“What’s the group?”
“It’s called Life Is Life. It’s this—it’s a support group for teenagers who’ve either thought about suicide or tried it.”
“And you saw Finch there? When?”
“Sunday. He said he was there because he swallowed a bunch of pills and had to go to the hospital. I thought you should know.”
I stay through last period, only because I have a test. Afterward, I grab Leroy and ride directly to Finch’s house. He doesn’t know I’m coming, and when I get there, no one answers the door. I find some pebbles in the driveway and throw them at his window, and with every ping ping against the glass, my heart jumps. Then I sit down on the front step, hoping his mom or his sisters will appear and let me in. I’m still sitting there twenty minutes later, the house as closed up and silent as when I arrived, and finally I head home.
In my room, I don’t even bother taking off my coat and scarf. I open my laptop and send Finch a Facebook message. He answers right away, like he’s been waiting. So tomorrow’s my birthday.…
I want to ask where he was and was he there the whole time and did he know that I was outside his house. I want to ask about the hospital, but I’m worried if I ask anything he’ll go quiet and disappear, so instead I write: How should we celebrate?
Finch: It’s a surprise.
Me: But it’s your birthday, not mine.
Finch: Doesn’t matter. Come over at six. Be hungry.
VIOLET
March 21 and beyond
I knock on the door to his room but don’t get any answer. I knock again. “Finch?” I knock again and again, and finally I hear a shuffling, a crash as something is dropped, a goddammit, and the door opens. Finch is wearing a suit. His hair is cut short, buzzed very close, and between that and the stubble on his jaw, he looks different, older, and, yes, hot.
He gives me a lopsided grin and says, “Ultraviolet. The only person I want to see.” He moves out of the way so I can come in.
The room is still hospital bare, and I have a sinking feeling because he’s been to the hospital but didn’t tell me, and there’s something about all that blue that makes me feel suffocated.
I say, “I need to talk to you.”
Finch kisses me hello, and his eyes are brighter than the other night, or maybe it’s that he isn’t wearing glasses. Every time he changes, it takes getting used to. He kisses me again and leans sexily against the door, as if he knows how good he looks.
“First things first. I need to know how you feel about space travel and Chinese food.”
“In that order?”
“Not necessarily.”
“I think one is interesting and the other is really great to eat.”
“Good enough. Shoes off.”
I take my shoes off, which drops me an inch or two.
“Clothes off, midget.”
I swat at him.
“Later then, but I won’t forget. Okay. Please close your eyes.”
I close my eyes. In my mind, I’m going over the best way to bring up Life Is Life. But he’s so much like himself again, even if he looks different, that I tell myself that when I open my eyes, the walls of his room will be painted red and the furniture will be back where it was and the bed will be made because that’s where he sleeps.
I hear the door to the closet open and he leads me forward a few steps. “Keep them closed.” Out of instinct, I reach my hands out in front of me, and Finch lowers them to my sides. The Slow Club is playing, a band I like, all plucky and bittersweet and kind of offbeat. Like Finch, I think. Like us.
He helps me sit, and I’m on what feels like a stack of pillows. I hear him and feel him moving around me as the door closes, and then his knees are pressed to mine. I’m ten years old again, back in my fort-building days.
“Open.”
I open.
And I’m in space, everything glowing like the Emerald City. The walls and ceiling are painted with planets and stars. Our Post-its still hang on one wall. The blue comforter is at our feet, so the whole floor glows. Plates and silverware and napkins are stacked next to containers of food. A bottle of vodka sits on ice.
“How did you …”
Finch points to the black-light bulb in the ceiling. “If you’ll notice,” he says, holding a hand up to the skies, “Jupiter and Pluto are perfectly aligned in relation to earth. It’s the Jovian-Plutonian gravitational chamber. Where everything floats indefinitely.”
The only thing that comes out of my mouth is “Oh my God.” I’ve been so worried about him, this boy I love, more worried than I knew until right this moment, staring up at the solar system. This is the single loveliest thing anyone’s ever done for me. It’s movie lovely. It feels somehow epic and fragile, and I want the night to last forever, and knowing it can’t already has me sad.
The food is from Happy Family. I don’t ask how he got it, if he actually drove out there himself or maybe got Kate to pick it up for him, but I tell myself that he was the one who went all that way because he doesn’t have to stay in this closet if he doesn’t want to.
He opens the vodka and we pass the bottle back and forth. It tastes dry and bitter, like autumn leaves. I like the way it burns my nose and throat on the way down.
“Where did you get this?” I hold up the bottle.
“I have my ways.”
“It’s perfect. Not just this—all of it. But it’s your birthday, not mine. I should be doing something like this for you.”
He kisses me.
I kiss him.
The air is full of things we aren’t saying, and I wonder if he feels it too. He’s being so easy and Finch-like that I tell myself to let it go, don’t think so much. Maybe Amanda’s wrong. Maybe she only told me about that group to get me upset. Maybe she made the whole thing up.
He fills our plates, and as we eat, we talk about everything except for how he’s feeling. I tell him what he’s missed in U.S. Geography and talk about the places left to wander. I give him his birthday present, a first edition of The Waves I found in a little bookstore in New York. I inscribed it: You make me feel gold, flowing too. I love you. Ultraviolet Remarkey-able.
He says, “This is the book I was looking for at Bookmarks, at the Bookmobile Park. Anytime I went into a bookstore.”
He kisses me.
I kiss him.
I can feel the worries fading away. I’m relaxed and happy—happier than I’ve been in a while. I am in the moment. I am here.