Still Point (15 page)

“It's a gap. Between my teeth. You know how much food gets caught in there?”

I laughed and he grabbed the camera out of my hands, his hands covering mine for a second. He looked at me. Something moved even though we weren't moving. You can move people with arms and legs, but I also realized you can press them with the weight of your eyes. You can push them away or pull them close. Jax was doing that, pulling me in.

He was suddenly standing too close to me. The toes of our tennis shoes were only inches apart. I backed up a step.

“What are you doing tonight?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “Jealous?”

I smiled but he just fixed his eyes on mine. “You want to watch a movie?” he asked. “I own everything Simon Pegg has ever done. Nothing beats classic British comedy. They talk so fast, they mumble, and their accents can take some getting used to, but it's fucking brilliant.”

I stared at him while he rambled.

“Y-you mean. A. Date?” I stammered.

“I. Guess. So,” he stammered back, mocking me. I felt my face heat up.

“You don't have to appreciate British comedy,” he said. “But if you don't, I'll lose all respect for you and think you're a sad, miserable excuse for a person. That's all.”

“Jax, I don't, I can't,” I said. “I have a boyfriend.”

His face looked more puzzled than surprised. “Really?”

His bewilderment made me frown. Was it that hard to believe someone else was interested in me?

“Bring him along,” Jax offered. “I'll invite some other friends over. Movie night.”

I laughed out loud at the idea of Justin hanging out at a movie party. As if he had the free time. The image was ridiculous, which immediately made me stop laughing. I wondered if Justin's life would ever slow down long enough that he could just sit around and watch a movie.

Jax studied my conflicting reactions. “Do you guys have plans tonight?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “We don't really make plans.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“I mean, it's more of a distance thing. We don't get to see each other very often.”

He was watching me like he was trying to read a book he couldn't quite translate. I backed up toward the door.

“Thanks for taking me out today,” I said. “I'll be in touch.” I turned to leave but caught myself at the door and looked over my shoulder. “And by the way, I love Simon Pegg. But the most brilliant British comedian of all time is John Cleese.”

 

On the train ride home, a thought turned over in my mind. I pulled my journal out of my bag. I chewed on the cap of my pen and started writing because I needed to confess to someone.

There is one small effect you have on me, but sometimes the smallest change makes the biggest difference because it tilts your life and forces you to see things at a different angle.

You make it easier to breathe.

Some people steal your oxygen and leave you winded. Some people cut it off completely and you're left suffocated. But other people, the rare ones, pump oxygen into you, just like a breeze fills a wind puppet and gives it the energy to twist and sway.

Somehow, the older we get, the less able we are to breathe. Why is that? Why do we become so bad, so inefficient, at something we are born to do? Our first breath at the moment we're born literally saves us. We push out all of the fluids in our chests, our lungs contract and expand, and we take this huge gasp that fills us, and that is how we start our life, with this enormous, strong, brilliant breath. We welcome the world by breathing it in. It's the first thing we do, our most biological instinct.

Then what happens? Our breaths become shorter. Forced, nervous, startled, uneasy, panicky. Sometimes we forget to breathe entirely and we're lightheaded and weak. There are training videos for adults on how to breathe. This is so strange to me. What, in our lives, is making it difficult for us to take a long, satisfying breath?

With you it's different. I'm content. Relaxed. I can feel my breath begin at the base of my stomach and grow until my entire chest expands. I can let it out slow, because there's no hurry, there's no worry.

You help me to breathe.

That's one of the best compliments I can give you.

But why do I feel guilty admitting this? Is it wrong to feel this way?

I sat on my bed reading a book. I liked the sound of turning the pages. They rustled like leaves. I loved how the book stretched out like two arms and how if I pressed it against my chest, it could hug me. I loved the crisp pages, how they still smelled like an inky print machine and a giant warehouse.

There was a knock at my door, and I said to come in.

The door eased open and I waited for my mom to say something, but when she was quiet, I looked up and was shocked to see Justin.

“Hey,” he said easily, like this was nothing new. He looked so strange standing there. I'd never in my entire life had a boy in my bedroom, other than my brother and my dad, which doesn't generate quite the same feelings.

His hair was windblown and messy, as if he had run here, but it always looked like that. He was wearing a black zip-up jacket that looked soft, and blue jeans. He made me think of being outside and active and free and all the things I craved.

“How did you get in here?”

He opened up his arms. “Easy. I jumped from a plane onto your roof, disengaged the security grid in your basement, crawled into your house through an air vent, cut the security wires on your wall screens, crawled back outside, unlocked a sky window, slid through, and here I am.”

I raised a single eyebrow.

“I knocked on the door and your mom let me in. Crazy, right?”

“You knew my dad was out of town,” I said.

He nodded. “And your mom's a pushover. I brought her a homemade apple pie so she couldn't refuse me.”

I closed my book and set it on my lap. “You baked an apple pie?”

He walked around my room, looking at the wall screens. He shook his head. “Riley's mom baked it. I'm crashing at their place right now. But I helped with the most important step,” he said, and turned to look at me. “The secret is, you brush egg whites and sprinkle cinnamon on top of the crust before you put it in the oven. It makes it crispy.”

“Who are you?” I asked.

“A connoisseur of sensual delights.” He grinned and I felt heat flood my face and arms and chest. He was giving me that look again, a look that feels like a furnace snapping on inside me, blowing hot air into my blood.

He walked around my room, taking in the murals slowly.

“I never knew you were an artist,” he said.

I looked down at the ground for a few seconds. No one had ever called me that.

“Who taught you to do this?” he asked me.

“My little friend called isolation.”

He laughed. “That's right. You've been grounded since when, birth?”

“Isolation can be a good teacher,” I said, sticking up for my longtime friend. “In small doses.”

“Why do you do it?” he asked, turning to me. I didn't understand his question. “Some people play music, some people exercise. Why do you paint?”

I'd never thought about it, but after what Jax had shown me that day, I had an answer. “I think it's a form of therapy,” I said, and pointed around the room. “I've learned how to dream outside whatever walls are confining me. If I can't physically escape, at least mentally I can.”

He nodded. “You're like the Mariana Trench.”

“The what?” I asked.

“It's the deepest point in the ocean. Over thirty-five thousand feet deep. You could take Mount McKinley and fit it inside, and there would still be room underneath. That's how deep the ocean gets. No one's ever been down there. Even now, they still can't get a human being that deep without the pressure killing them.”

I smiled. I knew his point, that everything, even people, is limitless. We can try to figure one another out, but we'll never reach the bottom.

“It's just a way to clear my head,” I said.

There was a bookshelf in my room, stacked with all the books my mom had given me over the years. Justin was reading the spines. Every year I reorganized the books, sometimes alphabetically, or by genre, or even by spine color. I faced my favorite covers out.

I watched Justin and I liked the contrast he made—my room was soft, the dim yellow glow from the lamps and the murals and the light green bedspread and white carpeting, and Justin was dark and strong against it. Maybe that's what I'd been looking for all along. A contrast. Somebody who stands out from my typical world. Somebody you notice for being different from everyone and everything.

He sat down on the bed next to me. I studied his hand, so close to mine,
on my bed.
I wanted to pause this moment because I'd never thought it was possible.

“Never thought I'd be sitting here, did you?” he asked, reading my mind.

“Not without at least one gun pointed at your head.”

He smiled and grabbed my hand. “I want you to come to Scott's with me. There's someone in town you should meet.”

I looked at my hand, swallowed inside his. I thought back to my conversation with Clare on the train. I concentrated on his eyes as if I were staring into a foggy crystal ball, trying to see an image inside. “Have you realized we've never been on a date?”

He pulled his eyebrows together. “That's not possible. We've been hanging out for over a year.”

“Usually fugitive style,” I reminded him.

“True,” he said.

“I'm not complaining,” I said. “I'm just contemplating.”

Justin pressed his lips on my hand and grazed them over each knuckle. I wanted to shut the door for a night. Just shut out the world and be alone with him. I felt something closing between us, something checking out, and it scared me. I wanted him all to myself.

He looked torn between what he could see I needed and what other people needed from him, and it made me feel selfish. I needed to support Justin. If I wanted my life to be expansive, and inspiring, and real, who was I to try to limit him, the person fighting harder for my life than anyone?

I grabbed his hand and pulled him off the bed. “Let's get out of here,” I said.

 

I sat next to Justin on the train, heading to Scott's apartment.

“Is this a meeting about the national vote?” I asked.

“Scott's in charge of organizing that,” he answered.

“I think it's stressing him out,” I noted.

Justin nodded. “I can't help out too much right now. Vaughn's my top priority. If we can arrest him, we have a shot at bringing down DS.”

“You don't care about the protest?” I asked.

He lifted his shoulders. “It'll be great publicity. Like a giant advertisement for our cause.”

I studied his calm profile. “You don't think we'll win, do you?”

“No,” he answered without hesitating. “I don't think we have a chance in hell.”

My mouth dropped open. “Then why go to all the work to organize a riot?”

“Because we don't want to go down without a fight. These virtual schools have been around for more than fifty years, but at least there used to be other options. Digital school became a law ten years ago. It's being voted on for the first time since then. If we don't use our voices now, we might not have another chance. We can't break the tower, but maybe we can bend it a little. Loosen some of its strength. Knock it down over time.”

“That's not good enough,” I said. “That's giving up.”

He smiled. “It's called being realistic.” He leaned in and brushed his lips into my hair, but I pushed him away.

“I came home to end the program for good,” I informed him. “Not to sign a life contract.”

“I'm open to suggestions, Maddie.” He rested his hand on my leg, above my knee. My mind slipped back to a few nights before and what we were doing in the club. It seemed like months ago.

“How many recruits do we have?” I asked.

“Last time Scott checked, we have about five million supporters.”

“That's amazing,” I said.

He tossed up his hands. “It's a small start.”

“Small? It's
five million
people. Can we be positive for a second?”

He laughed. “I know, but right now I'm looking on the practical side. There are more than four hundred million people in the U.S. That means about two percent of the people in this country support us. That's a pretty small margin. If somebody told you that you had a two percent chance of surviving a disease, you wouldn't feel all that optimistic.

“One hundred million people are forced to go to digital school,” he continued. “And we can barely access them. Our biggest fans are still being held captive in detention centers. Most kids don't even know we exist. That's the problem.”

“It's like what you said last year,” I said. “You hit a brick wall.”

“Exactly. I mean, getting out and recruiting people face-to-face is great, but it hardly makes a dent. Every time we add a recruit, we lose one. The real world shrinks a little more every day. Anytime a site or message we try to send gets too big, it gets blocked online. And since most kids are only online—”

“We're screwed,” I finished for him, and he didn't argue. “Which is why you recruited me.”

“Originally, yes, that's why we recruited you. We wanted your dad's files. We thought if we used his connections, we could spread something viral and end DS.”

“Is there anything we can do?” I asked.

He nodded. “I think if people knew what Vaughn was doing, it would turn things around. That's why I'm trying to track him down.”