Capture the World (18 page)

I pick one up, testing its weight, and then I press it against the paper walls. Names stain the house. Red and bleeding.

One name stands out, but before I can get a good look at it, the house crumples.

I wake up to a
thwap,thwap
against my bedroom window. It startles me, and I stare at my ceiling, heart racing, before climbing out of bed.

Barefoot and in nothing more than a sleep shirt and a pair of panties, I push my window up.

Matthew Moretti leans against the side of the house below me, his jacket pulled close over a shirt I can’t see. Grey sweatpants rest over a pair of sneakers. Faint light from a streetlamp down the road throws a golden glare over Matthew’s dark head. Like a halo.

White air puffs from his mouth.

I don’t say anything, but I’m not sure he expects me to.

“I think about you,” he says suddenly.

One sentence, and it’s an awful good sentence. It strikes me—hard and swift—right in the chest.

He thinks about me. Better yet, he thinks about me in the middle of the night.

I think about him, too.

I can’t breathe.

I think about him too much despite everything.

What is he doing to me?

“Okay,” I reply, because I’m afraid to say anything else.

I’ve never had a broken heart. The romantic kind of broken anyway. I’ve never liked anyone enough for my heart to break, but I’m beginning to think Matthew has the potential to destroy mine if given the chance.

“Do you ever look at things the way your mother does?” he asks.

I lean against the window.

The cold air circles me, bitter and unfriendly, and I leave him to grab the quilt off of my bed, wrapping it around my shivering frame before resuming my stance.

“I don’t think I know how,” I tell him honestly. “Or maybe I do. It’s just that I don’t know how to do it the way she does. I see it in other ways.”

“With paper?” He hasn’t moved, and he never looks up at me.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

He exhales warm white crystals on cold air.

Tugging the quilt tighter around me, I swallow hard. “So, I asked my aunt to watch
The Outsiders
with me tonight.”

“Oh yeah?” He shifts, on edge, but he still doesn’t look up. “What did you think?”

“I like Ponyboy.”

His shoulders slump, visibly relaxing, as if he was expecting a different answer and is relieved I didn’t give it. “Why?”

He had to ask me that.

I’m quiet for too long, and he pushes away from the wall.

“Because he sees beauty, but he sees beneath it, too,” I blurt, afraid he’s leaving. “I like that he’s able to do that. To be attracted to something beautiful while desiring to know more about it.”

Matthew pauses. “It’s not easy, huh?”

“What?”

“Talking,” he replies. “Sometimes it’s hard to say things, you know?”

My brows furrow, but before I can ask him what he means, he leaves, feet crunching on dead vegetation across the yards, to disappear into his house.

On the other side of my bedroom wall, I hear my mother stirring, restless in her sleep.

Window still open, I slide down to the floor, the cold air refreshing despite its chill. It’s breathing on me, and I inhale it.

I’m smiling, and I don’t know why.

I’m changing, and yet I’m not. I’m a butterfly. A cocoon forms around me, and I wonder what I’ll look like when I break free of it.

NINETEEN

The real world

In which I feel like Rip Van Winkle

SCHOOL IS SURPRISINGLY quiet. For the first time in years, I don’t keep my head down, I don’t hide my face behind my hair, and I actually smile at people. When I remember to. I have a lot of ground to make up for. I’ve conditioned myself to my mother’s life without realizing I was disappearing inside of her world. Completely disappearing.

“It’s a little weird, isn’t?” Gracie asks when I see her in the halls. “It’s almost like you’re a new student.”

She’s right. The other students aren’t actively avoiding me. They aren’t talking, either, but it’s a step up from avoidance.

After fourth period, I pass Kagen in the hall. He’s with a group of athletes, Vanessa on his arm, and I start to drop my head, remembering last minute to lift my chin. No hiding.
 

He catches my eye on passing, nods, and greets me with, “Reagan.”

I don’t know who he surprises more: me or his friends?

“Kagen,” I reply, nodding back.

I fight not to glance over my shoulder to see if he does the same thing.

CHEMISTRY COMES TOO soon, and I walk inside the room, my palms sweating.

Matthew isn’t at our table.

My heart sinks, disappointment dropping hard and quick, crushing me.

Glancing around the room, I sit, and for the first time, I let my head fall, my fingers drawing out sheets of colored paper from beneath the cover of my textbook.

Hooray for you!
The thought comes full of sarcasm. I’ve managed to scare off the first guy I’ve ever had a real crush on.

Mrs. Pierson comes in, beginning a lecture that drones on forever. My fingers fold, a paper camera forming under my hands. It has a long lens.

Mom will like this,
I think. She can take photos of the places she goes. The camera will be my peace offering, the gift that cheers her up after our falling out on Saturday.
 

Class is almost over when Matthew comes in, breathless, and takes a seat next to me.

“Hey,” he says, quickly turning away to open his textbook.

“I hope you have a good excuse for coming in this late, Mr. Moretti?” Mrs. Pierson asks.

He doesn’t hear her.

I nudge him.

He smiles. “Doctor’s appointment,” he says aloud.
Too
loud. “I turned in my excuse at the office.”

For a long time, he doesn’t look at me, and when he finally does, I have to fight to hold eye contact.

“You okay?”
I mouth.

He gestures at his ears, turns his head. His hearing aids are missing.

We don’t speak for the rest of the period.

When the bell rings, I gather my books, touch his arm.
“Do you need any help?”
I mouth.

He shakes his head, slides me a letter, and then leaves.

I open it, fingers trembling.

Confession: I’m not sure how I feel about the way you kissed me yesterday. What it meant. If it
should
mean anything at all.

This is all insane, you know?

The videos you’ve sent me … I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone so well. I’m not talking favorite color or the type of food you prefer to eat—please tell me you’re not a vegetarian—because I don’t know what your favorites are. I think I’ve seen something better than that. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen your soul.

Would it be cowardly of me to admit that scares the shit out of me?

Also, not sure why, but you being around my family has really softened Christopher. He talks to me more now. Real words. Not noncommittal grunts.

You scare me because I see a little of myself in your soul. You’ve learned to live inside this extraordinary world your mother has created, and I’ve learned to exist inside this silent world where the only thing important to me is basketball.

I’m not wearing my hearing aids on purpose, which seems odd.

Do me a favor? Send me another video, but don’t talk. In my world, it’s not always what you say that’s important, it’s how you learn to say it.

P.S. You should have given me time to kiss you back.

P.P.S. Thank you.
 

TWENTY

My mother’s world

Atlantis

I GO TWO days without seeing Matthew. Other than chemistry, but even then, he isn’t really there. He doesn’t talk. He stares at Mrs. Pierson, focusing on her lips so he can keep up with her notes and the lessons she teaches. Anything he misses is given to him in a handout.

Mom forgives me.

The origami camera goes over better than I thought it would. We go on two expeditions with it. The first is to Mongolia, which is where my mother tried taking me Saturday, to a monastery built in the 1600s.

The second is to Atlantis.

I’ve been to a lot of places with my mother, figuratively speaking, but this is the first time she’s ever suggested going somewhere fictional.

“Atlantis isn’t real,” I tell her gently.

She stands in the middle of her room fanning a blue sheet she yanks off of her bed. It flies up, up into the air, bubbles above our heads, and then sinks down. Over and over.

“Because no one can find it?” Mom asks.

“Because no one can prove it existed. They can’t make sense of it.”

Mom laughs. “The best things ever given to us by history were things people couldn’t make sense of. The telephone. Electricity. Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”

Sometimes Mom sounds so scarily normal that I think she is. That maybe, just maybe, she’s coming back to us.

The sun pours into the window, wrapping her in brilliance, the blanket continuing to billow. Blue and gold. Over and over. Up and down. It’s magic.

This is the wonder that is Mom. She’s all of these delusional moments with rare nuggets of wisdom wrapped up in radiance.

We’re floating, skipping over white pebble clouds before diving into an ocean of glass. We’re wearing togas and drinking wine, because it seems the right thing to do, while searching a white beach for pearls. Monuments and grandiose buildings reach for us from the waves, pulling us into the ocean with them. In Atlantis, an entire day passes in under two hours. From blue skies to a black abyss that spits us out on a trail of comets. We count the stars.

“Mom?” I ask.

From the bedroom floor, under our sky of faux stars, she glances at me. “Hmm?”

“Why do you think Atlantis disappeared?”

She thinks a minute. “Because people destroyed it. They lived in a utopian world full of magic, and they wanted more.” She frowns, and then brightens. “But we won’t take it for granted, will we, my jewel?”

Standing, she brings me with her, and we twirl, surrounded by extinct perfection.

It’s the most fantastic trip I’ve ever been on.

Suddenly, I know exactly what Matthew is asking for.