There’s a blurry haze surrounding him, keeping him separate from me. Because soon we’re dissolving, both of us breaking into less and less until there’s nothing left of either of us.
But instead of waking up in my room, in my bed, I’m in a large room with fluorescent lights and lockers everywhere. In another memory. And Marcus is still by my side.
Two dreams in a row—this has never happened before.
Is this another side effect of the medication?
I don’t know and I don’t find out, because by this point,I’mangry. “Why does everything have to be a pissing contest between you and Jason? Seriously. Maybe I just like you. Has it occurred to you that that’s a possibility? That I just like you?”
“If you liked me, why are you dating my cousin?”
“Because your cousin asked me out?” I say. “Because he didn’t just never talk to me again as soon as he moved to my school. He didn’t avoid me in the halls and act weird around me until I started hearing that he didn’t like me. So,yeah, I fell in love with Jason. Sue me.”
Marcus shakes his head. “Come on.”
“Come on,what?” I ask, fired up.
“You didn’t fall in love with Jason. You chose him because he was safe. You chose him for the same reason you choose everything else: because it’s good, it’s what you’resupposedto like.”
I am furious. Livid.
So furious and so livid that I shove Marcus hard in the chest.
To my annoyance, he doesn’t budge. And right then, the smell of dirty socks and mildew becomes impossible to ignore.
“Oh, Jesus.” I pull my shirt over my nose.
I realize we are in the boys’ locker room at school. In this memory, Marcus and Jason are talking, surrounded by other boys in various states of undress.
“Are you really going to tell me…” Marcus blinks. Seems to realize where we are now too.
“Oh, come on!” he shouts up at the sky. Except because we’re indoors, he’s shouting at the ceiling. “Hilarious. Really hilarious.”
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing, but we don’t need to watch this,” he says, taking meby the shoulders and trying to guide me out of the locker room. I shrug him off.
“I want to see.”
“Of course you want to see. There’s nothing to see.”
Except, clearly, there is. Because Past Jason and Past Marcus are sitting down on opposite sides of a bench. Jason and Marcus are both a year younger. I can tell because Marcus’s hair is slightly shorter, like it was when I first met him. Jason, meanwhile, hadn’t yet gotten on the protein kick that would make him even bigger than he is in this dream.
As we watch, Jason whacks some kid walking by with a towel.
“Ouch!” the kid says at the same time I, in this future moment, flinch too. In front of us, Past Marcus is starting to get dressed. “Hey, do any of you know Zadie Cartwright? She’s kinda cute.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “You thought I was cute?”
“No, I thought you were incredible,” Marcus says, still annoyed. “And funny. And smart. And a lot of other things.”
Against all odds, my anger begins to fade. The girl Marcus said he’s been trying to get over all year…could it be…am I her? “But you never asked me out,” I say quietly. “And you were such a jerk when school started.”
Marcus sighs. “Just watch,” he says.
“Oh no, no, no,” Jason says, standing too now. He hooks an arm around his cousin’s neck. “Stay far away from that one. Trust me, we’ve been in the same classes forever, and she wants a Ken doll.”
I open my mouth in disbelief. I’ve never heard Jason talk about me like this before.
