The Infinite Moment of Us (4 page)

hear the laughter of the two eighth graders. Dev hadn’t

shared those details with Charlie, but Charlie had imagined

the scene too many times.

“Charlie?” Wren said. She was waiting for him to answer.

“At school,” he said. Then he closed himself off. He

wanted to talk with Wren, but he didn’t want her pity. He

didn’t want her to pity Dev, either.

She exhaled, then pushed the needle through the skin

near the base of his thumb, knotted the thread, and clipped

it off. “Now I have to do a row of stitches the opposite way.”

She peeked at him from beneath long lashes. “You doing

okay?”

“I’m fine,” he replied. “And Dev, he’s doing better these

“Is he your biological brother?”

“Nah. He was in the system, like me, until Chris and

Pamela said, sure, they had a spot for him. They’re going

to officially adopt him.” They’d wanted to adopt Charlie,

too, but Charlie, for reasons of his own that had little to do with Chris and Pamela, had said no.

“Pamela’s your foster mom?” Wren said.

“Yep, she’s Chris’s wife.”

“But you call them your foster parents. How come,

when you call Dev your brother?”

“As opposed to foster brother?” Charlie said. He thought

about it. It wasn’t that he didn’t love Chris and Pamela. He

did. And they’d done so much for him. It was a debt impos-

sible to repay.

But Dev was different. Though Dev was no more con-

nected by blood to Charlie than Chris and Pamela were, he

brought Charlie out of himself in a way that few people in

the world ever had, possibly in a way that no one ever had.

“I don’t know,” he finally said. Dev was his brother.

Period.

Wren nodded, seeming to absorb and accept this. “Cool.

I think you guys are lucky to have each other.” She tied off

another stitch. “And in the name of fairness, I should tell

you I’m an only. I’d hate to be accused of withholding dan-

gerous intel.”

An only?
Oh. An only child. As for “dangerous intel,”

Charlie didn’t get the joke. He knew enough to know it
was
a joke, or was meant to be, but he’d learned over time that

normal kids spoke a language particular to normal life, the

subtleties of which didn’t make it into state-run facilities

or foster families.

“So ‘only’ kids are dangerous?” he asked, keeping it light.

“Very,” she said gravely. She looked at him, or rather

into him, and he felt sure she was telegraphing something

that mattered. Something she wanted to give a shape to.

Something sad?

She ducked her head and gave a funny smile, and Charlie

cursed himself for failing to decode her secret message.

“Oh my God, are you all right?” Wren said.

“What?”

“Your hand,” she said, and he realized he must have

flinched. Or maybe his fingers had tensed into a fist, or the

start of one.

She lay her hand over his, above the area of his wound,

and gave him a brief squeeze. Tender, and then gone.

Warmth, then cold.

“All done,” she said. “Keep it clean. The thread’ll dis-

solve on its own, so you won’t need to come back to have

the stitches removed. Good news, right?”

Was it? He would have happily come back.

She was acting very polite now. She was packing up the

needle, scissors, and gauze, but he wasn’t ready to go.

“Wren. You didn’t hurt me. You’re going to be a really

good doctor.”

She gave him a startled glance.

“That’s what you want to do, isn’t it? Be a doctor? You

told us in biology.”

“I did?”

“Yeah. You applied early decision to Emory because of

their pre-med program, and you got accepted, which is

amazing. Not that you got accepted. Of course you got

accepted. Any college would accept you. They’d be idiots

not to.”

Wren’s eyes were huge, making Charlie wonder if he

was the idiot in this situation.

“You should be really proud,” he said. “Um, I’m sure

you
are
really proud.” Her deer-in-the-headlights expression didn’t change, making him feel acutely aware of the

muscles of his own face, which felt rubbery and no longer

within his control. “Aren’t you?”

She snapped out of her trance and busied herself with

an antiseptic wipe. For a moment, Charlie felt relieved.

She wasn’t staring at him anymore. He could, and did,

work out the kinks in his jaw.

But he doubted that the small square antiseptic pack-

age demanded all of Wren’s attention, and before long,

her reluctance to look at him forced him to open his big

dumb mouth again. He didn’t want to. He just couldn’t

help it. Her sad-shaped something had returned, and Char-

lie couldn’t stand it.

“Did you
not
get into Emory?”

She made a sound that was perhaps supposed to be a

laugh but didn’t fool Charlie.

“Then, what?” Charlie said.

Wren stopped fooling with the antiseptic wipe. Keep-

ing her head bowed, she said, “If I tell you, will you keep

it to yourself?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

“Do you promise?”

Was she serious? Charlie would promise her anything.

The sun, the moon, the stars. “I promise.”

Her lips parted. She seemed about to speak but then

pulled back. “Oh my God, I’m being ridiculous. I mean,

God
, Charlie. For some reason it feels like I know you, but I don’t, and—”

She covered her eyes and pushed on them.

He thought, You feel like you know me? You feel that?

About me?

She opened her eyes and gave him a wobbly smile. “Okay,

done now,” she said. She even managed a laugh. “That was

really weird. I am so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Charlie said, his heart pounding. He glanced

at Chris, who appeared to have nodded off in the hard

waiting-room chair, then back at Wren. “I know we don’t

know each other that well. That’s what it is. But we
do

know each other.”

He struggled to find the right words, and, failing that,

he struggled to force out any words.

Charlie understood silence.

He embraced silence.

Silence in the face of sadness made sense to him. It was a

survival strategy. But Wren’s silence, which clearly wasn’t

making her happy, was something he could do something

about.

“Whatever’s going on, I wish you’d tell me,” he said.

Wren looked at him. She held his gaze and
saw
him, or

that’s how it felt, and she whispered, “It’s dumb.”

“I doubt it.”

“You’ll think I’m being a baby.”

“I won’t.”

She bowed her head, and a wisp of hair fell from her

ponytail. He wanted to brush it back. He wanted des-

perately to graze her cheek with the back of his hand and

swear to her that everything would be fine.

“Please don’t tell my parents,” she said.

“Okay.”

“The only person I’ve told is Tessa. She’s my best friend.

She’s not entirely thrilled, because she’s worried I’ll never

come back, but she’s happy I’m doing what’s right for me

for once. Well, I hope it’s right. I think it is.”

Charlie pulled his eyebrows together. He didn’t know

Wren’s parents, and he knew Tessa Haviland only by sight.

And what did Wren mean by “never come back”?

Wren took a deep breath, then let it out in a whoosh. “I

don’t want to go straight to college. I know I’m supposed

to, but I don’t want to—not yet. I want to experience

things and not just think and think and think about things.

Does that make sense?”

Charlie wasn’t sure what to say.

“Um, my dad,” Wren said. “I love him. I do. But, like,

when I showed him my college essay, he pulled my laptop

out of my hands and fixed it for me.” She looked nervous,

as if she was worried she was being disloyal. “He rewrote

the whole thing. Which was nice, I guess? But also . . .”

“Not cool,” Charlie said.

“Not cool,” she agreed. “It’s like he wants to do his own

life over, through me.” She fell silent for a moment. Then

she flashed him a smile that Charlie didn’t quite believe.

“So I applied to a program called Project Unity. And I got

in.”

“Wren, that’s awesome,” Charlie said.

“You know what Project Unity is?”

“Um. No. But I—whatever it is, I’m sure it’s awesome.”

Dammit, he’d screwed up. She surely thought he was just

saying whatever she wanted to hear, except he meant every

word of it.

“What is it?” he said.

“It’s like a starter version of the Peace Corps,” she said.

“It’s a government program for volunteer work, and it’s

for a year, and all my expenses will be paid. I’ll even get

a stipend. The volunteers get sent to Africa or Guatemala

or Mexico, anywhere people need help. I put Guatemala

as my first choice. I applied to teach English to little kids.”

“Wow,” Charlie said. “Like, with textbooks, or . . . ?”

“The people who run the program have all sorts of

resources, but I thought maybe I could bring some picture

books, too? Like ones I liked when I was little, and I could

read those to the kids?”

She searched his face. “I might still be a doctor one day.

But I want to do something now, not in eight years. I kind

of feel like I
have
to, or I never will.”

He wondered how much her desire to throw herself

into Project Unity was tangled up with her need to get

away from her parents.

“Did you ever want to go to Emory?” he asked.

She hesitated. “If I say no, will you be mad?”

Mad? Why would he be mad?

“Never mind,” she said. “Ha.
I’m
the one who needs to

be shot with a tranquilizer gun.”

“No, you don’t,” Charlie said.

“I applied to Emory because that’s where my mom

works, and it’s got a good reputation, and she and my dad

were so proud when I got in,” Wren said. “But there’s just

so much pressure
. I’m sick of all the pressure. I’m sick of feeling like I’ll ruin all their happiness if I don’t do what

they want me to do.”

“Got it.”

“Which I guess means . . . no, I didn’t actually want to

go. I feel bad saying that.”

“Don’t. It’s your life, not theirs.”

“Right,” she said. She nodded. “It is, isn’t it?”

Her determination, combined with her sweetness, dis-

armed him.

“And seriously, doesn’t Project Unity sound awesome?”

she said. “Tessa doesn’t understand why I’d want to live in

a developing country, but I’m excited. Going someplace

totally new, where you can start fresh and do good things

and be whoever you want—doesn’t that sound amazing?”

Wren sounded amazing, talking about it. Wren
was

amazing.

Charlie’s thoughts went to Starrla Pettit, who was the

only other girl in his life, the only girl who served as a

point of reference. Except Charlie didn’t want Starrla to

be his point of reference, and she wasn’t in his life, not in

that way. Except, she
was
Charlie’s—what? What was Starrla to him, exactly?

Ah, shit. Charlie had no idea what he and Starrla were

to each other.

But Starrla worked part-time at Rite Aid, and, starting

next week, she was going to be bumped up to full-time,

with benefits and a regular schedule. Charlie was glad for

her. He hoped it worked out. He hoped she didn’t screw

it up.

Working at Rite Aid—hell, there was nothing wrong

with that. If anything, he felt bad that Starrla didn’t have

the luxury of considering anything else, even if it was

unlikely she ever would.

Wren wanted to do more, though. Wren wanted to save

the world.

“Forget it,” she said before he got around to responding.

“You probably think putting off college is impractical, and

that going to Guatemala is . . .” She sighed. “You think I’m

crazy, huh?”

“No,” Charlie said. “I think—” His voice sounded rag-

ged. He shook his head, knowing he was trying too hard

but unable to stop himself. “I think you’re wonderful.”

c h a p t e r t h r e e

On Friday morning, Tessa invited Wren to go

with her to a shooting range. To shoot things, with guns.

With Tessa and her new crush, P.G. Barbee.

Wren’s knee-jerk reaction was to tell Tessa absolutely

not, because Wren hated guns. She hated their ugliness,

and she hated what they did. Also, she didn’t like P.G.

Then again, she’d said no to so many things over the

years, often based on someone else’s opinion. Wasn’t she

supposed to be experiencing new things and coming to her

own conclusions? Wasn’t that what signing up for Project

Unity was all about?

“C’mon,” Tessa wheedled over the phone. “Who knows?

Maybe you’ll meet a cute guy.”

“At a shooting range?”

“Why not?”

Wren highly doubted she’d meet an appealing guy at

a shooting range. Besides, she was already interested in a

guy, although she wasn’t ready to tell Tessa.

She thought about Charlie Parker, who’d showed up

randomly—or perhaps not so randomly?—in the ER yes-

terday. She didn’t think he’d cut his thumb on purpose, or