Delirium Part 7

I feel a burst of triumph-he was was waiting for me at Back Cove! He did want me to meet him! At the same time the anxiety blooms inside of me. He wants something from me. I'm not sure what it is, but I can sense it, and it makes me afraid. waiting for me at Back Cove! He did want me to meet him! At the same time the anxiety blooms inside of me. He wants something from me. I'm not sure what it is, but I can sense it, and it makes me afraid.

"So?" He folds his arms and rocks back on his heels, still smiling. "Are you going to apologize, or what?"

His easiness and self-a.s.surance aggravate me, just like they did at the labs. It's so unfair, so different from how I feel, like I'm about to have a heart attack, or melt into a puddle.

"I don't apologize to liars," I say, surprised by how steady my voice sounds.

He winces. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Come on." I roll my eyes, feeling more and more confident by the second. "You lied about seeing me at evaluations. You lied about recognizing me." I'm ticking his lies off on my fingers. "You lied about even being inside inside the labs on Evaluation Day." the labs on Evaluation Day."

"Okay, okay." He holds up both hands. "I'm sorry, okay? Look, I'm the one who should apologize." He stares at me for a second and then sighs. "I told you, security isn't allowed in the labs during evaluations. To keep the process 'pure' or something, I don't know. But I really needed a cup of coffee, and there's this machine on the second floor of the C complex that has the good kind, with real milk and everything, so I used my code to get in. That's it. End of story. And afterward I had to lie about it. I could lose my job. And I only work at the stupid labs to subsidize my school..." He trails off. For once he doesn't look confident. He looks worried, like he's scared I might actually tell on him.

"So why were you on the observation deck?" I press on. "Why were you watching me?"

"I didn't even make it to the second floor," he says. He is staring at me closely, as though judging my reaction. "I came inside and-and I just heard this crazy noise. That rus.h.i.+ng, roaring sound. And something else, too. Screaming or something."

I close my eyes briefly, recalling the feeling of the burning white lights, my impression of hearing the ocean pounding outside the labs, of hearing my mother scream across the distance of a decade. When I open them again, Alex is still watching me.

"Anyway, I had no idea what was going on. I thought-I don't know, it's stupid-but I thought maybe the labs were under attack or something. And then as I'm standing there, all of a sudden there's, like, a hundred cows cows charging me...." He shrugs. "There was a staircase to my left. I freaked out and booked it. Figured cows don't climb stairs." A smile appears again, this time fleeting, tentative. "I ended up on the observation deck." charging me...." He shrugs. "There was a staircase to my left. I freaked out and booked it. Figured cows don't climb stairs." A smile appears again, this time fleeting, tentative. "I ended up on the observation deck."

A perfectly normal, reasonable explanation. I feel relieved, and less frightened of him now. At the same time there's something working under my chest, a dull feeling, a disappointment. And some stubbornness, a part of me that still doubts him. I remember the way he looked on the observation deck, head tilted back, laughing; the way he winked at me. The way he looked-amused, confident, happy. Totally unafraid.

A world without fear...

"So you don't know anything about how... how it happened?" I can't believe I'm being so bold. I ball up my fists and squeeze, hoping he doesn't notice the sudden strangled sound of my voice.

"The mix-up in the deliveries, you mean?" He says it smoothly, without a pause or a break in his voice, and the last of my doubts vanish. Just like any cured, he doesn't question the official story. "I wasn't in charge of signing for deliveries that day. The guy who was-Sal-was fired. You're supposed to check the cargo. I guess he skipped that step." He c.o.c.ks his head to one side, spreads his hands. "Satisfied now?"

"Satisfied," I say. But the pressure in my chest is still there. Even though earlier I was desperate to be out of the house, now I just wish I could blink and be home, sit up in bed, pus.h.i.+ng the covers off of my legs, realizing that everything-the party, seeing Alex-was a dream.

"So... ?" He tilts his head back toward the barn. The band is playing something loud and fast paced. I don't know why the music appealed to me before. It just seems like noise now-rus.h.i.+ng noise. "Think we can get closer without getting trampled?"

I ignore the fact that he has just said "we," a word that for some reason sounds amazingly appealing when p.r.o.nounced with his lilting, laughing accent. "Actually, I was just heading home." I realize I'm angry at him without knowing why-for not being what I thought he was, I guess, even though I should be grateful that he's normal, and cured, and safe.

"Heading home?" he repeats disbelievingly. "You can't go home."

I've always been careful not to let myself give in to feelings of anger or irritation. I can't afford to at Carol's house. I owe her too much-and besides, after the few tantrums I threw as a child, I hated the way she looked at me sideways for days, as though a.n.a.lyzing me, measuring me. I knew she was thinking, Just like her mother Just like her mother. But now I give in, let the anger surge. I'm sick of people acting like this world, this other world, is the normal one, while I'm the freak. It's not fair: like all the rules have suddenly been changed and somebody forgot to tell me.

"I can, and I am." I turn around and start heading up the hill, figuring he'll leave me alone. To my surprise, he doesn't.

"Wait!" He comes bounding up the hill after me.

"What are you doing?" I whirl around to face him-again, surprised by how confident I sound, considering that my heart is rus.h.i.+ng, tumbling. Maybe this is the secret to talking to boys-maybe you just have to be angry all the time.

"What do you mean?" We're both slightly out of breath from hoofing it up the hill, but he still manages a smile. "I just want to talk to you."

"You're following me." I cross my arms, which helps me feel as though I'm closing off the s.p.a.ce between us. "You're following me again again."

There it is. He starts backward, and I get a momentary, sick twinge of pleasure that I've surprised him. "Again?" he repeats. I'm glad that for once I'm not the one stuttering, or struggling to find words.

The words fly out: "I think it's a little bit strange that I go pretty much my whole life without seeing you, and then all of a sudden I start seeing you everywhere." I hadn't planned on saying this-it actually hadn't struck me as strange-but the second the words are out of my mouth I realize they're true.

I think he's going to be angry, but to my surprise he tips his head back and laughs, long and loud, moonlight turning the curve of his cheeks and chin and nose silver. I'm so surprised by his reaction I just stand there, staring at him. Finally he looks at me. Even though I still can't make out his eyes-the moon draws everything starkly, highlighting it in bright, crystalline silver or leaving it in blackness-I have the impression of heat, and light, the same impression I had that day at the labs.

"Maybe you just haven't been paying attention," he says quietly, rocking forward slightly on his heels.

I take an unconscious, half-shuffling step backward. I find myself frightened by his closeness; by the fact that even though our bodies are separated by several inches I feel as though we're touching.

"What-what do you mean?"

"I mean that you're wrong." He pauses, watching me, and I struggle to keep my face composed, even though I can feel my left eye straining and fluttering. Hopefully in the darkness he can't tell. "We've seen each other plenty."

"I would remember if we'd met before."

"I didn't say that we'd met met." He doesn't try to close the new distance between us and I'm grateful, at least, for that. He chews on the corner of a lip-a gesture that makes him look younger. "Let me ask you a question," he goes on. "How come you don't run past the Governor anymore?"

Without meaning to I gasp a little. "How do you know about the Governor?"

"I take cla.s.ses at UP," he says. University of Portland-I remember now, the afternoon we walked up to see the ocean from the back of the lab complex, hearing bits of his conversation floating back to me on the wind. He did did say he was a student. "I worked at the Grind last semester, in Monument Square. I used to see you all the time." say he was a student. "I worked at the Grind last semester, in Monument Square. I used to see you all the time."

My mouth opens and shuts. No words come out; my brain goes on lockdown whenever I need it the most. Of course I know the Grind; Hana and I used to run past it two, maybe three times a week, watching the college students float in and out like drifting snowflakes, blowing the steam from the top of their cups. The Grind looks out onto a small square, all cobblestone, called Monument Square: It marked the halfway point of one of the six-mile routes I used to do all the time.

In its center is a statue of a man, half-eroded from snow and weather and scrawled over with a few looping curls of graffiti. He is striding forward, one hand holding his hat on his head so that it looks like he is walking through a horrible storm, or a headwind. His other fist is extended in front of him. It's obvious that he was, in the distant past, holding something-probably a torch-but at some point that portion of the statue was broken or stolen. So now the Governor strides forward with an empty fist, a circular hole cut in his hand, a perfect hiding place for notes and secret stuff. Hana and I used to check his fist sometimes, to see if there was anything good inside. But there wasn't-just a few pieces of wadded-up chewing gum and some coins.

I don't actually know when Hana and I started calling him the Governor, or why. The wind and rain has rubbed the plaque at the base of the statue indecipherable. No one else calls him that. Everyone else just says, "The statue at Monument Square." Alex must have overheard us talking about the Governor one day.

Alex is still looking at me, waiting, and I realize I never answered his question. "I have to switch my routes up," I say. I probably haven't run past the Governor since March or April. "It gets boring." And then, because I can't help it, I squeak out, "You remember me?"

He laughs. "You were pretty hard to miss. You used to run around the statue and do this jumping, whooping thing."

Heat creeps up my neck and cheeks. I must be going a deep red again, and I thank G.o.d for the fact that we've moved away from the stage lights. I completely forgot; I used to jump up and try to high-five the Governor as Hana and I ran past, a way of psyching myself up for the run back to school. Sometimes we would even scream out, "Halena!" We must have looked completely crazy.

"I don't..." I lick my lips, fumbling for an explanation that won't sound ridiculous. "When you run you sometimes do weird things. Because of the endorphins and stuff. It's kind of like a drug, you know? Messes with your brain."

"I liked it," he says. "You looked..." He trails off for a moment. His face contracts slightly, a tiny s.h.i.+ft I can barely make out in the dark, but in that second he looks so still and sad it almost takes my breath away, like he's he's a statue, or a different person. I'm afraid he won't finish his sentence, but then he says, "You looked happy." a statue, or a different person. I'm afraid he won't finish his sentence, but then he says, "You looked happy."

For a second we just stand there in silence. Then, suddenly, Alex is back, easy and smiling again. "I left a note for you one time. In the Governor's fist, you know?"

I left a note for you one time. It's impossible, too crazy to think about, and I hear myself repeating, "You left a note for me me?"

"I'm pretty sure it said something stupid. Just hi, and a smiley face, and my name. But then you stopped coming." He shrugs. "It's probably still there. The note, I mean. Probably just a bit of paper pulp by now."

He left me a note. He left me me a note. For me. The idea-the fact of it, the fact that he even noticed and thought about me for more than one second-is huge and overwhelming, makes my legs go tingly and my hands feel numb. a note. For me. The idea-the fact of it, the fact that he even noticed and thought about me for more than one second-is huge and overwhelming, makes my legs go tingly and my hands feel numb.

And then I'm frightened. This is how it starts. Even if he is is cured, even if he cured, even if he is is safe-the fact is, I'm not safe, and this is how it starts. safe-the fact is, I'm not safe, and this is how it starts. Phase One: preoccupation; difficulty focusing; dry mouth; perspiration, sweaty palms; dizziness and disorientation. Phase One: preoccupation; difficulty focusing; dry mouth; perspiration, sweaty palms; dizziness and disorientation. I feel a rus.h.i.+ng blend of sickness and relief, a feeling like finding out that everyone actually knows your worst secret, has known all along. All this time Aunt Carol was right, my teachers were right, my cousins were right. I'm just like my mother, after all. And the I feel a rus.h.i.+ng blend of sickness and relief, a feeling like finding out that everyone actually knows your worst secret, has known all along. All this time Aunt Carol was right, my teachers were right, my cousins were right. I'm just like my mother, after all. And the thing thing, the disease, is inside of me, ready at any moment to start working on my insides, to start poisoning me.

"I have to go." I start up the hill again, nearly sprinting now, but again he comes after me.

"Hey. Not so fast." At the top of the hill he reaches out and puts a hand on my wrist to stop me. His touch burns, and I jerk away quickly. "Lena. Hold on a second."

Even though I know I shouldn't, I stop. It's the way he says my name: like music.

"You don't have to be worried, okay? You don't have to be scared." His voice is twinkling again. "I'm not flirting with you."

Embarra.s.sment sweeps through me. Flirting Flirting. A dirty word. He thinks I think he's flirting. "I'm not-I don't think you were-I would never think that you-" The words collide in my mouth, and now I know there's no amount of darkness that can cover the rush of red to my face.

He c.o.c.ks his head to the side. "Are you you flirting with flirting with me me, then?"

"What? No," I splutter. My mind is spinning blindly in a panic, and I realize I don't even know what flirting is. I just know about it from textbooks; I just know that it's bad. Is it possible to flirt without knowing you're flirting? Is Is he flirting? My left eye goes full flutter. he flirting? My left eye goes full flutter.

"Relax," he says, holding up both hands, a gesture like, Don't be mad at me Don't be mad at me. "I was kidding." He turns just slightly to the left, watching me the whole time. The moon lights up his three-p.r.o.nged scar vividly: a perfect white triangle, a scar that makes you think of order and regularity. "I'm safe, remember? I can't hurt you."

He says it quietly, evenly, and I believe him. And yet my heart won't stop its frantic winging in my chest, spinning higher and higher, until I'm sure it's going to carry me off. I feel the way I do whenever I get to the top of the Hill and can see back down Congress Street, with the whole of Portland lying behind me, the streets a s.h.i.+mmer of greens and grays-from a distance, both beautiful and unfamiliar-just before I spread my arms and let go, trip and skip and run down the hill, wind whipping in my face, not even trying to move, just letting gravity pull me.

Breathless; excited; waiting for the drop.

I suddenly realize how quiet it is. The band has stopped playing, and the crowd has gone silent too. The only sound is the wind shus.h.i.+ng over the gra.s.s. From where we are, fifty feet past the crest of the hill, the barn and the party are invisible. I have a brief fantasy that we're the only two people out in the darkness-that we are the only two people awake and alive in the city, in the world.

Then soft strands of music begin to weave themselves up in the air, gentle, sighing, so quiet at first I confuse the sounds for the wind. This music is totally different from the music that was playing earlier-soft, and fragile, as though each note is spun gla.s.s, or silken thread, looping up and back into the night air. Once again I'm struck by how absolutely beautiful it is, like nothing I've ever heard, and out of nowhere I'm overwhelmed by the dual desire to laugh and cry.

"This song is my favorite." A cloud skitters across the moon, and shadows dance over Alex's face. He's still staring at me, and I wish I knew what he was thinking. "Have you ever danced?"

"No," I say, a little too forcefully.

He laughs softly. "It's okay. I won't tell."

Images of my mother: the softness of her hands as she spun me down the long polished wood floors of our house, as though we were ice-skaters; the fluted quality of her voice as she sang along to the songs piping from the speakers, laughing. "My mother used to dance," I say. The words slip out, and I regret them almost instantly.

But Alex doesn't question me or laugh. He keeps watching me steadily. For a moment he seems on the verge of saying something. But then he just holds out his hand to me across the s.p.a.ce, across the dark.

"Would you like to?" he says. His voice is hardly audible above the wind-so low it's barely a whisper.

"Would I like to what?" My heart is roaring, rus.h.i.+ng in my ears, and though there are still several inches between his hand and mine, there's a zipping, humming energy that connects us, and from the heat flooding my body you would think we were pressed together, palm to palm, face to face.

"Dance," he says, at the same time closing those last few inches and finding my hand and pulling me closer, and at that second the song hits a high note and I confuse the two impressions, of his hand and the soaring, the lifting of the music.

We dance.

Most things, even the greatest movements on earth, have their beginnings in something small. An earthquake that shatters a city might begin with a tremor, a tremble, a breath. Music begins with a vibration. The flood that rushed into Portland twenty years ago after nearly two months of straight rain, that hurtled up beyond the labs and damaged more than a thousand houses, swept up tires and trash bags and old, smelly shoes and floated them through the streets like prizes, that left a thin film of green mold behind, a stench of rotting and decay that didn't go away for months, began with a trickle of water, no wider than a finger, lapping up onto the docks.

And G.o.d created the whole universe from an atom no bigger than a thought.

Grace's life fell apart because of a single word: sympathizer sympathizer. My world exploded because of a different word: suicide suicide.

Correction: That was the first first time my world exploded. time my world exploded.

The second time my world exploded, it was also because of a word. A word that worked its way out of my throat and danced onto and out of my lips before I could think about it, or stop it.

The question was: Will you Will you meet me tomorrow? meet me tomorrow?

And the word was: Yes Yes.

Chapter Ten.

Symptoms of Amor Deliria Nervosa Amor Deliria Nervosa PHASE ONE.

preoccupation; difficulty focusingdry mouthperspiration, sweaty palmsfits of dizziness and disorientationreduced mental awareness; racing thoughts; impaired reasoning skills PHASE TWO.

periods of euphoria; hysterical laughter and heightened energyperiods of despair; lethargychanges in appet.i.te; rapid weight loss or weight gainfixation; loss of other interestscompromised reasoning skills; distortion of realitydisruption of sleep patterns; insomnia or constant fatigueobsessive thoughts and actionsparanoia; insecurity PHASE THREE (CRITICAL).

difficulty breathingpain in the chest, throat, or stomachdifficulty swallowing; refusal to eatcomplete breakdown of rational faculties; erratic behavior; violent thoughts and fantasies; hallucinations and delusions PHASE FOUR (FATAL).

emotional or physical paralysis (partial or total)death If you fear that you or someone you know may have contracted deliria deliria, please call the emergency line toll-free at 1-800-PREVENT to discuss immediate intake and treatment.

I'd never understood how Hana could lie so often and so easily. But just like anything else, lying becomes easier the more you do it.

Which is why, when I get home from work the next day and Carol asks me whether I don't mind having hot dogs for the fourth straight night in a row (the result of a s.h.i.+pment surplus at the Stop-N-Save; we once went a whole two weeks having baked beans every day), I say that actually, Sophia Hennerson from St. Anne's invited me and some other girls over for dinner. I don't even have to think about it. The lie just comes. And even though I still feel sweat p.r.i.c.king up under my palms, my voice stays calm, and I'm pretty sure my face keeps its normal color, because Carol just gives me one of her flitting smiles and says that that sounds nice.

At six thirty I get on my bike and head to East End Beach, where Alex and I agreed to meet.

There are plenty of beaches in Portland. East End Beach is probably one of the least popular-which of course made it one of my mother's favorites. The current is stronger there than it is at Willard Beach or Sunset Park. I'm not exactly sure why. I don't mind. I've always been a strong swimmer. After that first time-when my mother released her arms from around my waist and I felt both the surging panic and the thrill, the excitement-I learned pretty quickly, and by four I was paddling out by myself all the way past the breaks.

There are other reasons why most people avoid East End Beach, even though it's only a short walk down the hill from Eastern Prom, one of the most popular parks. The beach is nothing more than a short strip of rocky, gravel-flecked sand. It backs up against the far side of the lab complex, where the storage and waste sheds are, which doesn't make for particularly pretty scenery. And when you swim out at East End Beach you get a clear view of Tukey's Bridge and the wedge of unregulated land between Portland and Yarmouth. A lot of people don't like being so close to the Wilds. It makes them nervous.

It makes me nervous too, except that there's a part of me-a tiny, little flick of a part-that likes it. For a while after my mom died I used to have these fantasies that she wasn't dead, really, and that my father wasn't dead either-that they had escaped to the Wilds to be together. He had gone five years before her, to prepare everything, to build a little house with a woodstove and furniture hewed from tree branches. At some point, I imagined, they would come back and get me. I even imagined my room down to the smallest detail: a dark red carpet, a little red and green patchwork quilt, a red chair.

I had the fantasy only a few times before I realized how wrong it was. If my parents had escaped to the Wilds it would make them sympathizers, resisters. It was better that they were dead. Besides, I learned pretty quickly that my fantasies about the Wilds were just that-make-believe, little kiddie stuff. The Invalids have nothing, no way of trading or getting red patchwork quilts or chairs, or anything else for that matter. Rachel once told me that they must live like animals, filthy, hungry, desperate. She says that's why the government doesn't bother doing anything about them, doesn't even acknowledge their existence. They'll die out soon enough, all of them, freeze or starve or just let the disease run its course, turn them against each other, have them raging and fighting and clawing one another's eyes out.

She said as far as we know that's already happened-she said the Wilds might be empty now, dark and dead, full of only the rustle and whispers of animals.

She's probably right about the other stuff-about the Invalids living like animals-but she's obviously wrong about that. They're alive, and out there, and they don't want us to forget it. That's why they stage the demonstrations. That's why they let the cows loose in the labs.

I'm not nervous until I get to East End Beach. Even though the sun is sinking behind me, it lights the water white and makes everything s.h.i.+mmer. I s.h.i.+eld my eyes against the glare and spot Alex down by the water, a long black brushstroke against all that blue. I flash back to last night, to the fingers of one of his hands just pressed against my lower back, so lightly it was like I was only dreaming them-the other hand cupping mine, dry and rea.s.suring as a piece of wood warmed by the sun. We really danced, too, the kind of dancing that people do at their wedding after the pairing has been formalized, but better somehow, looser and less unnatural.

He has his back toward me, facing the ocean, and I'm glad. I feel self-conscious as I plod down the rickety, salt-warped stairs that lead from the parking lot to the beach, pausing to unlace and kick off my sneakers, which I carry in one hand. The sand is warm on my bare feet as I set off toward him.

An old man is coming up from the water, carrying a fis.h.i.+ng pole. He shoots me a suspicious glance, then turns to stare at Alex, then looks at me again and frowns. I open my mouth to say, "He's cured," but the man just grunts at me as he walks past, and I can't imagine he'd bother to call the regulators, so I don't say anything. Not that we'd get in trouble trouble trouble if we were caught-that's what Alex meant when he said, "I'm safe"-but I don't want to answer a lot of questions and have my ID number run through SVS and all of that. Besides, if the regulators trouble if we were caught-that's what Alex meant when he said, "I'm safe"-but I don't want to answer a lot of questions and have my ID number run through SVS and all of that. Besides, if the regulators did did haul a.s.s all the way out to East End Beach to check out "suspicious behavior," only to discover it was some cured taking pity on a seventeen-year-old n.o.body, they'd definitely be annoyed-and guaranteed to take it out on someone. haul a.s.s all the way out to East End Beach to check out "suspicious behavior," only to discover it was some cured taking pity on a seventeen-year-old n.o.body, they'd definitely be annoyed-and guaranteed to take it out on someone.

Taking pity. I push the words out of my mind quickly, surprised by how difficult it is to even think them. All day I tried not to worry about why on earth Alex would be so nice to me. I even imagined-for one brief, stupid second-that maybe after my evaluation I'd get matched with him. I'd had to shunt that thought aside too. Alex has already received his printed sheet, his recommended matches-he would have gotten it even before his cure, directly after the evaluations. He's not married yet because he's still in school, end of story. But he will be, as soon as he finishes.

Of course, then I started wondering about the kind of girl he's been matched with-someone like Hana, I decided, with bright blond hair and an irritating ability to make even pulling her hair into a ponytail look graceful, like a ch.o.r.eographed dance.