“Your dad had just died, right? I’m pretty sure he wanted to make sure you weren’t rushing into anything.”
It’s weird because Jason and I never really talked about my father’s death. It came up here and there, of course, but it was never something we sat around and specifically discussed. To be honest, I doubted Jason—or anyone—wanted the boring, undignified details of how I was crying myself to sleep or trying to remember the last thing I’d ever said to my dad or thinking about random lines from random books Dad and I had spent hours dissecting over the phone. But hearing Holden’s take, hearing that Jasonwastaking it into consideration even when it didn’t seem like he was, feels like the sudden clearing of an overcast sky. It makes total sense. Why didn’t I ask Holden sooner?
“You really think so?” I say, close to tearing up.
I feel completely stupid for ever thinking Jason might be old-fashioned or anything but thoughtful.
It’s just the coma, I tell myself. It’s missing him and not being able to hear his reassuring voice.
But what it shows me is that reading an unconscious boy’s mind might not be as impossible as it sounds. If I ask the right questions, I can absolutely figure out what Jason was thinking.
***
“I love that you visit every day,” Jason’s mother tells me, holding my hand with the ring when I stop by the hospital later that week. It’s part of my daily routine—wake up an hour earlier than normal, go for a run, go to the hospital, then go to school.
“He would do the same thing for me,” I say, because I dothinkhe would. Before we broke up, anyway.
I have taken up conversing with Jason as if he is awake. I almost feel like if I just keep talking, at some point he’s going to be forced to give in and speak back. So I make all sorts of bargains with him in my head. I fill him in on trivial school news and silly student council drama in exchange for the answer to whether he still loves me. I read him the scores of his favorite soccer teams in the hopes that he’ll tell me when the thought of breaking up first crossed his mind. I even play some of the country music he likes, and that one is for the ultimate truth: why he broke my heart.
The thing I’ll never admit to Mrs.R or to anyone is that most of the time I feel like I’m playing pretend. I don’t know that Jason can hear me. I feel like I’m shouting across the Grand Canyon, across consciousness, across waking and sleeping, and all I hear is the echo of my own voice.
“That’s the beautiful thing about finding your life partner so young,” Mrs.R is saying. “Everything is so simple.”
The wordslife partnermake me choke on my saliva. An image of two mules being chained together for eternity suddenly flits through my brain. I mean, sure, a promise ring is a commitment, but life is, like, so many more decades. It’s college and marriageand kids and houses and retirement. Things I can’t even begin to think about when I’m in high school. We talk about forever all the time, but I have no idea if I want allthosethings with Jason. Or if he wants them with me. The realization that he probably didn’t at the very end doesn’t even sting, because what does either of us know about the future? But I have to act like I deserve the ring she gave me. I have to act like I deserve Jason.
“So simple,” I tell Mrs.R, though the truth is that nothing feels simple at all.
When I get home that afternoon, I go for a shorter stress run, sweating out all the questions and frustration and uncertainty. After, I’m legitimately researching mind-reading when someone knocks. Three precisely spaced raps are my only warning before my door swings open and Mom walks in. “You decent?”
“Yep!” I say, eyes immediately jerking over the pile of laundry I haven’t put away yet on my computer chair. I also haven’t vacuumed in almost a week or finished my homework. My immediate thought is to reach for the “near-death experience” excuse, but thankfully I don’t need to. Mom doesn’t mention any of the things we can both see I haven’t done.
It’s evening but she’s still dressed in her work suit, hair styled, makeup on. “I have a proposition for you,” she says, sitting on the edge of my bed. “What do you say we get dinner together, just the two of us?”
I immediately sit up straighter. “Right now?”
The last time Mom and I went out to dinner was my birthday, and Mom’s assistant, A.J., joined us so they could “work out some things” while we ate. I felt like a third wheel, unnecessary, on anight that was supposed to be mine. Mom’s schedule is insane since she’s campaigning for reelection in addition to her regular duties, so the idea of having her full attention for even a couple of hours sounds like a dream. Maybe I actually will tell her I’ve been feeling off. Or maybe I can tell her something bigger, like about how I’ve gotten in further with the Jason lie than I ever meant to. Maybe she’ll be able to help me figure some way out, or tell me that it’s not as big a deal as I think it is, and we’ll just laugh about the whole thing.
The thought makes me feel something I haven’t felt since the accident: hopeful.
“Not tonight,” she says quickly, “but let’s aim for as soon as you send your last college application in.”
I force a smile. “That sounds great.”
“We can do an early fall lobster dinner since we finally have our town back,” Mom says sassily. She’s referring to the fact that Sterlingwood—like most coastal towns in New England, really—is overrun by visitors from May to August. As mayor, she actually loves this increase in tourism, but people who live here have been known to use words likeinsects,deluge, andvermin. Real Sterlingwooders know, though, that you just have to wait out the summer, that the lobster will still be there after everyone has gone home. Peak season is not four months long, as many people think, but all the way up to December most years.
“We’ll make a thing of it,” Mom promises. “But anyway, I have something for you.”
My stomach is as tight as a clenched fist. “You do?”
She hands me a piece of paper with a name and email addressscribbled in her slanty handwriting. “This is the contact information of my friend who went to Princeton. You should write him and find out about his experience, let it whet your appetite. Actually, his daughter started at NYU last year. She might have tips on the process in general.
“She might even make a good case for New York,” Mom says with a wink.
I feel hot and itchy, like I might be breaking out in hives. I know Mom is trying to help, but lately the sheer act of talking about college fills me with dread. Talking to one of Mom’s friends about it or having someone suggest more options will only make that worse.
“Oh, um, thanks.”
“You should write tonight.”
