Delirium - Lauren Oliver [111]
“I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s not you. I’m just—I’m just scared about the procedure, that’s all.” I think of how many nights I used to fantasize about stretching out on the operating table, waiting for the anesthesia to turn the world to fog, waiting to wake up renewed. Now I’ll be waking up to a world without Alex: I’ll be waking up into the fog, everything gray and blurry and unrecognizable.
Brian is looking at me, finally, with an expression I can’t identify at first. Then I realize: pity. He feels sorry for me. He starts speaking all in a rush. “Listen, I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but before my procedure I was like you.” His eyes click back to the street. The wheezing has stopped. He speaks clearly, but low, so Carol and his mom can’t hear through the open window. “I didn’t—I wasn’t ready.” He licks his lips, drops his voice to a whisper. “There was a girl I used to see sometimes at the park. She babysat for her cousins, used to bring them to the playground there. I was captain of the fencing team in high school—that’s where we practiced.”
You would be captain of the frigging fencing team, I think. But I don’t say this out loud; I can tell he’s trying to be nice.
“Anyway, we used to talk sometimes. Nothing happened,” he qualifies quickly. “Just a few conversations, here and there. She had a pretty smile. And I felt . . .” He trails off.
Wonder and fear sweep through me. He’s trying to tell me that we’re alike. He somehow knows about Alex—not about Alex specifically, but about someone. “Wait a second.” My mind is churning. “Are you trying to say that before the procedure you were . . . you got sick?”
“I’m just saying I understand.” His eyes flick to mine for barely a fraction of a second, but that’s all I need. I’m positive now. He knows I’ve been infected. I’m both relieved and terrified—if he can see it, other people will see it too.
“My point is only that the cure works.” He places extra emphasis on the last word. I know, now, that he’s trying to be kind. “I’m much happier now. You will be too, I promise.”
Something inside of me fractures when he says that, and I feel like I could cry again. His voice is so reassuring. There’s nothing I want more in that moment than to believe him. Safety, happiness, stability: what I’ve wanted my whole life. And for that moment I think maybe the past few weeks really have just been some long, strange delirium. Maybe after the procedure I’ll wake up as from a high fever, with only a vague recollection of my dreams and a sense of overwhelming relief.
“Friends?” Brian says, offering me his hand to shake, and this time I don’t flinch when he touches me. I even let him hold my hand an extra few seconds.
He’s still facing the street, and as we’re standing there a frown flickers temporarily across his face. “What does he want?” he mutters, and then calls out, “It’s okay. She’s my pair.”
I turn around just in time to see a flash of burnt golden-brown hair—the color of leaves in autumn—disappear around the corner. Alex. I wrench my hand away from Brian’s, but it’s too late. He’s gone.
“Must have been a regulator,” Brian says. “He was just standing there, staring.”
The feeling of calm and reassurance I’d had only a minute earlier vanishes in a rush. Alex saw me—he saw us, holding hands, heard Brian say I was his pair. And I was supposed to have met him an hour ago. He doesn’t know that I couldn’t get out of the house, couldn’t get a message to him. I can’t imagine what he must be thinking about me right now. Or actually, I can imagine.
“Are you okay?” Brian’s eyes are so pale they’re almost gray. A sickly color,