He laughed.
I pulled a few blades of grass from the ground and rubbed them between my fingers. “I don’t know. I’ll miss the T-Cad, I guess. And I can’t imagine anything without Mika and David.” I searched for more to say. “And I’ll miss the sounds. You know, like the sound of the trains from my house and the sound of cicadas in summer. I considered recording some, which is stupid, I know. And I’ll miss Ramune ice cream from the konbini. And those boxes of cakes wrapped in that fancy paper you can buy at department stores. I love those. And—” I crushed the grass in my hands. “Whatever. None of this matters.”
“Of course it does,” Jamie said, smiling.
I shrugged.
For some reason, I was thinking about my family’s first apartment in Tokyo. About the Thai restaurant across the street with red lanterns hanging in the windows and the corner of the living room where Dad used to sit and read me Winnie-the-Pooh. About the day before we moved out, when Mom had leaned down next to me to ask what I’d miss about Tokyo.
The answer had been so obvious.
It had been home.
Jamie shifted toward me. I thought he was going to say something, and I really didn’t want him to, because I really didn’t want to cry in front of him. But he just handed me a Pretz stick. We ate in silence for a moment or so. The traffic on the nearby road sounded like a river, like water crashing over rocks and tumbling by.
“Hey,” Jamie said after a moment. “Did you mean what you said the other night? About my hat? Do you really not like it?”
I swallowed my mouthful of Pretz. “God no. It’s awful.”
His lips twitched. And then we were doubled over with laughter, falling toward each other like a book closing shut.
CHAPTER 10
TUESDAY
“DON’T ASK ME,” MIKA SAID on the phone. “It’s David’s stupid plan. That dude has some screwed-up ideas about how to spend an evening.”
“Why does he want to go to the T-Cad?” I was sitting on my desk, staring out the open window, listening to the trains whooshing in and out of the station. Dorothea Brooke was stretched out beside me, luxuriously chewing the tail off a toy mouse. “Is this a joke?”
“Who knows? He’s a fucking psychopath. He also said you should wear all black and that we’re meeting at the T-Cad train station at eight. In other news, where the hell have you been all day?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been calling you for the last ten hundred hours.”
“You have? I didn’t hear my cell.”
“Did you get my texts at least?”
“Um. I didn’t open them.”
“They said ‘help!’ and ‘save me!’ and ‘this is urgent!’”
“Sorry. I was gonna open them later.”
“You’re useless, you know that? Mom’s back in town, and she’s been terrorizing me all morning.”
“How is she terrorizing you?”
“Have you finished your summer reading? Have you been keeping up with your preseason training? How many miles did you run yesterday? Have you checked to make sure you’re still registered for your AP classes?”
“Yikes.”
“What she doesn’t understand is I am exhausted.”
“Why? Did you and David go drinking last night?”
“Jesus, no. I’m not an alcoholic.”
“I thought you two were hanging out after I went home.”
“We barely did anything. Anyway, boring. Have you been home all day?”
“What do you think?” There were no trains going at that moment, and the city seemed loud and quiet at the same time, like it was holding its breath, like it was hovering at the top of a roller coaster, waiting for the perfect moment to fall. If I told Mika the truth about being with Jamie, she might think it was weird. Or she might think it meant nothing at all. I let out a breath. “I’ve been packing.”
At 8:07, the only other person at the T-Cad train station was the guy in the booth behind the barriers.
I stood by myself at the top of the steps that led down to the darkened street. All the small shops were closed except for the always-reliable konbini, which glowed like a fluorescent blue-and-white beacon.
This was probably part of David’s ridiculous plan. Dress me up like a cat burglar and send me to the T-Cad alone to—to what? David lived for ridiculous plans like this. Usually, it was one of the things I liked most about him. Usually, it made me feel like life was electric and unpredictable.
Tonight, it did not.
I sat on the steps and checked my phone. Mom was texting me updates on her packing and asking—again—if I was okay. She’d seemed worried when I told her I was going out tonight. (“I’ve barely seen you since Sunday,” she’d said as I’d scarfed a peanut butter sandwich over the sink before I left. “Mom,” I’d said between bites. “In a week, I’ll see you all the time because I won’t even have friends anymore.”)
In retrospect, that probably hadn’t made her worry less.
I closed my phone and tried as hard as I could not to think about Jamie.
But that was impossible. It was like trying not to get a song stuck in your head. A song you (reluctantly) like. A song you (kind of, sort of) want to hear again. I still didn’t know why he’d been at the T-Cad, and I didn’t know why he’d been kicked out of boarding school, but I was starting to get a picture of him at boarding school. Studying Japanese instead of doing schoolwork, not going home on weekends. I could almost see him, could almost fill in the last three years.
I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. This feeling—this kind of, sort of liking feeling—was massively inconvenient. Inkonbinient, even.
I got up and wandered down the street, taking in all the closed-up stores. The only noises I could hear were the buzzing of the konbini and the croaking of cicadas. And also… Caroline?
“You didn’t show up,” she said.
I stopped and looked around.