Coraline
Let me in.
A text from Ethan.
I walk over to my window and see him standing in the yard, a tall slender shadow among the trees. My parents are out. Mom
chasing after Ana again. Dad said he had to go to the office. And Grant disappeared without a word sometime after Mom and
Dad left. He’s probably somewhere with Dahlia. Whatever.
I use the app on my phone to unlock the front door then listen as Ethan lopes up the stairs. Then he’s breathless in my doorway,
drops his knapsack inside the door. He flops beside me on my bed, bouncing it wildly, pillows and stuffed animals flying.
“Hey,” I say, reaching for Mr. Webby, my big purple stuffed spider, and lifting him back onto the bed hugging him close.
“Aren’t you too old to sleep with stuffed animals?” Ethan asks with a snort.
I shift away from him, putting space between us on the bed.
The weird thing that happened between us? We were at the homecoming game, making fun of all the normies—the jocks, the cheerleaders,
their perfect plastic selves, their idiotic TikTok and Instagram feeds all arched backs and pursed lips.
Anyway, after the game, Ethan drove me home.
His dad gave him the Tesla for the night, and we glided through the quiet streets of our town, just talking.
When he pulled in front of my house, we sat awhile, just talking like we always do.
The front door light came on, so I knew my parents knew I was home.
That’s the other thing my mom always says—that there was no LifeWatch or anything like it when she was a kid.
That when people left your house, they were just gone.
You had no idea where they were, no way to contact them.
That just seems scary. Like how would that even work?
Just as I was about to get out of Ethan’s car, he grabbed my hand.
“Coraline,” he said. His voice sounded funny, creaky.
I turned to look at him, and before I knew it, his lips were on mine. Soft. Sweet. I mean, yeah, there’s always been something. But—Autumn and Ethan, they’ve always just been there, a part of my life as much as Grant. In my bedroom in sleeping bags,
at my family table, in all my most important memories.
We just stared at each other a moment, and suddenly he was different. He wasn’t just the skinny kid with a cloud of floppy
curls who hates horror movies and amusement parks and is the fastest runner on the track team. Not just one half of Autumn
and Ethan, Ethan and Autumn. He was a guy who just kissed me, who was—in a kind of dorky way—actually, almost, hot?
I was glad it was dark so he couldn’t see me turning red. My cheeks burned.
“What was that?” I asked him, heart thudding stupidly.
He smiled, looked away. “I don’t know. Just, yeah.”
I’ve never been so glad to see my mother open the front door.
“Good night, Ethan,” I said, my voice sounding wobbly even to me.
“Good night, Coraline.”
There was no one to tell. I couldn’t tell Autumn because it felt like we’d violated some sacred threesome friend group pact.
At no point should two of the friends in the group start liking liking each other, because then the delicate balance of the relationship would be irreparably altered. On the other hand,
we were all seniors waiting for college acceptances and next year, we’d all be in different places probably. For Autumn it
is Brown or die. Ethan wants Tisch School of the Arts at NYU for filmmaking. I want to study botany at Sacred Heart College,
which is just an hour from here. My parents want me to go farther, so I cast my applications wide to small private schools
around the country. Also, University of California Berkeley and the University of Florida have the top botany programs, but
there’s little chance even with my good grades that I’ll get in either of those places, things are so brutally competitive
now.
“My place is here,” I told my mother. “With The Cove.”
“Over my dead body,” she’d said, without heat. “No.”
It came up in therapy, minus any mention of The Cove of course, and our shrink asked Mom, “Have you considered that Coraline
might need to start making her own decisions? That her life belongs to her.”
My mother couldn’t keep herself from issuing her signature derisive snort.
“I’m not sure any of us, at seventeen, is qualified to make decisions that impact the rest of our lives,” my mother responded
stiffly. She really hates our shrink, who seems to be the only person on earth that my mother can’t intimidate.
“And yet we all do it,” countered the doctor easily.
My mother had the good sense to keep her mouth shut, and since the college applications all went out over Christmas break,
there’s been no further discussion on the topic.
“Let’s just see what happens when the decisions roll in,” said my dad, ever the moderator, the wait-and-see-it-will-work-out
guy.
Anyway.
I’ve been thinking about Ethan’s kiss ever since, haven’t told a soul. It makes me feel all warm and squishy inside and also, like, scared. It’s such a rom-com trope. Best friends to lovers. But it doesn’t ever work out in real life, does it?
Now we lie side by side, both looking up at the ceiling, his giant sneakers hanging off the bed, legs impossibly long. Unlike
most boys, he always smells good, like some mingling of sandalwood and baby shampoo.
“Well?” I say. He’s been sent on a recon mission and I’m anxious to hear the results.
“Well,” he echoes. “According to people who are in the know, Micha has been buying tests from some guy on the dark web—like forever.”
Micha and Ethan are on the track team together. And even though they don’t move in the same social circles, he and Ethan have
friends in common. Micha is a type—teacher’s pet, coach’s favorite because of his charm and high performance, but someone
else with his peers. Sexually aggressive. Someone who won’t hesitate to harm, manipulate, or scheme to get what he wants.
“Apparently,” Ethan continues, “he’s also paying someone to take those online classes he’s using to ramp up his GPA.”
“Do we have any actual proof?”
“Do we need it?” he asks, rolling toward me. We lock eyes, and I turn away so I don’t have to look at his lips.
The first rule of The Cove is: Harm as little as possible for the cure.
The second rule: Let the strength of the cure be equal to the disease.
Third: Question the motives of the client. Investigate claims.
Ana says that this third rule is malleable. “Agnes always relied on her instincts. Sometimes there’s no definitive proof,
just the word of someone you trust.” When I asked if Agnes was ever wrong, Ana just shrugged. “I think she had regrets when
she passed. But she never voiced them.”
Also, I don’t have a “client” per se. Autumn is basically the client; she just doesn’t know it.
Number four: Act swiftly. Once the decision is made. Don’t vacillate. Don’t hesitate to administer the cure.
“No,” I answer finally. “I think by now we know who Micha is well enough.”
Ethan nods slowly. Micha tripped Ethan once at a cross-country meet, causing him to come in third. Micha claimed it was an
accident, apologized profusely in front of the coach. No consequences, except for Ethan who was rattled by it, performed poorly
that season and didn’t make it to championships, and has a bad ankle now that still hurts at the end of every meet.
“So, what’s the plan?” he asks the ceiling.
“I’m still thinking about it.”
My LifeWatch app chimes. Dad’s on the move. I track my whole family, including Aunt Ana. My dad should be at his office, but
I watch his blue dot pulse along the highway, on his way out of town. Grant apparently is at Robbie’s place; they’re probably
playing Red World. My mom and Ana are both at places I don’t recognize—neighborhoods around town. Everyone’s been acting so weird since Ana’s
ex turned up dead.
I would ask my mom about it, but I try to talk to her as little as possible. Seems like we always wind up arguing, even when
I don’t mean to. Sometimes, though, she comes into my room at night and lies next to me and strokes my hair, and when neither
one of us says anything, we can just stay like that for a long time, and sometimes I fall asleep and wake up and she’s gone.
I know my mother loves me, and I love her, but we just don’t get along most of the time.
“Your mother’s love language is control,” Ana told me. “She doesn’t know another way to be.”
Ana’s been schooling me in The Knowledge for over a year now. If my mom knew, she would not be happy. But Ana says I have
the gift. And it’s true that when I’m in Agnes’s garden, or the greenhouse, I feel like the plants are whispering to me. I’m
comfortable and myself in a way that I’m not anywhere else.
“Can you take me somewhere?” I ask.
“Anywhere,” he says, glancing at me quickly.
Hey, a text from Autumn pings us both. Are you guys hanging out without me? What are you DOING?
We all track each other on Pop Map, always know each other’s location. “You’ve literally never had an unsupervised moment
in your life,” Ana said with something like disdain. She taught me how to jigger LifeWatch when we went to Agnes’s. Surprisingly
easy with the right software. I tap on it now. Anyone looking at it will see my last location and think I’m here at home.
We’ll pick you up, I text Autumn back.
K.
I turn off my lights and turn on my nightlight and put on some music, fluff up the pillows in my bed so if someone gives a
quick glance in my room, maybe they’ll think I’m sleeping.
“Where are we going?” asks Ethan, picking up his backpack at the door.
“To find an appropriate cure for a disease like Micha.”
Ethan raises his eyebrows, seems like he has something he wants to say. But he stays quiet and follows me out the door.