Part 16 (1/2)

”No. I mean, yes. I mean, I do, but...” The truth is, I'm not sure what I mean. I can't think or speak clearly. A single word is swirling around inside me-a storm, a hurricane-and I have to squeeze my lips together to keep it from swelling up to my tongue and fighting its way out into the open. Love, love, love, love Love, love, love, love. A word I've never p.r.o.nounced, not to to anyone, a word I've never even really let myself think. anyone, a word I've never even really let myself think.

”You don't have to explain.” Alex takes another step backward. Again I have the sense, confusedly, that we're actually talking about something else. I've disappointed him somehow. Whatever has just pa.s.sed between us-and something did, even if I'm not sure what or how or why-has made him sad. I can see it in his eyes, even though he's still smiling, and it makes me want to apologize, or throw my arms around him and ask him to kiss me. But I'm still afraid to open my mouth-afraid that the word will come shooting out, and terrified about what comes afterward.

”Come here.” Alex sets the book down and offers me his hand. ”I want to show you something.”

He leads me over to the bed, and again a wave of shyness overtakes me. I'm not sure what he expects, and when he sits down I hang back, feeling self-conscious.

”It's okay, Lena,” he says. As always, hearing him say my name relaxes me. He scoots backward on the bed and lies down on his back and I do the same, so we're lying side by side. The bed is narrow. There's just enough room for the two of us.

”See?” Alex says, tilting his chin upward.

Above our heads, the stars flare and glitter and flash: thousands and thousands of them, so many thousands they look like snowflakes whirling away into the inky dark. I can't help it; I gasp. I don't think I've ever seen so many stars in my life. The sky looks so close-strung so taut above our heads, beyond the roofless trailer-it feels as though we're falling into it, as though we could jump off the bed and the sky would catch us, hold us, bounce us like a trampoline.

”What do you think?” Alex asks.

”I love it.” The word pops out, and instantly the weight on my chest dissipates. ”I love it,” I say again, testing it. An easy word to say, once you say it. Short. To the point. Rolls off the tongue. It's amazing I've never said it before.

I can tell Alex is pleased. The smile in his voice grows bigger. ”The no-plumbing thing is kind of a b.u.mmer,” he says. ”But you have to admit the view is killer.”

”I wish we could stay here,” I blurt out, and then quickly stutter, ”I mean, not really. Not for good, but... You You know what I mean.” know what I mean.”

Alex moves his arm under my neck, so I inch over and lay my head in the spot where his shoulder meets his chest, where it fits perfectly. ”I'm glad you got to see it,” he says.

For a while we just lie there in silence. His chest rises and falls with his breathing, and after a while the motion starts to lull me to sleep. My limbs feel impossibly heavy, and the stars seem to be rearranging themselves into words. I want to keep looking, to read out their meaning, but my lids are heavy too: impossible, impossible to keep my eyes open.

”Alex?”

”Yeah?”

”Tell me that poem again.” My voice doesn't sound like my own; my words seem to come from a distance.

”Which one?” Alex whispers.

”The one you know by heart.” Drifting; I'm drifting.

”I know a lot of them by heart.”

”Any one, then.”

He takes a deep breath and begins: ”'I carry your heart with me. I carry it in my heart. I am never without it....'”

He speaks on, words was.h.i.+ng over me, the way that sunlight skips over the surface of water and filters into the depths below, lighting up the darkness. I keep my eyes closed. Amazingly, I can still see the stars: whole galaxies blooming from nothing-pink and purple suns, vast silver oceans, a thousand white moons.

It seems like I've only been asleep five minutes when Alex is gently shaking me awake. The sky is still inky black, the moon high and bright, but I can tell by the way the candles are pooling around us that I must have been out for at least an hour or so.

”Time to go,” he says, brus.h.i.+ng the hair off my forehead.

”What time is it?” My voice is thick with sleep.

”A little before three.” Alex sits up and scoots off the bed, then reaches out a hand and pulls me to my feet. ”We've got to cross before Sleeping Beauty wakes up.”

”Sleeping Beauty?” I shake my head confusedly.

Alex laughs softly. ”After poetry,” he says, leaning down to kiss me, ”we move on to fairy tales.”

Then it's back through the woods; down the broken path that leads past the bombed-out houses; through the woods again. The whole time I feel as though I haven't quite woken up. I'm not even scared or nervous when we climb the fence. Getting over the barbed wire is infinitely easier the second time around, and I feel as though the shadows have texture, and s.h.i.+eld us like a cloak. The guard at hut number twenty-one is still in the exact same position-head tilted back, feet on his desk, mouth open-and soon we're weaving our way around the cove. Then we're slipping silently through the streets toward Deering Highlands, and it's then I have the strangest thought, half dread and half wish: that maybe all of this is a dream, and when I wake up I will find myself in the Wilds. Maybe I'll wake up and find I've always always been there, and that all of Portland-and the labs, and the curfew, and the procedure-was some long, twisted nightmare. been there, and that all of Portland-and the labs, and the curfew, and the procedure-was some long, twisted nightmare.

37 Brooks: In through the window, and the heat and the smell of mildew slams us, a wall. I only spent a few hours there and I miss the Wilds already-the wind through the trees that sounds just like the ocean, the incredible smells of blooming plants, the invisible scurrying things-all that life, pus.h.i.+ng and extending in every direction, on and on and on....

No walls....

Then Alex is leading me to the sofa and shaking out a blanket over me, kissing me and wis.h.i.+ng me good night. He has the morning s.h.i.+ft at the labs, and has just barely enough time to go home, shower, and make it to work on time. I hear his footsteps melting away into the darkness.

Then I sleep.

Love: a single word, a wispy thing, a word no bigger or longer than an edge. That's what it is: an edge; a razor. It draws up through the center of your life, cutting everything in two. Before and after. The rest of the world falls away on either side.

Before and and after after-and during during, a moment no bigger or longer than an edge.

Chapter Nineteen.

Live free or die.

-Ancient saying, provenance unknown, listed in the Comprehensive Compilation of Dangerous Words and Ideas, pletely turned upside down. As I head home I keep feeling paranoid, like someone will be able to smell the Wilds on me, will be able to tell just from seeing my face that I've crossed over. The back of my neck itches as though it's being poked with branches, and I keep whipping off my backpack to make sure there aren't any leaves or burrs clinging to it-not that it matters, since it's not like Portland is treeless. But no one even glances in my direction. It's a little before nine o'clock, and most people are rus.h.i.+ng to get to work on time. An endless blur of normal people doing normal things, eyes straight ahead of them, paying no attention to the short, nondescript girl with a lumpy backpack pus.h.i.+ng past them.

The short, nondescript girl with a secret burning inside of her like a fire.

It's as though my night in the Wilds has sharpened my vision around the edges. Even though everything looks superficially the same, it seems somehow different-flimsy, almost, as though you could put your hand through the buildings and sky and even the people. I remember being very young and watching Rachel build a sand castle at the beach. She must have worked on it for hours, using different cups and containers to shape towers and turrets. When it was done it looked perfect, like it could have been made out of stone. But when the tide came in, it didn't take more than two or three waves to dissolve its shape entirely. I remember I burst into tears, and my mother bought me an ice cream cone and made me share it with Rachel.

That's what Portland looks like this morning: like something in danger of dissolving.

I keep thinking about what Alex always says: There are more of us than you think There are more of us than you think. I sneak a glance at everyone who goes by, thinking maybe I'll be able to read some secret sign on their faces, some mark of resistance, but everyone looks the same as always: harried, hurried, annoyed, zoned out.

When I get home, Carol's in the kitchen was.h.i.+ng dishes. I try to scoot past her, but she calls out to me. I pause with one foot on the stairs. She comes into the hallway, wiping her hands on a dish towel.

”How was Hana's?” she asks. She flicks her eyes all over my face, searchingly, as though checking for signs of something. I try to will back another bout of paranoia. She couldn't possibly know where I've been.

”It was fine,” I say, shrugging, trying to sound casual. ”Didn't get a lot of sleep, though.”

”Mmm.” Carol keeps looking at me intensely. ”What did you girls do together?”

She never asks about Hana's house, and hasn't for years. Something's wrong Something's wrong, I think.

”You know, the usual. Watched some TV. Hana gets, like, seven channels.” I can't tell if my voice sounds weird and high-pitched, or if I'm just imagining it.