You Know Me Well(45)

“So do you want to go?” Katie asks after I’m done. “Do you think he’ll read?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t know. What about you? Do you want to go to the Exploratorium?”

Our teacher is clearing his throat, waiting for us to settle down so he can start.

“Let me get back to you on that,” Katie says.

We make it through class. It’s the end of the year; there’s no real reason to pay attention except to be polite to the teacher as he goes through the motions.

As soon as the end bell rings, I turn to Katie for an answer.

“Yes,” she says. “But only because it’s the Exploratorium.”

*

I went to the Exploratorium so many times with my parents and on field trips as a kid, but the last time I went was with Ryan.

It was one of our first city excursions alone, and for two hours I wasn’t worrying if we were boyfriends or best friends, or if someone was going to see us, or if this was the moment it would all click into place. No—for two hours, we got to be kids, running around and playing. We got to fool around with sound waves and pulleys. We got to pixelate ourselves and dance as a projector turned us into shadows on a kaleidoscope-colored screen. At the end of an exhibit about artwork created in a nineteenth-century mental asylum, we waded through the comment box and found a comment card written by a young kid: I have lost my turtle. His name is Charles. For weeks after, we pretended to be looking for Charles.

“He couldn’t have gotten that far,” I’d say.

“Maybe we should try the Shell station,” Ryan would say back.

Eventually we forgot about Charles and moved on to other inside jokes, other references to what we’d shared and continued to share.

Charles is still out there, I’m thinking now. He must be entering his awkward teenage mutant ninja years by now.

I don’t turn to Ryan and say this, because it’s not Ryan who’s with me. It’s Katie, and she’d have no idea what I was talking about. I could explain it to her, but it wouldn’t be the same.

I feel like I’ve lost half of all the stories I know.

I hear Katie take a deep breath; we’re about to reach the door. I’m not going to ask her if she’s sure she wants to do this, because I don’t want to give her a chance to say no.

I text June to let her know we’re here.

I get a text back almost instantly.

Meet Violet by the mirrors.





16

Kate

I can’t find the mirrors.

I’ve checked the little paper map, but there’s so much to discover in here that it’s practically useless. Mark told me he’d wait for me in the shadow room. He said he’d be in there for a while, in case I needed him, and if I didn’t come back for him that would be a fine thing. A good thing.

“Just—don’t forget about the poetry slam, okay?”

“Yeah.”

“I really need you there.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Okay. I’ll be in here for a while, I think. My shadow has infinite potential.”

The clock in the room started counting down and he rushed in. I saw him leap up, arm extended like he was catching a fly ball, and the light flashed bright and went dark again.

And now I’m making my way through the wings, looking for the mirrors. There are children and adults, tourists and members, and they are all playing. They’re all engaged or at ease and I wish I could join them, but I need to find her.

I don’t know what I’m going to say yet. I don’t know what I’ll do. But what I do know is that Kylie’s voice has been in my head since last night and that she’s right. I’m the one holding myself back. I’m the one who can make everything change.

I walk past people pressing buttons as fast as they can, watching numbers grow on a screen above them. Past a guy staring at his own reflection. Past people wearing headphones and a group of kids holding magnets over a huge table. And then I stop short because I see Lehna and June and Uma. Lehna’s back is turned—thank God—but June sees me and her eyes go wide. Slowly, she lifts a hand to her side and points me down the hallway. I nod a silent thanks and head into the center of a group of tourists to pass them.

And there, finally, is Violet in front of a giant mirror. Her reflection is upside-down. As I walk closer to her, I appear there, too.

She smiles an upside-down smile.

I frown an upside-down frown.

Not at her, at myself, at the way I’ve been acting.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s June.

Quick! We’re heading in your direction! Trying to stall!

So I grab Violet’s hand and I lead her away from there, out of the wing of the museum that’s about sounds and light and into a greener space where the air feels cooler. All around us are giant tanks full of starfish and coral and anemones, and overturned trees with their roots in the air, and the greenest plants.

I let go of her, but she grabs my hands.

“Why are you here?” she asks me.

“To see you,” I say.

“But last night,” she says. “When I gave you an out, you took it. You’ve been so elusive.”

“You’re right,” I say.

“Why?” she asks. I open my mouth to answer, but she says, “Don’t answer yet. Let me tell you why I’m asking.”