“You went to PPHS before, right?” he asks me gently, like he’s coaxing a feral cat out from behind a Dumpster in a dark alley.
It’s not a surprise that he knows about what happened at PPHS. The whole country knows. It was all over TV and the Internet. People grow solemn when what happened at my school comes up in discussion. But Evan’s tone almost sounds like Brenda. It makes me worry he knows something more specific about me.
“Yes. But I don’t like to talk about it,” I say.
“Sorry.” He tugs at his shirtsleeve, focusing his gaze on the worn edges of it. “I was just thinking maybe you knew my cousin since you were at the same school.”
“Probably not.” My heart speeds up. My stomach hurts. This subject needs to change. “So this is what you did in Hawaii? Went to the beach? And made surf videos with your friends?”
He looks at me thoughtfully, and I figure he wishes we could keep talking about the other stuff. But then he grins. “Pretty much. I also did ding repairs on surfboards, bussed tables, and threw lemons at rental cars.”
“Whoa. That’s mean.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew how many kooks visit Hawaii every year. Millions. What can I say? My friends and I get territorial about our surf spots.”
I turn back to the TV, willing myself to get caught up again. There’s something so free, so alive, about what Evan and his friends are doing. Another boy slides down the screen on his surfboard, running his fingers through the wall of the wave he’s riding. Water skids off his slick skin and into his wake. I can imagine Evan and his posse on the beach, watching their friend from shore, stoked on the moment. And I want to be there. Some tiny part of me wishes I could be part of that day. Out there. Outside. In the sun and the sand and the water, skimming across the screen to nowhere in particular. And thinking about it makes me remember, for a split second, that feeling of just being. And I wonder if I’ll ever find it again. Really and truly find it. I twist my gaze from the screen to Evan. He isn’t watching his friends surf. He’s watching me.
“You love the water as much as I do,” he says, nodding at me. “I can tell.”
“Mm-hm.” My voice drifts. Sentimental. Nostalgic. I haven’t swum since the day before October fifteenth.
“Keep the DVD,” he says, smiling. “You should have it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. That way, you can watch it whenever you want. And we should definitely go surfing sometime.”
When I don’t answer, he focuses back on the TV. I watch him watching. He has a faraway look on his face, like he remembers everything about the day that video was made. If I opened my mouth to say it, he’d get it. He’d nod his head and agree. But I don’t speak true things like that out loud anymore. The only person I tell things to is Brenda.
And that’s one more thing that makes me know that even though Evan and I live next door to each other, we are miles apart.
He will leave his house every day.
He will traipse through the courtyard of our building.
I will watch him go.
He will be a boy living out in the world.
I will be a girl peeking out from behind a curtain.
chapter six
The weekend passes, and when Brenda comes on Tuesday, she says we need a plan for how I can help myself when something triggers a panic attack.
“I’m sorry I called you,” I say.
“It’s okay.” Even though she tells me this, I worry she’s at least a little disappointed in me. We’ve been working for months, and everything she’s been teaching me flew right out the window as soon as I saw my school on television. “I wanted to help. But I also want to give you the tools you need to get through those attacks that happen when I’m not available to talk you through them. I want to empower you.”
She makes me take out a piece of paper to write down all the things I need to tell myself if it happens again.
1. Breathe.
2. You are okay.
3. You are not dying.
We’ve written a list like this before, but it stayed in my notebook. This time Brenda wants me to tear the page free and tape it to the wall. I decide to put it up by the kitchen counter. Anybody can see it. My mom. Ben. Even Evan if I let him inside again. It will be a reminder that the girl who lives here isn’t quite right.
I smooth my list out by the photo calendar I made online for my mom for Christmas. April has a picture of Ben blowing bubbles in the courtyard of Paradise Manor. I stare at the bubbles. I stare at my list. Is it really as simple as one, two, three?
“Well, that’s done. Let’s sit,” Brenda says.
We do.
“So. I have to admit, your excitement about meeting Evan the last time we talked made me hopeful you might be ready to try something new. Something simple.” She pulls out her notebook and looks at me to make sure I’m following. “But now I’m wondering if it’s the right time for that. What do you think?”
“What did you have in mind?”
“Well, there’s a mailbox. It’s just down the block. I was thinking we could try to walk there sometime. We could send something.”