Every Day

It’s a two-hour drive. I know I should spend it getting to know Adam Cassidy, but he seems incidental to me right now. I used to inhabit lives like this all the time—testing the bare minimum I needed to know in order to get through the day. I got so good at it that I made it through a few days without accessing once. I’m sure these were very blank days for the bodies I was in, because they were extraordinarily blank days for me.

Most of the drive, I think about Rhiannon. How to get her back. How to keep in her good graces. How to make this work.

It’s the last part that’s the hardest.

When I get to her school, I park where Amy Tran parked. The school day is already in full swing, so when I open the doors, I jump right into the fray. It’s between periods, and I have all of two minutes to find her.

I don’t know where she is. I don’t even know what period’s starting. I just push through the halls, looking for her. People brush by, tell me to watch where I’m going. I don’t care. There is everyone else, and there is her. I am only focused on her.

I let the universe tell me where to go. I rely purely on instinct, knowing that this kind of instinct comes from somewhere other than me, somewhere other than this body.

She is turning in to a classroom. But she stops. Looks up. Sees me.

I don’t know how to explain it. I am an island in the hall as people push around me. She is another island. I see her, and she knows exactly who I am. There is no way for her to know this. But she knows.

She walks away from the classroom, walks toward me. Another bell rings and the rest of the people drain out of the hall, leaving us alone together.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey,” I say.

“I thought you might come.”

“Are you mad?”

“No, I’m not mad.” She glances back at the classroom. “Although Lord knows you’re not good for my attendance record.”

“I’m not good for anybody’s attendance record.”

“What’s your name today?”

“A,” I tell her. “For you, it’s always A.”

She has a test next period that she can’t skip, so we stay on the school grounds. When we start to encounter other kids—kids without classes this period, kids also cutting—she grows a little more cautious.

“Is Justin in class?” I ask, to give her fear a name.

“Yeah. If he decided to go.”

We find an empty classroom and go inside. From all the Shakespearean paraphernalia hanging on the walls, I’m guessing we’re in an English classroom. Or drama.

We sit in the back row, out of sight of the window in the door.

“How did you know it was me?” I have to ask.

“The way you looked at me,” she says. “It couldn’t have been anyone else.”

This is what love does: It makes you want to rewrite the world. It makes you want to choose the characters, build the scenery, guide the plot. The person you love sits across from you, and you want to do everything in your power to make it possible, endlessly possible. And when it’s just the two of you, alone in a room, you can pretend that this is how it is, this is how it will be.

I take her hand and she doesn’t pull away. Is this because something between us has changed, or is it only because my body has changed? Is it easier for her to hold Adam Cassidy’s hand?

The electricity in the air is muted. This is not going to lead to anything more than an honest conversation.

“I’m sorry about the other night,” I say again.

“I deserve part of the blame. I never should have called him.”

“What did he say? Afterward?”

“He kept calling you ‘that black bitch.’ ”

“Charming.”

“I think he sensed it was a trap. I don’t know. He just knew something was off.”

“Which is probably why he passed the test.”

Rhiannon pulls away. “That’s not fair.”

“I’m sorry.”

I wonder why it is that she’s strong enough to say no to me, but not strong enough to say no to him.

“What do you want to do?” I ask her.

She matches my glance perfectly. “What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to do whatever you feel is best for you.”

“That’s the wrong answer,” she tells me.

“Why is it the wrong answer?”

“Because it’s a lie.”

You are so close, I think. You are so close, and I can’t reach you.

“Let’s go back to my original question,” I say. “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t want to throw everything away for something uncertain.”

“What about me is uncertain?”

She laughs. “Really? Do I have to explain it to you?”

“Besides that. You know you are the most important person I’ve ever had in my life. That’s certain.”

“In just two weeks. That’s uncertain.”

“You know more about me than anyone else does.”

“But I can’t say the same for you. Not yet.”

“You can’t deny that there’s something between us.”

“No. There is. When I saw you today—I didn’t know I’d been waiting for you until you were there. And then all of that waiting rushed through me in a second. That’s something … but I don’t know if it’s certainty.”

I know what I’m asking of you, I want to say. But I stop myself. Because I realize that would be another lie. And she’d call me on it.