A Danger to Herself and Others(22)

I’m going to teach you to surf, he declared once while we lay in bed. (Agnes was in class.)

I didn’t know you surfed. The sun streamed in through the open window above my bed, so bright I had to squint.

Jonah grinned, his eyes narrowing irresistibly. I don’t, but I’m pretty sure I’ll pick it up quickly.

And then you’re going to teach me?

Yup.

I rolled over onto my stomach and propped myself up on my elbows. What makes you think I’m not going to pick it up quickly and end up teaching you?

Jonah grinned again. Don’t get cocky, city girl. He put his hand on the back of my head and leaned in for a kiss.

Now, I’m surrounded by mountains and sky, but the window doesn’t open and they don’t let me outside. I imagine my brain atrophying in the recycled air-conditioned air while Jonah is out hiking Mount Rainier, his brain getting stronger with every step he takes.

It’s like being trapped on an airplane, the air in here.

Of course, Jonah might not be hiking through Washington State. He might be a few miles away, stationed at Agnes’s bedside, waiting for her to awake from her coma (if she’s still in a coma), breathing air every bit as cold and recycled as the air in here.

After Agnes’s parents showed up at the hospital but before I was sent here, I went back to the dorms, but I didn’t see Jonah. He must have been in class or at the gym or in the library. Maybe he’d gone to Santa Cruz for the weekend, so he could learn to surf before we went there together. I never had a chance to tell him what happened. I never had a chance to say goodbye.

But maybe Agnes’s parents called him after I was gone. He could have driven straight from the beach to the hospital. Maybe when he showed up, there was still sand stuck between his toes and his hair was wet and dark with salt water.

Maybe he feels trapped beside Agnes, just like I’m trapped in here. Maybe he finally wants to break up with her, but he can’t figure out how to go about it because she’s still unconscious and he’s a good guy so he has to stay at her bedside to comfort her even though she might not be able to hear him.

Maybe he’s silently brainstorming all the ways he could break up with Agnes before she wakes up. He could do it through her parents (also stationed at her bedside), leaving them to convey the message once their daughter wakes up. He could leave a letter, but he wouldn’t because no one writes letters anymore. I imagine Agnes waking up to a slew of text messages on her phone, mostly from people wishing her well, but one from Jonah ending their relationship.

The image is almost enough to make me laugh out loud.

I know what you’re thinking: How good of a guy can Jonah possibly be? He cheated on his girlfriend (Agnes) with her best friend (me).

And okay, yes. He did. But he felt really bad about it.

It didn’t start right away. I mean, it wasn’t as though he and Agnes got together and he immediately turned to me. It was more gradual than that. He hated his roommate, so he spent a lot of time in our room, even when Agnes wasn’t there. So we ended up spending a lot of time together. Plus, he and I were in the same American Studies lecture on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we sort of fell in step walking to and from class.

All right, I admit it: I flirted with him. But I had met him first. I had liked him first. I couldn’t help it.

I didn’t tell Agnes that I liked him before they got together. Maybe if I had, she would have turned him down. Jonah’s voice: A sweet girl. Sweet enough to turn her back on a boy her best friend liked? It doesn’t matter. In the end, I got to be with him anyway. Not that I would have wanted to be with him after she turned him down—a last resort, a consolation prize. The way things turned out, I knew I wasn’t his second choice because he got to be with Agnes, but he chose me too.

At first, on our walks to and from class, he didn’t flirt back. I honestly thought he didn’t like me—spoiled girl from the big city, nothing like Agnes, the good girl (sweet girl) from the heartland. The perfect companion for a boy who’d grown up in the shadow of Mount Rainier, hiking and camping every weekend.

But then one Tuesday after class, halfway between our classroom and the dormitory, Jonah took my hand.

He didn’t say anything, so I didn’t either. I was scared that if I acknowledged it, he’d let go. It didn’t last that long. Just a few steps together—maybe the length of a city block—and then he gently dropped my hand.

He did the same thing on Thursday. And again the following Tuesday.

But the Thursday after that, he squeezed my hand tight and tugged me to follow him behind the campus athletic center.

He pushed me up against the wall and stood with his face over mine, so close that I had to tilt my head up to see him.

He kissed my neck first, along my collarbones. He ran his hands over my hips and around my waist, his touch featherlight, like he was barely touching me at all. I was scared that if I moved or said anything, he’d stop, so I kept perfectly still, waiting for him to kiss me—not my neck, not my ears, but my mouth.

Finally, when I’d begun to think it wasn’t going to happen after all, his lips met mine.

It was the middle of the day. The sun was bright overhead. We were behind the gym, but we were hardly hidden.

Still, we didn’t stop.

The next time Jonah came to our room when Agnes wasn’t around, I knew it wasn’t because he hated his roommate.