Up the drive and into the cement parking lot she runs and then she stops. Stands in a parking space whose lines look tired from years of wear and lack of paint. Looks up to the sky, above the enormous maples, picturing that night a few summers ago when she sat out here with three of the Heather Home residents for the Fourth of July fireworks. They oohed and ahhed over the display, even though one of them was blind.
Blind, like Janie will be.
Oh, Miss Stubin.
Janie, breathing hard, lowers herself to the hot cement and the tears spill out freely, the pain of being eighteen and in love with a guy who can’t talk about what’s happening to her, and feeling this huge weight pressing into her chest, smashing her down, holding her back, keeping her from really living like a teenage girl should be living, and she wonders, not for the first time, why all this shit is happening to her. Thinks that she made a horrible mistake, taking the job with Captain and accelerating her own blindness for the benefit of others. Wonders what it would be like if all of it had never happened to her, if she’d never read that damn green notebook, if she’d never ridden that train where it all started when she was eight. If she could actually be in control of her life, just once.
Wonders if she should really do what she’s been afraid to do all this time.
Save herself and screw the rest.
“Give me a fucking break!” she shouts up to the fireworks that are no longer there. “What the fuck do I have to do to just be normal? What did I ever do to deserve this crap? Why?” She sobs. “Why?”
Also, not for the first time, there is no answer.
5:35 p.m.
Janie picks herself up.
Wipes the dirt from her shorts.
Starts jogging home.
6:09 p.m.
She slips into the back door of Cabel’s house. Exhausted and empty.
He looks up from the kitchen where’s he’s fixing a sandwich and blinks at her.
“Hi,” she says. Stands there, her tear-stained cheeks streaked with summer road dust and sweat.
Cabel’s nose twitches. “Wow. You smell disgusting,” he says. “Come with me.”
And then he leads her to the bathroom. Turns on the shower. Kneels down to take off her shoes and socks as she sets her glasses on the counter and takes out her ponytail. Helps her out of her sodden clothes. And then he holds the curtain aside for her. “Go on,” he says. She steps in.
He watches her, admiring her curves. Reluctantly turns to go.
And then he stops.
Thinks Janie might need some extra pampering.
He slips off his T-shirt and shorts. Boxers, too. And joins her.
6:42 p.m.
“Hey, Cabe?” she says, drying her hair, feeling refreshed. Grinning. Putting all thoughts but one aside for the moment. “You wanna go get Jimmy a raincoat and we’ll take care of you?”
Cabel looks at her.
Turns his head and narrows his eyes.
“Who the hell is Jimmy?”
11:21 p.m.
In the cool dark basement, she whispers, “It’s not Ralph, is it?”
Cabel’s quiet for a moment, as if he’s thinking. “You mean like Forever Ralph? Uh, no.”
“You’ve read Forever?” Janie is incredulous.
“There wasn’t much to choose from on the hospital library cart, and Deenie was always checked out,” Cabel says sarcastically.
“Did you like it?”
Cabel laughs softly. “Um . . . well, it wasn’t the wisest thing to read for a fourteen-year-old guy with fresh skin grafts in the general area down there, if you know what I mean.”
Janie stifles a sympathetic laugh and buries her face in his T-shirt. Holds him close. Feels him breathing. After a few minutes, she says, “So what, then? Pete? Clyde?”
Cabel rolls over, pretending to sleep.
“It’s Fred, isn’t it.”
“Janie. Stop.”
“You named your thing Janie?” She giggles.
Cabel groans deeply. “Go to sleep.”
11:41 p.m.
She sleeps. It’s delicious.
For a while.
3:03 a.m.
He dreams.
They are in Cabel’s house, the two of them, snuggling up together on a couch, playing Halo, eating pizza. Having fun. There is a muffled noise in the background, someone calling out for help from the kitchen, but the two ignore it—they are too busy enjoying each other’s company.
The cries for help grow louder.
“Quiet!” Cabel yells. But the calls only grow more intense. He yells again, but nothing changes.
Finally he goes into the kitchen. Janie is compelled to follow.