Chapter 1 Waves and Particles #2
I laugh and let him be. I feel protective of him—enough to break Faux standard protocol and agree to repeat fake dates, enough to want to defend him from muggers and pirates and his extended family.
Maybe it’s that his first sentence to me was a panicky “My mother won’t stop asking why I don’t date,” followed by a hesitant, frazzled explanation of why that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon—an explanation that hit too close to home.
Maybe it’s that he always looks like how I feel: tired and overwhelmed.
In another timeline we’d be best friends, bonding over the unavoidable stress ulcers that will soon ravage the linings of our stomachs.
I find the empty kitchen, duck inside, and watch the red swirl down the drain as I pour what’s left of my glass into the sink.
A waste. I should have just refused it, but that would lead to questions, and I don’t want to explain that alcohol is a dangerous, glycemic terrorist and that my struggling pancreas does not negotiate with—
“Not to your taste?”
I jump. And yelp. And almost drop the glass, which probably costs more than my graduate education.
I thought I was alone. Wasn’t I alone? I was alone.
But Greg’s older brother is in the room, leaning against the marble counter, arms crossed over his chest. Those unique multicolored eyes of his are staring at me with the usual inscrutable expression.
I’m standing between him and the only entrance—either I overlooked him, or he bent the space-time continuum.
Or I mixed him up with the refrigerator. They are similarly sized, after all.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“I—yes. Yes, sorry. I just . . .” I force a smile. “Hi, Jack.”
“Hi, Elsie.” He says my name like it’s familiar to him. The first word he ever learned. Second nature, and not just a bunch of vowels and consonants he’s barely had reason to use before.
He doesn’t smile, of course. Well, he does smile, but never at me. Whenever we’re in the same room, he’s an imposing, sky-soaring, stern presence whose main pastime appears to be judging me unworthy of Greg.
“Don’t like the wine?”
“That’s not it.” I blink, flustered. There’s a tattoo on his forearm, just peeking out of the rolled-up sleeve of his shirt. Because of course he’s wearing jeans and a plaid shirt, even though the Evite specifically asked for semiformal.
But he’s Jack Smith. He can do whatever he wants. He probably has a permit carved in those ridiculous biceps of his. Stamped on the blue quarter of his right eye, the one that sticks out like a sore thumb in the chestnut of his irises.
“The wine was great,” I say, collecting myself. “But there was a fly in it.”
“Was there?”
He doesn’t believe me. I don’t know how I know, but I know.
And he knows that I know. I can see it, no—I can feel it.
There’s a tingle at the base of my spine, liquid and sparkly and warm.
Careful, Elsie, it says. He’ll have you arrested for crimes against grapes.
You’ll spend the rest of your life in federal prison.
He’ll visit once a week to stare through the plexiglass and make you uncomfortable.
“Izzy must be looking for you,” I say, hoping to get rid of him. “She’s upstairs.”
“I know,” he replies, not heading upstairs. He just studies me—attentive, calm, like he knows something secret about me. That I floss once a week, tops. That I can’t figure out what the Dow Jones is, even after reading the Wikipedia entry. Other, scarier, darker things.
“Is your girlfriend here?” I ask to fill the silence. He once brought someone to a family thing. A geologist. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Nice. Funny, too. I wish I could say she was out of his league.
“No.”
Silence, again. More staring. I smile to hide how aggressively I’m grinding my teeth. “It’s been a while.”
“Since Labor Day.”
“Oh, right. I forgot.”
I did not forget. Before today, I’ve met Jack twice, as in two times, one and then another, and they’re both stubbornly wedged in my brain, as pleasant as spinach leaves stuck between molars.
The first was Greg’s birthday dinner, when Jack and I shook hands and he nodded back at me tightly, when he spent the night giving me long, searching glances, when I overheard him ask Greg, “Where did you meet her?” and “How long has it been?” and “How serious is this?” with an inquisitive, deceptively casual tone that sent an odd shiver down my spine.
So Jack Smith wasn’t a fan. Okay. Fine. Whatever.
And then there was the second. Late in the summer, at the Smiths’ Labor Day pool party, where I didn’t swim. Because there’s no way to hide my pod in a bikini.
I’m not embarrassed to be diabetic. I’ve had nearly two decades to make peace with my overactive immune system, which has way too much fun destroying necessary cells.
But people’s reactions to the knowledge that I must pump insulin into my body on the reg can be unpredictable.
When I was diagnosed (at ten, after a seizure in the school gym that earned me the cruel but uncreative nickname of Shaky Elsie), I overheard my parents chat, low whispers behind the hospital room’s divider curtains.
“Not this, too.” Mom sounded exhausted.
“I know.” Dad sounded the same. “It’s gotta be on us. Lance is flunking out of high school. Lucas is going to be arrested for fist-fighting in the Walmart parking lot any day now. Of course the one easygoing kid we got turns out to have something.”
“It’s not her fault.”
“No.”
“But it’s going to be expensive.”
“Yeah.”
I don’t blame my parents: my brother Lance did eventually flunk out of school (and now makes an excellent living as an electrician), just like Lucas did end up being arrested (albeit behind a Shake Shack, and for possession of drugs that are now legal).
Mom and Dad were tired, overwhelmed. A little poor.
They’d hoped for a break, something easy for once, and I was truly sorry I wasn’t it.
To make it up to them, I’ve tried to make my health issues—and any other subsequent issues—as ignorable as possible.
I find that people like me better if they don’t have to expend emotional energy on me.
That’s why I didn’t swim at the Smith Labor Day party, opting to sit on a blanket and eat a slice of cake, an artfully arranged smile on my face.
Why I miscalculated the carbs I ate and the insulin I’d need.
And why I stumbled across the lawn of the Smiths’ Manchester-by-the-Sea vacation home high on glucose, vision blurry, head pounding, trying to remember where I’d put my phone so that I could adjust my bolus, and—
I walked right into Jack.
Literally. I didn’t see him and stepped into his chest like it was a supermassive black hole. Which it wasn’t. A black hole, that is. Plenty supermassive, though.
“Elsie?” Ugh. His voice. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I . . .” Am going to puke.
He cupped my cheek, scanning my face. “Should I call Greg?”
“No nee—” Pain knifed through my head.
“I’m calling Greg.”
“No—don’t call Greg, please.”
He scowled. “Why?”
“Because—” Because good fake girlfriends are low maintenance. They smile, don’t have strong opinions on cilantro, and never, ever drag you away from a pool party. “Can you—I need to go to the restroom and—my phone—”
A moment later I was in a bathroom that looked like a luxury spa, purse in my lap.
And I’d love to say that I don’t remember how I got there, but there’s a floating memory in my head, a memory of strong arms picking me up; of being carried, buoyant as a bird; of warm breath on my temple, murmuring words I cannot recall.
And that, unfortunately, was that. Was Jack kind and helpful?
Yup. Did he believe the story I later made up about not wanting to bother Greg with my migraines?
Doubtful, considering his skeptical, cold, insistent look.
Maybe he suspects I’m on drugs. Maybe he’s afraid I’ll taint the Smith line with my weak headache genes.
Surely he believes his brother can do better.
But it doesn’t matter. Jack’s not my target—his mother is. Which is good, because I don’t have the faintest idea who the Elsie that Jack wants is.
It’s unprecedented. I’m a pro at picking up cues, but Jack—he gives me nothing.
I don’t know what to amp up, what to tone down; what to hide and what to fake; what personality to sacrifice at his altar.
It’s like he’s trying to puzzle me out without changing me—and that’s impossible. That’s not how people are, not with me.
So when he asks “How have you been, Elsie?” with a tone that feels just a touch too inquisitive, I smile as neutrally as possible.
“The usual. Fantastic.” Not about to collapse on you, for once.
“You? How are things at work?” He’s some kind of PE teacher, Greg mentioned.
Unsurprising, since he’s built like someone who has a CrossFit decal on his car and drinks protein shakes while reading Men’s Health’s powerlifting column.
The other Smiths are lithe, insubstantial brunettes.
And then there’s this sandy-haired brick house, a foot taller than his tallest relative, all masculine features and cutting deep voice.
My theory: overworked nurse, hospital crib switch-up. “Having a good semester?”
He grunts, noncommittal. “Haven’t murdered any of my students. Yet.”
A surprisingly relatable sentiment. “Sounds like a win.”
“Not to me.”
Shit. He’s making me smile. “Why do you want to murder them?”
“They whine. They don’t read the syllabus.” Syllabi for PE? My gym teacher’s entire curriculum was shame-spiraling us for failing to climb the rope. Education’s making strides. “They lie.”
I swallow. “Lie about what?”
“About several things.” His eyes gleam, and his lips twitch, and his shoulders hulk under his shirt and—