All the Bright Places (15 page)

Embryo says, “Let’s talk about the SAT. You got a 2280.” He sounds so surprised and impressed, I want to say,
Oh yeah? Screw you, Embryo
.

The truth is, I test well. I always have. I say, “Congratulations would be appropriate here as well.”

He charges on ahead as if he hasn’t heard me. “Where are you planning on going to college?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“Don’t you think it’s time to give some thought to the future?”

I do think about it. Like the fact that I’ll see Violet later today.

“I do think about it,” I say. “I’m thinking about it right now.”

He sighs and closes my file. “I’ll see you Friday. If you need anything, call me.”

Because BHS is a giant school with a giant population of students, I don’t see Violet as often as you might think. The only class we have together is U.S. Geography. I’m in the basement when she’s on the third floor, I’m in the gym when she’s all the way across the school in Orchestra Hall, I’m in the science wing when she’s in Spanish.

On Tuesday, I say to hell with it and meet her outside every one of her classes so I can walk her to the next. This sometimes means running from one end of the building to the other, but it’s worth every step. My legs are long, so I can cover a lot
of ground, even if I have to dodge people left and right and sometimes leap over their heads. This is easy to do because they move in slow motion, like a herd of zombies or slugs.

“Hello, all of you!” I shout as I run. “It’s a beautiful day! A perfect day! A day of possibility!” They’re so listless, they barely look up to see me.

The first time I find Violet, she’s walking with her friend Shelby Padgett. The second time, she says, “Finch, again?” It’s hard to tell if she’s happy to see me or embarrassed, or a combination. The third time, she says, “Aren’t you going to be late?”

“What’s the worst they can do?” I grab her hand and drag her bumping along. “Coming through, people! Clear the way!” After seeing her to Russian literature, I jog back down the stairs and down more stairs and through the main hall, where I run directly into Principal Wertz, who wants to know what I think I’m doing out of class, young man, and why I’m running as if the enemy is on my heels.

“Just patrolling, sir. You can’t be too safe these days. I’m sure you’ve read about the security breaches over at Rushville and New Castle. Computer equipment stolen, library books destroyed, money taken from the front office, and all in the light of day, right under their noses.”

I’m making this up, but it’s clear he doesn’t know that. “Get to class,” he tells me. “And don’t let me catch you again. Do I need to remind you you’re on probation?”

“No, sir.” I make a show of walking calmly in the other direction, but when the next bell rings, I take off down the hall and up the stairs like I’m on fire.

The first people I see are Amanda, Roamer, and Ryan, and I make the mistake of accidentally ramming into Roamer, which sends him into Amanda. The contents of her purse go spiraling across the hallway floor, and she starts screaming. Before Ryan and Roamer can beat me to a six-foot-three-inch bloody pulp, I sprint away, putting as much distance between them and me as I can. I’ll pay for this later, but right now I don’t care.

This time Violet is waiting. As I double over, catching my breath, she says, “Why are you doing this?” And I can tell she isn’t happy or embarrassed, she’s pissed.

“Let’s run so you’re not late to class.”

“I’m not running anywhere.”

“I can’t help you then.”

“Oh my God. You are driving me crazy, Finch.”

I lean in, and she backs up into a locker. Her eyes are darting everywhere like she’s terrified someone might see Violet Markey and Theodore Finch together. God forbid Ryan Cross walks by and gets the wrong idea. I wonder what she’d say to him—
It’s not what it looks like. Theodore Freak is harassing me. He won’t leave me alone
.

“Glad I can return the favor.” Now
I’m
pissed. I rest one hand against the locker behind her. “You know, you’re a lot friendlier when we’re by ourselves and no one’s around to see us together.”

“Maybe if you didn’t run through the halls and shout at everyone. I can’t tell if you do all this because it’s expected or because it’s just the way you are.”

“What do you think?” My mouth is an inch from hers, and I
wait for her to slap me or push me away, but then she closes her eyes, and that’s when I know—I’m in.

Okay
, I think.
Interesting turn of events
. But before I can make a move, someone yanks me by the collar and jerks me back. Mr. Kappel, baseball coach, says, “Get to class, Finch. You too.” He nods at Violet. “And that’s detention for the both of you.”

After school, she walks into Mr. Stohler’s room and doesn’t even look at me. Mr. Stohler says, “I guess there really is a first time for everything. We’re honored to have your company, Miss Markey. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“To him,” she says, nodding in my direction. She takes a seat at the front of the room, as far away from me as she can get.

Two a.m. Wednesday. My bedroom.

I wake up to the sound of rocks at my window. At first I think I’m dreaming, but then I hear it again. I get up and peek through the blinds, and Theodore Finch is standing in my front yard dressed in pajama bottoms and a dark hoodie.

I open the window and lean out. “Go away.” I’m still mad at him for getting me detention, first of my life. And I’m mad at Ryan for thinking we’re going out again, and whose fault is that? I’ve been acting like a tease, kissing him on his dimple, kissing him at the drive-in. I’m mad at everyone, mostly myself. “Go away,” I say again.

“Please don’t make me climb this tree, because I’ll probably fall and break my neck and we have too much to do for me to be hospitalized.”

“We don’t have anything else to do. We’ve already done it.”

But I smooth my hair and roll on some lip gloss and pull on a bathrobe. If I don’t go down, who knows what might happen?

By the time I get outside, Finch is sitting on the front porch, leaning back against the railing. “I thought you’d never come,” he says.

I sit down beside him, and the step is cold through my layers. “Why are you here?”

“Were you awake?”

“No.”

“Sorry. But now that you are, let’s go.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

He stands and starts walking to the car. He turns and says too loudly, “Come on.”

“I can’t just take off when I want to.”

“You’re not still mad, are you?”

“Actually, yes. But look at me. I’m not even dressed.”

“Fine. Leave the ugly bathrobe. Get some shoes and a jacket. Do not take time to change anything else. Write a note to your parents so they won’t worry if they wake up and find you gone. I’ll give you three minutes before I come up after you.”

We drive toward Bartlett’s downtown. The blocks are bricked off into what we call the Boardwalk. Ever since the new mall opened, there’s been no reason to come here except for the bakery, which has the best cupcakes for miles. The businesses here are hangers-on, relics from about twenty years ago—a sad and
very old department store, a shoe store that smells like mothballs, a toy store, a candy shop, an ice cream parlor.

Finch parks the Saturn and says, “We’re here.”

All the storefronts are dark, of course, and there is no one out. It’s easy to pretend that Finch and I are the only two people in the world.

He says, “I do my best thinking at night when everyone else is sleeping. No interruptions. No noise. I like the feeling of being awake when no one else is.” I wonder if he sleeps at all.

I catch sight of us in the window of the bakery, and we look like two homeless kids. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

The air is crisp and clean and quiet. In the distance, the Purina Tower, our tallest building, is lit up, and beyond it the bell tower of the high school.

Outside Bookmarks, Finch pulls out a set of keys and unlocks the door. “My mother works here when she’s not selling houses.”

The bookstore is narrow and dark, a wall of magazines on one side, shelves of books, a table and chairs, an empty counter where coffee and sweet things are sold during working hours.

He stoops behind the counter now and opens a refrigerator that’s hidden behind it. He digs around until he comes up with two sodas and two muffins, and then we move over to the kids’ area, which has beanbags and a worn blue rug. He lights a candle he found near the register, and the light flickers across his face as he carries it from shelf to shelf and trails his fingers along the spines of the books.

“Are you looking for something?”

“Yes.”

Finally, he sinks down beside me and runs his hands through his hair, making it go off in all directions. “They didn’t have it at the Bookmobile Park and they don’t have it here.” He picks up a stack of children’s books and hands me a couple. “They do, thank goodness, have these.”

He sits cross-legged, wild hair bent over one of the books, and immediately it’s as if he’s gone away and is somewhere else.

I say, “I’m still mad at you about getting me detention.” I expect some fast reply, something flirty and flip, but instead he doesn’t look up, just reaches for my hand and keeps reading. I can feel the apology in his fingers, and this takes the wind out of me, so I lean into him—just a little—and read over his shoulder. His hand is warm and I don’t want to stop holding it.

We eat one-handed and read our way through the stack, and then we start reading aloud from Dr. Seuss—
Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
We alternate stanzas, first Finch, then me, Finch, then me.

At some point, Finch gets to his feet and starts acting it out. He doesn’t need the book because he knows the words by heart, and I forget to read because it’s more fun watching him, even when the words and his voice turn serious as he recites
lines about dark places and useless places and waiting places, where people don’t do anything but wait.

Then his voice turns light again and he is singing the words.

He pulls me to my feet.

The two of us are doing our own version of flip-flapping, which is a kind of leaping over things—the beanbags, the rug, the other books. We sing the last lines together—
Your mountain is waiting. So … get on your way!
—and end in a heap on the floor, candlelight dancing across us, laughing like we’ve lost our minds.

The only way up the Purina Tower is the steel ladder built into the side, and there seem to be about twenty-five thousand steps. At the top, we stand—wheezing like Mr. Black—beside the Christmas tree, which sits planted all year. Up close, it’s larger than it looks from the ground. Past it, there’s a wedge of open space, and Finch spreads out the blanket and then we huddle on top of it, arm to arm, pulling the rest of the cover around us.

He says, “Look.” On all sides of us, spread out below, are little white lights and black pockets of trees. Stars in the sky, stars on the ground. It’s hard to tell where the sky ends and the earth begins. I hate to admit it, but it’s beautiful. I feel the need to say something grand and poetic, but the only thing I come up with is “It’s lovely.”

“ ‘Lovely’ is a lovely word that should be used more often.” He reaches down to cover my foot, which has found its way out of the blanket. “It’s like it’s ours,” he says.

And at first I think he means the word, but then I know he means the town. And then I think,
Yes, that’s it. Theodore Finch always knows what to say, better than I do. He should be the writer, not me
. I feel jealous, just for a second, of his brain. In this moment, mine feels so ordinary.

“The problem with people is they forget that most of the time it’s the small things that count. Everyone’s so busy waiting in the Waiting Place. If we stopped to remember that there’s such a thing as a Purina Tower and a view like this, we’d all be happier.”

For some reason I say, “I like writing, but I like a lot of things. Maybe out of those things, I’m best at writing. Maybe it’s what I like best of all. Maybe it’s where I’ve always felt most at home. Or maybe the writing part of me is over. Maybe there’s something else I’m supposed to do instead. I don’t know.”

“There’s a built-in ending to everything in the world, right? I mean, a hundred-watt lightbulb is designed to last seven hundred and fifty hours. The sun will die in about five billion years. We all have a shelf life. Most cats can live to be fifteen, maybe
longer. Most dogs make it to twelve. The average American is designed to last twenty-eight thousand days after birth, which means there’s a specific year, day, and time to the minute when our lives will end. Your sister’s happened to be eighteen. But if a human was to avoid all life-threatening diseases and infections and accidents, he—or she—should live to be a hundred and fifteen.”

“So you’re saying I may have reached my built-in ending to writing.”

“I’m saying you have time to decide.” He hands me our official wandering notebook and a pen. “For now, why not write things down where no one will see it? Write it on a piece of paper and stick it on the wall. Of course, for all I know, you may suck at it.” He laughs as he dodges away from me, and then he pulls out an offering—the Bookmarks napkins, the half-burned candle, a matchbook, and a lopsided macramé bookmark. We lock them into a flat Tupperware container he’s confiscated from his house and leave it sitting out in plain view for the next person who comes here. Then he’s up and standing at the edge, where only a knee-high metal guardrail keeps him from falling to the ground.

He throws his arms out over his head, fists clenched, and shouts: “Open your eyes and look at me! I’m right bloody here!” He shouts all the things he hates and wants to change until his voice is hoarse. Then he nods over at me. “Your turn.”