Page 21 of Everything All at Once

Dear Lottie,

Nothing like a good book, huh?

I’ve been asked a hundred million billion times—where did you get the idea for Alvin Hatter? Is he based on a real person? He seems so real!

I can think of a million characters who have seemed as real to me. Edmund in Narnia—such a little shit but at least so unabashedly true to his every desire. He’s the realest one of them because he makes mistakes, he owns up to them, he forges forward even when his brother and sisters hate him for it. Alice in Wonderland—real enough to cry an entire lake’s worth of suffering, real enough to make an entire imaginary world seem similarly real. Milo in the Tollbooth land—real enough to admit the hardest thing in the world, that contentment sometimes leads to the sharpest of boredoms, that often our own brains are our very worst enemies.

I could go on and on. But I think that is the best compliment to give a writer—your characters seem so real. That’s what makes a book, isn’t it? That’s why I’ve read PRIDE AND PREJUDICE a thousand times and STILL can’t figure Mr. Darcy out. That’s why we return again and again to Middle Earth, to Discworld, to Never-Never Land.

I’m rambling again. It’s so easy to ramble inthese, you see, because I have an endless supply ofblank paper and a love for filling it up with ink. And I don’t have to imagine any scenario in which you don’t read every word, and happily, because they’re my letters and I’ll be gone when you read them and then it will be up to you. Does that make any sense? It’s late. I guess I’m getting tired.

Is Alvin based on a real person? Oh, of course, and of course not, because everything we can ever write is just a mixture of all the things we already know and all the things we’re just guessing at. It’s contrariwise, as Alice would say.

But let’s suppose for a minute that he is real.

Let’s suppose for a minute that the idea of a forever boy wasn’t entirely ludicrous.

What would YOU do, Lottie, if you were immortal?

What would you do if you knew you could not be hurt doing it?

I think you should do something a little reckless. Just a little, to see how it feels.

—H.

I went to school Monday wondering what I could possibly do that was reckless enough as to be a little unsafe, not reckless enough as to cause me any real harm. I kept coming up blank.

First period Em and I had history together. We sat in the back, and I passed her a note that said:

I have to do something a little bit reckless. Any ideas?

She read, considered, then wrote:

I know exactly what to do. Your aunt would approve.

What?

Secret.

This is terrifying.

That’s a good sign.

When?

After school. We’ll have to swing by your place first to pick something up.

Pick what up?

Secret.

Em looked too pleased with herself, which made me nervous.

There were alotof things Em might consider an appropriate amount of reckless. Skydiving. Bungee jumping. Zip-lining.

All things Em would find perfectly acceptable for a Monday after-school event.

Em jabbed me in the side with a pen and handed me another note.