Expelled(41)

“I’m sure it’s a masterpiece,” Jere7my says drily. “And I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear the Star Wars diss.”

“What are you losers talking about?”

We all look up. It’s Sasha, in faded jeans and a too-big UCLA sweatshirt, carrying a box of Gold Star doughnuts. Is it even remotely necessary to say how happy I am to see her?

I didn’t think so.

She reaches into a pocket and pulls out her iPhone. “Wave to the camera,” she demands. “Tell it how much you love me for bringing you doughnuts.”

Jude puts his hand over his heart. “I pledge my undying love for you forever if you brought me a Kevin Bacon.”

“I think you’re going to have to love me all the way into the afterlife, actually,” Sasha says, “because I brought you two.”

Jere7my stares hungrily at the box of sweets. “I am experiencing sudden yet surprisingly deep feelings of affection for you,” he says.

Sasha turns to me, smiling her ravishing smile. “What about you, Theo? How much do you love me?”

Um…





38


Honestly, I have to think she knows the answer to that question. If she doesn’t, maybe she’s not the genius I thought she was.

“Foster pleads the Fifth,” Jere7my says and grabs a chocolate doughnut.

“No, actually, I don’t,” I say. “I can’t love you for the doughnuts, because I’m mad at you.”

Sasha raises one dark eyebrow. “Why on earth?”

“You didn’t dance with me,” I say. And while this is true, I’m not really mad about that. I’m hurt that she pulled her vanishing act again. And also? If I said anything more right now, I’d probably confess how I feel about her, which isn’t something I want to do in front of Jude and Jere7my.

She laughs. “Poor Theo. But I can remedy that, you know,” she says.

She walks over to the jerry-rigged stereo and plugs in her phone, and then the melancholy, gorgeous opening chords of “Heroes” by David Bowie come through the speakers. Sasha holds out her hands for me to take, and I don’t hesitate. I walk right up to her and wrap my arms around her waist. Maybe she’s surprised, but then her arms circle around my shoulders.

I, I will be king, Bowie sings, and you, you will be queen…

I sort of feel like I’m king of the broken and she’s queen of the crazy, but I don’t care. I’m dancing with her as the sun climbs over the water and lights the green trees on fire. It’s goofy and embarrassing and amazing, and I never want it to end.

“Where’d you go last night?” I ask softly. “Weren’t you having fun? Or is ‘fun’ another one of those words you don’t like?”

I expect her to laugh, but she doesn’t. She says, “I needed some time to think.”

“About what?”

“I don’t know. Secrets, I guess,” she says.

My body quickly goes tense, though we’re still dancing, still swaying above the pond, ignored by Jude and Jere7my, who are bent over the doughnut box like starving men.

“What kind of secrets?” I ask uneasily.

Bowie sings, We’re nothing, and nothing will help us…

Sasha steps away from me. “Can we sit?” she asks. Holding my hand in hers, she leads us back to Jude and Jere7my.

Jude looks up, powdered sugar on his cheeks. “Is it my turn on the dance floor?” he asks. “Because I’m still busy murdering this doughnut.”

“No,” Sasha says, “it’s your turn to film, so get out your phone. You can edit what’s coming next so that it’s intercut with you all saying how much you love me.” She gives me a little half smile. “Not that Theo contributed to that part.”

I just stare at her. I have no idea what’s going on.

“Okay, are you recording?” Sasha asks Jude.

Jude nods. “Operation Innocence: The Film, scene seventy-something, take one,” he says, and he presses Record.

Sasha takes a deep breath. “It’s sort of hard to figure out how to say this. I mean, not literally, because obviously I know the necessary words and how to pronounce them. It’s more like…” She stops and gazes up toward the sky like the rest of her sentence might be floating around up there. But it’s not, obviously, and after a few seconds, she snaps back to attention. “The point is, these last couple of weeks have been weird and terrible, but if there’s one thing that has made them less terrible, it’s you guys. Okay, technically you’re two things, not one. Theo and Jude, you are two humans with the power to decrease, marginally, the intensity of life’s general suckage. Don’t let that go to your heads; I’m not saying you’re miracles of humanity or anything. But hanging around with you—sometimes by choice and sometimes definitely not—made me realize how alone I’d been before all this. The thing about books is that they don’t talk back. And most of the time that’s a great thing about them. But every once in a while it’s nice to have a conversation. It’s nice to learn things you didn’t know about people, and it’s good to tell them things they don’t know about you.” She pauses. Straightens her shoulders. “And I have something to tell you now.”