What's Left of Me (11 page)

The tunnel leading to the plane echoed with grumbling suitcase wheels
.
A flight attendant stood by the plane’s mouth, smiling at us when we reached the threshold.

We stepped into the plane. Mr. Conivent walked as briskly as he could down the narrow corridor, but he kept having to stop as people found their seats or loaded luggage into overhead compartments. Were Ryan and Devon here already? They had to be; we’d been one of the last people in line.

Addie said.

I said.

She raised our eyes and lowered our fist to our side. The woman and her children in front of us finally found their seats, and we heard the mother mutter to herself, “Thank God we’re by the bathrooms.”

Ahead of us, an older man grappled with his suitcase, and Mr. Conivent had to stop again, his lips thinning. The coin in our hand was warm.

I said.

Addie turned slightly, hiding the coin in case Mr. Conivent glanced over his shoulder. The light was no longer flashing. Instead, it glowed an unwavering red. She frowned at it, our bottom lip caught between our teeth. We didn’t notice when one of the bathroom doors opened.

But when we looked up again, there was no way not to notice the dark-haired boy standing in the aisle. And no way not to recognize who he was.

Thirteen

W
hat happened next happened very quickly and almost silently. Devon’s finger shot to his lips. He ducked back into the bathroom. The door shut.

“Addie?” Mr. Conivent said, her name half sigh and half warning. “What is it now?”

“Nothing,” Addie said. Our heart was thumping, but she turned and kept our expression placid. “I’ve just never been on a plane before.”

“There’s not much to see.” He beckoned for Addie to close the three or four feet between him and us. “Come on. We need to get to our seats.”

She followed Mr. Conivent down the aisle, farther into the belly of the plane. Despite the incredibly early hour, most of the other passengers were as smartly dressed as he was, the women in skirts and pantyhose, the men in pressed shirts. Our scuffed oxfords stood out in a line of heels and leather shoes.

“Thirty-four-E,” Mr. Conivent said finally. “Here we go. Give me your bag.”

Addie handed it over, then frowned. The seats on either side of 34-E were both filled by middle-aged businessmen in dark suits. Mr. Conivent was still trying to stuff our bag into the overhead bin. Addie tapped him on the arm. “There’s only one seat.”

Mr. Conivent nodded as he slammed the compartment shut. “I’m down that way.” He gestured back in the direction we’d just come. “On the other side of where we entered. If you need help, call for a stewardess. It’s not a long flight.”

Addie nodded, the coin hot in our palm. Devon’s face was captured in my mind, beckoning for us to be quiet. Addie sat down, and I hoped Mr. Conivent would leave, but he didn’t. He stood in the aisle like a sentinel. Eventually the man on our left roped him into a rather one-sided conversation as Addie fidgeted in our seat.

Finally, a stewardess in a blue-and-white uniform told Mr. Conivent he had to sit. Then another woman at the head of the plane began explaining what to do if the plane went down. Addie and I both listened. At least one of us would remember what to do. I’d thought we’d get a chance to run to the bathroom when the stewardess finished, but then the plane began moving and we couldn’t go anywhere.

I said.

The plane screamed, careening faster and faster down the runway. Then, with a lurch and a pop in our ears, it wrenched itself from the ground. Our legs jellified. Addie squeezed the armrests, our back pressed against the seat. She glanced only once out the window, but it was enough. We saw the dark shape of the airport below, growing smaller and smaller as we left the ground behind.

The seat belt sign extinguished ten or fifteen minutes later, and Addie mumbled an apology to the businessman in the aisle seat as she squeezed past him and stumbled down the aisle.

The bathroom doors were shut, but little panels declared
UNOCCUPIED
in bright green. Addie looked around before pulling open the door Devon had been hiding behind earlier. The tiny bathroom was empty. The one next to it was empty, too. So was the one next to that.

A man sitting nearby shot us a strange look.

Our hand closed around the handle of the fourth door. Addie jerked it open.

And this one was not empty.

“Shh,” Devon said before Addie could speak. He took our arm and pulled us into the bathroom, yanking the door shut behind us. We stood, squished between the sink and the wall, boxed in by the toilet and the door. And Devon. His face was half a foot from ours, his hands by our elbows, one knee pressed against our leg. We were folded together with nowhere to go, backs against walls, trying to breathe. Everything vibrated.

“You didn’t run,” he said. His voice was quiet, but something in it hummed the same tenor as the plane’s engines. The sink’s hard edge dug into our back, keeping Addie from shifting away from his touch. “Ryan told you to run. Why didn’t you?”

A bout of turbulence rocked the bathroom. Addie squeezed our eyes shut until it was over. The bathroom was too small. Way, way too small.

“Of course I didn’t run,” she said through our teeth. “Where would I have gone?”

Devon looked like he was going to argue, but the bathroom trembled again and by the time Addie reopened our eyes, he’d swallowed what he was going to say. “You didn’t admit anything?” The words were hardly a question, more a confirmation. “You played dumb?”

“I’m not stupid,” Addie said. We couldn’t focus, not in this tiny, rattling place, with the door behind us and Devon so close. Sweat pricked the back of our neck, heat rushing through us in waves. Our chest constricted, a band cinching tighter and tighter and tighter until every breath was a war.

Devon frowned. “Are you okay?”

I said.

“I’m fine,” Addie said. Our voice was rough, but she listened to me, keeping our eyes on Devon’s face. “And I didn’t run. And now I’m here.” Our hands clenched.

Neither she nor Devon said anything for a moment. Our muscles trembled from the effort to keep still. Our gaze stayed firmly straight ahead. Was Addie separating Devon’s face into brushstrokes? Into light and shadow? I would never see the world in terms of colored dabs on a palette, the way Addie sometimes seemed to, but I’d seen her draw enough people to imagine how she might sketch the hard, smooth line of this boy’s jaw, the straight sides of his nose. How she might shade his hair curling across his forehead, almost brushing against his eyebrows.

I could picture some of the hues she would pick and mix—yellow ocher, burnt sienna, violet—to color in Devon’s face, which was also Ryan’s, as Addie’s was also mine.

“You brought the chip, at least,” Devon said finally.

“What?” Addie said.

Devon stared at us. “The chip. The black chip. Ryan put it in your pocket when he—you have to have it.”

Addie uncurled our fist finger by finger. She raised the chip but didn’t look away from Devon’s eyes. “You mean this?”

He didn’t look down, either, just kept staring back at us. Wondering, maybe, at our shallow breaths and the tension in our limbs. Finally, Addie lifted our hand higher, almost to the level of our mouth. The light glowed red between us and Devon, a Cyclops’s eye on a round, black face.

This seemed to snap Devon back to attention. “Yes, that.”

He dug an identical circle from his pocket and raised it next to ours. It also shone red. Every shift he made meant Addie had to move as well, a giving and taking of space, of air. I tried to think of something else, something good, something nice, and all that came to mind was the day Ryan tried to explain ampacity and I decided he was probably the worst teacher I’d ever had.

“Well, what is it?” Addie said.

“Not much,” he said. “Not enough. But it was all we had at the moment. There wasn’t time to make anything else.” He pointed. “See the light?”

“Yes,” Addie said.

“Ryan fixed the light to glow when the chips are together,” he said. “If we were a little farther apart—”

“They’d flash?” Addie said.

He nodded. Addie brought the chips closer to our eyes, studying the light and the tiny screws in the back. “Was it hard? To make them?”

“Easier than hacking into your school files,” he said.

Addie looked up sharply. Then, to my surprise, she cracked a smile. “I’d imagine so.”

A moment passed, less tense now, but more awkward. The sink’s sharp edge still dug into our back.

“I should go,” Devon said. “He’ll wonder why I’m taking so long.”

“Mr. Conivent?” Addie said. “Is he sitting by you?”

Devon nodded. “And you?”

Addie gave a tiny jerk of our head. “Down that way. Thirty-four-something. I guess . . . I guess my ticket was sort of last-minute.”

His eyes were steady, unblinking. “Did he say they were just going to do a few tests?”

Addie nodded, then finally broke eye contact. “He said I’d be back in two days.”

Devon slipped his chip back into his pocket, but he didn’t move to leave. The plane rumbled. Addie looked down at our fist, our elbow clamped against our side.

“They might not be able to tell,” Devon said. “With how things are, with how weak Eva still is, she might not show up on the scans. You might still be able to go home.”

“Yeah,” Addie said quietly.

“I’ll go out first since Conivent’s waiting,” Devon said. “Wait a few minutes before leaving.” He and Addie shuffled awkwardly in the cramped space until he could reach and unlock the door. His eyes shifted back to our face. “Keep denying everything. And keep the chip with you, so we can find each other again.”

“I will,” Addie said. He nodded, opened the door, and shut it again before anyone in the nearby seats could realize there was more than one person inside. Addie relocked the door, sat on the toilet lid, and put our head in our hands. She trembled in the confinement.

Addie stared out the window for the rest of the flight. The lights multiplied below, popping up like fairy rings. A rumbling lay below every seat like an enormous slumbering cat. Once, a baby started screaming. Its mother hushed it with coos and a rattle.

The men sharing our row were both asleep by the time the captain announced our impending descent. We began dropping just as the sun came up, the plane plunging into the gold pool seeping from the horizon. Squinting, we watched the skyscrapers draw closer and closer. We hadn’t seen such tall buildings since we’d moved. Already, my mind swam with memories of sterile waiting rooms, too-big hospital gowns, ticking clocks, and distant doctors.

Addie took deep breaths as the plane hit the runway, the purring engine intensifying to a growl, then a snarl, and then an all-out roar. The air screeched past. We barreled forward so fast I was afraid we’d take off again. But little by little, the plane slowed until we were just rolling along the runway. The lights came on. Beside us, the businessmen stirred.

The captain welcomed us to the city and state as the plane turned a corner, then told us the temperature and time.

Addie said.

We sat and waited. We sat and waited as the plane slowed and came to a stop. We sat and waited as everyone else stood, yawning and stretching.

“Time to get up,” the man beside us said. He rolled his shoulders and rubbed the back of his neck.

“I’m waiting for someone,” Addie said.

The aisle filled with people pulling luggage from overhead compartments. The man on our left joined them while the one on our right kept giving us meaningful looks. Addie was about to say something when we heard a commotion a little ways up the corridor.

“Sorry,” someone repeated, threading through the people in the aisle. “Sorry. Excuse me.”

An airline stewardess tumbled into the hollow by our seat. She smiled, a little unsteady on her black heels, and tried to brush her bangs from her eyes.

“Mr. Conivent sent me to get you,” she said. “He’s a little caught up over there and doesn’t want you to wait too long—or get in anyone’s way.” The man stuck between us and the window gave her a grateful smile.

Addie stood, holding the seat in front of us for balance.

“Which bag is yours?” the flight attendant asked as she looked toward the overhead compartment.

“The red duffel,” Addie said. She slid out into the corridor, squeezing in beside the woman. “Where are we going?”

The lady tugged our bag free and set it in our arms. “Just to the terminal. He’ll come find you as soon as he gets out.”

Addie checked the chip in our hand a few times as we edged toward the front of the plane. The light stayed steady. Devon and Ryan were here somewhere, close by.

A sliver of dawn peeked through the crack between the edge of the plane and the tunnel. As Addie stepped over it, hugging our duffel bag to our chest, the chip’s light changed from a solid glow to a rapid blinking. Devon must have moved farther away.

“Coming, honey?” the flight attendant said.

Addie closed our hand and quickened our pace.

The terminal was bright and bustling. People scurried about, their suitcases bumping along behind them. A disembodied voice announced the name of a lost child. Electronic panels blared a list of flight times, delays, and cancellations.

I’d thought we’d just wait by the door, but the stewardess led us through the tiled corridors, her black heels clicking. There were windows everywhere. Outside, the sun had broken through the horizon. It hung in the golden air, half asleep but stretching yellow-tipped fingers across the sky. In our hand, the light on the chip pulsed slower and slower until it went out completely.

The flight attendant kept walking until we reached a noisy food court. Addie looked around, taking in the smell of coffee grinds, the early morning grease of biscuits and fried chicken, the overbright menu of the sandwich stand. The flight attendant steered us to a table but didn’t sit.

And so we stood, two statues in a sea of tables and coffee drinkers and too-big muffins. One tall, thin statue in smart black heels. A shorter statue in a school uniform’s patent-leather shoes. The silence was like an unwelcome child, pulling at our hair, running its fingers over our lips.