All the Bright Places

Any change?
Me: 
If you mean my parents, no
.
Finch: 
What are the odds of them forgiving and forgetting?
The truth is, the odds aren’t very good. But I don’t want to say this because
he’s worried enough, and ever since that night, there’s something pulled in
about him, as if he’s standing behind a curtain.
Me: 
They just need time
.
Finch: 
I hate to be all Romeo and Juliet about this, but I want to see
you alone. As in when we’re not surrounded by the entire population of
Bartlett High
.
Me: 
If you came over here and I sneaked out or sneaked you in, they
really would lock me in the house forever
.
We go back and forth for the next hour thinking up wild scenarios for
seeing each other, including a faked alien abduction, triggering the citywide
tornado alarm, and digging an underground tunnel that would stretch from his
side of town to mine.
It’s one a.m. when I tell him I have to get some sleep, but I end up lying in
bed, eyes open. My brain is awake and racing, the way it used to be before
last spring. I turn on my light and sketch out ideas for 
Germ
—Ask a Parent,
book playlists, monthly soundtracks, lists of places where girls like me can
get involved. One of the things I want to create is a Wander section where
readers can send in pictures or videos of their favorite grand, small, bizarre,
poetic, nothing-ordinary sites.
I email Brenda and send Finch a note, in case he’s still awake. And then,
even though it’s jumping the gun a little, I write to Jordan Gripenwaldt,
Shelby Padgett, Ashley Dunston, the three Brianas, and reporter Leticia
Lopez, inviting them to contribute. Also Brenda’s friend Lara, and other girls
I know who are good writers or artists or have something original to say:
Dear 
Chameli, 
Brittany, 
Rebekah, 
Emily, 
Sa’iyda, 
Priscilla,
Annalise …
Eleanor and I 
were
EleanorandViolet.com, but as far as I’m
concerned, the more voices here, the better.
I think about asking Amanda. I write her a letter and leave it in my drafts
folder. When I get up the next morning, I delete it.
On Saturday, I eat breakfast with my parents and then I tell them I’m going to
ride my bike over to Amanda’s house. They don’t question me about why I
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want to hang out with this person I barely like or what we’re planning to do or
when I’ll be back. For some reason, they trust Amanda Monk.
I ride past her house and continue across town to Finch’s, and the whole
thing is so easy, even though I have this weird stitch in my chest because I
just lied to my parents. When I get there, Finch makes me crawl up the fire
escape and climb in the window so I don’t run into his mom or sisters.
“Do you think they saw?” I brush the dust off my jeans.
“I doubt it. They’re not even home.” He laughs when I pinch his arm, and
then his hands are on my face and he’s kissing me, which makes the stitch
disappear.
Because his bed is stacked with clothes and books, he drags a comforter out
of his closet and we lie on the floor, the blanket wrapped around us. Under the
covers, we get naked and heated, and afterward we talk like children, the
blanket up over our heads. We lie there whispering, as if someone might hear
us, and for the first time I tell him about 
Germ
. “I think this could actually be
something, and it’s because of you,” I say. “When I met you, I was finished
with all this. I didn’t think it mattered.”
“One, you worry about everything being filler, but the words you write will
still be here when you’re gone. And two, you were finished with a lot of
things, but you would have come around whether you met me or not.”
For some reason, I don’t like the way this sounds, as if a universe could
exist in which I wouldn’t know Finch. But then we’re under the blanket again
discussing all the places in the world we want to wander, which somehow
turns into all the places in the world we want to Do It.
“We’ll take this show on the road,” says Finch, tracing lazy circles on my
shoulder, down my arm, over to my hip. “We’ll wander every state, and after
we check them off, we’ll go across the ocean and start wandering there. It will
be a Wander-athon.”
“Wander-mania.”
“Wander-rama.”
Without consulting the computer, we list the places we might go, taking
turns. And then for some reason I have that feeling again, as if he’s stepped
behind a curtain. And then the stitch returns and I can’t help thinking of all
I’m doing to be here—sneaking around behind my parents’ backs, for one,
lying to them, for another.
At some point I say, “I should probably go.”
He kisses me. “Or you could stay a little longer.”
So I do.
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