Alone (15 page)

HEATHER FELT LIKE SHE'D JUST
had the greatest spa treatment of her life. All the toxins had been sucked from her pores—except this time there was one very big toxin that she'd ditched, and it wasn't going to be back.

She'd had the fear-free seaweed wrap.

What was next—the bird/plane shampoo and
blowdry? The ESP-enhanced relaxation and mind-meld massage?

She was so amused by this train of thought, she let out a big cackle. Josh turned to her, squeezing her hand.

“Are you sure you're all right?” he asked for the umpteenth time as they walked toward the 7 train.

“I am
fine,
” she told him, trying hard not to snap his head off. It was sweet that he was so worried about her. But it was also annoying. What was he so afraid of? She wasn't sure she liked this side of Mr. Cute. He was rapidly becoming Mr. Mother Hen. If that kept up, he was going to have to become
Mr. Blown Off.

“So do you want me to take you home?” he asked. “Do you want to come to my place? I think you should rest.”
Make that Mr.
So
Blown Off.

“I don't need to rest,” she insisted. “I don't want to go inside anywhere—that guy was asking me so many questions, he made my head spin. I want to take a long walk, clear my head, and figure out what's different about me. Take myself for a test-drive. Doesn't that make sense?”

“It does,” Josh said. “Of course. How does it feel? Do you feel different?”

“I feel—I feel the same, sort of,” Heather mused. “But better. It's like I had a toothache all my life and never realized it, and now that the pain is gone, I feel great. You know?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Josh gave her that adorable grin, and Heather felt a little more relaxed. Maybe he could stick around. From where they were strolling, she had a good view of the inky black city, the skyscrapers rising out of it like long, gleaming fingers. A cruise ship motored through the choppy waves. And stretching across the East River. . .

“I have an idea,” she said, grabbing Josh's hand. “There's something I always wanted to do. Come on!”

Josh had no choice but to follow her onto the subway, tooling first across Manhattan, then down on the 6 train. He watched Heather carefully. There didn't seem to be any ill effects: her skin looked healthy, she wasn't sweating, and her pupils weren't dilated. She was alert, smiling to herself, reading the ads on the nearly empty car over and over again. In fact, she looked better than she had in days—whatever the phobosan preparation pills were doing to her, the injection had alleviated the symptoms completely. She looked excited, as happy as a little girl on her way to the skating rink. But he had a feeling what was ahead of them was a little scarier than a Zamboni-smoothed block of ice.

“Here we go,” she said, tugging on his arm at the Brooklyn Bridge stop.

“Heather, you've got to tell me what we're—”

“Come on! Move it or lose it.” She stood and strode out of the car, and he had no choice but to follow her.
It was that or lose track of her completely. And he wanted to keep an eye on Heather—maybe to make sure “fearless” didn't also mean “careless.”

“I've heard stories of people doing this,” she said, walking confidently up the pedestrian ramp that spanned the bridge. During the day this was a favorite stroll for locals and tourists alike; the wooden-slatted walkway provided the best view of the city for free. At night it wasn't generally considered safe. And Josh had a feeling they weren't just out for an unpatrolled stroll.

“Wow, the city sure looks great from here,” Josh said, in a valiant attempt at conversation.

“Sure, it looks nice from down here,” Heather said. “But think how much better it'll look from
up there.
” She pointed up into the dizzying heights of the sky, at the brick towers, the vaulted arches shaped like church doors, that stretched above them.

“Heather, you're not actually planning to. . .”

“Oh, I am.” And without another word, she stepped onto the massive, gracefully curved metal tubes that connected the cables to the main structure. The one she was on went straight to the top of the tower; she could hold on to the cables with her hands, but the climb was dizzying. Thrill seekers failed with great regularity in their attempts to make it, either tumbling into the water or hanging on by a thread until the cops came, got them down, and arrested
them. This was a dumb move. It was, in fact, idiotic. It was also fearless. That was clearly what Heather was trying to prove.

“Come on,” she called out. She was already a quarter of the way up the tube, placing her feet carefully but without hesitation, and not even flinching when she looked down. “Please? It's not going to be any fun to be up there alone.”

Heart pounding like a jackhammer, Josh began following her. He was bigger and had more strength, but she wasn't suffering from vertigo; he had to keep his eyes drilled onto her blue-jeaned butt to keep from falling off in total terror. Meanwhile Heather monkeyed up each step of the way without hesitation. When she reached the top, she ran around the large rim of the tower, laughing, spinning, and shouting at the city.

“Hello, Manhattan!” she shrieked. “Hello, you gorgeous, dirty old city. Do you see me up here? I'm Heather Gannis.
Heather Gannis!
And I'm not afraid of you—or anything else. You hear me?
You don't scare me anymore!
” Now she was shouting at the sky, her arms held out wide. Josh double-timed it up the rest of the way,
afraid a gust of wind would carry her off the edge.

“All right. Are we done?” he asked. “You've proved your point. Now come down with me.”

“Down? Are you crazy-nutso-cuckoo?” She laughed.
“I didn't ask you up here just to sightsee. There's something I want to do up here.”

Oh, no. Please don't tell me,
Josh thought. But sure enough,
she strode toward him in an exaggerated imitation of a vixen and grabbed the fly of his jeans.

“Come on,” she purred. “Give a girl a thrill.”

But the sad truth was that Josh was really, really scared up there. And when a guy is scared, the plumbing just doesn't work. No matter what a girl does to try and fix it.

The smile vanished from Heather's face; her jaw dropped.

“You've got to be kidding me,” she said.

“Sorry.” Josh shrugged.

She let her hands fall to her sides and gave him a polite but clearly disappointed smile. “I was looking forward to this.”

“Oh, come on.” He put his arms around her and drew her in for a kiss,
trying to ignore the fact that he was fifty feet up with no safety railing.
“Hey, you can tell everybody we did. Who's going to know we didn't?”

She kissed him back, then turned around to view the city, wrapping his arms around her like a stole.

“It's spectacular,” she said. “I never thought I'd see such a thing.”

It was true: after the long, cold, arduous climb, the
winking lights of the city were even more beautiful, standing out in sharp contrast to the velvety black sky. Clear nights were hard to come by in New York City, but this one was perfect.
Lines of headlights made twin strands of white and red pearls running down the side of Manhattan,
along the FDR Drive. The water beneath them was an inky black expanse, a vacuum of enormous proportions. Behind them Brooklyn Heights stood quietly, the softly lit promenade glowing in the darkness. In the distance, the red-capped clock tower told four different versions of the time.

Josh tried to relax, but his body was humming with tension.

Not Heather's, though. He could feel how easy she was with this. And without warning she ran out of his grasp and leapt onto the tube again, taking the trip down in bounds and long slides that made his heart clench with terror for her. He heard wild laughter as she lost her footing and barely caught herself, recklessly swinging over the water.

“Heather!”
he called out, throwing himself facedown on the bricks and peering over the edge
as if he could reach down with Plastic Man arms and rescue her.

But all he heard in response was more of that laughter, floating up through the darkness as she raced down the bridge's cables, hitting the ground and
running back to Manhattan before he could even brace himself to step over the edge onto the cables again.

Who knew what she'd do next? And Josh wouldn't be there to protect her. He'd gotten her infected with a fearless virus, and now he couldn't even manage to stay by her side.

With an oppressive wave of regret Josh realized he had manipulated an amazing girl—probably causing her irreparable damage. But it was worse than that. He had done this to a girl, it turned out, that he truly cared about. All his playacting had been so easy—because it was becoming real.

He had brought her into this mess. And Heather was the only girl he'd ever loved.

Wow.
Oh, wow. OH, MAN.

This is so intense. I thought I was prepared for how this would feel. I was not. It's as if I just entered another dimension. Or switched bodies. That guy Oliver was right—I do feel like I'm in
The Matrix
.

My whole reality has shifted. I'm seeing the world through different eyes, and everything is so much sharper, clearer, more beautiful, more simple, more complex.

I'm not making any sense. This must be what it's like to have a religious conversion. The only way I can describe it is, I feel like I've finally become myself.

I fooled myself into thinking I was prepared for the injection, but looking back on the whole experience, man, was I freaked out. Those pills were awful. The withdrawal took so much out of me that I had no energy left to care about anything else. I wandered around town like a sleepwalking
fashion emergency, and those last couple of times I saw Ed, I was practically speaking in tongues. On some level I was aware that I was turning into a freak show, but somehow it didn't matter to me—I just kept picturing what my new life would be like.

I kept promising myself it would be worth it. But in the back of my mind, I'd reserved a space for disappointment.

But there is no disappointment.

There are some things that surprised me at first. I haven't suddenly turned into a supergenius. I know I can't fly. I guess I've read too many comic books or something—I thought that if the injection worked, I'd be completely transformed. But I wasn't. I'm still me.

Heather Gannis, but better. And the old Heather was pretty damn good herself.

With this new, fearless attitude I know I can fix anything that goes wrong. I can deal with anything that comes up because
I'm not hemmed in by second guessing. I'm not going to trip myself up with doubt. And that is so. . . amazing.

Those antidrug seminars they give us at school used to scare the pants off me. I thought I'd go crazy and jump off a building if I swallowed an extra Advil by mistake. So when I agreed to that injection, I considered the possibility that it could turn me into one of those ladies with a tinfoil hat and seventeen stuffed animals in a shopping cart, walking around the city talking about how John F. Kennedy has stolen their brain.

But I'm glad I pushed through all my doubts.

Because this is the most incredible thing that's ever happened to me.

I totally rock!