And then there is this strange fold in time, and I realize I’m not writing anymore. I’m running. I’m still wearing the black sweater and old blue jeans and sneakers and gloves, and suddenly my feet hurt, and somehow I’ve made it all the way to Centerville, which is the next town over.
I take off my shoes and pull off my hat, and I walk all the way back home because for once I’ve worn myself out. But I feel good—necessary and tired and alive.
Julijonas Urbonas, the man who thought up the Euthanasia Coaster, claims it’s engineered to “humanely—with elegance and euphoria—take the life of a human being.” Those 10 Gs create enough centrifugal force on the body so that the blood rushes down instead of up to the brain, which results in something called cerebral hypoxia, and this is what kills you.
I walk through the black Indiana night, under a ceiling of stars, and think about the phrase “elegance and euphoria,” and how it describes exactly what I feel with Violet.
For once, I don’t want to be anyone but Theodore Finch, the boy she sees. He understands what it is to be elegant and euphoric and a hundred different people, most of them flawed and stupid, part asshole, part screwup, part freak, a boy who wants to be easy for the folks around him so that he doesn’t worry them and, most of all, easy for himself. A boy who belongs—here in the world, here in his own skin. He is exactly who I want to be and what I want my epitaph to say: The Boy Violet Markey Loves.
FINCH
Day 30 (and I am awake)
In gym, Charlie Donahue and I stand on the baseball field, way beyond third base. We’ve discovered this is the best place to be if you want to have a conversation. Without even looking, he catches a ball that comes zinging our way and flings it back to home. Every athletic coach at Bartlett High has been trying to recruit him since he first walked through the school doors, but he refuses to be a black stereotype. His extracurriculars are chess, yearbook, and euchre club because, as he says, these are things that will make him stand out on college applications.
Right now, he crosses his arms and frowns at me. “Is it true you almost drowned Roamer?”
“Something like that.”
“Always finish what you start, man.”
“I thought it was a good idea not to get myself incarcerated before I have a chance to get laid again.”
“Getting arrested might actually increase your odds of getting laid.”
“Not the kind of odds I’m looking for.”
“So what’s up with you anyway? Look at you.”
“I wish I could take the credit, but let’s face it, the gym uniform is universally flattering.”
“Cheeky wanker.” He calls me this even though I’m no longer British. Good-bye, Fiona. Good-bye, flat. Good-bye, Abbey Road. “I mean, you’ve been Dirtbag Finch for a while now. Before that, you were Badass Finch for a couple weeks. You’re slipping.”
“Maybe I like Dirtbag Finch.” I adjust the knit cap, and it suddenly hits me—which Finch does Violet like? The thought burns a little, and I can feel my mind latch onto it. Which Finch does she like? What if it’s only a version of the real Finch?
Charlie offers me a cigarette and I shake my head.
“What’s going on with you? Is she your girlfriend?”
“Violet?”
“Did you hit that yet, or what?”
“My friend, you are a total and complete pig. And I’m just having a good time.”
“Obviously not too good a time.”
Roamer comes up to bat, which means we have to pay attention, because not only is he the school’s star baseball player (second only to Ryan Cross), he likes to aim right at us. If it wouldn’t get him in trouble, he’d probably come over here now and smash my head in with the bat for nearly drowning him.
Sure enough, the ball comes flying at us, and, cigarette between his teeth, Charlie steps backward once, twice, once more, as if he’s not in any hurry, as if he knows he’s got this. He holds out his glove and the ball falls right into it. Roamer yells about fifteen hundred expletives as Charlie sends it flying right back.
I nod over at Mr. Kappel, our teacher, who also happens to be the baseball coach. “You do know that every time you do that, you make him die just a little.”
“Kappy or Roamer?”
“Both.”
He flashes me a rare grin. “I do.”
In the locker room, Roamer corners me. Charlie is gone. Kappel is in his office. The guys who haven’t left yet fade away into the background, like they’re trying to go invisible. Roamer leans in so close, I can smell the eggs he had for breakfast. “You’re dead, freak.”
Much as I would love to kick the shit out of Gabe Romero, I’m not going to. 1) Because he’s not worth getting into trouble for. And 2) because I remember the look on Violet’s face at the river when she told me to let him go.
So I count. One, two, three, four, five …
I will hold it in. I won’t punch him in the face.
I will be good.
And then he slams me into the locker and, before I can even blink, punches me in the eye, and then again in the nose. It’s all I can do to stay on my feet, and I am counting like hell now because I want to kill the son of a bitch.
I wonder, if I count long enough, whether I can go back in time, all the way to the beginning of eighth grade, before I was weird and before anyone noticed me and before I opened my mouth and talked to Roamer and before they called me “freak” and I was awake all the time and everything felt okay and somewhat normal, whatever normal is, and people actually looked at me—not to stare, not to watch for what I’d do next, but looked at me like, Oh hey, what’s up, man, what’s up, buddy? I wonder, if I count backward, whether I can go back and take Violet Markey with me and then move forward with her so we have more time. Because it’s time I fear.
And me.
I’m afraid of me.
“Is there a problem here?” Kappel stands a couple of feet away, eyeing us. He’s got a baseball bat in his hand, and I can hear him at home telling the wife, “The trouble isn’t the freshmen. It’s the older ones, once they start working out and hitting those growth spurts. That’s when you gotta protect yourself, no matter what.”
“No problem,” I tell him. “No trouble.”
If I know Kappel like I know Kappel, he’s never going to take this to Principal Wertz, not when one of his best baseball players is involved. I wait to get blamed for it. I’m all set to hear the details of my detention or expulsion, even if I’m the only one bleeding. But then Kappy says, “We’re done here, Finch. You can go.”