Starry Eyes(10)

I wonder if I can really do the camping and the meteor shower.

It would take a lot of planning.

I dash off a quick text to Reagan: So, about this glamping trip. Who’s going? Are you driving? What day are you leaving?

She responds almost immediately: Slow your roll. I’m in bed. Super tired. Want to go pick up camping gear with me tomorrow afternoon? We can talk about it then.

I’m both relieved and disappointed. Relieved, because I guess it’s cool with her that I tag along. And disappointed, because though I need to plan things well in advance, Reagan does everything by the seat of her pants. She’s always telling me I need to lighten up and embrace spontaneity.

Spontaneity gives me hives.

Literally.

I have chronic urticaria. That’s a fancy name for chronic hives. They’re idiopathic, which means doctors can’t pinpoint an exact cause for why, when, and how long they flare. Sometimes when I eat certain foods, touch an allergen, or—especially—get super anxious, itchy pale-red bumps appear on the inside of my elbows and on my stomach. If I don’t calm down and take an antihistamine, they’ll spread into huge welts off and on for days, or even weeks. It’s been several months since I’ve had a breakout, but between Reagan and this thing with my dad, I can already feel the itch coming on.

I answer Reagan’s text, asking for details about meeting her tomorrow. Then I assemble my telescope and set up the tripod in the middle of the balcony’s open doors.

As I’m adjusting the mount, I look over the balcony railing to scan the cul-de-sac. Viewed from up here, our street looks like a fat raindrop, its center filled with a dozen public parking spaces. At night, they’re mostly empty, so I have a pretty clear view of the other side of the street, where I spot Lennon’s car. It’s hard to miss. He drives this hulking black 1950s Chevy that looks like a hearse, with pointy tailfins cradling a hatchback door that lifts up to carry the coffins, or whatever dastardly thing he hauls back there. And right now, it’s parked in front of a pale blue duplex house directly across the street from us: the Mackenzies’ apartment unit.

I can’t pinpoint the exact moment Lennon morphed from the boy-next-door comic geek to the boy-in-black horrorphile, but I guess he’s always been a little odd. Some of that may be due to how he grew up. His biological dad—Adam Ahmed, who used to date Mac—is the former guitarist for a radical San Francisco punk band that was popular during the Bay Area’s ’90s punk revival explosion. His moms took three-year-old Lennon on tour when his dad’s band opened for Green Day.

So yeah, he hasn’t always led a so-called normal life, but he always seemed normal.

Until junior year, that is. After the night of the homecoming dance, we didn’t speak for days. No more hiking down to the Jitterbug to get coffee after school. No more night walks. Weeks passed. I’d see him occasionally at school, but our brief interactions were tense. He started hanging around other people.

Golden light shines from a window on the corner of the Mackenzies’ house. Lennon’s room. I know it well. We used to signal each other from our windows before sneaking out late at night to meet up for walks around the neighborhood with Andromeda.

We made a game of creating and naming detailed routes. Lennon would draw them all out, streets labeled with his neat handwriting and tiny sketches. He’s drawn maps since we were kids. Some were fantasy maps based on books he read; he redrew Middle Earth about twenty times. And some were of Melita Hills. That’s how our friendship started, actually. I’d just moved to Melita Hills and didn’t know my way around, so he made me a neighborhood map of the Mission Street area. He gave me a larger, updated one for my birthday last year—one that included our favorite late-night walking route, which extended out along a bicycling path curving around the Bay. It had funny little drawings, all the points of interest we considered important, and a legend of symbols he’d made up.

It’s currently upside down at the bottom of the same drawer where I’ve hidden my dad’s stupid photo book. I wanted to throw it away after we stopped speaking, but I couldn’t make myself do it, because that walking route he drew? It’s where the Great Experiment started.

Who knew walking could lead to heartbreak?

Out of curiosity, I screw on a low-power eyepiece and hesitantly aim my assembled telescope toward the Mackenzies’ duplex. Just for a quick look. It’s not as if I usually spy on all the neighbors. I quickly focus on Lennon’s room. It’s empty. Thank God. After an adjustment, I can see an unmade bed and, right beyond it, his reptile terrariums. The last time I was in his room, there were only two, but now there are at least six sitting on shelves and one big floor model. It’s a freaking jungle up in there.

I scan the rest of his room. He has a TV and a million DVDs stacked precariously, out of their cases. Probably all horror movies. An enormous map hangs over his desk. A map of what, I’m not sure, but it’s professional, not one that’s he’s drawn himself—definitely not one of our late-night walking routes. Silly even to think it could be.

A shadow catches my eye as the door to his room swings open and closes. Lennon walks into view. One by one, I watch him turn off lights and heat lamps inside the terrariums. Then he sits on the edge of his bed and begins unlacing his boots.

That’s my cue to bail.

Only, I don’t.

I watch him take off both boots and chuck them in the middle of his floor. Then he tugs up his shirt and pulls it off. Now he’s bare-chested, wearing only black jeans. I should definitely look away before this turns X-rated. But holy mother of God, when did he get all . . . built? I mean, it’s no soccer-player physique, or anything. He’s too lean to be buff. But he flops on his bed, lying on his back with his arms spread, and stares at the ceiling while I keep staring at him.