I grab it.
My hands tremble as I flip through the pages. The book is made up of short quotes and ideas. The ones my eyes flit across have something to do with rule-following and paradoxes and trying to understand how the hell anyone can ever make sense of someone else’s words. That’s when I remember what it is I know about Wittgenstein. It has nothing to do with his philosophy. Lex once e-mailed me a link to his Wikipedia page, and idiot that I am, I read it. So this is what I know: Three of Wittgenstein’s brothers committed suicide.
Now I really feel ill. I want to lie down for, like, the rest of the decade. But I can’t. I put Philosophical Investigations back and take the other books over to a desk. There are a few things I need to know. Like how stress can affect the body. Last year in health class, I learned girls sometimes get their periods late when they’re under stress. That type of thing doesn’t make me squeamish the way it does other guys, so I’m glad I paid attention when they told us that. Lex sat next to me in class that day and he couldn’t even look at the teacher. Said blood made him woozy. So instead of listening to the lecture, he put in those orange foam earplugs, the kind they give you on the airplane when you want to sleep. Then he stole my notebook and drew cartoon penises all over the cover in Sharpie along with the sage message VAGINAS ARE GROCE, which made no sense at all considering the amount of time he spends online looking at the things.
I turn back to the textbooks. Well, I know puberty and all that is regulated by hormones, so I flip to the index of the neuroscience one and find a diagram of the endocrine system that shows where all the different glands are located in the body. It makes sense, sort of. But how does the body know when to start changing? Who sets the biological alarm clock? That’s what I want to know, because I think mine is on snooze. I’m sixteen. I’ve done the part of growing up that means a lower voice and sticky dreams and hair down there, but those other changes, the ones that live deeper and darker, the ones I spend all night waiting for as I lie on my back gazing up at the warm belly of the moon … well, those changes haven’t happened yet. Or at least, I don’t think they have.
Not unless stress can affect memories, too.
Not unless—
“Winston,” a voice says, so close that I can feel a beat of hot breath against the back of my neck.
I jump.
My instinct controls me.
I see nothing. I feel everything.
Sssnap!
Sunlight leaps off the bridge’s metal bracings, blinding me. The sound of a train whistle blares in my ears. I pull myself halfway onto the railing and the wind snaps so hard my shirt is practically torn off. I look down. My legs shake. The water is so far away and I don’t want to do this.
I don’t want to do this.
ohgodohgodohgod
“Hey! Fucking … stop it!”
I blink. I’m back. The air smells of bleach and I gag-choke before being able to breathe again. My arms sway like falling Jenga towers. Lex Emil lies pinned beneath me on the lab floor. I’m bigger than him. My knee digs into his scrawny ribs. His round face is blotchy and scratched, with dyed black hair matted across his forehead. His chest heaves in time with the asthmatic rattle of his lungs. He’s holding his hands against my shirt, pushing me back. There’s fear in his eyes.
I roll off him, stunned. I gag again, an awful sound. I can’t help it. These flashes of mine, getting stuck in the past, they’re a part of who I am, but I don’t think I’ll ever get used to them.
“Fuck,” Lex says, more to himself than to me. His hands lower. “It’s okay. You’re okay, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You clicked out. You could have killed me.”
I shiver. “Yeah.”
He crawls to his feet and shakes like a dog leaving water. Then he wags a finger at me, cocky smile flourishing across his face. A gleam of silver above his chin makes me realize he’s gotten some kind of new piercing, a labret. It’s ugly.
“You could at least try and sound remorseful,” he says.
“I’m sorry.”
“I seriously doubt that. I mean, I don’t blame you, but Christ, you would’ve lit into anyone just now. You’re losing it, Win.”
No, I’m not. Something else is happening.
Lex reads my mind. His attention falls upon the books spread out on the lab table, and his eyes widen with understanding.
“What do we have here?” he says.
“I don’t know.”
He laughs softly. “The beast within, huh? You still waiting?”
I glare.
“Guess you’ll know come Friday night, right? That’s the full moon?”
“I guess so,” I say, because it’s true. I will know Friday night.
Change is imminent.
It has to be.
“Yeah, well, have fun with that,” Lex says. “Moon or no moon, I don’t plan on being anywhere near you.”
“Good,” I snarl, and he laughs even harder than before. My hands curl into fists. I want him to shut up.