Page 31

Time skips. Bounces. Laughs in my face. No, wait. That’s Ozzy laughing. I am so funny that he’s amused. I award myself a bonus point in our competition.

I must crash on an ice planet after I smash through the fiery atmosphere. Maybe it’s Antarctica. A tentacled sea monster drags me down into the water, and I flail to get away. It has a hundred billion trillion arms, and there is no escape.

I do my part for humanity and yell, “There’s something in the water!”

Ozzy shushes me. “It’s just you and me. Five more minutes.”

His hands press on my shoulders, brace my back. He’s my replacement spine.

“You’re in cahoots with the sea monster.” This is only partly true. The cold makes my legs cramp. A brown skua wheels overhead, a hungry avian predator.

“I’m helping you. Stop fighting me.”

When I do as he says (it’s a red-letter day), he eases me all the way into the water. It’s so, so cold.

“Whhhhh…” Even monosyllabic words are beyond me. I try harder. “Whhyyyyyy?”

“Shhhh,” he says. “This is good for you. You’re sick.”

“No.” I have the vocabulary of a two-year-old. “No.”

“You have a fever,” he tells me. I hear the frown in his voice. “We need to bring it down.”

“From the crash?” I’m up to five words. I’ll be kicking his butt next.

“From heat exhaustion. Too much sun for my Panda Bear.”

“Is this a cryotube?” An ice cube bobs in the water, and I realize what this is. I’m in an ice bath in a tub . “Are you harvesting my organs ?”

All my brain cells are on vacation. They’ve gone on a road trip without me.

I grasp the front of his T-shirt. “I need my kidneys. You can’t have them both. Just one. If you ask nicely.”

“There are easier ways to get a spare kidney, Panda. But thanks for offering to share.”

His beautiful face is just a cover for his plotting. “I’m in a tub full of ice. I’ve heard this story before.”

“Urban legend.” He dismisses my legitimate concern with a patient sigh. I turn my face to enjoy the cool breeze.

“No harvesting?”

He answers me, but I’m drifting, the channel flipping. We’re out of range. Ozzy moves closer, holding my head above water. His T-shirt must be soaked.

“Come here,” I whisper. I try to fist the cotton—it is wet—and tug him down, but he’s an immovable rock. He does what I want anyhow. He leans in, and I ask my question. “If I drown, do you get the job by default?”

“Jesus, Pandora.”

I turn my face into his palm. My lips brush his skin. His hand is wet. I squint up at him. His T-shirt is definitely soaked. His hair is damp and tousled. The pieces of him that I can see look like they’ve been battered by a wave. “You and the ocean are BFFs. You like it so much.”

“Sure I do.” His voice has an unfamiliar edge. “This is so much fun.”

“Sorry,” I whisper. “You like the ocean. I like outer space.”

“Oh yeah?” He is stroking my arm. “What’s so great about a whole lot of nothing?”

“You’re so mean.” I pout. “Space is wonderful.”

“Tell me more.”

“It’s the best game ever.” I think I sigh. I don’t think I care. “I wrote it.”

“Scary smart,” he hums. “With your super brain.”

“You can play it with me.”

He’s saying something, but I’m slip, slip, slipping away again. “When you’re better,” I think he says, “I’d love to play with you.”

The next time I wake up, I’m swathed in heavy, wet cotton. Ozzy’s wrapped me up like a mummy or…

I surface, flailing. “Pinata.”

“Hey,” he soothes.

He’s made a pinata out of me, and he’ll break me open looking for prizes.

“I’m going to lose.” My voice is mournful. It quivers thanks to the ice he’s surrounded me with. “I can’t win our popularity contest if I can’t play.”

I should be embarrassed at how whiny my voice sounds. I will be, later. Why are we in a bathroom together?

I didn’t realize we had a tub in the van. Berta has been holding out on me. She has hidden wonders.

“We’re in a hotel,” Ozzy tells me when I ask.

“Bet Roz is mad.”

Ozzy snorts. “Don’t care.”

“You’ll post embarrassing pictures of this. Hashtag Nurse Ozzy.”

“Of course I will. Drink this for me,” he says, shifting me. He holds me with one arm and presses a bottle against my lips.

I drink. It’s sweet and cold. I want to have this bottle’s babies.

“We need to get you hydrated.”

Something tugs on my arm when I move. I roll my head to determine the source. It’s almost too much effort. “There’s a needle in my arm.”

Veins don’t just sprout medical equipment. Do they? “Am I special?”

“You bet.” His hand gently moves mine away from the needle site. Serious Ozzy is unfamiliar. His mouth is drawn in a cranky, unhappy line. “Let’s leave that alone, okay?”

“Okay. Don’t be upset with me. I can be good. But you don’t have to stay.”

I was the worst rage monster in middle school. And also, in high school. It took ages for me to learn how to regulate my emotions. Now I almost never melt down. People don’t like me when I get mad.

“I want to,” he says quietly.

“Are you mad at me?”

Six Ozzys bend over me, enough for a dancing troupe. A herd. A platoon. There can never be too many of him in this world.

He laughs quietly. “Thanks.”

I think I said that last bit out loud. I’ve given away my strategy. I dream that he makes me a promise. Everything will be okay.

I like this dream best of all.

I’m sweating. Shaking. My bones are fault lines, my skin one big tectonic plate that shudders and pushes, trying to come apart.

Ozzy holds a plastic water bottle to my mouth.

He’s waterboarding me. Yelling at me to drink it all, dammit, Panda Bear .

This is bad. I open my mouth to tell him that he’s so not in charge of me but it’s too much effort to talk.

I drink obediently. I have no idea where my body is storing all this water.

Perhaps I’ve turned into a camel. It’s hot. The Sahara has relocated to Mexico.

Ozzy. Ozzy can google it for me. He won’t want to road trip with me through a desert. I can ask him. In a minute. Just a minute… My clothes stick to my body. I am drenched with sweat.

“I’m moldy. This is so gross. No, no, no. This isn’t part of my plan.” I should spring out of bed. There’s no time to lose.

Big hands gently press me back. “Easy, Panda.”

Nope. I’m losing time. Points. Popularity votes. All the likes. There’s probably a new Instagram algorithm by now, and I need to reverse engineer it so I can finish beating Ozzy.

“You have to tell me if I’m being a pain.”

“You’re not.” His voice is soothing.

“And if I’m losing ground. In the contest.” This is very important. “Don’t let me fall behind. Don’t leave me.”

I’m the slowest swimmer, and there’s a bull shark approaching the pod.

“I’ll take care of it. I promise. And you’re not a pain.”

“I hope not.” I chew on my lip. It’s like hardtack. “You won’t like me if I’m a pain.”

I’m so pathetic.

Something ice-cold is pressed against my lips. I drink. Whine some more. Ozzy does what he promises and stays.

“I’ve got you,” he says. I think I make him say it over and over. I’m sad and needy.

The next time I wake up, rosy sunlight filters through the glass doors that lead outside. I’ve slept the night away. Possibly a century.

I’ve also teleported in my sleep because I find myself in a king-size bed, surrounded by a heap of sage-green pillows.

I’ve either been magically transported or Ozzy has seriously redecorated.

I spare a glance for the white walls, rustic wooden beams, a hammock strung in front of a sliding door that’s closed.

Beyond the glass is a balcony, the tops of palm trees, and through them, the familiar blue of the ocean.

The air conditioning hums, set to arctic.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a monstruous bathtub. It’s big enough to double as an ark. There’s a crumpled towel on the floor. My shoes.

I jerk upright, a damp sheet falling away from my chest. I’m not dead. Not embalmed or tucked away in an Egyptian pyramid. I’m—

“You seem better,” Ozzy says. He’s leaning against the headboard next to me, my laptop resting on his legs. Because he hasn’t left me. I take in his bare feet and missing shirt and am ready to declare myself cured. He looks ready to take on the world.

The smile I give him is shaky. “I’m good to go. Let’s hit the road. Check off some stops on our itinerary.”

He snorts softly. His expression declares, You’re full of shit, Pandora Fyffe. He looks me over, inspecting, and I bristle.

“How about we stay put for a while?”

“Itinerary,” I counter.

He mimes tearing something up. I assume it’s our schedule. A piece of paper that has made him very, very angry. An ancient love letter to his long, lost love.

“You’re not ready,” he says.

“Am, too.”

“Are very much not.”

The amused smile gives him away. I look down, down some more, and barely manage not to have a heart attack.

I’ve lost my clothes. The borrowed tank top I’m wearing sticks unpleasantly to my breasts.

My nipples are hard, but not in a sexy way.

I’m a load of clothes that’s sat in the washing machine for a week, mildewed and damp.

“I plan on living a long life to torment you.”

“Please.” He nods solemnly.

We have a deal.