The Program

CHAPTER FIVE




WHEN WE PULL INTO THE PARKING LOT, I GO TO climb out of the car when James catches my hand. “Hey,” he says seriously. “I have to tell you something before we go in.”

My heart skips a beat. “What?”

“I didn’t want to say anything when we were at your house, but Miller broke into Lacey’s bedroom last night, hoping to talk to her. He thinks he might get flagged today. I’ll let him tell you the rest. But he’s okay. He’s alive.”

I lower my head and try to catch my breath, taking my hand from James’s before resting it on the dashboard to steady myself. “He’s okay?” I ask, looking sideways at him. He nods, but there’s something in his expression that keeps me from feeling relieved.

“Do you think they’re coming for him?” I ask.

“I hope not.”

I close my eyes and throw my head back against the seat. “Why did he do that?” I moan. “Why didn’t he just wait?”

“I don’t know,” James says. “But I think we should take off early today, maybe after lunch. We need to keep a lower profile around here.”

“Says the guy who faked a school project at Sumpter.”

“That was different. I was trying to help Miller.”

“It was dumb,” I say. “We have to do better. It’s our fault if they take him.”

“I know that,” James snaps. “Don’t you think I know that?”

We stare at each other, his features taking on a wild edge. James feels responsible for my brother’s death. For my safety, and Miller’s safety. It’s just how he is. And sometimes I’m stupid enough to believe that he can really keep us safe.

“I know everything you think,” I murmur, despair settling in my chest.

James’s expression softens. “Come here,” he says. At first I don’t move, the impending threat on Miller making the space in the car, in the world, suffocatingly small. “Sloane, I need you,” James adds, his voice thick.

And when I hear his plea, I push aside everything else. I lean into him, digging my nails into his back as I clutch him to me. He flinches, and then squeezes me tighter. The minute I turn eighteen, James and I are going to leave town—start over someplace else. But we can’t go yet. They’ll find us, issue an Amber Alert as a way to track us down. We’d never get away. No one has ever gotten away before.

We stay close until James’s hand slides onto my bare thigh just below the hem of my skirt, his breathing deepening. “My lips are tired of talking,” he whispers next to my ear. “Now kiss me and make me forget,” he says.

I pull back to see the sadness in James’s eyes, the mix of desire there. And so I whisper that I love him, then climb onto his lap and kiss him, as if it’s the last one we’ll ever have.

• • •

In economics class, I stare at Miller as he sits next to me with his head lowered, drawing in the notepad he has under his desk. I’m checking his mannerisms to see if there’s anything that can get him flagged. He seems fine.

“Well?” I whisper as the teacher starts walking around to hand back quizzes. “What happened at Lacey’s?”

Miller pauses in his sketching. “I slipped in through her window after her parents were asleep. I tried to tell her that I wasn’t going to hurt her, but she started crying.” He shakes his head. “She thought I was there to kill her or something. Who knows what The Program has told her about me.”

I put my hand on my forehead, leaning my elbow on my desk. This is a major disaster. This is enough to get him taken away for sure. “Did she call for her parents?”

“No,” Miller says. “She told me to get out—even after I tried to explain who I was, she told me to get out.” His tone is flat. “I guess I was hoping that on some level she could still love me.” He looks over, his eyes glassy. “Do you think she could?”

“Yes,” I say, “I do. But Miller, you could have been arrested. Sent away. And then what? What would I do without you?”

“I had to try. You wouldn’t give up on James.”

I pause. “No. I wouldn’t.” He nods, looking sorry that he made the comparison, and goes back to his notepad. “Are you going to keep trying?” I ask.

“No point,” he answers. “She’s not the same person. I don’t even think she’d fall for me again.”

I blink back warm tears. “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” he says. “I have to move on, right? At least that’s what my mom tells me.” Miller’s mom was never crazy about Lacey in the first place. She hoped her son would end up with someone more on the cheerful side. But in our lives, there isn’t all that much to be peppy about anymore. And those that are have usually gone through The Program.

“Miller, you don’t—”

“Sloane Barstow?” Mr. Rocco calls, and then glares me into silence. Miller’s head is down as he continues to doodle in his notepad under the desk, but I’m relieved that he isn’t planning anything crazy. If we can just keep it together through this latest threat, we’ll survive. And maybe in a few months, when her monitoring is over, we can convince Lacey to hang out with us again.

“James and I are leaving after lunch,” I whisper when I’m sure the teacher isn’t looking. “You in?”

“Hell yes. You think I’m here to learn?”

I smile. Miller sounds like himself for the first time today. Just before I text James to tell him it’s on, I glance once more at Miller, catching what he’s drawing in his notepad. A large, black spiral, taking over the entire page. I turn toward the front, pretending not to notice. In my pocket, my phone vibrates.

I covertly slide it out and check the message. KEEP MILLER CLOSE. EXTRA HANDLERS ON CAMPUS.

“Miller,” I whisper. “James says there are more handlers today. Do you think they’re here for you?”

Miller licks at his bottom lip, as if considering, then he nods. “Could be. Let’s leave before lunch then,” he says. “We’ll go to my house.”

I agree and text James, glad to leave. The last thing I want is to see my best friend get taken away. Again.

• • •

I sit next to Miller on his flower-patterned couch as James is in the kitchen rummaging through the refrigerator. Miller chews on his thumbnail, and when he moves to the next finger, I see that they’re all bitten painfully short, bleeding under the slivers of the nail still there. I reach out and smack his hand away from his face and he rests it in his lap.

“Saw her on the way to school today,” Miller says, staring out the picture window across from us.

“Lacey?”

“Yeah. Drove by Sumpter and saw her in the lot, talking to Evan Freeman. She . . . was laughing.” He begins biting on his nail again, but I don’t stop him. Instead I lean my head on Miller’s shoulder and stare out the window with him.

Returners aren’t allowed to get too close to people for a few months after coming back, but they are allowed to make a few friends—especially if they’re also successful graduates of The Program. I guess the handlers figure that if they’re both scrubbed clean, they can’t be bad influences on each other. Before Miller, Lacey actually went on a few dates with Evan Freeman. She said he used too much tongue.

And now, the fact that Lacey was talking to him—laughing—all while not realizing that she already knows him, makes me sick. It’s so disturbing that I can barely handle it.

“What do you think they did to her in there?” I mumble, not sure I really want the answer.

“They dissected her,” Miller responds, spitting out a bit of nail. “They opened up her head and took out the pieces, putting them back together as a happy-face puzzle. It’s like she’s not even real anymore.”

“We don’t know that,” I say. “She could still be the same on the inside. She just doesn’t remember.”

“And if she never does?” He turns to me, a tear spilling over onto his cheek. “Do you really think anything can ever be the same again? She’s empty, Sloane. She’s the walking dead now.”

I don’t want to believe that. I’ve seen returners for nearly two years, and although I’ve never had more than a standing-next-to-me-in-line-at-the-mall conversation, I’m sure they’re still people. Just . . . shinier, as if everything is great. They’ve been brainwashed or something. But they’re not empty. They can’t be.

“It would have been better if she had died,” Miller whispers. I sit up and glare at him.

“Don’t say that,” I say. “She’s not dead. And in time we’ll try again. She may not know you, Miller. But her heart will.”

He shakes his head, not meeting my eyes. “No. I give up. I’m letting her go just like the psychologist said I should.”

After The Program took her, they sentenced me, James, and Miller to two weeks of daily intensive therapy—therapy beyond the usual assessments. They asked for details, things they could use in her treatment. But really I think they were trying to see if we were infected too. Luckily we weren’t.

I want to tell Miller not to move on, to wait it out and try to win her again. But in a way, I know he’s right. The way Lacey looked, how she acted. She’s not the same. And she probably never will be.

I remember the first time Miller met Lacey. I’d brought him to our table, hoping to introduce them, but Lacey was in the lunch line arguing with the lady at the register. Lacey was wearing this ridiculous black-and-white-striped dress that made her look like Beetlejuice, but Miller got this puppy-dog expression on his face. He leaned in and told me and James that she was exactly the kind of girl he was looking for—the kind who would piss off his mother.

I shoved his shoulder, but James laughed from across the table. “Don’t do it, man,” James told him with a smirk. “She’s like a black widow. She eats dudes like you for breakfast.”

And Miller just smiled as if the idea fascinated him. Lacey wasn’t so easy to convince. But when they finally got together, they were happy. They were so happy.

“I’m sorry, Miller,” I say in a low voice. He nods and then turns suddenly to hug me. I rest my hand on the back of his neck as he squeezes me so tight I can barely breathe. I don’t tell him it’ll be okay because I don’t know if I can hope that it’s true.

Just then James walks into the living room, biting into an apple. He looks at us, tilting his head as if assessing the situation. He takes another bite and walks over, leaning down to put his arms around both of us. “Can I have some love too?” he asks in the stupid way he does when he’s trying to make sure we’re not getting too sad. He’s trying to distract us. He kisses loudly at Miller’s cheek, and I laugh, pushing him away.

James straightens, but Miller just stands and doesn’t say anything. James’s expression falters and he shoots me a warning look, as if telling me I shouldn’t have let Miller break down like that. I shrug because I didn’t mean to.

Glancing around the room to figure out what to do next, James walks to the fireplace mantel and picks up the latest family photo. “Man,” he says, looking at Miller. “Your mom is smokin’ hot in this picture.”

“Go to hell,” Miller says, biting his thumbnail again as he hovers in the doorway. They have this same conversation every time James sees Miller’s mom, who is indeed very pretty. She’s single, raising Miller by herself. She has blond hair and wears short skirts, and has a possible crush on my obnoxious boyfriend who she says is going to be a “heartbreaker” when he gets older. Uh, yeah. Not if I can help it.

“I’m just saying,” James adds, walking back over to the couch and dropping down next to me. “If I didn’t have this one”—he hikes his thumb at me—“I might be your new stepdad.”

I laugh, slapping his thigh. “Hey!”

James winks at me and turns back to Miller. “I can teach you how to play catch in the backyard, okay, slugger?”

“Fine by me,” Miller says, his normally amused expression at the joke gone. “I’ll take Sloane in exchange. I need a new girlfriend anyway.”

Both James and I pause in our laughing, Miller adding a new twist to the routine. Only . . . he doesn’t say it like he’s joking. He glares at James, at me, and then turns away. “I’m going to make a sandwich,” he adds, and heads into the kitchen.

James’s mouth opens slightly as he stares after Miller, a bit of pink high on his cheeks. “I think he was serious,” he says, sounding confused. “Why would he say something like that?” James glances at me, his brow furrowed. “Does he like you?”

I shake my head, my stomach knotting. “No,” I say honestly. And the reason it’s so alarming is that we know it’s out of character, that it’s a break in Miller’s personality. It’s a sign we were taught to watch out for. “Should we talk to him about it?” I ask.

James puts his hand over his mouth, rubbing it as he thinks. “No,” he says finally. “I don’t want to upset him any more.” We’re quiet for a long minute, the sound of the refrigerator opening and closing in the background. James looks at me. “And by the way, you’re not allowed to hook up with Miller.”

“Shut up.”

“I’ll make you a deal. You don’t hook up with him, and I won’t hook up with his mom.”

“James!” I go to hit him again, but he captures my hand and then pulls me onto his lap, making it impossible for me to get up. James is so good at making everything normal that I start laughing, trying to twist out of his grip. When Miller walks back in, a sandwich in his hand, he pauses in the doorway—no emotion on his face.

I stop squirming, but James doesn’t let me go. He nods his chin at Miller. “We’re clear that Sloane’s mine, right?” he asks, not sounding combative, just curious. “That I love her and won’t let her go, not even to you. You know that?” I wonder what happened to the “let’s not upset him” argument.

Miller takes a bite of his turkey on rye and shrugs. “Maybe,” he says. “But we all know that things change. Whether we want them to or not.” And without betraying any emotion, Miller backs off and leaves, walking slowly up the stairs to his room.

James releases me and I sit next to him, stunned. Miller doesn’t have feelings for me, I know that. He’s just acting out. We’ve seen it before, how someone will piss off their friends or start sleeping around when depression takes hold. My brother acted out, but we denied it. We pretended not to see it. With that thought I turn to James, my face tight with worry. “Should I—”

“No,” James says, holding up his hand. “I will.” He kisses the top of my head before walking to the stairs that lead to Miller’s room. He’s going to try a peer intervention, something we’ve been taught since the seventh grade. “This might take a while,” he says to me.

I nod, and then watch as James goes up to try to bring Miller back.

• • •

In Miller’s small, rooster-themed kitchen, I make some chicken noodle soup and eat it with crackers before washing out the pot. When I get tired of waiting, I move to sit on the stairs, listening for any sounds above as I rest my head against the wall.

It’s forty-five minutes later when James appears on the landing. He smiles at me, a look that’s to tell me everything worked out. Miller walks past him, and I back up into the foyer and watch him as he comes to pause in front of me.

“James says you’d never go for me because he’s a better kisser than I am,” Miller starts. “I told him we should put it to the test, and he punched me in the gut so hard I almost puked.”

I dart an alarmed look at my boyfriend and he shrugs.

“It’s okay,” Miller says, touching my arm. “I deserved it. I was being a dick, and I’m sorry.” His mouth quirks up in a smile. “I’m not really attracted to you, Sloane. I hope you’re not too disappointed.”

I roll my eyes and look back at James as he drops slowly down each stair. “Did you really hit him?”

“That’s my idea of intervention. Worked, right?”

James is always thinking like that, that if he can distract us long enough we’ll forget how messed up everything is. He’s right. It does work. But will it always? Will he always be able to make us laugh through our tears? I stare at him then, knowing how much I depend on him, on how he makes me feel. His smile fades as if he’s reading the serious expression on my face. Rather than make a joke, he looks at the wooden floor.

“Do you guys want to watch a movie?” Miller asks, sounding more alive than he has all day. “My mom won’t be back until four.”

“Your mom—” James begins.

“Shut up,” Miller and I say at the same time. James chuckles, finally glancing up, looking flawlessly charming. All is well. All is . . . normal.

We go into the living room, wasting an afternoon as if it were any other. But I can’t help stealing looks out the window, constantly checking for the men in white coats.