“Me too.”
We’re standing in front of the garage, watching a sea of pinks and oranges start to flood the sky. I can’t believe I sometimes think it looks empty.
“Addie,” Zach says.
“Yeah?” I’m getting ready to counter whatever he says, to tell him what I should have before:Three months ago is forever. I like you. It’s not that complicated.
“I think I’d like to kiss you again.” He says it softly, facing me now.
Oh.
I stand on my tiptoes and kiss him before he has the chance to change his mind. And holy freaking crap, does he kiss me back.
His kiss is more urgent this time, my back against the garage door, his kneecap against it, too. He cradles the back of my head with his hand, and I kiss him feverishly, and he doesn’t stop, either, and I wonder why three days ago he said it was better if we were friends.
He doesn’t kiss me like we’re friends.
AFTER
January
On the way home, my hands are trembling so much I can barely grip the steering wheel. I feel like I’ve slipped outside my own body. I’m still at Overton, thinking about every single detail of that place. The gray walls of the complex. TheOs stamped on every building in case you forget. The very deliberate way everything was set up, from the music in the waiting room to the warm, unreadable smiles of all the staff. The nurse with the purple streak—did she know me?HaveI been there before? Was the doctor so nice because he recognized me? Apparently, he wasn’t my doctor last time, but what about the receptionist? She made me fill out all that paperwork when I first came in, as if I was new.
I rack my brain trying to think of anything I recognized in there—the pattern in the carpet, the setup of the waiting room, anything—but nothing stands out.
And yet—theyerasememories there. Does it mean anything that I can’t remember?
As soon as I pull into my driveway, I whip out my phone and dial Katy’s number.
Dr. Hunt was last time.The words ring continuously through my mind over the ringing on the line.
I deflate as I hear Katy’s familiar voice mail recording.
Hi, you’ve reached Katy. I can’t come to the phone right now, so leave me a message and I’ll call you back. Unless you’re Jason or Mason or Grayson from Music Fest. I only gave you my number because I couldn’t think of any other way to get rid of you. Anyway, bye!
As she says bye, you can hear me crack up laughing in the background.
“Oh my God, Katy!” I’d said after she flung her phone away from her.
“What?” She’d shrugged, looking innocent. “At least I’m being honest.”
The thing is, we both knew she wasn’t. Jason (not Mason or Grayson) was a cute guy from Music Fest, a regional music festival that our orchestra had gone to in December. A bunch of other musical groups from Lyndale to Raddick combined for two days to “share our mutual love of music.” Or, if you were Katy, to hide in the shadows and make out with the best bassoonist in the tri-state area. And shehadliked him; she’d whispered, cheeks flushed, to me about him nonstop on the bus trip back to Lyndale. They’d talked about visiting each other and had exchanged phones to put their numbers in with such solemnity that you’d have thought they were exchanging promise rings. But a week after we got back, Jason still hadn’t called, and Katy insistedheneeded to callher.A miserable week later, he was either Jason-or-Mason-or-Grayson and she recorded that message. Katy was hurt but not heartbroken. She moved on, two weeks later, to a guy my brother’s age who worked at the music store downtown, and she genuinely forgot Jason’s name. It was just that easy for her—people came and went in her world, an ever-rotating cast of characters, each one replaceable.
As I’m shivering in my car, waiting for her to call or text me back, it hits me that I’ve lasted a long time but might be next.
I dial her number again. Voice mail.
I text her:Call me ASAP.
I stay in the driver’s seat, my hands still shaking, watching the screen of my phone. But she doesn’t call.
Maybe because of her distance the past few days, it’s not hard to imagine this silence being as deliberate as her voice mail message, as the waiting-room music in Overton.
I’m on my own.
I climb out of the car and burst into the house, going over everything that happened at Overton again.
They said I needed a guardian’s permission for any procedures. Does that mean…Could my parents…
