Extraordinary Means

“Of course I do,” she said. “Dr. Barons was changing the battery, and mine glitched, so he reset it.”

“Can you show me?” Charlie sat up, his eyes wide with excitement.

“It’s easy. You just poke a paper clip into the middle hole until it clicks,” she said.

“That’s amazing.” Charlie gri

“Great.” Nick rolled his eyes. “You’ve created a monster.”

“Hey, I just want to make the most of having my own room,” Charlie said. “I share with my kid brother at home, and he’s nine.”

“You think your life sucks? I have to go to an all-girls’ Catholic school,” Marina complained. “With uniforms and nuns. And I’m the only black girl.”

Another guy from Charlie’s hall walked by the table, snickering. Charlie sighed, then burst out coughing. It sounded terrible, and at the end of it, he was gasping for breath. He shoved his handkerchief back into his pocket without bothering to look at it, even though it sounded like he’d coughed up blood.

“I’m going back to my room to cha

“We have class in ten minutes,” I pointed out.

Charlie let out a ridiculously fake high-pitched cough.

“I’m too sick to go,” he said, smirking.

ON TUESDAY, MR. Fi

“Bonjour, classe,” he called, still smiling. “Ça va bien? Vous avez passé un bon Halloween?”

I shot Sadie a questioning look, and she shrugged as if to say she didn’t know, either. I’d never seen Fi

“We’re going to do something different today,” Fi

“What are the teams?” Nick called.

“Does boys against girls seem fair?” Fi

We said it did. And then we spent the rest of class trying to pronounce les virelangues like “Ces cerises sont si sûres qu’on ne sait pas si c’en sont” without messing up.

The girls won, and they triumphantly descended on the candy bowl.

“Homework,” Fi

Everyone paused, and Nick actually snorted, thinking it was a joke.

“Your homework,” Fi

We all stared at him, confused.

“Well,” he said, shrugging. “If you’re going back to high school next semester, you should get used to doing homework. Class dismissed.”

CHARLIE HADN’T BEEN in class, and he didn’t come to lunch, either, so the four of us ate quickly, then drifted over toward the cottages to check on him.

I didn’t blame him for sulking, since a lot of the guys in our dorm still hadn’t let it go. Nick said that if the video clip had been girl on girl, Charlie would have been a hero, and I hated that he was probably right.

A frantic ukulele solo spilled through Charlie’s window, and we took turns throwing stones through it until the music stopped.

Charlie came to the window. His hair was a mess, and his face was flushed, his eyes glittering feverishly. He stared down at us like he couldn’t figure out what we were doing, or even what day it was.

“You alive in there?” Sadie called.

“I’m working,” he said, peering down at us. “I need to get this song out before the emotion is gone completely.”

He walked away from the window, and we could hear him coughing. A moment later, the music started again.

“Perfect,” Marina muttered.

She and Nick went to see if a library computer was free, and I was going to follow them, but Sadie grabbed my hand.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

She’d seemed worried lately, like there was something on her mind that she didn’t want to tell me. And I hoped it was just the enormity of going home with tuberculosis-free futures.

“Of course,” Sadie said, and I wondered if I was imagining it. “I have a proposition for you.”

“I’m listening.”

“Wa

“Do I ever.”

Sadie and I crept up the stairs and onto the third-floor hallway. When I opened the door to my room, you could still hear Charlie’s music, the sad, high croon of his voice, and the wild strumming of his ukulele. I couldn’t tell if it was any good, but it was certainly heartfelt.

“Sorry,” I said. “His room’s almost directly below mine.”

“It’s fine. Just put something on and we’ll drown it out,” Sadie said, so I started a Belle and Sebastian playlist on my computer.

Sadie surveyed my room with a smirk.

“Were you pla

“I unpacked!” I said, although it did look pretty temporary.

My room wasn’t like Nick’s, with all his electronics and action figures, or Charlie’s, with his records and weird assortment of musical instruments. I had clothes in the closet and notebooks on my desk, and the picture Sadie had taken of us in the gym printed out and propped against my desk lamp.

She picked it up, smiling.

“Our fake-dance photo,” she said.

“That was a pretty good night.”

“I almost didn’t make it back in time for lights-out,” Sadie said.

“Me neither. I had to climb into bed still wearing my tie.”

My room was so narrow, and she was standing so close to me in those tight, dark jeans of hers that I could barely concentrate on anything else.

“Well, if we’d had more time . . . ,” I said, and then I kissed her.

Her lips were soft and warm and tasted like coconut, and her leg wrapped around the back of mine, and it was so sexy that I couldn’t take it, I just wanted to press her against me until there wasn’t any space between where I began and where she ended.

“You’re going to set off my med sensor,” I teased.

“Well, lying down lowers your heart rate,” Sadie suggested i

She smiled up at me, all mischief through her eyelashes. God, I wanted to throw her on the bed. I wanted to do everything I thought about when I was alone in my room with my evil little med sensor, going slow.

“So?” she said. “What do you think?”

What did I think?

“Yeah, that would be cool,” I said, and Sadie laughed at me for pretending I wasn’t completely freaking out.

She sat down on the edge of my bed, and I was like, “It’s bigger at home.”

I don’t know why I said it, because it made Sadie almost die laughing.

“Um, I don’t think that’s how anatomy works?”

“I meant my bed,” I said, humiliated. “And my room, which actually has posters up, and a view of—”

And then I didn’t say anything else because she was kissing me, and it was all I could do to take terrified yoga breaths through the whole amazing thing.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

SADIE

AS THE DAYS went on, I began to accept that Latham wouldn’t last forever. And I wondered if maybe I could be something of my Latham self after I went home. I didn’t have to go back to my old high school. I could always transfer to another one, or to an arts high school, or get my GED and be done with it.

Part of it was Lane, with his unflagging optimism about the future, and his determination not to miss out on anything. And part of it was having an answer to the question of how much sand was left in my hourglass, and how many plans I could realistically make.