THE AMBULANCE BROUGHT ME to a hospital, siren racing, flat white light. They rolled me down hospital hallways, past traumatized people and their people. They transferred me to a bed behind a pink curtain in a large room shared with other patients. Medical staff bustled in and out. They checked me, touched me, murmured to each other. Connected me to monitors and an I.V. My roaring misery was the only sound I heard. I lost track of time. Was it night? Had morning come?
They injected me with drugs, then manipulated my shoulder back into place. Pain scorched and flared through my left arm, into my neck. Excruciating agony. My arm was cradled against my body as they tied a sling around it to keep it in place. Soon the intense twitching in my muscles relaxed, and then the moaning stopped.
The nurses left and the doctor stayed. She eyed me, her clipboard clasped against her chest. I wondered if she used her work as armor too. She asked me some questions in a low voice, all of which made me want to laugh. By then, I was delirious. But I understood she was checking to see if I was suicidal.
“It was an accident,” I told her. “I didn’t jump,” I said. “I fell.”
She nodded and murmured, “All right, thank you.” She jotted notes.
“I swear,” I said. “I was just trying to help.”
She asked if I’d be willing to see a therapist for some follow-up assessments, and I agreed in a too-sunny way. I wanted her to leave — I was epically tired. But, really, how bad would it be? Maybe a mind-expert would have some answers, some enlightening perspective. The doctor smiled, patted my hand, hugged her clipboard to her chest again, and slipped away through the pink curtains.
I was ready to fall into the deepest sleep, but then my parents came in. And that was catastrophic. In an instant, every tear I’d ever smothered or hid or regretted surged to the surface.
My dad took my hand and squeezed it. My mom hovered over my beaten body. They stared at me with such wide eyes it was as if they were trying to pull me inside.
How had I forgotten them? My mother and her sweet-serious face. My father and his dorky dad grin. The comfort and security they gave me. Their tentative questions meant to prod me out of the dark. I had completely erased them. Gone for seven days.
I dumped my head in my mother’s chest as the last week rushed back. All the jolting forces that I didn’t want to remember: alone at night, humiliated at school, getting punched on a back street, not knowing what to do, belt being loosened, dirty jeans coming down, thumb in my mouth, shivering with cold, aching with fatigue, running from terrors, dangling from a roof, preparing to die. And all the things I never wanted to forget: Lily and Walter, Vivvie and her friends, finding Infinity Girl again and again, the stars and the moon, so many black crows, a feather tattoo, his face close to mine, his eyes, his name, Gray.
My parents didn’t say a word, just held me as everything overfilled me and spilled.
One anguished wail escaped my mom, only once, but she caught herself.
“I’m sorry,” I said to them when I was able to speak.
“It’s funny,” my mom said, dabbing a tear that was caught on the brim of her nose, “every time it seemed like we’d lost track of you, a little light would shine from somewhere. You’d used the credit card to buy dinner the first night. The next day, you bought some clothes and supplies at that drugstore. The day after that, Clio found your phone, so then we knew to track Krista’s phone. We didn’t know exactly where you were up north, but we could see that you were moving around. You were always just out of reach.” She stroked my face. “But you were always there.”
Little lights, I repeated in my mind. I had seen them too.
“They brought that Krista girl in,” my dad said. “She’s pretty messed up.” He squeezed my hand. “Did you actually find her?”
I tried not to laugh. “No, Dad. She did that all by herself.”
“Huh,” he said like it was a whole essay on runaway girls.
It got quiet again, and then my mom said, “Your friends are here.”
“What friends?” I said.
“Boyd, the girls,” my mom said like of course it was them. “They’re not pushing to come in, but they say they want to see you when you’re ready.”
But I wasn’t ready. I remembered Anusha saying to me in the field outside our school, Everything breaks. And she was right. You have to be careful with the pieces.
“And your new friend too,” my mom went on, gently holding my hand. “The one who told us that you’d come back to the city, that you were at that party.” She took in a breath and held her hand to her throat. “I don’t know if I was supposed to tell you that.”
I guess it could’ve been seen as a betrayal. Him sharing the private messages I’d sent him. Back in the city. Have one more thing to do. One last Crusade.
Saving me from myself.
“Do you mean Gray?” I said. I could hardly say his name. “Is he here?” It didn’t seem possible.
“He was helping us look for you. We had no idea you were on the roof — That you were —” Mom let out another involuntary wail. She put a hand over her mouth to stop it.
“No, Mom. I didn’t — I would never —” It was my turn to stroke her arm. “I fell. It was an accident. I’m okay.”
She took in a breath of air and held it and nodded at me.
“I’d like to see him,” I said.
THE PINK COTTON CURTAINS they’d pulled around my bed popped and flailed. Hands rooting for the split. And then Gray stepped through. He stood on that one spot, just inside, not too close, clutching his black hoodie in front of his body, staring at the ground. I took him in, every curve of his face, every shift of its shape and color.
“Gray —” My throat jammed against another push of tears.
“You ran away.” He wouldn’t look at me. “You screwed up — and I got mad — and you ran away.”
“I know. I should’ve taken your anger.” I could barely get the words out. “I’m so sorry.”
He closed his mouth in an uncertain line.
I said, “Did they find Jocelyn?”
“I don’t want to tell you about her.”
“I want to help, Gray. Please let me help.”
“So, help, yes. You should help. Just not me. Not us.”
My face was trembling so much, I had to use my hand to hold it in place. “I understand.”
He looked at me for the first time. “You and that girl you were chasing?” The light in his eyes was fierce. “You’re lucky to have everything you have.”
“I know.”
“You get to make choices.”
“Yes.”
“Jocelyn — girls like her — they have to fight.”
“I know that now.” I wiped a pool of wet from my chin.
“Everything she’s done, everything she’s still going to do, that’s her life, her doing. You don’t get to feel good about it.”
“Wait —” I corralled my tears. Saved them for later. “Does that mean they found her?”
His breath was shaky. He spoke quickly. “The trace on her phone — Vivvie and the girls — They wouldn’t leave the station until —” His voice broke and he took a long time to collect himself. I waited, not daring to hope. “They found her. Near Deerhead.”
I wanted to laugh the way we’d laughed before he knew who I was.
But Gray kept his expression in check. “Her family is with her. She’s safe.”
“She went undercover, didn’t she? Trying to find her dad’s murderer.” I couldn’t stop filling in the blanks. “She found him. The guy in the blue Chevy?”
Gray was nodding. A quick tremor. A million times yes. But he caught himself and said with conviction, “It’s not my place to talk about it. Jocelyn’s story is her own to tell.”
My heart spun. “You’re right.”
“Let Jocelyn tell it. Please —” He was pleading with both of us. “Listen to her.”
There are so many things we don’t understand until it’s too late.
Gray loosened his grip on the hoodie. “We’re on our way up there right now — Lily, Walter, my parents.” For the first time, I could feel his hope. It was on the other side — where I wasn’t allowed.
“You shouldn’t have to be here for me,” I said, my voice weak.
“It was on the way.” He almost-smiled. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“I’m okay.”
It was quiet between us for a few moments. I expected him to walk out, but he shifted his weight, checked his boots. Then he locked eyes on me again and said, “The Messenger 93 stuff? Was that just to mess with my head?”
“No!”
“You actually believe it?”
I didn’t want to rush an answer. But also, the answer was flickering around me like a trapped bird. “Something happened this week that I can’t explain. The messages showed me things I never would’ve known. Things I’m still trying to understand. Were they real crows with real messages? Or was it all in my head — making up crows so I would help myself? I don’t know … But it felt so … It feels so … true.”
Gray’s voice, his expression, mellowed. “I get it. Sometimes things happen that I can’t explain.” His face brightened slowly. “Or something will work out when it shouldn’t. I get that too. Synchronicity. Signs. All that —” He was measuring something invisible. “I don’t have answers. I thought I did — Or that I would — But — I don’t know either …” He stopped to scrutinize me. Then he said, “We have to be there for each other.”
“Yes.” I tried a smile. A small one.
We considered each other in silence. The best thing to be caught in his gaze, even like this, so close to the end.
“I’m sorry I hurt you, Gray.”
“I guess I know.” This would be the last time he’d look at me like that — already his gaze was orbiting away. “You tried to do something. And I respect that.”
He stepped closer, to the side of the bed. I held my breath as he reached out his hand and curved it over mine.
He kept it there forever.
Like when one second feels like eons and eras.
We shared one last soft thread of air. Then he said, “Have a good one,” and he turned and left. The pink curtains drifted after him, caught his elbow, let go, then fluttered to stillness in his wake.
THEY DECIDED I NEEDED rest and observation, so I spent the next week at home. I got my mom to buy me a stack of those eight-inch paper squares you need for origami, a packet of sparkles, and a few packages of white sequins like the one from Vivvie’s vest. I practiced with the paper a bunch of times until I managed to fold a pretty good supporting cast into existence. Obviously Vivvie’s origami person was going to star as Infinity Girl.
Filming the stop-action animation took a long time, especially with my left arm still in a sling, but it was exactly the distraction I needed.
Establishing shot: After falling into a heap at City Hall Square, Infinity Girl rises from despair. She is surrounded by the ruins of her superhero mirrors. Props: White sequins cut into strips. Only one — Vivvie’s — remains whole.
Passersby see Infinity Girl for the first time. They are shocked and repulsed by her. Cast: Twenty origami people, various colored papers, filmed to look like a bunch more.
Infinity Girl slowly gathers all the broken pieces of her superhero costume.
Narrator (Trevor): “She accepts the hatred, pity, and anger of the people. But she is tired of being their mirror.” (Yes, Trevor’s voice is exactly as dorky as you think it is.)
Infinity Girl makes her way home. Location: Camera-pan past my favorite album-covers. Arrive at bedroom window with shelves of air-plants in glass jars.
Infinity Girl works tirelessly to restore her mirrors. Props: the diamond-glinting pebble is her easel. Camera zooms in on Infinity Girl’s reflection in a jagged shard.
Narrator: “Her mirrors will have a different power now. She doesn’t know yet what it will be. But she made herself who she is, and she will do it again. Breaking and remaking herself, over and over, for however long it takes.”
Infinity Girl clutches the reassembled mirrors. They absorb and channel all her light. Soon she is well enough to venture out into the world again. Location: Camera-pan of Infinity Girl walking. She wears Vivvie’s perfect sequin on her head.
Infinity Girl passes Double Kross, who doesn’t see her. Double Kross wields her saber. Seething with anger and frustration, she snaps her saber in half. She cuts herself on the shattered edge. Cast: Origami female with a double-cross painted on her chest, plastic stir-stick glued to her hand, watered-down red paint as blood.
Infinity Girl practices her slow-motion skills. When time slows down, she sees that there are others like her. Others who’ve also pieced together bright reflective parts. Cast: All the origami people, also wearing sequins, also casting light. Props: Sparkles filmed upside-down against the black feather. Applied as slow-motion effect over each person.
As Infinity Girl walks on, she reflects her light to the others. They reflect their light to her. Location: Infinity Girl walks into the distance of the fake-painting of a highway.
Narrator: “She knows they are never going to see her the way she wants to be seen. She has to see and know herself. She knows she will never see the others the way they want to be seen. They will see and know themselves. She wants to be there because now she knows what it feels like to love a stranger.”
Soundtrack: Tandem Acorns and Last Sunny Day.
Narrator: “She will never save the world.”
Because in all the history of time, who has ever saved the world? I mean, actually.