Extraordinary Means

“What is it?” I asked. “Why do you have a problem with me?”

Sadie laughed a little, like it was so obvious that she couldn’t even believe I was asking.

“Think back to summer camp,” she prompted.

“I didn’t even know you.”

“Then why did you ask me to the freaking dance?”

She said it with such force, and such anger, that I took a step back. Her eyes were dark, and her jaw jutted stubbornly, and I knew that whatever she was talking about was the real reason she’d been so awful to me ever since we’d run into each other at the tray return.

“I never asked you to any dance,” I said.

“Yes, you did!” Sadie accused. “You wrote me a note, and you gave me your sunglasses!”

“My sunglasses?” I tried to think back, and then I realized: they’d been stolen, along with my headphones. These two guys in my cabin had gotten kicked out for it, too. They’d taken iPods, watches, even cash.

“I waited forever for you to pick me up for the dance,” Sadie went on. “And then a girl came with that note saying you’d changed your mind.”

“I’ve never written you a note in my life!” I said, which was the truth. “Someone was messing with you, but it wasn’t me!”

Sadie narrowed her eyes at me, like she wasn’t sure what was true, and then she shook her head.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Do you remember the note? The writing?” I asked.

She nodded.

I pulled out my notebook with a flourish.

“Well?” I demanded.

One of the things about having a mom who taught third grade was that she’d drilled me on perfect penmanship. She’d made me practice in composition books after school, sitting next to her while she graded papers. I’d hated it, but it had resulted in what Ha

Sadie stared down at my notebook, her cheeks flushing an even brighter shade of pink.

“I have to go,” she mumbled. “Thanks for the, uh, diversion.”

I REALLY WASN’T feeling that great, so I spent the rest of that night in bed. I told myself it was just a migraine, but I suppose on some level I knew the truth. I’d been overdoing it. Too much studying, not enough food, too little sleep.

I’d managed it well enough at home, but that was before. Before my lungs turned traitor, and walking laps around the sports field in Wellness made me so exhausted that I plonked facedown on my mattress after it was over.

I felt gross when I woke up the next morning. I was ru

My head throbbed, and my arms felt so rubbery that it was a miracle I hadn’t dropped my tray in line. I felt like I’d pulled an all-nighter, even though I’d gone to sleep around one.

“Well?” Genevieve asked, leaning toward me. “What do you think?”

I hadn’t been listening. At all. Instead, I’d been watching Tim cut his pancake into tiny pieces and drop them into his cereal, which was so weird that at first I thought I must be imagining it.

“About what?” I asked.

Angela sighed.

And then I started coughing. I scrambled for my handkerchief. But I hadn’t brought it, or that stupid biohazard baggie we were supposed to carry it in, so I grabbed a napkin instead.

When I took it away from my mouth, it was stained with blood.

My mouth tasted disgusting, and the whole table was staring at me uneasily.

The blood thing freaked me out. It had happened twice before, right when I’d gotten sick, but not for weeks now.

“Shit,” I said, balling up the napkin. “Sorry.”

“Hey, everyone has bad days,” John offered. “It’s no big deal if you can’t make it to prayer group later.”

“Wow, thanks, I was really worried about that,” I said. I knew I was being a dick, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t sit there and eat my breakfast while they stared at me with these worried looks on their faces, like my med sensor was about to start beeping.

“I’m not hungry,” I said, picking up my tray. And then I went back to the dorm, where, for the first time that wasn’t six in the morning, both showers were free.

I stood there for a long time in the lukewarm water, hoping it would bring down my fever, and trying not to panic over the indisputable evidence that I wasn’t getting better at all; that, if anything, I was getting worse.

HANNAH CALLED ME that evening. I could hear the excitement in her voice as she asked if I’d gotten her email, and I told her I hadn’t checked yet.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because the librarian hates me.”

“What did you do, study too loudly?”

Ha

“I’m not going back there,” I insisted. “I’ll just give up the internet. I’ll go outside or something. I heard there’s this thing called the sun.”

“Overrated,” Ha

So I went. Thankfully, the librarian gave me an internet pass without even bothering to look up.

I logged on, not knowing what to do first. Because it turns out, when time is precious, there isn’t much of a point in reading webcomics or listicles. I didn’t have anything important in my in-box apart from Ha

I had a couple of Facebook messages, mostly of the “how are things” and “get better soon” variety, from classmates I’d barely ever talked to. And one glance at my wall was enough to thoroughly depress me. Everyone wanted me to know that I was in their thoughts and prayers, except for this kid from math class who was promoting his band’s new EP. I loved that, how there was one guy who just wanted me to buy some music, who either didn’t know or didn’t care what was going on in my life.

For the rest of the time, I clicked through my Facebook photos, trying to see what my life would look like to a total stranger. Most of the pictures were grainy cell phone things, other people’s uploads from the Model UN conferences, featuring everyone in the van, in our suits around a conference table, wearing sweatshirts in an Applebee’s at one in the morning somewhere near San Diego. I had my arm around Ha

After my internet session expired, I walked back to the cottages. It was around eight o’clock, and one of the Indiana Jones movies was being screened in the gym. Genevieve and Angela hadn’t shut up about it at di

It was eerily quiet outside, and the birch trees behind the dining hall rose straight and white in the distance. I hadn’t spent a lot of time outside lately, and I’d forgotten how peaceful it was to be alone in the dark. I walked slowly, breathing in the cool air, and it made the ache in my chest a little better.

I could feel the USB stick in my pocket, and I wondered what Ha

When I got back to Cottage 6, I went up to my room and plugged my USB stick into my laptop. There was this awful moment where I thought the file hadn’t transferred, and then it opened.