Delirium: The Complete Collection (13 page)

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
?”

“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
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
cured, even if he
is
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.
I feel a rushing 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
, 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.”

Embarrassment sweeps through me.
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 cocks his head to the side. “Are
you
flirting with
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
he flirting? My left eye goes full flutter.

“Relax,” he says, holding up both hands, a gesture like,
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-pronged 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 shimmer 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 shushing over the grass. 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 glass, 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 space, 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, rushing 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 God created the whole universe from an atom no bigger than a thought.

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

Correction: That was the
first
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
meet me tomorrow?

And the word was:
Yes
.

Chapter Ten

Symptoms of
Amor Deliria Nervosa

PHASE ONE

preoccupation; difficulty focusing
dry mouth
perspiration, sweaty palms
fits of dizziness and disorientation
reduced mental awareness; racing thoughts; impaired reasoning skills

PHASE TWO

periods of euphoria; hysterical laughter and heightened energy
periods of despair; lethargy
changes in appetite; rapid weight loss or weight gain
fixation; loss of other interests
compromised reasoning skills; distortion of reality
disruption of sleep patterns; insomnia or constant fatigue
obsessive thoughts and actions
paranoia; insecurity

PHASE THREE (CRITICAL)

difficulty breathing
pain in the chest, throat, or stomach
difficulty swallowing; refusal to eat
complete 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, 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 shipment 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 pricking 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 shimmer. I shield 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 reassuring 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 fishing 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 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
haul ass 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 nobody, 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 choreographed dance.

There are four other people on the beach: a mother and a child, one hundred feet away, the mother sitting in a faded fabric folding chair, staring blankly toward the horizon, while the child—who is probably no more than three—toddles in the waves, gets knocked over, lets out a shriek (of pain? pleasure?) and struggles back to her feet. Beyond them a couple is walking, a man and a woman, not touching. They must be married. Both have their hands clasped in front of them, and both look straight ahead, not talking—and not smiling, either, but calm, as though they are each surrounded by an invisible protective bubble.

Then I’m coming up behind Alex and he turns and sees me, smiles. The sun catches his hair, turns it momentarily white. Then it smolders back to its normal golden-brown color.

“Hi,” he says. “I’m glad you came.”

I feel shy again, stupid holding my ratty shoes in one hand. I can feel my cheeks getting hot, so I look down, drop my shoes, turn them over once in the sand with my toe. “I said I would, didn’t I?” I don’t mean for the words to come out so harshly and I wince, mentally cursing myself. It’s like there’s a filter set up in my brain, except instead of making things better, it twists everything around so what comes out of my mouth is totally wrong, totally different from what I was thinking.

Thankfully, Alex laughs. “I just meant that you stood me up last time,” he says. He nods toward the sand. “Sit?”

“Sure,” I say, relieved. I feel much less awkward once we’re both settled in the sand. There’s less chance of falling over or doing something dumb. I draw my legs up to my chest, resting my chin on my knees. Alex leaves a good two or three feet of space between us.

We sit in silence for a few minutes. At first I’m searching frantically for something to say. Every beat of silence seems to stretch into an infinity, and I’m pretty sure Alex must think I’m a mute. But then he flicks a half-buried seashell out of the sand and hurls it into the ocean, and I realize he’s not uncomfortable at all. After that I relax. I’m even glad for the silence.

Sometimes I feel like if you just watch things, just sit still and let the world exist in front of you—sometimes I swear that just for a second time freezes and the world pauses in its tilt. Just for a second. And if you somehow found a way to live in that second, then you would live forever.

“Tide’s going out,” Alex says. He chucks another seashell in a high arc, and it just hits the break.

“I know.” The ocean is leaving a litter of pulpy green seaweed, twigs, and scrabbling hermit crabs in its wake, and the air smells tangy with salt and fish. A seagull pecks its way across the beach, blinking, leaving tiny thatched claw prints. “My mom used to bring me here when I was little. We’d walk out a little bit at low tide—as far as you can go, anyway. Crazy stuff gets stranded on the sand—horseshoe crabs and giant clams and sea anemone. Just gets left behind when the water goes out. She taught me to swim here too.” I’m not sure why the words bubble out of me then, why I have the sudden urge to talk. “My sister used to stay on the shore and build sand castles, and we would pretend that they were real cities, like we’d swum all the way to the other side of the world, to the uncured places. Except in our games they weren’t diseased at all, or destroyed, or horrible. They were beautiful and peaceful, and built of glass and light and things.”

Alex stays silent, tracing shapes in the sand with a finger. But I can tell he’s listening.

The words tumble on: “I remember my mom would bounce me in the water on her hip. And then one time she just let me go. I mean, not for
real
real. I had those little inflatable thingies on my arms. But I was so scared I started bawling my head off. I was only a few years old but I remember it, I swear I do. I was so relieved when she scooped me back up. But—but disappointed, too. Like I’d lost the chance at something great, you know?”

“So what happened?” Alex tips his head to look at me. “You don’t come here anymore? Your mom lose her taste for the ocean?”

I look away, toward the horizon. The bay is relatively calm today. Flat, all shades of blue and purple as it draws away from the beach with a low sucking sound. Harmless. “She died,” I say, surprised by how difficult it is to say. Alex is quiet next to me and I rush on, “She killed herself. When I was six.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, so low and quiet I almost miss it.

“My dad died when I was eight months old. I don’t remember him at all. I think—I think it kind of broke her, you know? My mom, I mean. She wasn’t cured. It didn’t work. I don’t know why. She had the procedure three separate times, but it didn’t . . . it didn’t fix her.” I pause, sucking in a breath, afraid to look at Alex, who is as still and silent next to me as a statue, as a carved piece of shadow. Still, I can’t stop speaking. I realize, strangely, that I’ve never told the story of my mother before. I’ve never had to. Everyone around me, everyone in school, all my neighbors and my aunts’ friends—they all knew about my family already, and my family’s shameful secrets. That’s why they always looked at me pityingly, from the corner of their eyes. That’s why for years I rode a wave of whispering into every room, was slapped with sudden silence when I entered—silence and guilty, startled faces. Even Hana knew before she and I were desk partners in second grade. I remember because she found me in the bathroom stall, crying into a piece of paper towel, stuffing my mouth with it so no one would hear, and she kicked the door right open with a foot and stood there staring.
Is it because of your mom?
she said, the first words she ever spoke to me.

“I didn’t know there was something wrong with her. I didn’t know she was sick. I was too young to understand.” I keep my eyes focused on the horizon, a solid thin line, taut as a tightrope. The bay edges farther from us, and as always I have the same fantasy I did as a child: that maybe it won’t come back, maybe the whole ocean will disappear forever, drawn back across the surface of the earth like lips retracting over teeth, revealing the cool, white hardness underneath, the bleached bone. “If I had known, maybe I could have . . .”

At the last second my voice falters and I can’t say any more, can’t finish the sentence.
Maybe I could have stopped it.
It’s a sentence I’ve never spoken before, never even allowed myself to think. But the idea is there, looming up solid and unavoidable, a sheer rock face: I could have stopped it. I should have stopped it.

We sit in silence. At some point during my story the mother and child must have packed up and gone home; Alex and I are all alone on the beach. Now that the words aren’t bubbling, rushing out of me, I can’t believe how much I’ve shared with a next-to-perfect stranger—and a boy, no less. I’m suddenly, itchingly, squirmingly embarrassed. I’m desperate for something else to say—something harmless, about the tide or the weather—but as usual my mind goes totally blank now that I actually need it to function. I’m afraid to look at Alex. When I finally work up the courage to shoot him a tiny sidelong glance, he’s sitting, staring out at the bay. His face is completely unreadable except for a tiny muscle, which flutters in and out at the base of his jaw. My heart sinks. Just like I feared—he’s ashamed of me now, disgusted by my family’s history, by the disease that runs in my blood. At any second he’ll stand up and tell me it’s better if he doesn’t speak to me anymore. It’s weird. I don’t even really know Alex, and there’s an impassable divide between us, but the idea upsets me anyway.