I wave a hand. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
“You really don’t drink. I always forget. I’m sorry.”
Those last two words stun me. I lift my head, expecting to see him smirking or holding his camera up. He looks totally serious, though. No hint of humor. Just genuine concern.
I make a fist and pound my chest to clear my throat.
“I’m fine,” I repeat.
“Let’s go in there.” Lex points and starts walking. I follow his line of sight. He’s gesturing to one of the tents. I kick dirt over the puke, then jog after him, still holding on to my empty cup.
“I’m not having sex with you,” I tell him.
He shakes his head. “Dream on, Winters. Look, I’m wasted. If I don’t sit and chill, I’m gonna do something stupid like teabag Donald Trump or hit on your girlfriend again.” Donald Trump’s what the whole school calls Cal Beckett, our resident young Republican and capitalist cheerleader.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” I say.
“Whatever. Your processing chip is shorting out again. Your capacity to detect my, admittedly lame, humor has been seriously compromised.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re an idiot for how smart you are.”
“I’m leaving,” I say firmly, veering off-path from the tent.
“No!” barks Lex, lunging at me, tackling me around my neck so that he practically drags me to the dirt. “God, you’re touchy, too. Just hang with me for a few minutes. Okay? I don’t want to, you know, pass out”—he runs his hand through his hair—“or something.”
This, this, what I’m feeling right now, the racing pulse, the sweating palms, the burrowing dread, this is anxiety. And unlike Teddy’s, it’s well earned. It’s not a true flashback. I have plenty of those, so I know the difference. No, this is a mere memory, brief but vivid. I awake in the middle of the night. It’s April of our sophomore year, just six months earlier, and a late snow falls outside, a soft dusting to cover the icy mantle beneath. The radiator blasts. The air is filled with the hiss and thump of steam rising through metal. My clothes stick to me and there’s so much sweat I feel feverish. I roll over and remember what I’ve done and how I’ve betrayed Lex. Somewhere inside I ought to feel guilt or shame for my actions, but instead I’m numb.
My eyes adjust to darkness and I see the shape on the floor, near my desk. It’s indistinct at first, but then I know it’s him. Lex was way drunk when I went to sleep, and now he’s passed out. This is typical. There’s an awful stench in the air like puke or worse, and I swear, if he’s pissed his bed again, I’m moving out for good. I switch on the light and the horror of what I see strikes me all at once, but it can’t truly cut through the numbness. Nothing can. I force myself to leap from bed and nudge him, but his body just flops in a weird way. His whole face is slack. His breath is shallow, almost nonexistent. And then it’s happening again. It’s like when they pulled my family from the water and tried to revive the dead, and now this, this part is a flashback. The way my teeth chatter and my eyes roll back and I can’t keep the words, the horror, from slipping from my lips ohgodohgod ohsiobhan notyou pleasepleaseplease but I can’t stop and lose my mind, not even for a second, because while they’re dead and gone, Lex isn’t. Not yet. Not if I can save him.
My ears roar again and now I’m a goddamn time traveler because I’m back here, on a Vermont mountaintop, with a high school party raging on around me, but I can’t remember if I’m in the present or the past.
I’m split. I’m torn.
I am both ever evolving and ever decaying.
Finally, I decide I’m in the present because that’s the easiest answer, but it’s not like there’s any real way to tell. Present me walks in the tall grass with Lex Emil, full of my usual self-assurance and swagger. I’m lean, tall, and bathed in the warm caress of moonlight, but when I look around, I can see that I’m also in the past.
Past me stands off to the side, and I am not all there. I am transparent, undefined, and charged with constant pain. I know what Lex wants to talk about. I know why he’s being nice all of a sudden. It’s so obvious. It’s a trap. But past Win can only watch. He cannot be seen. He cannot talk to present Win because that would disrupt things. That would have meaningful consequences for the future.
Lex holds the tent flap open. He nods at present Win.
“Hurry up,” he calls.
chapter
twenty