Checking his phone by his locker now, he had his first pangs of guilt and thought about trying to message Eden, but he didn’t have her number. He’d have to find her on Instagram or somewhere later just to make sure she’d put it back where they’d found it.
“Don’t even tell me you’re on your phone,” Max said on his way to the urinals. “Coach is waiting.”
Marwan slid his phone into his locker, closed and locked it.
Walking onto the indoor field, he knew he had to get out of New York City. People needed space. He wasn’t sure how much, exactly, but it was more than he had at home or here or even out on his bike. Maybe that was why he’d started the whole license plate quest all those years ago. It had helped him dream of spacious skies, majestic purple mountains, and fruited plains. Words like “Montana” and “Oregon” had always promised more.
Probably a lot of people who lived here felt the same about being all piled on top of each other. That was why they honked their horns the second after a light turned green in front of a car up there, or ran red lights (like with Eden’s dad), or fought over parking spots, and cursed at people on bikes.
Nobody had enough room.
She really shouldn’t have taken the device.
They should have left it alone, lied, and said they just hadn’t noticed it. Still, he felt bad about abandoning her with it and really hoped she had gone in and put it back. She seemed entirely too freaked out about it.
Why was he even still thinking about it?
About her?
He needed to focus. Coach was going to choose a goalie soon, and that was the position Marwan wanted and needed. It was down to him and Max, really, and being an alternate was not an option Marwan could live with.
He ran out to meet Coach on the field. Around him, other players were doing various drills.
“Where do you want me?” Marwan asked.
“Far away on a soccer scholarship,” Coach said.
“I know.” Marwan nodded. “Me, too.”
“Can’t be a goalie without goals, Marwan.” An old joke of his.
“I know.”
“So are you gonna tell me why you were late?”
It was ridiculous to feel like he couldn’t mention the device. But it would sound more ridiculous to mention it. Marwan said, “I’m not sure I can tell you without lying, and I really don’t want to lie.”
“Try.”
“Something came up at school,” Marwan said.
Coach studied him for a second. “Midfield.” He nodded toward a cluster of guys practicing passing. “Go.”
They weren’t his favorite guys—not the guys he was usually partnered with—because they were lesser players, and he wondered if Coach was punishing him. Because why have him work with them?
That thought triggered another one, about Eden and Eli and Ilanka and the device. Why us?
EDEN
“Eden! I’m home!”
Eden paused the playlist called “Fables of the Reconstruction,” which she figured must be the songs her parents listened to when they’d done a big DIY renovation of the house when Eden was just a baby.
The device pulsed light, like it was waking up to listen.
Normally, Eden would head downstairs when her mother got home. They’d talk about their days—mostly just the surface stuff, like homework and work annoyances, sometimes a new book the publisher was acquiring—and maybe cook together. But the device’s rules were clear.
“Finishing up my homework!” Eden called out. “Down in a bit!”
“Oh-kay,” her mother said with a touch of confusion.
Eden only had to survive another hour before Eli came to take it. She just wanted to be done with it. She hadn’t liked babysitting the few times she’d done it, and this had started to feel like that—equal parts boring and too much responsibility.
She checked her phone.
Nothing new.
Clicked on Julian’s profile pic. God, he was cute.
Downstairs, her mother said, “Alexa, let’s play Jeopardy!” and the theme music floated up, followed by the smell of garlic.
Eden was hungry. Probably over smoothies she would have told Anjali about the theater thing with Julian. She would have told her how she bumped into him at the movie theater last week, on that random day off, and how they’d been the only two people in the theater, and how he sat next to her in the dark, then slid his hand around hers and used his thumb to stroke her palm, and then, later, her leg. About how they’d kissed for a few minutes, during the closing credits. They’d had an awkward conversation and goodbye while exiting the theater—he had somewhere he had to be; she gave him her phone number—and she hadn’t seen him since.
She hadn’t told Anjali because she was hoping she’d never have to. When something else, something less embarrassing, happened she could tell Anjali that instead.
Except nothing else had happened.
It was all taking so long that now she was impatient to just tell Anjali so she’d have someone to commiserate—maybe even strategize—with. Maybe Anjali would think, at first, that it was weird to kiss a guy under those circumstances. But in the theater, in the dark, unplanned—that had seemed like maybe the only way it would ever happen for Eden and also it had been … exciting.
Eli texted: I’m early. I’m outside.
So much relief.
She wrote back: I’ll be right out.
Since her mother was cooking downstairs, Eden went out the less-used upstairs door to the house (which had once been a two-family, thus the renovation). Eli was standing by the tree out front, a tree the mayor’s office had planted a bunch of years ago, along with one million others, supposedly to help beautify the city, but on Eden’s block it had been too little too late. The houses and apartment buildings—most of them connected to each other, with a few alleys and driveways here and there—had all been built in so many styles that they’d just never look nice together.
“Hey,” Eli said.
“Hey.” Eden went down the front stoop stairs. A white plastic bag had gotten stuck in their tree, way up on a high branch.
“How’d it go?” he said, and she handed him the device. “What’d you find out?”
“I didn’t find anything out.”
“You didn’t talk to it?”
“No, I didn’t talk to it.”
“Okay, no need to get worked up.”
She huffed. “It didn’t say or do anything else after the changing hands rule.”
“Okay, cool.” He slipped the device into his backpack.
“I was wondering, though,” Eden said. “Do you think ‘unattended’ means, you know, sleeping?”
“I hope not.” He peered into his bag. “Hey, device, can I sleep while I’m taking care of you?”
Eden peeked in, too.
The device did nothing.
Eli shrugged. “Guess it doesn’t feel like chatting.”
“I googled it but couldn’t really find anything,” she said.
“Yeah, me, too. I’ll keep trying.”
They both waited without a word while a man walked past, even though the man had headphones on and had zero interest in them whatsoever. Then Eli said, “So back to you in fourteen hours?”