Under Rose-Tainted Skies (19 page)

He turns, winks at me, then spins back to look at the sky. He makes me smile.

I fix my sights on his profile. His jaw is so sharp, I think if I ran a finger over it, I'd cut myself.

‘I'd like to go to Times Square one New Year,' he says. ‘Just to see what all the fuss is about.'

‘Yes.' I sigh. I mean, right now I couldn't think of anything more terrifying, but I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought about being there before.

‘We should go.' Luke is suddenly so animated, it's a wonder the fireworks aren't watching him. ‘I bet we could
get a couple of free flights off my mom,' he tells me.

Interesting, but irrelevant. I laugh a fake laugh; there's nothing funny about my desolate future.

He turns to look at me; I wonder if my face has fallen as much as his.

‘What? You don't want to go? Or maybe you don't want to go with me?' Did he take a bump to the head when I wasn't looking? Maybe the obnoxious fumes the fireworks are spreading have gotten him a little confused.

‘I can't leave my house. I think it's safe to say the chances of me jumping on a plane to go and watch fireworks are non-existent.'

‘Oh God, no. I didn't mean . . . I'm sorry . . . I wasn't meaning this year . . . I just meant . . . whenever, one year, any year, you know?'

‘Maybe.' I stare at my polish-perfect pedicure. It only took me six hours to get it right.

‘We don't need to put a date on it. Who's to say this time next year you won't be globetrotting? Come spring, you could be in Europe.' My heart smiles; it's not strong enough to show on my face. ‘But . . . you don't believe any of that's possible?' he ventures carefully.

‘No. I mean, yes. I'm not sure. I know it's probable . . .' I pause, don't know how to finish my sentence without sounding like I'm feeling sorry for myself.

‘But . . .' he prompts.

I shrug. I've no idea how to tell him I feel helpless. That I can't seem to find the strength or energy to fight myself daily for an infinite amount of time and make the doc's neural pathways stick. That I'm afraid. That I'm just . . . stuck.

‘You're brave, did you know that?'

He must have me mistaken for someone else. ‘You have all these fears, your body endures all this pain and heartache, but you keep going. I think that's really brave.'

I shake my head. My mind is telling me that he's wrong. Brave is swords and shields. People who are fearless in the face of adversity. Warriors for social justice. Brave is not me. But my heart registers the way he's looking at me now, and my shoulders straighten. I feel shiny, normal. Something flips over in my stomach and I find myself looking at his lips.

‘I think I see you a little differently than how you see yourself,' he says.

‘I like how you see me,' I tell him in a whisper. And then he leans forward, closes the gap between us, and pushes his lips against mine.

My biggest fear comes from a place I'm not expecting, as his breath, warm and sweet like peppermint, fills my mouth. I think about all the stuff I researched, every alien thing that popped up on my computer screen in a petri dish. I wonder if Luke had a drink at the Fall Ball, shared a cup with someone who had a cold sore. I consider how many cheeks his lips touched when he arrived, and then how many more cheeks those lips touched before reaching mine. I even spare a second to remember the boy at Cardinal who's suffering from a case of glandular fever. But the fear that asserts itself the most is his motive for doing what he's done.

I spring back like he's spat acid. Make like a crab across the floor and wipe my mouth on the sleeve of my sweater.

‘Norah. I'm so sorry.' He reaches out, grabs my hand,
and I rip it free from his grasp. ‘Shit,' he says, clutching his fingers like he's just been burnt. ‘I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that. Any of that. I wasn't thinking. Fuck. I'm so sorry.'

Warmbreathpetridishesbugsbacteriaalienlifeformscoldsoreskissescheekslipsfevermotive. Motive. MOTIVE
.

It's how my head is working as I pull myself to my feet using the banister. Faster and faster, like a malfunctioning merry-go-round. No stopping. No slowing. No breathing. My mouth is numb.

Luke keeps saying
Fuck
, running his hands through his hair, an I've-just-seen-a-car-accident-unfold expression emblazoned on his paling face.

‘How could you do that?' I ask, tears streaming down my cheeks, words sliced and diced as they fall through chattering teeth.

‘I don't know,' Luke says, all flustered, watching the floor as he paces back and forth.

‘You don't get it,' I spit. ‘I thought you did, but you don't.'

‘I do.' He makes a beeline for me, hands outstretched. My knees are trembling too much to move; the best I can do is flinch. He stops a foot short of my face when he sees my body jerk and plants his hands hard in his pockets. ‘I hate that,' he says. ‘I hate that I've made you feel afraid.'

‘Then why did you? You didn't have to. Or did you?' Motive. Talking about flying to New York, buying me a journal for France, sitting here watching the fireworks like a normal couple. He thinks I'm beautiful, smart, funny, but he never actually said not crazy. I wonder if he only stayed at the ball for a few minutes because he felt like I used to watching my Hub feed on a weekend. I wonder if he
sighed when he left a roomful of bodies swaying against each other, arms and legs free from scratches, for a girlfriend he can't even kiss.

He didn't leave the party because he was bored; he left that party because it was a slap in the face.

My head is having its own ball. Adding things together like this is Cluedo and we're trying to uncover a killer.

‘No. Norah, please.'

I could breathe life back into the dead with the amount of adrenaline running through me. ‘Is that what this is about? You said you didn't miss kissing, but you do, don't you?' It doesn't matter what he says. I can't hear him for the rush of blood in my head. Besides, the answers have already been decided in my mind.

‘It's not about kissing, Norah. It's about you, about how I feel about you. I got lost for a second.'

‘Bullshit. You don't just forget I'm this, that I have all these things wrong with me.'

‘That's what I'm trying to tell you. I did. I do. I don't always see it, but I always see you.'

‘You see normal. And that's not how this works. You should have stayed at your ball. Found a girl you can have fun with, one who doesn't hold you back, break down when you try to touch her.' I wipe my mouth a second time; I'm not even thinking about germs any more.

‘I'm confused. Is this about me kissing you or about your own insecurities?' He's lucky I can't touch him because I would slap him so hard right now.

‘You need to leave,' I say. My guts turn inside out.

‘You don't mean that,' he replies. His heart is thumping so hard I can see it throbbing in his throat.

‘Yes, I do. Go. Leave me alone.' I try for a yell, but it comes out small, a tremor tearing through it.

‘Norah, please . . .'

‘Leave me alone.'

For a second I think he's not going anywhere, then, like a torpedo, he disappears out of the door.

N
orah,

I' m so sorry. I made a huge mistake. Please forgive me.

Norah,

You were right. I didn't understand, but I'm learning.

I bought some books to read. I'm going to figure this out.

Norah,

Did you know that approximately three million people in the US suffer from some form of OCD? I didn't know that.

Norah,

I started reading about agoraphobia today.

There's this association called Limitless.

They have an online support group for people to share stories and strategies.

Norah,

I miss you. I kissed you because I couldn't help it. I shouldn' t have done that, but that's all there was to it. Please don' t push me away. I have everything I want when I' m with you. I shouldn't have crossed that line, but I swear to you, it wasn't because I needed to.

‘
N
orah, honey.' Mom creeps into my room, as quiet as a mouse. ‘How are you feeling?'

‘Dead inside.'

‘You're not dead inside.' She pulls the duvet from over my head, and my skin fizzes at the sudden whoosh of fresh air. I wonder why she asked if she was just going to tell me I'm wrong. ‘You promised Dr Reeves you'd get out of bed today.'

‘It's only . . .' I look at my watch: eight-thirty. I moan, snatch my covers, and bury myself back beneath them. God. She's brutal when she's trying to save me from myself.

‘I was hoping you'd come downstairs and have some breakfast with me. I made pancakes in the shape of rocket ships.' I flip the cover down, consider blowing her off for the fourth time in as many days, but she looks so helpless. Her shoulders are definitely more slumped over, and I suspect that has something to do with the amount of stress sitting on her back.

‘Sure,' I reply.

‘Really?' she ventures cautiously so as not to spook my already-made-up mind.

‘Yeah. I could eat a pancake.' Maybe. At least, I know I definitely can't stomach any more snot shakes, and I have to do something to sustain myself.

She flits towards the door, rolling up her sleeves. I suspect this is because the aforementioned rocket-ship pancakes have yet to be made, and she was just using their existence as a way to coax me out from under my sheets. ‘They'll be ready in five—'

‘Mom?' I call before she can leave the room.

‘Uh-huh?'

‘Did we get any mail yet?'

She waits a second, takes a deep breath before dropping the bomb. ‘No. I'm sorry, honey.' I should stop asking. It's not fair that I keep making her deliver sad news, bad news, no news.

I've left it too long
.

‘Maybe he'll write tomorrow,' she says. ‘I bet he's been all kinds of snowed under with his finals.'

It's been two weeks since Luke last dropped a folded yellow note written in perfect handwriting through the mail slot. It's been almost four weeks since he kissed me.

‘I wish you'd talk to me,' Mom says. ‘It's been a long time since I couldn't figure out what you're thinking.'

I don't know how to talk to her. Don't know how to talk. Can't figure out what I'm thinking. Not sure I even want to. I was exaggerating when I said I was dead inside, but I am stuck in some sort of limbo wasteland. I let my head take Luke's kiss to a dark place, and it's been lording
it over me ever since.

I'm always a slave to my thoughts, always at the mercy of what I'm not, what I can't be. But he brought expect ation here, shone a light on life, and something that's been sleeping woke up inside me. I can't figure out how to lull it back to sleep, can't figure out how to nurture it into something normal.

Before, I was simply-average Norah. Then I was too-sick-to-function Norah. Now I'm drifting somewhere in between.

‘I love you,' I tell Mom.

‘I love you too, baby,' she says.

She leaves, and I reach under my pillow, grab the journal that Luke gave me, and turn to the Notes section.

My heart throbs.

It's there. I did write it.

I thought maybe I'd imagined it, was sort of hoping I had.

The List.

Last night, somewhere between exhaustion, low blood sugar, and more emotion than a signed senior yearbook, I started writing a list of all the things I want to do before I officially hang a
Do Not Resuscitate
sign on my life – well, I
started
drawing the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but that turned into a sketch of Rouen Cathedral, which turned into doodles of hearts, and then thoughts of kissing, and suddenly here it is: the accidental list.

I run my fingers over the lines of ink, feel the barely-there indents the pen pressure has left in the paper. I don't remember the final draft looking this long.

I've only written down ten things, but the actual
construction of the list took six pages to get right. Well, this is me. It's not as simple as writing a letter to Santa. It took a while to prioritize, arrange my to-do items in order of importance. Finally, after the tenth attempt, I had it all figured out. At least, I had the top six figured out. I think.

1. Get my high school diploma

2. Go to France (with Mom?)

3. Smell the roses in our garden

4. Try some cashew nut cream cheese

5. Learn to drive a car

My insides feel like they're being crammed into a jam jar. Spelling out all the things I can't do tears my soul to pieces. I knew it would. A tear drips on to my nice, neat, perfectly assembled final draft and smudges the ink of item number 6 into an unreadable blur. The words vanish, but I know exactly what was written.

6. Kiss Luke