Page 61 of Every Day (Every Day 1)

“Because it’s a lie.”

You are so close, I think. You are so close, and I can’t reach you.

“Let’s go back to my original question,” I say. “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t want to throw everything away for something uncertain.”

“What about me is uncertain?”

She laughs. “Really? Do I have to explain it to you?”

“Besides that. You know you are the most important person I’ve ever had in my life. That’s certain.”

“In just two weeks. That’s uncertain.”

“You know more about me than anyone else does.”

“But I can’t say the same for you. Not yet.”

“You can’t deny that there’s something between us.”

“No. There is. When I saw you today—I didn’t know I’d been waiting for you until you were there. And then all of that waiting rushed through me in a second. That’s something … but I don’t know if it’s certainty.”

I know what I’m asking of you, I want to say. But I stop myself. Because I realize that would be another lie. And she’d call me on it.

She looks at the clock. “I have to get ready for my test. And you have another life to get back to.”

I can’t help myself. I ask, “Don’t you want to see me?”

She holds there for a moment. “I do. And I don’t. You would think it would make things easier, but it actually makes them harder.”

“So I shouldn’t just show up here?”

“Let’s stick to email for now. Okay?”

And just like that, the universe goes wrong. Just like that, all the enormity seems to shrink into a ball and float away from my reach.

I feel it, and she doesn’t.

Or I feel it, and she won’t.

Day 6010

I am four hours away from her.

I’m a girl named Chevelle, and I can’t stand the idea of going to school today. So I feign sickness, get permission to stay home. I try to read, play video games, surf the Web, do all the things I used to do to fill the time.

None of them work. The time still feels empty.

I keep checking my email.

Nothing from her.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Day 6011