews on his thumbnail, and when he moves to the next finger, I see that they’re all bitten painfully short, bleeding under the slivers of the nail still there. I reach out and smack his hand away from his face and he rests it in his lap.
“Saw her on the way to school today,” Miller says, staring out the picture window across from us.
“Lacey?”
“Yeah. Drove by Sumpter and saw her in the lot, talking to Evan Freeman. She . . . was laughing.” He begins biting on his nail again, but I don’t stop him. Instead I lean my head on Miller’s shoulder and stare out the window with him.
Returners aren’t allowed to get too close to people for a few months after coming back, but they are allowed to make a few friends—especially if they’re also successful graduates of The Program. I guess the handlers figure that if they’re both scrubbed clean, they can’t be bad influences on each other. Before Miller, Lacey actually went on a few dates with Evan Freeman. She said he used too much tongue.
And now, the fact that Lacey was talking to him—laughing—all while not realizing that she already knows him, makes me sick. It’s so disturbing that I can barely handle it.
“What do you think they did to her in there?” I mumble, not sure I really want the answer.
“They dissected her,” Miller responds, spitting out a bit of nail. “They opened up her head and took out the pieces, putting them back together as a happy-face puzzle. It’s like she’s not even real anymore.”
“We don’t know that,” I say. “She could still be the same on the inside. She just doesn’t remember.”
“And if she never does?” He turns to me, a tear spilling over onto his cheek. “Do you really think anything can ever be the same again? She’s empty, Sloane. She’s the walking dead now.”
I don’t want to believe that. I’ve seen returners for nearly two years, and although I’ve never had more than a standing-next-to-me-in-line-at-the-mall conversation, I’m sure they’re still people. Just . . . shinier, as if everything is great. They’ve been brainwashed or something. But they’re not empty. They can’t be.
“It would have been better if she had died,” Miller whispers. I sit up and glare at him.
“Don’t say that,” I say. “She’s not dead. And in time we’ll try again. She may not know you, Miller. But her heart will.”
He shakes his head, not meeting my eyes. “No. I give up. I’m letting her go just like the psychologist said I should.”
After The Program took her, they sentenced me, James, and Miller to two weeks of daily intensive therapy—therapy beyond the usual assessments. They asked for details, things they could use in her treatment. But really I think they were trying to see if we were infected too. Luckily we weren’t.
I want to tell Miller not to move on, to wait it out and try to win her again. But in a way, I know he’s right. The way Lacey looked, how she acted. She’s not the same. And she probably never will be.
I remember the first time Miller met Lacey. I’d brought him to our table, hoping to introduce them, but Lacey was in the lunch line arguing with the lady at the register. Lacey was wearing this ridiculous black-and-white-striped dress that made her look like Beetlejuice, but Miller got this puppy-dog expression on his face. He leaned in and told me and James that she was exactly the kind of girl he was looking for—the kind who would piss off his mother.
I shoved his shoulder, but James laughed from across the table. “Don’t do it, man,” James told him with a smirk. “She’s like a black widow. She eats dudes like you for breakfast.”
And Miller just smiled as if the idea fascinated him. Lacey wasn’t so easy to convince. But when they finally got together, they were happy. They were so happy.
“I’m sorry, Miller,” I say in a low voice. He nods and then turns suddenly to hug me. I rest my hand on the back of his neck as he squeezes me so tight I can barely breathe. I don’t tell him it’ll be okay because I don’t know if I can hope that it’s true.
Just then James walks into the living room, biting into an apple. He looks at us, tilting his head as if assessing the situation. He takes another bite and walks over, leaning down to put his arms around both of us. “Can I have some love too?” he asks in the stupid way he does when he’s trying to make sure we’re not getting too sad. He’s trying to distract us. He kisses loudly at Miller’s cheek, and I laugh, pushing him away.
James straightens, but Miller just stands and doesn’t say anything. James’s expression falters and he shoots me a warning look, as if telling me I shouldn’t have let Miller break down like that. I shrug because I didn’t mean to.
Glancing around the room to figure out what to do next, James walks to the fireplace mantel and picks up the latest family photo. “Man,” he says, looking at Miller. “Your mom is smokin’ hot in this picture.”
“Go to hell,” Miller says, biting his thumbnail again as he hovers in the doorway. They have this same conversation every time James sees Miller’s mom, who is indeed very pretty. She’s single, raising Miller by herself. She has blond hair and wears short skirts, and has a possible crush on my obnoxious boyfriend who she says is going to be a “heartbreaker” when he gets older. Uh, yeah. Not if I can help it.
“I’m just saying,” James adds, walking back over to the couch and dropping down next to me. “If I didn’t have this one”—he hikes his thumb at me—“I might be your new stepdad.”