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Germ—noun \’jarm\
the origin of something; a thing that may serve as the basis of further
growth or development.
I read this over and add:
Germ is for everyone
.…
I cross this out.
I try again:
Germ is meant to entertain, inform, and keep you safe.…
I cross this out too.
I think of Finch and Amanda, and then I look at the closet door, where you
can still see the thumbtack holes from my calendar. I think of the big black
“X”s that marked off the days because all I wanted was for them to be behind
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me.
I turn to a new page and write:
Germ Magazine. You start here.
And then I
rip it out and add it to my wall.
* * *
I haven’t heard anything from Finch since March. I’m not worried anymore.
I’m angry. Angry at him for leaving without a word, angry at myself for being
so easy to leave and for not being enough to make him want to stick around. I
do the normal post-breakup things—eating ice cream out of the carton,
listening to better-off-without-him music, choosing a new profile photo for
my Facebook page. My bangs are finally growing out, and I’m starting to
look like my old self, even if I don’t feel like her. On April 8, I gather the few
things I have of his, pack them into a box, and slide them into the back of my
closet. No more Ultraviolet Remarkey-able. I’m Violet Markey once again.
Wherever Finch is, he has our map. On April 10, I buy another one so that I
can finish this project, which I have to do whether he’s here or not. Right now
the only things I have are memories of places. Nothing to show for them
except a couple of pictures and our notebook. I don’t know how to put all of
what we’ve seen and done together into one comprehensive something that
will make sense to anyone but me. It—whatever we did and were—doesn’t
even make sense to me.
On April 11, I borrow Mom’s car, and she doesn’t ask where I’m going, but
as she hands me the keys, she says, “Call or text when you get there and when
you’re on your way home.”
I head to Crawfordsville, where I make a halfhearted attempt to visit the
Rotary Jail Museum, but I feel like a tourist. I call my mother to check in, and
afterward I drive. It’s a warm Saturday. The sun is bright. It almost feels like
spring, and then I remember that, technically, it is. As I drive, I keep my eye
out for a Saturn SUV, and every time I spot one, my heart does this wild leap
into my throat, even though I tell myself:
I’m done. I’m over him. I’m moving
on
.
I remember what he said about how he loved driving, the forward motion
of it, like you might go anywhere. I picture the look on his face if he could see
me behind the wheel right now. “Ultraviolet,” he’d say, “I always knew you
had it in you.”
When Ryan and Suze break up, he asks me out. I say yes, but only as friends.
On April 17, we eat dinner at the Gaslight, which is one of the fancier
restaurants in Bartlett.
I pick at my meal and do my best to focus on Ryan. We talk about college
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plans and turning eighteen (his birthday’s this month, mine’s in May), and
while it’s not the most exciting conversation I’ve ever had, it is a nice, normal
date, with a nice, normal guy, and there’s something to be said for that right
now. I think about how I’ve labeled Ryan just like everyone labeled Finch. I
suddenly like his solidness and sense of permanence, as if what you see is
what you get, and he will always be and do exactly what you expect him to be
and do. Except for the stealing, of course.
When he walks me to my door, I let him kiss me, and when he calls me the
next morning, I answer.
On Saturday afternoon, Amanda shows up at my house and asks if I want
to hang out. We end up playing tennis in the street, like we did when I first
moved here, and afterward we walk up to the Dairy Queen and order
Blizzards. That night, we go to the Quarry, just Amanda and me, and then I
text Brenda and Shelby and Lara and the three Brianas, and they meet us
there. An hour later, Jordan Gripenwaldt and some of the other
Germ
girls
have joined us. We dance till it’s time to go home.
Friday, April 24, Brenda and I go to the movies, and when she invites me to
sleep over, I do. She wants to talk about Finch, but I tell her I’m trying to put
him behind me. She hasn’t heard from him either, so she lets me be, but not
before she says, “Just so you know, it’s not you. Whatever reason he had for
leaving, it must have been a good one.”
We stay up till four a.m. working on
Germ
, me on my laptop, Brenda flat
on her back on the floor, legs up the wall. She says, “We can help guide our
readers into adulthood like Sherpas on Mount Everest. We give them the truth
about sex, the truth about college life, the truth about love.” She sighs. “Or at
least the truth about what to do when boys are complete and total prats.”
“Do we even know what to do when that happens?”
“Not at all.”
I have fifteen emails from girls at school wanting to be contributors,
because
Violet Markey, bell tower hero and creator of EleanorandViolet.com
(Gemma Sterling’s favorite blog site), has started another magazine
. I read
them aloud, and Brenda says, “So this is what it’s like to be popular.”
By now, she’s pretty much my closest friend.
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