Extraordinary Means

“The very same.”

I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter. That high school had never mattered to me like that, that Ha

I had more important things to worry about. Things you weren’t supposed to worry about at seventeen, like blood tests, and X-rays, and my parents’ health insurance premiums, and the DNR forms we’d signed in Dr. Barons’s office before I was given my med sensor and removed from everything that remotely resembled my past life. And now it was too late to do anything more than march grimly forward and hope.

“It’s fine,” I said, mostly to convince myself. “Ha

I sighed, and Sadie put her hand on my shoulder.

“It wasn’t even that good of a life,” I went on. “I did nothing but study, and even when I had a girlfriend, we just went to Barnes and Noble to do our homework and hung out at Model UN conferences. I knew everyone else was going to these parties and dances and beach trips or whatever, but I thought it was stupid, because the moment we all got to college, high school would be erased. Except now it’s me. I’m the one erased. Or I guess I’m not even that, because the thing about being erased is that first you have to leave a mark.”

I stared miserably at the screen, and Sadie scooted up even closer and leaned her head on my shoulder.

“You’re not erased,” she said. “Erased means you disappear. It’s more like you’ve just been . . . forcibly evicted from your old life. You’re still leaving your mark, you’re just doing it somewhere else.”

“Forcibly evicted,” I echoed, testing it out.

“Exactly,” Sadie said. “And now you’re here, in the library, with me. That part’s pretty nice.”

It really was, and I tried to summon the nerve to tell her that.

While I was still summoning, Charlie wandered over to see what we were up to.

“Internet just cut out,” he said. “What’s with the cuddling?”

“We’re allowed to cuddle,” Sadie retorted.

“Yeah, but why do you look so unhappy about it?” he asked.

“Lane’s depressed about Facebook,” Sadie said.

“About my ex-girlfriend,” I clarified. “Not, like, the website in general.”

Charlie shook his head.

“Delete,” he said. “I keep telling you.”

But I couldn’t. Even though I wasn’t sure what the point was anymore. No one kept in touch, they just kept up. And then, when they couldn’t keep up anymore, they forgot.

I wished I could take all of it back. The afternoons I’d sat home wondering what everyone was doing but not having the courage to ask. The countless nights I’d fallen asleep at my desk. The subdivision pool I’d walked past for years without ever stopping for a swim. The way I’d always driven straight home after taking classes at the community college, because it had never occurred to me to just drive around for a while and see where the night took me.

Maybe Sadie had it right, scrolling through fantasies of impossibly pretty people having picnics beneath the Eiffel Tower, instead of looking at a chronicle of everyone she used to know having fun without her. Or maybe I was just upset that my life back home had been so small and so pathetic. I wished I could take all of it back.

I realized then that I hadn’t had a life, I’d just had a life plan. And it wasn’t that I didn’t still want all those things—Stanford, summer internships, graduate school—I just wasn’t sure I’d gone about achieving them the right way. If everyone at college shut themselves in their rooms and studied every night, what would any of us really get out of being there? It was like Latham: sometimes the point wasn’t being the best, because it didn’t mean you had the best life, or the best friends, or the best time.

I didn’t want to spend the next six years falling asleep at my desk with headphones on to block out the noise of everyone else having fun. I didn’t want to rush through all the moments that I wouldn’t know I wanted until they were gone. I could see my future narrowing, with options like football games and school dances being squeezed out, until trying not to die had become my main extracurricular activity. And if the road did stop narrowing, it would never be as wide as it had once been. I wasn’t going to get my life back, and even if I could, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. I didn’t know what I wanted anymore, except to fall asleep every night to the sound of Sadie’s voice over the phone, at Latham house, and after we’d both gone home.

“I HAVE AN idea,” Sadie a

“Someone already invented sarcasm, sorry,” Nick said, smirking into his sandwich strips.

Sadie rolled her eyes at him, which was something I’d noticed between the two of them more and more these days. How Nick seemed upset all the time, at the two of us in particular.

“Whatever,” Sadie said. “I think we should go to movie night.”

Charlie was doodling in his notebook, and his head snapped up at this.

“We never go to movie night,” he said, sounding suspicious.

“I’m aware,” Sadie said.

“Why would we go to movie night?” Marina asked.

“Aha!” Sadie said. “See, that is the type of question the rest of you should be asking. Why would we go to a lame, chaperoned pajama party in the gym with healthy snacks and just about everyone we can’t stand?”

“You’re really selling this, by the way,” I said, stirring my soup. It was tomato, and awful, even with half a grilled cheese sandwich stuffed in. I had a suspicion that it was actually watered-down spaghetti sauce.

“It’s such an excellent plan that it sells itself,” Sadie promised. “Wait for it . . . instead of wearing our pajamas like everyone else, we’ll dress up fancy. I’m talking ties, boys.”

Sadie leaned back in her chair, a look of triumph on her face.

“Fancy?” Nick said, considering it. “Could there be booze?”

“If you have booze, there can be booze,” Sadie said.

“So it’s like Dapper Day,” I said, and everyone stared at me blankly.

“Seriously?” I said. “Am I the only one from SoCal? Once a year, there’s a day where people get dressed up and go to Disneyland. It’s a thing.”