Extraordinary Means

I wondered what I’d do if he left, when he left, without me. Maybe it hadn’t occurred to him, since I never seemed that sick. And I wasn’t. Month after month, my X-rays and blood tests came back the same. And I didn’t know which change would be more terrifying, the death sentence I’d been dreading since sophomore year, or the ticket home to a life I’d missed far too much of to ever fully recover, and a world that would always treat me as an outsider if they knew.

All I knew was that Lane was smiling at me, and even if it wasn’t too late to back away, I wouldn’t have been able to.

“So, can I walk you to breakfast?” Lane asked.

He looked so earnest, and so excited about walking with me to the dining hall that I had to laugh.

“This plan of yours will never work, you know,” I told him.

“What plan?”

“This plan to fatten me up and feed me to the circus elephants.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said. “In the meantime, pancakes?”

“In the meantime, pancakes.”

And then I took the porch steps two at a time, copying him, and pretending it didn’t make my chest ache.

I HADN’T THOUGHT that breakfast would be weird or different that morning, but I could feel people staring as Lane and I waited in line. Staring at us. At first, I thought something horrible must have happened, but Nick and Charlie were at the front of the line, and I’d seen Marina in the bathroom ten minutes ago, trying to even out her gel liner.

“What’s going on?” Lane whispered, confused.

“Your shorts are just that terrible,” I said, reaching for the muffin tray.

“I’ve got it.” He held it out to me with a flourish. “Mademoiselle, quelque chose du sucre?”

I melted into a puddle, and when I was done melting, he was still there, and still smiling at me from behind the platter of lopsided cafeteria muffins.

“I can’t ever tell if the droopy ones taste better or worse,” I said.

“So much better,” Lane said. “Droopy muffins for the win.”

“That would be an awesome insult,” I said. “‘Don’t go out with her, she has a droopy muffin.’”

We laughed, and behind us, someone huffed impatiently. It was Angela. She narrowed her eyes at me.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

“Take your time,” Angela said, smiling sweetly. “I just wanted to remind you both that it’s impossible to walk with the Lord when you’re lying down.”

For a second, I had no idea what she was talking about, and then I burst out laughing.

“Oh, wow,” I said. “Thank you for calling me a slut in New Testament. That’s super nice of you.”

I glanced over at Lane, who was still holding the muffin tray and trying so hard not to laugh that he was red in the face.

Angela spluttered but didn’t say anything else. I made sure to take extra long in the line just to a

Everyone had been at the movies last night. They’d all seen Lane and me flirting and holding hands and lying next to each other in our blanket nest, and they’d watched as we’d disappeared into the woods together. I hadn’t considered what it looked like—like we’d done much more than we actually had, and like we were being obvious about it, wanting everyone to know what we were up to. And I hadn’t realized quite how many girls had been set on Lane until they were glaring at us from behind their yogurt bowls, eyes narrowed in resentment.

When Lane and I got to our table, he hesitated, then switched to the empty seat next to mine. He kept bumping my leg under the table with his, which was the cutest thing ever.

I expected Nick to sulk about it, like he’d been doing ever since the Starbucks trip, but thankfully, he was too hungover to do anything besides groan and attempt the world’s tiniest forkfuls of eggs.

“You need to drink some water,” Charlie told him.

Nick, who appeared not to have heard, swallowed thickly and lifted a forkful of eggs toward his mouth like someone had dared him to eat a snail.

And then Marina rolled her eyes and imitated him, sending us all into hysterics.

IT WAS GORGEOUS outside that morning. Indian summer. The sky was a cloudless blue, and it felt like the school year was almost over, instead of just begi

“We should go to the hill,” Marina finally suggested, so we did.

The hill was this slope on the far side of the lake with a view of the grounds. It wasn’t quite a hill, but that didn’t matter. Charlie brought his portable record player, and Marina brought a deck of cards, and we all had books in our bags, although Lane and I were the only ones who actually tried to read them.

We sat there all morning in the soft, warm grass, listening to Charlie’s collection of psychedelic pop records and teaching Lane how to play Egyptian Ratscrew.

Nick, who was apparently in agony, put his cardigan over his face and went to sleep. Charlie and Marina took turns dropping handfuls of grass onto his stomach and laughing when he finally woke up and noticed.

It was so wonderful, the five of us sitting there, and I wanted every day to be like this. To be us, in the sunshine, in no hurry to be anywhere else.

After a while, Lane and I took a walk down to the lake. There was a single paddleboat at the water’s edge. It was chained there, half-sunken and rotting away.

“That is one sad metaphor of a boat,” Lane said, pointing at it.

“You’re right. It’s a metaphor, which is like a simile,” I joked, and he playfully shoved me.

“You’re going in the lake,” he warned.

“You’re coming with me,” I promised, even though he was so much taller he could probably pick me up and toss, like I was a Frisbee.

“I’ll take my chances,” he said, menacing toward me, and I shrieked and ran up the little slope to the nearest bench, trying not to cough.

He sat down next to me, looking contrite.

“Sorry,” he said. “I wouldn’t really throw you in the lake.”

“Except as a metaphor.” I couldn’t resist.

“Oh, you’re really go

And then Lane was kissing me again, his hand cupping the side of my face. They say your skin is the largest organ in your body, but I’d never really appreciated that before, the way his fingertips slowly tracing the curve of my jaw could travel down the entire length of my body, covering me in goose bumps. The way he could make me feel flushed with something that wasn’t a fever.

“Listen,” Lane said. “I want to ask you something.”

He cleared his throat nervously, and I was so afraid of what he might say that all sorts of terrible questions flashed through my brain.

“Would you go on a date with me?”

He looked so nervous about it, like he thought there was a chance I’d refuse.

“I think that would be okay,” I said.

He gri

“So, where are we going on this illustrious date?” I asked. “The dining hall? The library?”

“I was thinking Fall Fest,” he said. “Next Friday night?”

I had no idea what he was talking about. Latham didn’t have a Fall Fest. We had, like, decorative gourd painting and a screening of Hocus Pocus. And then I realized.

“You mean in Whitley?” I asked.

Lane nodded, holding back a grin.

“I remembered the flyers from when we were there last time.”

“What happened to Mr. There Are a Hundred Reasons Why We Shouldn’t Go to Town and I Will Stubbornly Stand Here Listing Them All?” I asked.

“Well,” Lane said, “I realized that was no way to impress a girl.”

THE REST OF the week was the way summer camp should have been. The way my life should have gone four years ago, if only either of us had been brave enough or bold enough to say hello back then. It was a week of board games on the porch, and frozen fruit bars from the commissary, and trading flash drives full of music. We read paperbacks on our stomachs in the grass after di