Like No Other (19 page)

“I love you,” he whispers into the top of my head. “Do you know that?”

I nod, holding my breath, feeling his pulse race under the smooth skin of his neck.

“What about you?” he asks, tipping my face up to his. “Do you . . .”

“Yes,” I whisper, trying to quell the fireworks display that has suddenly been set off in my stomach. “I love you, too.”

He laughs with relief and lifts me up, twirling me in a tight circle to avoid bashing me into the stacks. “Good,” he says as he sets me down. “Good. And then, no.”

“No what?”

“No to taking some time,” he says. “We
do
need time, Devorah, but not apart. We need time together, away from all this.”

“What do you mean?”

“That weekend trip we talked about? Let’s do it now,” he says. “Tonight.” I study his face for signs that he’s kidding, but if he is, he’s playing it really straight.

“Jax, no,” I whisper, hoping that his sisters have kept their word to stay downstairs. “We can’t.”

“Yes, we can!” he says. “Like you said, that day on the bridge. Let’s run away.”

“That was a daydream, not a suggestion.”

“It doesn’t have to be.” He frowns. “You said it yourself, they’re gonna find out anyway. At least this way we’re in control.”

“I can’t,” I say. “It’s one thing to go behind my parents’ back, but it’s another thing to disappear completely.”

“We’re not talking
forever
,” he says. “One night, maybe two. And by the time we come back, everyone will have had a chance to recover from the initial shock.”

One or two days won’t be enough
, I think. I try to picture my parents’ reaction to this kind of betrayal, but apart from the time Amos accidentally threw a dart into Hanna’s shin, I’ve never seen them really lose it. And this would be so much worse. But I also know Jax is right: Everything is coming to a head, and I’m kidding myself if I think Jacob is just going to forget about it. Somehow, he’s going to find a way to catch us, and soon. Unless we stop seeing each other completely. Which, at this point, would be a fate worse than anything my parents could come up with.

“Okay,” I say. “But I need a little time.”

“Tomorrow?” he asks, a smile peeking out from between his lips. “After school?”

I nod, scarcely able to believe this is actually happening. “How will we—”

“Train,” he says. “I already checked online; there’s a five fifty-one and a seven thirty-one every day out of Penn.”

“Seven thirty,” I say quickly, thinking on my feet. “It will be easier if we wait until after dark.”

“I’ll book the tickets,” Jax says, and I nod again, trying to picture myself somewhere far away from Brooklyn, away from the noise and the smells and the heat. Away from everyone who knows me and everyone trying to drag me down. Someplace where I can hear the ocean. Someplace where I can feel the wind.

“What about school?” I ask. School is the farthest thing from my mind right now, but I can’t afford to get expelled if I want to hold on to any hope of going to college someday.

“Like I said,” Jax continues, “it’s only a day or two. We can make up the time.” He smiles hopefully. “So are you with me?”

“Yes,” I hear myself say.

“Okay, all right,” he says, looking just as shocked as I am. “You go home and pack. I’ll get the tickets. Where should we meet?”

My mind is racing. I can pack tonight, smooth things over with my parents. Then tomorrow, I can leave a letter; that’s probably the best plan. I’ll leave a letter for my family explaining everything, and once I’m back we can all sit down and discuss it like adults.

“There’s a bus stop on Kingston and Montgomery,” I say.

“Great.” Jaxon squeezes my hands. “I’ll pick you up in a car.”

“After sundown,” I say.

“At six forty-five,” he says.

“Six forty-five,” I repeat in a daze.

“Promise you won’t change your mind on me,” he says, and laughs, and I shake my head, thinking,
I have just changed everything.
The books packed in all around us are full of stories of people who made decisions that changed history. Of course, not all of them ended well. But luckily I don’t have time to dwell on that. I have to go home and get ready to say goodbye to life as I know it.

J
axon

S
EPTEMBER
15, 10
AM

I
didn’t sleep last night. Not a single second. I was too wound up. I couldn’t believe it was actually going to happen, and I kept having to reread the e-mail confirmation from Long Island Rail Road: two round-trip, off-peak tickets, Penn Station to Westhampton. For twenty-one hours and thirty-one minutes, it will be just the two of us.

I feel a lot of guilt, though, about not telling my parents, which is why I showered and dressed at 5
AM
and made a preemptive secret apology breakfast: scrambled eggs and Vienna sausages—Mom’s favorite, the one she always asks for on Mother’s Day—and Dad’s preferred brand of toaster waffles. The eggs came out a little weird and brown, but no one seemed to care; I think they were all just in shock that I’d cooked.

“What’s this about?” Mom asked, giving me a sleepy kiss.

“Nothing, I was just up early,” I said, digging in the fridge for the creamer.

“Got a test today?” Edna asked, plucking a sausage from the pan with her fingers.

“Something like that.”

“Well, whatever it is, keep doing it,” my father said with a laugh, helping himself to a plate. “I could get used to this.”

I slapped on a smile and tried not to think about what the scene in that kitchen would be like twenty-four hours later.

• • •

Sometimes when I’m nervous I’ll ask the universe for little random signs that everything’s going to work out. Like, if the subway comes right as I get to the platform, that’s a sign; or if I hit shuffle on my iPod and the first song that comes up is one I really love, like “So What” by Miles Davis or some pre-Kardashian Kanye. Today, not only was the subway pulling in right when I got there, but the doors stopped smack in front of me
and
there was a seat. And then the first song on shuffle was “Love Train” by the O’Jays, which normally I’m embarrassed to even have (I copied all my mom’s old CDs onto my hard drive the summer I turned twelve, which I blame for my predilection for all things old-school) but which is just about the most perfect sign you can get if you’re about to hop a flight to follow your heart.

And then I got to school—early, since I have Mr. Misery first thing this morning, good times—and took the back entrance up to the freak hallway and was about to open my locker when my eyes fell on the little number plate up at the top: 915. My locker number. Today’s date. Now, if that isn’t some kind of big-ass neon sign from the universe, then I don’t know what is.

“Hey, man.” Ryan appears in the hallway door, looking a little cagey. I know he’s freaked out to be giving me the keys to his parents’ vacation house without their permission. He already made me swear up and down not to order anything on cable or turn on the lights at night.

“Hey!” I say, opening my locker and taking off my hoodie. “All good?”

“Sort of,” he says. “There’s only one problem.”

“What?”

“On your date with Devorah this weekend, did you guys go anywhere, like, public?”

I feel the color drain from my face. “Why?” I ask.

“Because there’s a rumor going around school that you have a Hasidic girlfriend,” he says, “and I thought you said you were being careful.” Ryan stares me down while I, speechless for once in my life, just lean my head against the cool metal door of my locker and close my eyes.
Shit
.

“Dude,” Ryan says, “what, were you guys on the JumboTron at Yankee Stadium?”

“No, I’m not
stupid
! On Saturday we were in my basement—where I seriously doubt we had company—and yesterday we met up for like five minutes in the library.” I lower my voice. “Who knows?”

Ryan sighs. “Well, I don’t know the extent of it, but I heard about it from Megan Miranda, so it’s gotta be pretty bad,” he says. I cringe. Megan Miranda is a step-team girl, one of Polly’s popular friends.

“I guess it’s good I’m getting out of here,” I say.

“Ha ha,” Ryan deadpans. “Listen, if anyone finds out where you went, I swear I’ll say you stole these.” He rummages in his pocket for the keys and holds them at hip level, concealed, like some kind of drug deal. “Now come on,” he says. “We have to get to Intro Philosophy like
now
.”

“I need a minute,” I say.

“Well, I’m going,” he says. “If you’re late, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Ryan leaves me with an awkward pat on the shoulder, and after he’s gone I lean against my locker and mentally retrace my steps this weekend, trying to figure out who could have seen us and when. It must have happened at the library; since I wasn’t expecting her, I wasn’t being careful. Then again, it won’t matter soon enough. By this time tomorrow, the cat will be out of the bag.

I slip my backpack on one shoulder and venture out into the mostly empty hallway, ducking my head and steeling myself for those whispers of recognition that tend to follow gossip subjects around school like a falling stack of dominoes. But no one seems to notice me at all—until what looks like the entire basketball team, plus Megan, Polly, and a senior girl named Candee Cuisimano (who looks exactly how it sounds like she should) round the corner.

“Action Jaxon!” J-Riv says it like he’s the announcer at a game show, drawing out the vowels. “I underestimated you, son.” He holds his hand up for a high five, but I know he’s just patronizing me so I keep my arms at my sides.

“What’d he do?” one of his thick-necked friends, whose name I think is Jordan, asks.

“You ain’t heard?” J-Riv crows, busting out in a girlish cackle that’s mostly for his cronies. “I saw Romeo here macking on some ultra-Orthodox girl in the library. This boy’s got jungle fever!”

“Not exactly,” I say, crossing my arms. “A black person can’t have jungle fever, because Jews don’t live in the jungle. Jungle fever is when a white person falls for an African, and it’s racist as hell.”

“Oh,” J-Riv says, not seeming to absorb the dig at his complete ignorance. “Well, you got dreidel fever then!” His basketball friends crack up—everyone but Polly, who looks like she’d like to sink into the floor.

I know I should brush it off and go to class. I know this. But exhaustion, adrenaline, and shame are mixing a powerful Molotov cocktail in my blood, and as I look at this big, bland bully, whose lips are pulled back in a sneer at my expense—lips that have probably been all over Polly, in some horrible movie-of-the-week, under-the-bleachers cliché, I realize I’ve currently got nothing to lose.

“You don’t know anything,” I practically yell, my voice echoing through the hallway, stunning J-Riv and his friends into silence. “You think you know me because you
think
you saw me for a split second on your way to the I Can Read shelf in the kids’ section? You think you know
her
? Man, shut up. If you don’t have better things to do than talk about my girlfriend, then your life must be pretty lame.”

J-Riv’s face clouds over. “Guess I hit a nerve,” he says, talking even louder as some sort of show of confidence. “I’d have some pent-up anger, too, if my girl had to wait for marriage.”

I run at him, hearing the guys snicker and the girls shriek. I wish I could say I execute some perfect roundhouse kick to the temple, or pummel him with an uppercut-cross combo, but all of my training flies out the window and I just collide with him like I’m trying to break down a door. Luckily, (A) Jordan and some other guy catch me by the arms before I can land a real punch, and (B) J-Riv has too much weight on me for me to be able to knock him down. I say “luckily” because only as my forearms are connecting with his chest does it occur to me that getting expelled from school for assault could permanently derail my plans with Devorah.

Apparently J-Riv is having similar thoughts about his basketball career, because he just shakes his head menacingly and spits, “This isn’t over,
freak
,” before shoving me aside and stalking off with his friends. Polly and Megan hold a brief powwow in the corner near the water fountain before Megan hurries down the hallway after them, and I just lean against the wall between two classrooms and rub my hands on my face, taking stock of the streak of luck that has decidedly left the building. Somehow, between 8:10 and 8:15
AM
, I have become the laughingstock of Brooklyn Tech and the mouthy archnemesis of someone who could probably bench-press three of me. Plus, I’m officially late to Mr. Miserandino’s first-period torture chamber for the second time, which according to his five-page “conduct memo” will cost me a full letter grade for the semester. Not, I realize, that it matters much anymore. When we get back from our trip, by the time my parents are done with me, I’ll probably be begging for a tongue-lashing from Mr. Misery.
Begging.

“Are you okay?” Polly asks, appearing next to me, wearing pigtails and a look of concern.

“I don’t know,” I say with a sigh.

“You need to talk?” she asks.

“Not to you.” Behind her black frame glasses, her big brown eyes crinkle with hurt. “I mean, not right now.”

“I’m still your friend, Jax,” she says.

“Yeah, well, it hasn’t felt that way for a while, and I’m having a bad morning, so now’s probably not the best time to do this.”

“Do what?”

I ball up my fists and press them against my thighs. “Why are you with that asshole?” I groan. “Come on. You’re better than that.”

She takes a step back and looks at me quizzically. “I’m not ‘with’ Jason. We’re just friends.”

“Okay, then why are you
friends
with that asshole?”

Polly laughs. “He’s not so bad one-on-one. But you’re right. He can be a jerk. I can’t defend what I just saw.”

I rub my eyes again and try to pull myself together. Since I’ve blown off first period anyway and staying on school grounds will only invite more opportunities for me to get my ass kicked, I figure my best bet is to cut the rest of my classes and just go home. I still need to pack and go beg for my paycheck from Cora so that I have enough cash to take Devorah out to a nice dinner. That’s the part I’m most dreading, since I called in “sick” to work all last week and have been half-assing it since then. But what’s that saying, all’s fair in love and . . .

“You seem distracted,” Polly says, putting a hand on my arm and smiling awkwardly. “I should let you go.” Just a few weeks ago this whole interaction would have had me doing cartwheels, but now it takes all the energy I have just to nod disinterestedly. Polly starts walking down the hall but stops and turns back after ten feet or so.

“Hey, Jax,” she says, “she’s a lucky girl.”

I nod silently again, but as soon as she turns away again I look up at the ceiling and give the universe my best
are you kidding me
eyes. I asked for a sign, not a goddamn labyrinth.

• • •

I decide not to go home right away. Instead, I walk through Fort Greene Park, past babies lurching around after pint-sized soccer balls, watching the sun glint off the clock face of the Williamsburg Savings Bank in the distance. It’s only nine, but I know Cora’s probably already unlocking the metal grate that keeps Wonder Wings safe from robberies at night (but not from graffiti—there are a couple of tags bleeding across the front in big balloon letters), so I walk up DeKalb, hang a right on Washington, and take it all the way through Prospect Heights, past DIY churches, Caribbean bakeries, and barbershops, all still blinking awake in the stark morning light, until it opens up into Eastern Parkway across from the leaping fountains of the Brooklyn Museum. My calves are starting to cramp—I’ve walked two miles already, and Converse isn’t exactly the industry leader in arch support—but instead of slowing down I break into a run once I hit Union, flying through intersections with my backpack barely hanging on, my headphones streaming out of my pocket. If I can get my heart pumping fast enough, maybe I can get back that feeling from yesterday in the library and this morning when I woke up, that dizzy conviction that anything is possible.

I’m panting by the time I roll up to Wonder Wings, where Cora is sitting at the corner table, drinking her café con leche from the Dominican place up the block.

“Why aren’t you in school?” she asks by way of a greeting. This does not bode well.

“Oh, um, I’m still not feeling great,” I say, wiping my forehead with the back of my hand.

“Get your butt home, then, I don’t want your germs,” she says with a semiannoyed smile. “I can call Jamal to cover for you again.” Jamal is Cora’s fourteen-year-old son. I feel bad for the kid, doing my thankless job for free.

“Actually I needed to ask you a favor, too.”

“Oh?” She puts down her coffee and looks at me with a mixture of concern and suspicion.

“Yeah . . .” Deep breath. “I was hoping I could get an advance on next week’s paycheck.” Cora purses her lips. “I hate to ask you,” I say quickly, and I avert my eyes, hoping I don’t look as guilty as I feel.

“Are you in trouble?” she asks.

“Nah,” I say, forcing a laugh. “I just . . . gotta make ends meet, you know?”

“I do know,” she says carefully. “But you’re still a minor, Jaxon. So it seems to me the people who have to make ends meet are your parents, not you.” She frowns and places her hands together under her chin, like she’s praying. “Besides,” she says, “you’ve been all over the place for the past week. And frankly I don’t want to reward that kind of behavior with trust. It would set a bad precedent.”

“I know, but it’s just this one time,” I plead. “I’ve never asked before, and I swear I’ll never ask again.”

“What is it for?” she asks. I wrack my brain to come up with some plausible excuse, something that my parents wouldn’t be responsible for paying for. I could say I was being bullied (which isn’t totally untrue), but then knowing Cora she would step in and call the school, start a big campaign. I’m getting flustered when all of a sudden she sighs and says, “It’s the girl, isn’t it?”

I stare at the floor.

“I thought so,” she says softly. Then, wordlessly, she takes her purse off the table and opens her wallet, slipping out two twenties. “It’s not much,” she says, holding the money out to me, “but this should get you through a cheap date. Let’s call it a personal loan and not a paycheck advance, okay?” I step forward to take the money, and she pulls it back with a wry smile. “And if you tell
any
of the kitchen guys, you’re scrubbing toilets for a month.”