Extraordinary Means

And even though I wasn’t all that sick on the Latham scale, I was sick enough to know better. I was a stagnant case. I wasn’t getting well enough to go home, but my X-rays weren’t bad enough for Dr. Barons to be all that concerned. It was like my body and TB had reached a state of equilibrium. Or maybe it was mutually assured destruction, with both sides hovering over the big red button, but neither wanting to push first.

A year ago, it had seemed like a miracle when the lesions on my lungs stopped forming and my blood tests evened out, but you can even get tired of miracles when they’re not quite big enough to cure you.

Because the thing about miracles is that they’re not answers, no matter how much we want them to be. If anything, they’re even more troubling questions. But then, Latham wasn’t a place for answers, it was a place for waiting. And I had chosen a long time ago to wait here alone.

“I’m happier alone,” I said.

“Nope, I know you,” Marina said. “You’re just telling yourself that because you don’t want to get hurt.”

“No one wants to get hurt.”

“Well, maybe not, but sometimes it’s worth it.” Marina shrugged, and I could tell she was thinking about Amit again. “I may have sworn off boys, but at least I tried them.”

“Marina!”

“What? Don’t you want to? It won’t cure you, but it sure makes you feel better,” she said, giggling.

“He just broke up with his girlfriend,” I pointed out, and Marina sighed like I was missing the point.

“That’s what I’m saying! He’s so adorable that some girl continued dating him for weeks after she found out he was sick.”

She gri

When it came to dating at Latham, there were no good options. The boys who stayed cute inevitably went home, and the boys who got sicker just wanted to lose their virginity as fast as possible to any girl willing. By Latham’s standards of eligibility, Lane was pretty close to the top. And I was sure half the girls in our French class would be all too eager to take him into the woods and hook up, which was a particular pastime at Latham, in a way that eerily reminded me of summer camp. Except our ticking clock was far more depressing than Camp Griffith’s.

I wondered how often Marina thought about Amit, and what his life was like now that he’d gone home. And I wondered if Amit thought about Marina, or the rest of us still at Latham, even though he’d mostly hung out with those RPG-obsessed boys in Cottage 8.

Marina and I sca

“Show tunes?” Marina asked as we went upstairs.

She kept trying to get me into Broadway musicals, as though hearing her Spring Awakening soundtrack for the fifth time would suddenly make me sing along with her, but it wouldn’t. Show tunes depressed me. I didn’t see the point in listening to songs from musicals I might never see.

“I really want to finish this book,” I lied, instead of just telling the truth that I was embarrassingly excited for naptime.

LANE SAT WITH us again at di

“You do know you’re eating chicken fingers, right?” Marina asked, looking concerned.

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Nick told her. “We’re having a debate.”

“What you’re having is chicken fingers,” I corrected. “Which go with basically every dipping sauce you can think of.”

“That’s how the whole thing started,” Lane explained. “Hot dogs are exclusionary, but—”

“But the chicken finger welcomes all sauces,” Charlie interrupted. “All hail the food of the proletariat, the chicken finger.”

And then he shoved an entire chicken finger in his mouth and choked, dissolving into a coughing fit.

Marina rolled her eyes. I was with her. Our table felt overwhelmingly full of boys. It reminded me of those groups from my high school, the ones that crammed too many people around a table and were so unintentionally loud that you couldn’t help paying attention. I’d always stared wistfully at those groups across the cafeteria, wondering how they’d happened, and why they always seemed to happen without me. But then, everything always seemed to happen without me.

I was feeling a lot better after my nap, though, and less like I wanted to shout at Fi

“Hey, Nick,” I said. “Fi

“Told you!” Nick gloated.

Lane was like, “Ex-pos theory?” so I explained it to him, and he nodded solemnly.

“It makes sense,” he said. “I was wondering why anyone would sign up to, um . . .”

“Be around us?” Nick supplied with a grin.

“Don’t make me feel sorry for Fi

“I’m not,” I said. “I just thought it was interesting.”

“Like, maybe they’re not terrified of us, maybe they’re scared that they could wake up tomorrow and be us?” Charlie said.

“No, shut up, shut up, shut up!” Marina said, covering her ears.

Charlie smirked, pleased that he’d a

“It’s, what, a ten percent chance you get sick if you’re exposure-positive?” Lane said.

“Exactly.” I shrugged. “You’re not contagious, you’re not sick, you probably won’t get sick, but you stay up all night freaking out anyway. One of my friends back home had that.”

What I didn’t add was how she’d sent me this horrific Facebook message accusing me of giving it to her, even though we’d been diagnosed within two days of each other, so obviously there was a nefarious third party to blame.

Thankfully, our di

“Not one?” Nick asked incredulously.

“Not Princess Mononoke? Or Totoro?” Marina pressed.

Lane shook his head.

“That’s it,” I said. “Tonight we’re watching a movie.”

So we did. Marina and I went over to the boys’ dorm after di

“How much trouble can we get into for having a girl in our room?” Lane asked as he led us up the stairs.

“Why, are you pla

“Right,” he mumbled. “That came out wrong.”

Marina shot me this knowing look, which I pretended I hadn’t seen. And then Nick poked his head out of his room and was like, “Quick, get in here.”

Nick’s room was a total nerd cave, even though he clearly thought it was the best thing ever. His posters were things like Game of Thrones and Doctor Who, and his desk was set up with a video game console and this fancy cinema display. He didn’t talk about it much, but I knew his dad was one of those rich tech guys. A lot of kids at Latham were like that, and a lot were on assistance, like Charlie.

I’d brought some contraband snacks with me, and I dumped them on the bed while Nick set up the movie. Lane stared at the bags of sour candy and peanut butter cups like he’d never expected to see junk food again.