Heartsick (12 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

I leave Rashid, mumbling something about how I forgot to turn the teakettle off at home. I couldn’t hang out with him much longer or I would start kissing him. If I accidentally gave Luke or Rashid or anyone else this weird whatever-I-have then I’d want to curl up in the shower, feeling one side of the tub against my back, pressing against the other side. Like the tub was a womb and I was an infant. I’d let the hot water pound me ’til logic seeped in.
I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.

But now I do know, or at least I have a strong idea. No normal-eyed person is going to kiss me or share a drink or anything, until I hear it from the mouths of scientists.
This isn’t contagious.

When I get home, Mandy’s in my room.

“Hey.” She smooths her hair in a jittery motion and takes a deep breath. “I was just looking for those postcards.”

I smile and kneel as I pull the shoebox out from under my bed. I found this site where you can make postcards out of your photographs. I send them to my high school friends and parents. I may be old-fashioned, but it’s nice to get a little “what’s up” in the mail along with a fun image. Well, at least, I like to think so.

She climbs on my bed to sort through them. “Do you still have that girl on the beach?”

She means the photo I took at my parents’ beach house. There was a little girl, marching along the ocean, the wind blowing against the front of her dress as she walked next to the waves. Her face was so determined, hard and hopeful. Her eyes flickered from the grains of sand that must have been scratching at her skin. The image pulled at something inside me. So I’d put down the book I was reading, grabbed my camera and captured it forever.

I find it for Mandy. She holds it with both hands, as though it’s heavy. “This is my favorite. She seems so strong. Invincible.”

“I was actually trying to get a picture of that seagull shitting in the background.” I point at the bird several feet behind the girl.

Mandy scrunches her nose. I grin.

“Oh, right, Quinn, haha.” She gets off the bed, newfound treasure in hand. “Anyway, you don’t mind if I borrow this?”

“I do mind, actually. Don’t borrow it, keep it. Use it,” I say. “But only send it to someone who deserves it.”

She flashes this wicked smile and leaves my room.

When she goes out to meet up with Zachary, I figure maybe I’ll have a desolate, lonely mini quarantine filled with mini Snickers and reality TV, but dammit if I still have pesky, persistent visitors. Conrad comes over and regales me with the news that Jared and all his friends are basically getting off scot-free because some big power religious attorney has agreed to take on their case. They were just exercising free speech. It’s not their fault violent chaos ensued. Whatever.

Then he shows me the
Allan Crier
editorial that apparently has all the townies ruffling and talking loudly in bars and diners about “those ingrate Poe students.” It doesn’t even have any facts. It’s just a tirade about tax-paying citizens having to share their resources, like paramedics, with college students. Never mind how much income the university brings to the town. That’s obviously not important to mention.

So, I’m not exactly in a happy state when Conrad leaves and Rashid pops in with more flowers. He makes me tea and promises he won’t kiss me. He says he respects that I don’t think it’s a good idea. Then he asks five times if I need more tea. I am fine. Fine. Fine. Fine.

My favorite visit, surprisingly, is from Danny. He brings me pumpkin beer and he doesn’t treat me like an invalid.

As I pop off the tops of two of the beers in the kitchen, I say as level as I can, “It’s great that you were able to pick this up. I hadn’t heard that they lowered the drinking age to eighteen.”

His jaw stiffens as I pass him the cold bottle. He stutters and contorts his mouth as he does this little dance on my kitchen tiles.

“I’m kidding, Danny, I’m kidding,” I say. Is it horrible that it’s fun to tease him? To watch him squirm before swiftly extinguishing his misery?

It is.

He scratches the back of his neck and takes a big swig of his beer before coming outside with me so we can smell the fall air. It’s really only true fall in Virginia for about a month. Four precious weeks of the year with brilliant colors and that wonderful smell—trees and moss and death and rejuvenation. Shit, I’m starting to sound like Conrad.

A bug flaps against my knee. I swipe it off quickly. I like nature, except the bugs. I once screeched at a nervous cricket strolling across our living room floor as Rashid and I watched a horror movie. He gave me a playful “tsk” before getting up, bending low and cupping his hands together. Once he had it in his grasp, he took it outside. I asked him why and he said, “I don’t believe in Allah. But I do believe in Allah’s creatures.”

Danny reminds me a little of that nervous cricket. He shifts in his chair three times and keeps twisting this loose thread on his jeans around his fingers, so tight that his finger turns red until he unravels it again.

“What’s wrong?”

He winces before sighing. “I’m just really sorry, Quinn. I hope you can forgive me.”

Now it’s my turn to shift in my seat.

“What do I need to forgive you for?”

He does that thing again where he scratches his ear with his shoulder, both sides this time, and he continues to shift in his seat so much the plastic legs scratch across our stone patio. The sound is chilling.

“It’s my fault you got hurt. It’s my fault they all stormed the stage and didn’t care who was in their way. Or worse, that they wanted you in their way. They wanted to hurt you.”

I look at the beer and start scraping the label off, digging my fingernails between the glass and paper. There’s a quiver in my voice and slightly warm tears. “I don’t understand.” Shit, I was really starting to think Danny and I were in this together. Maybe even more than Mandy and me. No, Mandy and I are in everything together.

“I emailed the authors of that book,” Danny says, and his lower lip is so stiff and up so high, it looks like he wants to swallow his face. “I read
The Devil’s Followers
and thought it had some interesting points and stuff, but it was just a book. The fact that the devil’s followers got purple eyes was just a metaphor. I mean, I don’t even honestly believe in the devil. The devil just represents what is negative about man. God is light. Not being near God is dark, and if you want an entity to express that, you use the devil.”

I don’t bring up that perhaps you don’t need an entity to represent light, either. But that’s just my opinion. I mean, I get it. Or rather, I get that his view of the world isn’t any more or less valid than mine. We are all just swimming through existence, occasionally brushing the water from our irritated eyes and blinking and looking around and taking it all in. Sometimes it makes you breathe deep. I am alive. I exist. And then we find our own ways to decipher why that is. Or what that is.

So I nod. “Okay, I still don’t get why this is your fault?”

He puts his forehead in his hands, his black hair sticking out over his fingers, before he sighs and looks up at me with those big, earnest, purple eyes.

“Well, Reverend Smith responded to my email on his blog. He said that it was true that he meant the story as fiction and that he used the purple eyes as a metaphor. But he thought that what is going on here, in Allan, demonstrated that God had listened to the story. He thinks God saw the opportunity that the book, which touched so many souls, could provide. He thinks God is using the metaphor to show everyone who is evil. Apparently, Reverend Smith has been emailing with Jared since the article about Mandy was published.”

I’m divided. I want to laugh and roll my eyes. Because who would really believe that? But, because people do believe it, because it may be putting Danny and me and any other purple-eyed freak in danger, it isn’t so funny.

“It’s okay, Danny,” I say. “It’s not your fault.”

“No, it’s not okay, Quinn,” he says, curling his free fist and gritting his teeth. “You should have seen the comments. They were all riled up. They thought they needed to tell the world to end us. In the book, Christ’s followers are vigilantes. They rid the world of the Devil’s followers. Well, they try to save them, once. They come upon them and they tell them to follow Jesus Christ, and if they don’t, well, then...”

“Shit,” I say. “And maybe the other day, when they surrounded us, that was our one chance?”

Danny’s face dives into his hand. “I don’t get why they don’t understand it’s just a book. It’s not meant to be literal.”

“Isn’t that the story of religion? People taking shit literally when they shouldn’t and hurting each other in the process?”

He sips his beer and looks into the fence. “I don’t know, Quinn. Throughout history, some superstitions were in practice because they actually worked. People just didn’t understand the science behind it.” He bites his lower lip and stares at my patio tiles. “Maybe this is just a version of that. I mean, I’m not evil, but perhaps—” He lowers his chin to his chest. His shoulders sag.

“No, Danny, you aren’t evil,” I say, leaning forward.

His eyes travel from the ground back up to me. “How can I know who I am and what sins I could commit? How can anyone know that?”

“Because you know,” I say. I set my beer down and I clutch his shoulders and shake him a little. “Because you know.” Once again, my shaking him reminds me of some old-timey movie, except that Danny is so submerged in his own negative thoughts. I can’t believe Jared is getting to him. The next time I see Jared, I want to force him to the ground and pry open his mouth. I want to cut out his tongue so he can no longer spread his venomous verbal vermin.

Of course, I wouldn’t actually do that.

Because I’m not evil. I don’t think.

Chapter Twenty-Two

I can’t sleep. I feel like sprinting. I imagine a field, wide and open, that I can run barefoot through. Cartwheels and dance moves are also in play. My body wants the movement, but my mind knows I should rest. I need rest. So I count imaginary animals jumping over my head, unicorns and griffins and whatnot, until I’m caught up in making up new imaginary animals.

But none of it works because I keep thinking about Danny. How dense his shrug was when I asked him if he was going to be okay. “Yeah.” He’d forced a smile. “And I’m sorry, Quinn. Really.”

I told him there was no need to apologize.

Still, I don’t sleep well. I wake and try to calm myself, telling myself there’s still time for a good night’s rest, until birds chirp in the still darkness of very early morning.

My phone rings. It’s Danny.

“Hey, Quinn.” He launches right in. He sounds better, chipper even. “I’m sorry about last night. All this was just sort of getting to me, but I feel better now. I really appreciate you listening and forgiving me. Thank you for understanding.”

He might be the sweetest boy in existence. I have this odd desire to invite him over so I can make him an apple pie and ruffle his hair and bop his nose with my finger.

“Of course,” I say. “Of course.”

“Anyway, last night I felt like I had to do...something. I called that virus expert I told you about.” I remember. His biology TA, I think. “Well, he was sort of, I don’t know, weird on the phone. Even though he agreed to meet me today, it got me thinking. I couldn’t sleep, so I spent all night in the library researching. I’m just heading home now.”

I hadn’t told him about meeting up with Rashid ‘cause, well, I collected exactly zero interesting tidbits of information. God, he spent all night hanging out with stacks of books. I should help with this research effort somehow. I stumble out of bed and stub my toe on my night stand. As I grab it and fall back into bed I say, “Great, that’s great and, you know what, I’m up early so I’ll go talk to that environmental professor.”

“Awesome,” he says. My cheeks are tight and I almost start tearing up a little. It’s weird and doesn’t make any sense, but I’m just so happy that the positive yet jittery Danny is back. He scared me last night.

“It’s still worth talking to her, but I don’t think this has an environmental cause,” he continues. “I was looking into this virus expert, and I think there is more there. He said something interesting about white blood cells at a panel a couple of years ago and...” Danny breathes into the phone. “I’m not sure yet, and we only spoke for ten minutes last night, but he was really evasive and...” Danny coughs. “Quinn, I don’t know, I think he might know more about this than he’s letting on.”

“Really? What do you mean exactly?” I say, scrambling. How could someone know what was happening to us and not be the first to grab Peachy by the collar and tell him. “Danny?”

He’s quiet again, then he says, “What are they doing?” It’s so quiet that he must have just meant to say it to himself.

“Who? What is who doing?” I stand up and press my phone harder to my ear. Danny’s breaths spurt into the receiver. There are distant, rapid steps against pavement. “Danny? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, I just need to...” He pauses. No more steps, just breathing.

“Danny?”

“Look, Quinn, I got to go, but let’s meet later. Lunch at the caf maybe? I’ll explain then. And you can tell me what the professor has to say.”

“Sure,” I say. “Sure, Danny.” But I’m talking to myself, because he’s hung up. Still, I can breathe deeply again. My partner in crime is back on the case, full force. We both believe in ourselves again.

I get up, pull on a long skirt, tank top and cardigan, and head to the environmental studies building.

I wander the empty halls. Classes don’t start ’til 8 a.m. But Professor Klip had mentioned during that lecture I went to with Rashid that the early morning is the best time of day to work. I could not disagree more, but, whatever. Sleep is not in my immediate future, and it makes sense to try to catch her before the halls are a whir of students fussing about.

My decidedly artsy shoes click against the cold scientific floors. I haven’t been in the biology department before. I got my science requirements in astronomy. I’d rather gaze at the sky than hunch over a Petri dish. Until now.

I stand in Professor Klip’s doorway. She’s surrounded by stacks of paper and is using this cute little green desk lamp to pore over something, pen in hand.

I cough.

She eyes me suspiciously. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, actually. I mean, maybe.” I gingerly make my way into the room. She doesn’t offer me a seat but, to be fair, both extra seats are covered in papers. “Um, well, as you can see I’m one of the students with purple eyes.”

She nods, her face showing polite disinterest.

“Well, we’re wondering what it is. We don’t know and neither do the doctors or the public health people, or well, anyone. It’s sort of scary not knowing what’s going on.”

She stands and rests her fingers on her desk as she leans forward.

“But, we thought it might be a result of pollution or something? You know, like the fish in the river—” I speed through the rest, getting flustered. I don’t even know the right questions to ask.

She shakes her head and clucks dismissively as she crosses her arms. “That’s unlikely.”

“Why?” I ask.

She sighs. “If there was something wrong with the drinking water, we’d be seeing this in more cases. I concede I know little about the specifics of your condition, but I have overheard that there are clear social links between everyone who has exhibited symptoms. So I would be inclined to believe it’s a contagion.”

You’d think as a scientist she’d be interested in this. But I guess if it’s not in her field she couldn’t care less? I purse my lips and look at the ground. “So, not the environment?”

She shakes her head. “It would require multiple studies, taking months if not years, for me to say that definitively. But if you’re asking me my general thoughts, based on the evidence I do have, well then, let’s just say I’m not rushing to study this. It seems pretty clear it’s a disease that probably spreads through bodily fluids, like mononucleosis does. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I guess,” I say. I don’t move. I bite my thumbnail.

She rubs her eyes and walks around the side of the desk. “I heard something about how the condition might also accelerate the healing process?”

“Yes, ma’am—this arm was broken two days ago.” I hold up my arm and my bracelets slide along the straight bone.

She looks at my arm for almost a full minute.

She turns and looks out the window. “It’s curious,” she says. “A disease that has positive side effects instead of negative ones.” Her eyes snap back up to me. “Almost as though someone might have engineered it.”

“You can make diseases?” My chest tightens.

“Of course,” she says. “Haven’t you heard of bioterrorism?”

“Well yeah, but why give us a good disease?”

“That’s a question for another department,” she says.

I’m about to snottily ask her just what department I should be in, when sirens zoom and pound and get louder and louder until the blue-and-red light flashes in her window. She stands and widens the blinds with two fingers. “That’s interesting.”

I forget decorum and brush past her desk to the window. A crowd of students are a few yards away. They’re huddled around something. Something the cops are moving toward. Something the cops are putting yellow tape around. Something I can’t see.