“Shut up,” I hiss at the slowly unfolding rungs, groaning loud enough to wake the dead. Finally, the ladder stops, and I hold my breath, listening for anyone who might be coming to check out the disturbance.
The hall outside the door is quiet. I snatch my phone off the floor from where I dropped it, and make my ascent, wincing at each creak the dowels make beneath my weight.
The attic air is frigid; passing into it feels like I’ve crossed an invisible barrier, and I instantly wish I’d brought a coat to go over my sweatshirt. There’s no turning back, though, and I feel a grin tugging on the corners of my lips as I pull myself onto the dusty beams and bring the ladder back up like Charlotte told me.
By phone light, I creep beneath the underside of the circular spire, passing boxes marked Christmas, and Halloween, and Fourth of July. The ceiling is draped with cobwebs, and I duck lower to keep them out of my hair.
“Caleb?” I whisper, but there’s no response.
After a few more steps, I find the wooden scaffolding wall Charlotte told me about, and the insulation that’s been moved aside to create a hole large enough for a person to get through. Pulling my hood over my ponytail, I climb through and shine my light ahead into the darkness.
A rectangular window is ten feet before me, propped open by an old shoebox. Relief trickles through my veins as I rush toward it, stopping when I see a note card taped to the dirty glass.
My favorite color is green.
The writing is definitely Caleb’s; each letter is absurdly straight and symmetrical, but I’m not sure what this means. If this is a code, or a game of some kind, no one told me the rules.
Taking the card, I squeeze through the low window, placing the shoebox back against the frame.
The night air is bitter, the sky black and painted with stars. A fingernail moon hangs over the spire I crept under, and directly in front of me, taped to the slanted shingles, is another note card.
Doughnuts > Pancakes.
I smirk, taking this card as well and pressing it into the palm of my hand with the other. A few feet to the right is a metal air vent, and hanging from the side is a third note.
Birthday: May 17.
I didn’t know his birthday, and as I place this card on the others, I’m confronted by a greedy kind of guilt. This is a basic cornerstone of knowing someone. How have I gotten this far without asking?
The notes keep coming, creating a path along the narrow cement walkway between the sloping arches of the roof.
Greatest achievement: Lego Death Star (4,000 pieces).
Nose broken, 2 times.
First pet: bat in attic. Name: Battic. Length of ownership: 12 hours.
Before I know it, I’m hurrying on to the next note card, starved for his writing and any hint of the boy he was before I met him.
Girlfriends: 3 (4?).
Vocational Goal, age 7: professional wrestler.
First crush: cartoon lioness (confusing).
Greatest Fear: failing.
I stare at the words, feeling them resonate through me. I am afraid of Grayson and letting Grayson down. I’m afraid of his father and this internship in his office. But I do whatever I have to, because I’m most afraid of throwing away this chance.
I know what happens if I fail here. I go home to Devon Park. I reenroll at a high school that spends more time busting kids for drugs and fighting than prepping them for college. I try for night school, but in the end, it’s too expensive, so I work a job like my mom, at a bar, and pray the tips are enough to pay the power bill.
I want more.
There’s another note ahead, and when I see the words, I wilt in the bitter night air.
I have a new assignment.
CHAPTER 5
I bundle this note with the others, tucking them into the front pocket of my sweatshirt as the cold air bites my nose and cheeks. From my right comes a scuff, shoe soles against concrete. I turn and find Caleb, sitting on a ledge in front of another sharp spire. He’s half-silhouetted by the lights on the front of the house and the fountain, his black leather jacket and dark jeans blending with the night.
My stomach does a slow flip-flop, and my breath comes in a staggered, hot puff of mist against my lips.
He’s holding another card, and when I shine my light toward him, I read the single word.
Trust.
He passes it to me as I approach, and though it’s the same as the other cards, this one feels heavier. More important.
He’s giving me his trust.
“Hi,” I whisper.
“Hi.”
There’s a space on the ledge next to him, and a folded blanket. When he tilts his head toward it, I sit beside him, and he wraps the wool around my shoulders.
For a few minutes we say nothing. We look at the stars and listen to the breeze rattling the dry leaves below. The knots slowly untie from my muscles, and my shivering ceases beneath the blanket.
“I like green, too,” I say after a while. “Bright green. Like the trees that grow near the fountain in Millennium Park.”
He smiles.
“Pancakes are greater than doughnuts,” I continue. “But I’ll settle for greater than or equal to.”
I shift closer, and he does, too. Our thighs are aligned, the outside of our knees separated by two layers of denim.
“I fell down the steps in the fourth grade and broke my tibia. No one signed my cast.” It was after my dad was killed, and the kids in my class wanted nothing to do with me. Like getting shot in a mini mart is somehow contagious. “How’d you break your nose?”
“I got punched,” he says. “First time by Skylar Galotti when he stole my skateboard. Second time by Skylar Galotti when I stole his girlfriend.”
The smirk severs my old grief. “Is this girlfriend four, question mark?”
He’s leaning forward over his knees and looks back at me, a faint smile dimpling his cheek. “No. That’s you.”
My smirk fades.
“Sophie Gomez was girlfriend two,” he goes on, as if my heart didn’t just trip over itself. “We were in the seventh grade. She asked me to the Winter Ball, and then broke up with me when I didn’t dance with her.”
I’m still stuck twenty seconds ago, on the whole that’s you comment.
“Why didn’t you dance with her?” I manage.
“Are you kidding? Girls are terrifying.”
So, apparently, are boys.
We haven’t talked about labels, and even if I’ve wondered what it would be like to call him my boyfriend, we can’t now. Dr. O made it clear that my assignment comes first.
Caleb has an assignment, too, now. As much as I want to know what it is, I can’t bring myself to ask.
“Bella Cho and I dated in the sixth grade for three days,” he continues. “We spent the majority of that time pretending to ignore each other.”
“And after Sophie, your next girlfriend was Margot.”
He nods slowly. “The years between were not so great.”
That’s when his dad got hurt, and when the spinal surgeries started, and when they had to move from Uptown to White Bank.
“You know me better than anyone.” There’s a strain to his voice. Now that Grayson’s come to Vale Hall, we only get one role to play. Home and work have become the same, and if these stolen moments are all we have, I don’t want to waste them.