Stella wanted to fly there. She was putting all of her eggs into the New Theories basket, and she was dying to collect them. If Daniel was in New York, she reasoned, the book would be too. Jamie wanted to get there too, for other reasons. He wanted to follow the money re: Horizons, and to do that we had to follow the accountant, and the accountant was in New York. But flying meant airport security, which meant video cameras and disgruntled TSA agents and being surrounded by a lot of people. With our semi-fugitive status, Jamie thought that would be unwise. I concurred.
So we drove. For hours. We switched cars again as we passed West Palm Beach, exchanging one not-really-but-kind-of stolen car for another, in case our absence from Horizons had been noticed by anyone who might have been looking.
The green of the trees and the gray of the sky blurred together into a humid-looking soup. At some point the air thickened with fog and rain as we followed I-95 out of the city and into the middle of Nowhere, Florida. When I woke up from a spontaneous nap, I looked up and realized I could barely see the road in front of us. And stupidly, Stella hadn’t slowed down. I snapped at her about it. She ignored me.
Jamie reached between us from the backseat to turn on the radio, but the only non-staticky stations out there broadcast evangelical preachers.
“Are we there yet?” he whined.
“Don’t whine,” I said to him. “It’s unbecoming.”
“Feeling a bit moody, are we?” Stella asked. “I’d have thought a nap would’ve made you less cranky.”
“Die in a fire.”
“Maybe she’s having her period,” Jamie said.
I whipped around in my seat. “Really?”
“You are acting uncharacteristically moody.”
“Uncharacteristically?” Stella chimed in.
“I hate both of you,” I mumbled, and rested my cheek on the cool glass. I was so hot. And I was actually feeling moody. And achy. Maybe I was getting my period.
“What day is it today?”
“The twenty-first,” Stella said.
I counted. Huh. That was weird. I hadn’t had a period since—since before Horizons. More than a month ago.
Or wait, I couldn’t remember having one. That didn’t mean I hadn’t had one.
But what if—what if I hadn’t?
The thought unsettled me. I’d never been late before. But I also had never been experimented on before. First time for everything?
I stared ahead at the road and asked Stella, “When did you have your period last?”
Jamie crossed his arms, looking smug. “Called it.” I flicked his ear.
“Um, three weeks ago? I think.” She glanced at me. “When was yours?”
“A month ago,” I lied. She shot me a look. “What?” I asked.
“Nothing.” She turned back to the road, then swore. “I don’t think I packed any tampons. Did you?”
I shook my head. “Forgot.”
“As delightful as this conversation is,” Jamie said, “can I ask why we’re having it?”
I had no good answer to that question, but as I struggled to come up with some excuse, I realized Stella was pulling off toward an exit.
“I thought we were stopping in Savannah?” Jamie asked. “We’re still an hour away.”
“We have only a quarter of a tank left,” she explained. “And I need a bathroom.”
That liar. She thought I needed a bathroom, and that I was embarrassed about it, so she was covering for me so we could stop. Which was actually extremely sweet.
Thank you, I mouthed to her. And I was grateful. When we stopped, I could ask Stella the question I wanted to ask, just not in front of Jamie.
At the gas station Stella decided she really did have to use the restroom, thankfully, so the two of us went inside while Jamie filled the tank. I bought tampons I unfortunately didn’t need and followed Stella into the bathroom. She was about to walk into a stall when I stopped her.
“Are you sure it was three weeks ago?”
“Yeah. I remember having to ask Wayne for tampons. His face turned so red, I actually thought steam might start coming out of his ears.” She grinned, but it quickly faded. “Why? What’s wrong?”
I bit my lip. “I’m late.”
“How late?”
“I don’t—I don’t really know. Time is sort of screwed up for me—maybe, maybe two weeks?” Or three.
“That’s pretty late,” Stella said quietly.
I said nothing.
“I’ve never been that late.”
I still said nothing. Apparently, whatever was going on with me wasn’t going on with her.
Stella’s expression quickly changed from curious to concerned. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” But I wasn’t fine. I was a lot of things, but definitely not fine.
“You look weird . . . ,” she said.
I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. I looked awful, was how I looked. My face was nearly white, and my lips were gray, and the shadows under my eyes were like bruises.
Stella didn’t look like this. Stella looked healthy. Normal. If she was different, like me, why didn’t I look more like her?
“You look like you’re going to pass out.” She glanced back at the door. “Should I get Jamie? I’ll get Jamie.”
I started to protest but the room began to spin, and I couldn’t speak and stand at the same time. I grabbed the sink, but my knees felt shaky, and I slid down to the floor.