A List of Cages(43)

“I’m naked, and I’m not embarrassed.”

“Well, you don’t feel things like normal people.” Now she pulls the sheet up over her face, muffling her words. “You don’t get nervous or shy or jealous. Nothing affects you like that.”

“I feel things.” Maybe I don’t get worked up the way some people do, but I can feel.

She lowers the sheet just below her eyes. “That’s not what I mean. I’m not saying it right.”

I crawl into the bed, propping up my head up on one hand, waiting for her to say more.

“It’s just…you’re sort of unbreakable.”

I laugh. “Unbreakable?”

“I mean, nothing ever bothers you. I guess that’s why everyone loves you. You’re so comfortable with yourself, you make everyone else feel comfortable too. And you’re strong, like what hurts most people can’t hurt you. But sometimes it seems like you don’t need people. Like if this—us—works, you’ll be fine with that, but if it doesn’t, you’ll still be okay. You won’t break. Not the way I would.”

It’s like we’re back in the center of the labyrinth—that magic place where she doesn’t stand like a soldier and she’s compelled to tell me the truth about everything.

“Emerald.” I touch her cheek, poking at her scattered moles like a game of connect-the-dots. “However you’re seeing me, it’s not true. I need you as much as you need me.”

She doesn’t believe me—I can tell—but she wants to. Her hand moves to my neck, squeezes. My hand moves down to her sheet. This time she lets me pull it away.





EMERALD AND I walk hand in hand across the parking lot after school. We stayed in the cabin a total of five days—not nearly long enough. She keeps looking at me with soft-shoulder contentment. I kiss her, then unlock the van, and we wait for it to fill up.

Jesse’s first to hop inside, and immediately he grabs the auxiliary cord to plug in his iPod.

“Hey, man,” I say to Charlie a couple minutes later when he joins Jesse in the back. “Why didn’t you drive today?” He finally saved up enough to buy his own car—a black Jeep.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he growls just as Camila slides into the van, forcing him to the middle.

Emerald and I exchange confused looks. Normally this would be when Allison would give his back a comforting pat, but unfortunately, she and Charlie are currently off.

“I just figured you’d be pumped to drive. You’ve been complaining about my car for two years,” I joke.

He glares at his phone. “Text your mom. When you don’t answer her, she texts me. She did that the whole spring break, and lying for you got really fucking annoying.” He scowls through the window at Julian, who’s headed our way. “You’re seriously giving him a ride? Again?”

I see Julian’s worried face, and I get pissed off. “You know what, Charlie? If you have a problem with Julian, you don’t have to ride with us.”

The van goes quiet, and Charlie looks at me with high-level betrayal, like I just slept with Allison or something.

“Whatever.” He grabs his backpack, but he’s too freakin tall to make a smooth exit, so there’s a lot of angry unfolding and shuffling. He shoves past a scared-confused Julian.

“What the hell?” I ask.

Emerald pats my back.




“Anything interesting happen today?” Adam asks on Tuesday as we’re walking down the hall.

“Not really.” But I am relieved school has started again. Spring break was the longest, loneliest week of my life.

“How’s the play going?”

“Miss Cross is unhappy that no one memorized their lines.”

Adam laughs. “Did she really expect people to study over spring break?”

“Yes.”

He laughs again. “Well, how are yours coming?”

“I almost know them.” The first sentence isn’t so hard, but after Hamlet’s mother responds, I have ten uninterrupted lines, ones that don’t make any sense. When I studied over the break, I thought I could at least read them. Then I got to English, opened my mouth, and watched the words on the page slide together. After stuttering and stuttering, Miss Cross told me to just practice when I got home.

“Adam?”

“Yeah?”

“Have you ever heard of Alma, Colorado?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“What about Village of the Taos Ski Valley, New Mexico?”

“Nope. Why?”

One of the pages in my mother’s notebook is a list of cities. She never mentioned them, not that I can remember, but they have to mean something. Why would she write them down unless they meant something? Maybe they were places she’d been, but I don’t know all the places she’d been.

“Planning a road trip or something?” he asks.

“No. I don’t have a car. And I don’t know how to drive.”

Adam chuckles. “I know.”

“But I would go there. I think they must be nice places.”

We turn a corner, and there is Miss West. I flinch away so fast that I step onto one of Adam’s red high-tops, making him stumble. By the time he’s righting himself, she’s gone.