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His face was right there, beautiful and shadowy in the flickering light. His lips were right there. With a courage possessed somewhere not within her body, she leaned forward ever so slightly and kissed his lips. It was a kiss and a question.
He answered the question by pulling her into him, pressing her body tightly against his with both arms, and his kiss was long and deep.
She had one last thought before she left off thinking and gave herself over to feeling. I never imagined heaven would be so hot.
As they had the past two nights, the nurses kicked Tibby out of Bailey's room when visiting hours ended at eight. She wasn't ready to go home yet. She called her mom and told her she was going to a movie. Her mom sounded relieved. Even she'd noticed that Tibby hadn't been having a lot of fun.
Tibby saw the lights of the 7-Eleven in the distance, and they beckoned to her. Inside she was glad to see Brian McBrian hunched over Dragon Master.
When he turned around and saw her watching him, he smiled broadly. “Hi, Tibby,” he said shyly. He took not even the slightest notice of her pajamas or her horrifying appearance.
“What level?” she asked.
He didn't try to mask his pride. “Twenty-five.”
“No way!” she said appreciatively.
She watched with tingly suspense his long heroic battle through the volcano of level twenty-six, until he got sizzled in lava.
“Awww,” she said.
He shrugged happily. “That was a good one. You wouldn't want to win all the time.”
She nodded. She thought for a while. “Hey, Brian?”
“Yeah?”
“Will you teach me how to play Dragon Master?”
“Sure,” he said.
With the patience and enthusiasm of a true teacher, Brian coached her all the way up to level seven, the first dragon. Even as her curvaceous heroine perished with a sword through her belly, he beamed with pride. “You're a natural dragon slayer,” he praised her.
“Thank you,” she said, feeling truly grateful for the compliment.
“How's Bailey?” he asked her, his face going grave.
“She's in the hospital,” Tibby told him.
He nodded. “I know. I've been visiting her at lunchtime.” He suddenly had an idea. “Wait a second; I want to show you something.” He retrieved a dilapidated backpack. “I got this for her.”
Tibby looked. It was a Sega Dreamcast machine and a copy of Dragon Warrior, the home version of Dragon Master. “It's not as good as the real thing,” he explained. “But it will keep her in practice.”
Tibby felt tears spring into her eyes. “She'll love it,” she said.
Later, as Tibby walked down Old Georgetown Road, she carried a leftover high from her game of Dragon Master. She was already thinking about level eight. It was the first time in days she had felt that particular feeling of looking forward to something.
Maybe, she thought as she walked, Brian McBrian was onto something important. Maybe happiness didn't have to be about the big, sweeping circumstances, about having everything in your life in place. Maybe it was about stringing together a bunch of small pleasures. Wearing slippers and watching the Miss Universe contest. Eating a brownie with vanilla ice cream. Getting to level seven in Dragon Master and knowing there were twenty levels to go.
Maybe happiness was just a matter of the little upticks—the traffic signal that said “Walk” the second you got there—and downticks—the itchy tag at the back of your collar—that happened to every person in the course of a day. Maybe everybody had the same allotted measure of happiness within each day.
Maybe it didn't matter if you were a world-famous heartthrob or a painful geek. Maybe it didn't matter if your friend was possibly dying.
Maybe you just got through it. Maybe that was all you could ask for.
It was her last breakfast with Bapi, her last morning in Greece. In her frenetic bliss that kept her up till dawn, she'd scripted a whole conversation in Greek for her and Bapi to have as their grand finale of the summer. Now she looked at him contentedly munching on his Rice Krispies, waiting for the right juncture for launch time.
He looked up at her briefly and smiled, and she realized something important. This was how it was supposed to be. This was how they both liked it. Though most people felt bonded and comforted by conversation, Lena and Bapi were two of the kind who didn't. They bonded by the routine of just eating cereal together.
She promptly forgot her script and went back to her cereal.
At one point, when she was down to just milk, Bapi reached over and put his hand on hers. “You're my girl,” he said.
And Lena knew she was.
Tibby sat in her usual spot on Bailey's bed two days later, and she knew Bailey was getting worse. Bailey didn't look scared or solemn, but the nurses and nurses' aides did. They dropped their eyes every time Tibby looked directly at one of them.
Bailey was playing Dragon Warrior as her dad snoozed in a chair by the window. She tipped her head back on the pillow, clearly needing a rest. “Will you play for me?” she asked Tibby.
Tibby nodded and took over the controls.
“When are your friends getting back?” Bailey asked in a sleepy voice.
“Carmen is home again. Lena and Bridget will be back next week.”
“That's nice,” Bailey said. Her eyes were closing for longer and longer periods of time.
Tibby noticed there were two more beeping monitors in the room today.
“How's Brian?” Bailey asked.
“He's great. He got me to level ten,” Tibby said.
Bailey smiled. She left her eyes closed. “He's a worthwhile guy,” she murmured.
Tibby laughed, remembering the phrase. “He is. You were right and I was wrong. Like always.”
“Not true,” Bailey said. Her face was as white as an angel's.
“It is too true. I judge people without knowing them,” Tibby said.
“But you change your mind,” Bailey said, her voice slow and drifting.
Tibby paused at the controls of Dragon Warrior, thinking Bailey was asleep.
“Keep playing,” Bailey ordered in a whisper.
Tibby kept playing until eight o'clock, when the nurses kicked her out.
Lena,
Something happened. It isn't how I imagined. I need to talk to you, but I can't say it here. I'm just . . . strange. I'm strange to myself.
Bee
Lena,
I can't sleep. I'm scared. I wish I could talk to you.
Lena read Bridget's letters on the flight from Athens. Both the ones she'd been getting throughout the summer, and the ones she'd picked up at the post office on the way to the airport. The plane cruised through time zones, and Lena's heart made the painful journey from the forge in Oia, where she wanted it to be, to a girls' soccer camp in Baja, where she felt it was needed.
Lena had known Bee well enough and long enough to be worried. She knew Bee's life had been remade at one time. There were fault lines from then. Bee sprinted along in a torrent of activity, but once in a while something unexpected slammed her hard. It left Bee slow and uncertain. She fretted. She wasn't good at putting herself back together. Bridget was like a toddler sometimes. She grasped for power. She demanded it. But when she got her way, she was left only with herself, and that terrified her. Her mom was gone, and her dad was timid and out of touch. She needed to know someone was looking out for her. She needed someone to promise her that the world wasn't empty.
