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109
SPRING BREAK WAS COMING UP. STEVEN was going to Co
“Take good care of your grandpa,” I said, before slipping away.
110
THE LAST TIME I HUNG OUT in Bob’s office before the break, we got to the part in Entering Mist where Wu goes to stay with a band of forest monks who rely on magical tree energy to stay alive. The tree energy is called “nwiffer,” and the monks absorb it by being somewhere green.
When we got to that part in the audiobook, I blurted, “I used to be like that.”
“Like what?” said Bob.
“Full of nwiffer.”
As I said it, I remembered a time before the monster. The feeling started in my toes and spread upward, a pale green leaping. I remembered the hush of wind in the treetops, and the striking red of Mom’s hat against the leaves. I remembered gazing at the mirror in my vain moments, so pleased with myself. So certain of my own valor. So certain.
Bob said that my task for spring break was to get some nwiffer, and if I happened to eat more that would be a bonus.
I spent the week walking all the old trails, letting the green feeling spread from my toes to my ankles to my knees. I sat by the river and listened to the water until my body seemed to disappear in the sound. I thought about everything that had happened that year, from the first morning of school, to the moment Oliver and I began to kiss in the orchid house, to the abortion, to the gym meet, and everything in between. As the memories rose to my mind, they seemed to flow through me and disappear with each new swirl in the river. Maybe this was what life was, just this: one big ripple. I could live with that. I could let it go on and on.
In the evenings, Mom and I pored over the course catalog that Northern had sent, and talked on the phone with Ava and Pauline. Mom was thinking about going back to school to be a paramedic; one day her own fat envelope came in the mail, and we pored over that instead.
111
ON THE FIRST DAY BACK FROM spring break, Steven came to Art wearing a crown of daisies in his hair, and a chain of tiny bells around his ankle that he’d found on the street.
“I just want to be springtime,” he said to me. “Don’t you?”
He seemed floatier than usual, not quite okay. He wouldn’t answer my questions about his grandpa. Finally, I dragged him to the bathroom and sat him down on the edge of the sink.
“Steven,” I said. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, nothing,” he sang, and then he dropped his head onto my shoulder and began to weep.
112
SPRING BREAK HAD BEEN A DISASTER.
On his second day in Co
“Concerned why?” I said.
“I’m depressed,” he said. “Remember? If Noe’s not there to monitor me, I could tumble into a downward spiral and end up like my uncle.”
“What’s wrong with your uncle?”
“He’s a writer. He smokes pot. He wears pretty shoes.”
“He sounds cool.”
“He is.”
After an hour and a half of discussing Steven’s “depression,” she’d finally gotten to the point: she’d gone for a walk with Senior Leader Alex and discovered the true meaning of romance.
Steven took out his phone and showed me the chat transcript. I cringed, skimming the long exchange.
we haven’t really been together since new years, Noe had said.
what do you mean? Steven had said.
what about the valentines ball?
and that day we played chess in the library?
and all the notes?
you spent half the valentines thing at margot and dominic’s table
i hardly even saw you
and we haven’t kissed since rhia
we’ve hardly had lunch together since last semester
i figured we’d reverted
?!?!?!
“reverted”
?
i thought it was mutual
i didn’t think it needed some big discussion
we said “i love you.”
you don’t revert from “i love you” without a big discussion
that’s what “i love you” means
Steven’s tears and snot were soaking into my sweater. The daisies in his hair were getting crushed, the white petals curling in. I pulled the vial of lavender oil out of my pocket and quietly anointed him on the wrists, forehead, and heart, thinking that the mysterious thing about love is that you don’t have to know what you’re doing in order to do it exactly right.
113
I THOUGHT THAT STEVEN WOULD BE shattered by the sight of Noe and Alex holding hands in the hall and studying together in the library. Already, the gym birds were chirping about them like they were the Couple of the Year. Every minute I wasn’t beside Steven, I was worrying about him. But after a few days, he actually seemed happier. There was a spring in his step, and a freshness to the way he clicked open his pencil box to draw. At lunch, he dragged me to a table where Win from my drama class was sitting.
“You two should be friends,” he said. “Win, A
Win and I exchanged glances and mutually rolled our eyes as if to say, Crazy old Steven McNeil.
“I’m serious,” said Steven. “You’re perfect for each other. You’re both insanely smart, you both love trees. You should write a play together. I demand it.”
“What is this, Steven, your last will and testament?” joked Win.
He said nothing, but put one of his hands on Win’s and one on mine and piled the hands together.
“Be friends,” he said. “Sit together at lunch.”
The cafeteria rattled around us. Sun poured through the window, the weak sun of almost-spring, slung low in the treetops. All I knew was I was happy to see Steven okay.
For the next few days, Steven glowed brighter than ever. He shined his shoes. They glowed too. They looked like Magic 8 Balls. When we passed each other in the hall, he would slip his arm through mine and twirl me around. Or he would be singing a Gershwin song, and he would smile and widen his eyes at me without breaking pace. He didn’t seem like a boy who had just had his heart broken. He seemed like a boy in love. After he’d cried on my shoulder in the bathroom, I’d started to plan a whole consoling afternoon. I had an idea that we would skip art class and drink gin and smoke cigars and ride the SkyTram over the river. That seemed like a good post-breakup thing to do, a good distraction.
But Steven didn’t seem like he needed distraction. His resilience threw me off. I didn’t know how to broach the subject of the breakup with him.
At our newly founded lunch table, he seemed almost manic, piling up the salt and pepper shakers into towers twenty shakers tall. He talked incessantly, comic prattle about books and teachers and food and theater and the tutor his parents had hired to stop him from failing math. He didn’t mention Noe at all. It was like he had forgotten her, or was immune to her.