“Oh, I don’t know if I’ll have time. I get pretty busy staring at this wall and that wall. And counting the tiles on the kitchen floor. Have you seen how small they are? I always lose track somewhere in the hundreds.”
He laughs. “You’re pretty funny for a girl who never leaves her apartment.”
I shrug.
“If anything, I’ll be back for the grilled cheese,” he says.
“I’ll be here.”
chapter fourteen
When I walk Evan to the door, he asks me for my phone. “Let me punch my number in. We can text.”
I have to explain that I don’t have a cell phone anymore. They’re too expensive. I paid for my old phone with the money I made teaching swim lessons in the summer.
I don’t have a job.
I don’t have a phone.
I don’t have a life.
I’m weird.
“I don’t have a cell. I can’t afford it.”
Evan tucks a curl behind his ear. “Wait right here,” he says, as if I might actually leave to go to the corner store for bubble gum. He heads next door and comes back in minutes.
“You can use this.” He hands me an outdated cell phone. “It’s my Hawaii number. My mom sweetened the move here by promising me a new phone. My old one’s not the greatest, but it’s prepaid and just lying around. It’s something, right?” He enters his California number into the contacts list. “Text me anytime. For real.”
He hauls his backpack onto his shoulder and leaves.
I hover at my doorway and watch him go inside his own apartment. After he’s gone, I can feel the smile on my lips. My face feels stretched out, and I have to stifle the laugh that wants to come bursting out of my belly. I run my thumb over the top of the phone and wonder how long I have to wait before I can send him a text without looking like a total stalker.
I must look happy, because when my mom comes home, she notices.
“You’re kind of glowing,” she says as she dumps her purse on a stool at the counter.
I stand in the kitchen spooning three separate servings of chicken and rice onto plates and turn my head to hide a smile. I want my afternoon with Evan to be something only I know.
“Now she looks like she has a sunburn,” Ben says.
“Grab the silverware,” I tell him.
*
I’m restless through dinner and reading to Ben. I’m restless because I want to text Evan. But I wait. I wait until Ben has fallen asleep and I’m settled into the dark of our room between the polka-dot sheets of my bed before I type anything.
Me: Hi
The phone instantly vibrates in my hand with a return text. It makes me jump. I didn’t think he’d write me back so fast.
Evan: Who is this?
Oh, my god. How embarrassing. Did Evan program the wrong number into this phone? Am I texting some random someone somewhere else in Pacific Palms? The phone vibrates again, lighting up the dark with another message before I can type my reply.
Evan: I’m kidding. Hey, Math Genius.
That makes me laugh out loud, and I have to stifle my giggle with my shoulder so I don’t wake up Ben.
Me: You suck. That totally freaked me out.
Evan: You know it was funny.
Me: Ha ha. So thanks for the phone.
Evan: I got the feeling u didn’t want 2 talk about the letter face 2 face. Maybe this is better? It’s like writing.
Uh-oh. When I wrote that letter, I knew Evan was a couple of miles away at school. He was sitting in a desk or cruising down a hallway in flip-flops and slamming a locker shut. He was far enough away to make the words easy. But right now, with my thumbs hovering over the phone keys, I know he’s only next door. It’s almost like he can hear me. It’s almost like I’m saying it right to him.
But I remind myself that I’m not.
There are a couple of walls between us.
I can do this.
I type out, Okay.
Here we go.
Me: Did my letter weird you out?
Evan: Nope.
Me: So you want to know everything?
Evan: Only if u want 2 tell me.
I decide I will tell him the parts I can say. The parts I have told Brenda. The things she’s written down and saved on her computer.
Me: The bell rang for first period. I was sitting at my desk.
I remember my teacher stood at the podium.
I remember everything changed in the middle of first period.
Me: There was a popping sound in the hallway. And screams. And the door to my classroom swung open.
I remember the panic.
I remember the smell.
I remember the sounds.
I remember there was another door by the whiteboard that led into another classroom that led into a hallway that led out of the building and into the auditorium.
Evan: What did you do?
Me: I busted through another classroom door and yelled at people to come with me. Not everyone could come.
I remember we ran.
I remember we scattered.
I remember I left that building and ran into the auditorium.
Me: I thought people were still following me. But when I got to the auditorium, I was alone. I was worried about everyone else.
Evan: You were brave. You helped people. You helped them get out.
Me: No. People died.
Evan: But some people lived. A lot of people lived. You lived.
His words look so nice written there that I want to believe in them.