Willful Machines (19 page)

“I don't know. I forgot to put on my sunscreen. With this pasty skin of mine, I'll burn in two seconds.”

“I can see you're not going to make this easy for me.”

He grabbed my wrist and kicked my feet out from under me. I landed on my back in the loose sand, laughing. The straw hat tumbled off. He tugged me into the crook of his arm. I pulled off my glasses and settled my cheek on his warm chest. Together we gazed down the fake beach at the cellophane ocean while the spotlight sun shone down on us. Usually I hated being on a stage, in the spotlight—like at public functions where I had to go out and smile and wave with Dad after one of his speeches—but like this, with Nico next to me, and the curtain closed, and no audience or cameras in sight, I didn't mind so much.

“So was I right?” Nico squeezed my shoulder. “Was this worth it?”

“Definitely.”

“You were really brave back there, climbing across that tree. Last night too. I still can't believe you forced yourself to rappel all the way down from your window. That's pretty badass.”

“I just did it because I wanted to see you.”

“Well, I'm honored. But you know you could've told me, Lee. Having a fear of heights is seriously no big deal.”

I started to say something and then stopped. I pressed my ear to his chest, feeling his heat, listening to the thump of his heart, staring close-up at the weave of his turquoise T-shirt. My throat felt tight, like my necktie was choking me again, except right now I wasn't wearing a necktie. “I'm not really scared of heights.”

He lifted his head off the towel to peer at me. “What do you mean? You were faking?”

“No, I don't mean it that way.” I couldn't look at him as I talked. Instead, I kept my eyes on the black velvet curtain. “I get scared when I'm around heights, but it's not exactly that I'm scared
of
heights. It's more that I'm scared of myself. Does that make any sense?”

“I'm not sure.”

My stomach had wadded itself into a tight ball. I cleared my throat and tried one more time. “Have you read any of the stories about me on the Supernet?”

“Not really. I don't keep up with the news much. I mean, before I came here, I knew President Fisher had a son who went to Inverness Prep, but I don't think I'd ever read anything about you specifically. And then since I met you, I guess I've wanted to get to know you the old-fashioned way.”

“So you haven't heard about what happened on the bridge?”

“What bridge?”

Inside my head, Gutless Lee was screaming at me to stop before I ruined everything. Before Nico found out what a head case I really was.

Shut the hell up
, Kamikaze Lee said.

“Two years ago,” I told Nico, “I jumped off a bridge. I tried to kill myself.”

I wished I could check his reaction without actually having to turn in his direction. I felt him shift around as he pulled off
his sunglasses and stuffed his backpack under his head so he could see the top of my head. He ran his hand over my short hair, and my stomach relaxed a little.

“Tell me,” he said.

I shrugged. “I guess I'd been messed up ever since my mom died. And then there was the whole gay thing: by the time I was twelve or so, I'd figured out I liked guys. I knew my mom would've been okay with it. She always used to tell me she'd love me no matter what. But my dad had gotten the Human Values Movement going by then, and that right there gave me a pretty good idea how he'd react. Thanks to him, the whole country was turning against the exact kind of person I was growing up to be.”

“What a horrible feeling,” Nico murmured.

“That was when I started noticing high places. Every time I was in a skyscraper or on a bridge, I'd look over the edge and picture myself jumping off. I'd imagine how free I'd feel falling through the air like that. And then, afterward, everything would be over.” I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my face against his chest. “I'm sorry. I'm doing it again.”

“What?”

“Being depressing. I've never told anyone this.”

“Not even Bex?”

“Nope.” I hadn't really thought about it before: in spite of her habitual nosiness, she'd never once pressed me to talk about the very thing everyone else in school was probably dying to
know.
That
scoop she'd denied herself. A stab of shame went through me for the horrible things I'd said to her earlier today.

Nico continued stroking my hair at that same steady pace. “Keep going.”

I swallowed. The constriction in my throat had loosened a little. The words were coming more easily now. “So one night, a little more than two years ago, I decided to do it for real. School started in three weeks. It was going to be my first year at Inverness Prep. The presidential election was just a few months away. I gave my Secret Service detail the slip for the first time that night—went to a movie by myself, sneaked out through a side exit, walked the mile or so to the Arlington Memorial Bridge. It's pretty high up. I'd found myself staring down from there before. But this time I did more than stare. I waited until all the foot traffic had passed, and then I climbed onto the stone railing and swung my legs over the side.”

Staring at the black curtain, I could still picture it: the river far below, the city lights glittering on the water like stars, so jumping would feel like launching myself into outer space.

“My plan was to make it look like an accident,” I said. “I hadn't left a note. I'd sit there on the railing and lean out over the river, pretending I was trying to get a better look at the water. Then I'd slip. That way, my dad wouldn't have to deal with the scandal of a son who'd killed himself. I'd even convinced myself my death would give him a sympathy boost and help him win the presidency. My heart must've been
pounding, because Gremlin started purring in my pocket. I pulled him out of my hoodie and set him on the railing and told him good-bye. I remember he kept trying to crawl back up my arm and I kept putting him back on the railing. It seemed wrong to take him with me for some reason. Finally I got him to stay. And then, without even really deciding to, I slid off the railing and fell.”

Nico's hand paused. “What happened?”

“Well, I didn't die. I never got to experience that feeling of freedom I'd imagined, because a half second after I jumped, my body jerked, and I wasn't falling anymore. My hoodie had caught on a bolt sticking out from the side of the bridge. Needless to say, I felt pretty stupid. And what made it even worse was the tourist boat passing under the bridge at that very moment, with a crowd of tourists on the deck looking up and pointing and taking pictures. I was only a few blocks away from the Capitol and the White House, so I knew the area must be swarming with police and military too. I figured I had only a few seconds before a SWAT team swooped down on me.

“I started squirming and flailing, trying to climb back onto the bridge, but I couldn't find anything to grab on to. I tugged at my zipper, but it was jammed, so I couldn't even go through with killing myself—which I didn't really want to do anymore, because by then the impulse had sort of passed. In the meantime, big crowds had gathered on both sides of the river, and a swarm of pucks and cameras was hovering around
me. I probably only hung there a few minutes, but it felt like a year. Then a bunch of police showed up with sirens blaring and rescued me. They asked me what the hell happened. I mumbled my lie about wanting to get a better look at the water and accidentally falling. I could tell they didn't believe me—which made me realize how dumb my plan had been in the first place—but they didn't challenge me either. I gave the same explanation to Trumbull when he showed up, and then to my dad when I got home, and I got the same reaction from them.”

Another image seemed to superimpose itself on the black curtain in front of me: Dad. The horizontal line of his mouth. The vertical line between his eyebrows.

“The next morning the story was all over the Supernet. The more upstanding news sites stuck to the official version—that I'd fallen accidentally, just like I'd claimed—but lots of the trashier ones said I'd tried to kill myself. I'd had a reputation for being quiet and gloomy ever since my mom's death, and the suicide theory fit right in with that. The gossip sites started calling me Leap Fisher. Saying I had mental problems. Totally bashing me. Just take a look. You'll see.”

“But why would they bash you for trying to kill yourself?”

“Why do you think? Human Values. Remember I told you they're big believers in free will, and the idea that we can choose exactly what kind of people we become, and that's why they're against being gay? It turns out they feel the same way about going psycho and jumping off a bridge.”

“That's crazy!”

The outrage in Nico's voice made me want to kiss him even more than usual. He hauled himself onto his elbows. I sat up too.

“What about your dad?” he asked. “What did he say during all this? He must've suspected what really happened on that bridge, the same way everyone else did.”

“Sure, but like I told you, he hates talking about that kind of thing. About a week after my big jump, he sat me down and told me he knew times had been hard since losing Mom, and even more so now, with the presidential campaign under way, and he just wanted to know if I needed help of any kind. That was how he put it. Without ever once mentioning the bridge. The whole conversation was excruciating. I'm not even sure what kind of help he meant, since I know he doesn't believe in therapy, and anyway, he would've been terrified that news of me seeing a shrink would get back to the press. I said no, I was fine. He looked so relieved when I said that. He told me things would get better once I started at Inverness. The structure and discipline would help. That's his answer for everything: structure and discipline.

“So I arrived at Inverness Prep, and guess what happened my very first day.”

“The Freshman Stand.”

“The upperclassmen forced me onto the wall and wouldn't let me down. They chanted that nickname, Leap, over and over. By then I felt completely freaked by what I'd almost done three
weeks earlier. I imagined there was a bug in my programming—something inside my brain, but out of my control—that could make me act not like me. Standing on that wall, I broke out in a cold sweat. I couldn't breathe. My whole body shook. Like I said, it wasn't that I was scared of the drop exactly. I was scared of what I might do. In a way, the Freshman Stand rattled me even more than jumping off the bridge.

“Ever since then, I have that same reaction when I'm in a high place. I panic. And I still hear those voices in my head:
Leap. Leap. Leap.
”

The thought of the voices chilled me even now. I felt an urge to press myself against Nico's chest again and soak in his warmth.

“But there's a happy ending to the story,” I said, “for my dad at least.”

“What's that?”

“His numbers slipped after my jump, but then there was that attack on the New York Subway, and everybody got scared about Charlotte again, so my dad still clinched the election.”

“You really think that's all he cared about? The election?”

“Doesn't it seem like that to you? Look at what he did when my mom got killed—rode her death all the way to the White House. Now he's trying to create a world where robots don't exist and all women are housewives, even though that's exactly what she would've hated.”

“He's trying to create a world where she'd still be alive, Lee. He's just dealing with her death in a different way than you are.
You love machines because she loved them. He hates machines because a machine killed her. That doesn't mean he misses her any less than you do. And who knows, maybe he really did think coming here would help you feel better.”

“Stop trying to understand him like he's a character in one of your plays,” I grumbled.

Nico lay back down, pulling me with him. He started stroking my hair again.

My eyes went back to the curtain. It was a deep, deep black, like the chasm we'd stood next to yesterday. “I looked it up on the Supernet,” I said, “and I'm pretty sure I'm depressed. I have most of the symptoms. I think I have been for years.” I stared at the curtain and waited for him to tell me he really liked me as a friend, but he had a strict policy against dating depressed people. When he didn't say anything, I let out a lame laugh. “Do I have you completely terrified yet?”

“Not even close.”

“You should be. Nico, I'm the son of a homophobic president, a closet case,
and
depressed.”

He kissed the top of my head. “Actually, I believe the term you're looking for is ‘melancholy.' ”

I
could've stayed there with Nico for hours, just the two of us on our own secret tropical island, but I knew the longer we stayed, the more we risked Ray catching on to Nico's trick. After a few more minutes we shook out Nico's towel, switched off the sun, and made our way back into the gloom of Inverness Prep.