The Best Possible Answer(24)

“Dude,” Virgo yells. “You killed our streak!”

“Holy crap!” Evan fumbles for the ball. “You weren’t kidding. That is terrifying!”

“I told you!” I laugh.

Virgo slams his paddle on the table and high-fives me. “And that means Viviana and I are the triumphant World Champions of Extreme Ping-Pong!”

“The tournament isn’t over yet,” Evan says. “It’s only just begun.”

Virgo checks his phone. “Sorry, man. I’ve got to get out of here. Meeting my girl for dinner.”

I check my phone. Sammie hasn’t texted back yet. I text her again: You on your way? Not sure how much longer we’ll all be here. Virgo’s leaving. Come quick. I’m saving lover boy 4 u.

Virgo leaves, and it’s just Evan and me and the thunder and lightning. There are patches of blue now in the sky, but the rain’s still pounding down pretty hard. “Want to just watch the storm?” he asks.

“Sure,” I say. We put the paddles back and sit on the floor at the edge of the window. This very large party room suddenly feels very small now that Virgo’s gone.

Outside the window, the sky is thick with clouds. On clear days, we can see all of the city from up here—Lake Michigan, the Hancock Building and all of Michigan Avenue to the east, Willis Tower and all of downtown to the south. Now, the entire city’s disappeared behind the storm, and it’s just us: Evan and me, and no one else. I suddenly feel like I’m sitting too close to him. I slide a few inches away, and I make it look like it’s so I can rest my back against the wall.

“You okay?”

“What?” I say. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“That was a fun game.”

“It was.” I look at my phone. No text from Sammie. “I don’t know why she isn’t writing back.”

“Who?”

“Sammie,” I say.

“Right.” There’s more lightning. Evan presses his head against the window and counts under his breath, and then the thunder rumbles, enough to shake the whole building again. “Ten miles away. Looks like it’s moving this way.”

I check my phone again: 6:35. Nothing. “I should probably get going soon.”

Evan lifts his head and looks at me. “I’m sorry Professor Cox upset you. He can be brutal sometimes.”

“Brutal,” I say with a laugh. “Okay, if that’s what you want to call it.”

“He’s a good man, really. And he speaks some very real truths that, as much as they’re difficult to hear, can be incredibly enlightening.”

“I just—you know what? Never mind.”

“What?”

“Well—I don’t understand, why you like him so much, I mean. He doesn’t seem that smart to me—brutal, sure—but I don’t see that there’s much to like about him.”

Evan turns around, presses his back against the window, and thinks for a minute. “I think he’s had a really hard life. He’s told me a few things and—” I’m about to ask him what things, when Evan looks at me. “Professor Cox was the only one who knows that I’ve changed my major to music. Well, now him—and you.”

“Oh.”

“He’s the first person who told me that I should do what I want with my life. That it’s my life to live. That I’m not allowed to live according to my father’s logic. My dad’s dream is for me to be a CEO of some corporation. He only signed me up for violin because playing an instrument is supposed to help you be better at math. I could hardly even hold a pencil, and yet he had me holding a violin and a bow and going to classes two times a week and making me wake up every day before school to practice at five A.M. Only it completely backfired on him, because I’m mediocre at math, but apparently I’m a whiz at music.”

I nod. “My dad makes me untangle all my knots.”

“What?”

“He has all these rules. One is called ‘Learning from past mistakes.’ Like, he absolutely hates when my cords get all tangled. Headphones. Computer cords.” I laugh. “And a necklace? God forbid. He says, ‘If you’d just take a minute to do it right, you’ll save yourself hours of frustration later. Learn from your past mistakes, Viviana. Learn, and change your future behaviors.’ But the thing is, he’s the one who’s frustrated by it. They’re my cords, my necklaces, so why do they bother him?”

“Here,” he says, reaching for the strings on my hoodie.

I laugh. “What are you doing?”

He leans in close and ties the end of each string into a double and then a triple knot. His fingers brush the skin on my neck, and I can’t help but shiver.

“There,” Evan says. “Your knots are none of his business.”

His eyes meet mine, and we both smile. Lightning streaks across the sky and we start counting in unison—“One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand”—all the way to five one thousand, when the building shakes around us with what feels like an explosion of thunder. Even though we knew it was coming, we both jump. He grabs for my hands at the same time that I grab for his, and we’re suddenly holding each other tight, and then we’re laughing at the ridiculousness of our own surprise.