A List of Cages(61)

Julian isn’t eating, in spite of the nurse scolding him last night like a pushy grandmother. Under her stern glare, he shrank back into his bed and mumbled, “My stomach hurts.”

“You have to eat,” she insisted. “We’ve got to get you back up to fighting weight.”

He relented and drank another protein shake, but he wouldn’t touch solid food.

It’s past midnight now, and he’s asleep, but the TV’s on. I tried muting it sometime—yesterday?—but he woke up panicked, said it was too quiet. So it stays on all the time, tuned to Nickelodeon or the Disney Channel or some other network meant for kids.

I’m lying on the fold-out bed by the window, scanning all my texts on the new phone Mom brought me a few hours ago. She’s convinced that Julian and I could’ve both died the other night and it would’ve been her fault since she didn’t replace the phone immediately.

There’re a million messages—mostly from Emerald and Charlie—but there are also a bunch from people who never text me. I don’t know if they’re genuinely concerned or just curious. Deciding not to respond to any of them, I turn off the phone. I pull the thin blanket up, close my eyes, and try to sleep under the extreme bright colors, high-pitched kid voices, and studio-audience laughter.


I wake up inside the refrigerator box. It looks exactly like I remember, only smaller—or maybe I’m bigger. Darren’s glossy photos of insects cover every surface. Their prehistoric-looking bodies are grotesque, but they’re sad too. Hard evidence of all the time he spends alone in here.

A picture of an enormous copper-backed beetle catches my attention. It has long antennas, black leathery wings, shiny black legs with a dozen joints in each one. I’m looking right at it when a single antenna twitches.

I jump back, hitting my head against the wall behind me, but the cardboard doesn’t give. It’s cold and immobile like polished steel. Breathing hard, I squint at the photo. It’s just a picture—not real. But as I’m watching, both antennas straighten as if it can sense me. All at once a thousand black shiny eyes blink, and the box fills with noise.

Buzzing, chirping, grinding.

There are millions of them. Flying through the air. Crawling down the walls. They fill the box. They cover my skin.

Adam.

I kick and punch the walls, but they’re made of metal. I scream, but no one hears me.

Adam.

I can’t get out.

“Adam!”

I’m half-sitting, half-lying on the fold-out bed in the hospital room. No bugs, no noise except the chirping sounds of Julian’s machines. I sit up, still disoriented and afraid. Julian’s watching me, the television projecting light across his face.

“You were having a nightmare,” he says. “Are you okay?”

I’m not. I’m still scared, and the room’s too small. “Yeah. Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“What were you dreaming about?”

I kick the blanket off, feeling hot even though it’s always freezing in here, and I stand up. “Prom. I had three dates, but they didn’t know about each other.”

Julian laughs softly, recognizing the plot of about five different Nick at Nite episodes we’ve seen this week.

“They found out about each other, of course, and then they all teamed up to plan some seriously scary revenge scenarios.”

He laughs again, looking like a little kid under his mountain of blankets.

I glance at the clock. “It’s late. You should go back to sleep.”

He nods agreeably, but waits till I’m on the fold-out bed and I’ve pulled the blanket up to my chin before he closes his eyes.





JULIAN’S WATCHING SOME god-awful show about two twin brothers who run a hotel, and I’m making a halfhearted attempt to finish my Calculus homework, when Charlie peeks his head in the room.

“Can I come in?” he asks.

“Hey, man,” I say. I look over at Julian, who nods. “Yeah, come in.”

Charlie glances around at the flowers and balloons, looking huge and out of place in this room with all its happy animals. “I didn’t bring anything.”

“That’s okay,” I tell him.

He stands there looking totally awkward till I kick a chair in his direction. The three of us watch TV without talking for a few minutes, then a nurse pops in and announces it’s time for another test. She transfers Julian to a wheelchair and rolls him away.

Still looking at the TV, Charlie mumbles, “He’s pretty beat up.”

“You should’ve seen him last week.”

“Yeah.” He looks guilty. “I wanted to. I just didn’t know if…I wasn’t sure if—”

“It’s fine, Charlie.”

Another long stretch of nothing but those annoying, screeching twins till he says, with the tone of someone confessing a mortal sin, “I used to be jealous of him.”

“I know.”

“I mean really jealous.” Guilty eyes study his hands. “I don’t know why, but it was like I-wanted-to-punch-him-in-the-face kind of jealous.”

“But you didn’t. You’d never actually hurt anyone.” He’s still looking down when the ice-cream truck lullaby plays overhead. “Another baby.”