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What if I’m the one who blew it? What if I can’t get into Dartmouth any more? Josh will still get into his college. All he needs is a GED. Perhaps he ruined this year, but I might have ruined our next four. If only I could hear his voice again. He made it back to New York this morning, where his mom granted him this single text: Miss you like crazy. Internet also confiscated. Don’t know when we can talk next. I LOVE YOU.
After detention, I walk straight to the Treehouse. The night air is freezing, and my coat isn’t warm enough. I remember Josh placing his own coat around my shoulders – right here on our first date – and cry for the hundredth time. I wrap myself in the blanket and place my hand on his mural. I press my palm against the house with the ivy window boxes and American flag. I press my palm against it so hard that it hurts.
Here, I think. He is here.
I try to be there, too.
“Turn that off.” Kurt barges into my room and points at my laptop. “You’re supposed to be studying. You need a perfect score on your physics test tomorrow.”
“This poll is saying Josh’s dad and Terry Robb are locked in a dead heat. It’s still too close to predict a winner.”
“Stop reading that stuff. The election isn’t for five more days.” And then he frowns. “Terry Robb. People shouldn’t have two first names.”
I’ve finally put in a request to get my door fixed. I’m tired of my privacy being violated. Our friendship is intact, technically, but an unpleasant tension cloaks every interaction. Kurt is unhappy that I’m unhappy. He wants our lives to go back to the way they were, pre-Josh. And I’m unhappy with Kurt. I know he didn’t mean for any of this to happen, but it did happen. And he could’ve stopped it.
As for Hattie, I haven’t spoken to her since she was a mugshot. She might as well be in prison, for all I care. I’ve been glued to the news. I downloaded an app that tricks my laptop into thinking I’m in America, because international restrictions were blocking too many important video feeds. Knowing what’s happening in the election, minute by minute, is the only way that I feel close to Josh. His dad has to win. And not just for the obvious reasons, but selfishly, I hope it might relax his parents enough so that they’ll give him back his phone.
“You,” Kurt says. “Physics. Study.”
“Don’t be such an assjacket.”
“Asswaffle,” he replies.
“Asspickle.”
“Asshopper.”
He looks pleased with that last one. My mouth twitches, but I’m still annoyed. To cap off this perfect week, I feel my period coming on. I close my laptop. “Fine. You win. But I’m going to the bathroom first.”
“Assroom,” I hear him say as I go down the hall. When I return, our game is over. “You missed a call from a two-one-two area code.”
“What?” I race to my phone. Someone from Manhattan has left me a voicemail. “Why didn’t you answer it?”
“Because that’s not my phone.”
“What if that was Josh?”
“Then your screen would have said ‘Josh’ instead of ‘unknown caller’.”
I barely muffle my scream of frustration. “His phone was taken away! If anyone calls when I’m not here, answer it. And if it’s Josh, tell him to wait until I can get here.”
Hey, Isla. My heart splits in two at the sound of his tired voice, which he’s attempting to raise above a jumbled commotion of shouting and ringing and clanging. It’s, uh, Thursday. I guess it’s already night in Paris? I’m calling from a volunteer’s desk at election headquarters. This is the first time that I’ve been left alone near a phone. It’s pretty bad here, but… I don’t know. None of it even matters. I miss you. I’ll try again as soon as I can. A pause. I hope you’re all right. Okay, bye. I love you.
I call back. After two rings, a woman with a nasal timbre answers. I hang up.
I listen to the voicemail again. And again. And again and again and again, and I don’t know how many times I’ve listened to it before I realize that Kurt is gone.
A locksmith fixes my door. I never leave my phone.
I turn up the ringer as high as it goes before I shower, and then I keep the volume there, even in class. My paranoia grows. I can’t stop checking it – checking for messages, checking to make sure it’s charged, checking to make sure that I haven’t accidentally muted it. I want to speak with him so badly I might combust.
On Saturday before dawn, another 212 startles me awake. “Josh?”
“Ohthankgod,” he whispers, exhausted and relieved. “I’m sorry it’s so early, but I couldn’t sleep. I’m calling you from the kitchen. If my parents catch me, I’m dead. But I had to hear your voice.”
I grasp my phone harder. “I miss you so much.”
“How is it possible that it hasn’t even been a week?”
“It feels like a year.”
“How are you? What happened with the head? Were you suspended?”
“No. She gave me detention, because it’s my first offence. But it’s for the entire month.”
His voice grows heavier. “I’m sorry.”
“The suckiest part? The moment that I have detention, you don’t.”
It gets a single glum laugh. “I’d take detention over this.”
“I know.” I soften. “How is it? How are your parents?”
“Pissed off. Busy. They’re running me around everywhere with them, but they can hardly even look at me.”
“They’ll come around.”
“Maybe.”
One question is weighing on me, heavier than any other. I clutch my necklace for support. “Hey…”
“Yeah?”
“Never mind.”
“Isla. Say it.”
“I was just…did your parents know about me? I know you guys didn’t talk often, but I was wondering if you ever mentioned me. Before all of this.” My voice cracks. “I’d hate it if that was your mom’s first impression of me.”
His long pause gives me the answer before he does. “I was gonna tell them before Thanksgiving,” he finally says. “I didn’t want them asking about you.”
I cry in silence. “Were you worried that they’d think I’m not good enough for you?”
“No. No. I just wanted to keep you for myself. We were in that perfect bubble, you know? Of course they’ll like you.”
“I highly doubt that.”
“They will. They know this is my fault. And when the
election is over, I’ll tell them all about you. How smart you are, and how kind, and—”
“How ambitious? How I have no plans for my future?”
“Isla.”
“Sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry. I should’ve told them.” There’s another pause. “Did your parents know about me?”
“Of course.”
Josh exhales.
“They were looking forward to meeting you.”
“And now they aren’t.” He gives a sad little snort. “You worry about my parents, but I’m the one who was expelled.” Suddenly, his voice grows lower. “Someone’s moving around. I gotta go I love you bye.”
I don’t even get to say “I love you” back.
On Monday after detention, I find him in the background of some photographs taken over the weekend at a Brooklyn YMCA, a last-chance campaigning effort. He’s tall and handsome and smiling. He looks almost like my boyfriend. I can tell that his smile – no doubt convincing to others – is forced. There are no dimples.
“I didn’t wake you up this time, did I?” he asks. The call arrives in the dead of night. There’s a racket of people in the background, a general buzz of stress and excitement. Headquarters again. The election is only hours away.
“No.” I hug my pillow, wishing it were him. “Getting sleepy, but I’m still reading.”
“That’s my girl. What’s the subject tonight?”
“Orchid hunting. Did you know it was a surprisingly dangerous occupation?”
“Maybe that’s your future career.” A real smile creeps into his voice. “Orchid hunter. And I’ll join you on the expeditions. We can wear those khaki hats with mosquito nets.”
“How is it over there?” I ask.
“I’d rather be hunting orchids.”
“I hope your dad wins.”
“Me, too. Otherwise he’ll be intolerable for at least six months.” The sort-of joke falls flat, and he sighs. “Speaking of. Guess who’s sending a camera crew to my polling station? Guess who’ll be on the morning news?”
“Guess who’ll be glued to CNN’s live stream, hoping to catch a glimpse?”
