I STOP SLEEPING THAT WEEK.
I get under my covers day after day with my strained muscles and my tired brain and I just lie there, replaying PT and all my academically exhausting classes, which are way, way harder than at my old school (we’ve already had pop quizzes in trig and chemistry, and an oral presentation about our holiday break to deliver in Spanish, which, news flash: I don’t speak).
We’ve literally run over ten miles since Tuesday (I walked at least half of those miles while holding back tears), and I tried emailing someone in administration to see if I could get new shoes that fit right, but no one’s emailed me back yet.
At midnight on Thursday I’m sweating/cold/having to pee/crying into my pillow/nervous/throw-up-y/staring at my phone and trying not to call my parents, who’ve spent their night texting me inane things like:
How did today go, sweetie? Was it better than yesterday? Did they let you sit out the obstacle course with your ankle still recovering?
I bet you did great!
Just say no to drugs!
The really weird thing about tonight is that Joni’s not here. Her bed is neatly made, with the pillows standing at attention. She seems so rule-obsessed that I’m worried she’s missing curfew because something’s wrong, but I don’t have a way of finding out without getting her in trouble.
This past week Joni’s been really nice to me. She’s not gregarious or anything like Andrea and me, or even quietly talkative like Julia, but I think she maybe likes that I’m her roommate. And her being quiet means I pay attention more when she does say something, and it’s usually something helpful. Like yesterday, she told me to work on a breathing pattern to count my breaths when I run, and last night we worked on my two-point cover in our room.
Jack’s been hanging around with us a lot, too, and he says most things here are mental, even if they feel physical. (And he’s still so ridiculously hot that I practically need my new breathing pattern to calm down when I’m around him.) Sometimes I notice Joni looking at Jack carefully when he pays attention to me, like she’s studying him. I don’t think she likes him like that, but maybe she’s a little possessive of him, and wary of me inserting myself into their friendship? Still, Jack and Joni seem like they’re genuinely trying to help me, unlike Ciara and Amanda, who feel like they’re more in it for themselves. I mean, they definitely haven’t asked me to partner on anything again after I blew our run so badly. Ciara’s nice enough, but Amanda seems to hate me more every day that I get closer to Jack and Joni. She either has a thing for him now, and Joni and I are just in the way, or she had a thing for him in the past, and now she hates Joni and me by association. It’s not good.
I’m wrapped tight like a mummy in my covers as I text a little with Ella, who’s awake, too, and telling me she’s still not speaking to our parents out of solidarity. When we say good-bye I start tightening and loosening my butt muscles (per a Dr. Oz relaxation technique), because I’m just so stressed out, but a moment later there’s a knock on the door.
“Joni?” I whisper.
I prop myself up on my elbow and glance out the window to see dark sky spotted with stars. There’s no sign of morning coming any time soon, only the outline of tree branches against the night sky. I reach for my phone for the flashlight but I can’t find it in the tangle of covers. “Joni?” I call again, whipping off my sheets.
I shudder. Our room is freezing.
What am I supposed to do? I’m assuming I’m allowed to answer the door past curfew. Maybe Joni forgot her keys?
I tiptoe across the carpet. My fingers pause on the doorknob, and I’ve seen enough horror movies to know I shouldn’t open the door, but I do anyway.
“Are you trying to get me caught, new girl?” a low voice asks.
My heart pumps faster as a large body pushes inside and shuts the door. I fumble for the switch. Light floods my room and illuminates an impish grin on Jack’s handsome face. “Jack,” I say. Relief fills me—it’s not a burglar; it’s just Jack!—followed by a slick rush of adrenaline—holy crap, it’s Jack!
“What are you doing here?” I whisper.
He laughs again. “Looking for you,” he says. And then adds, almost without missing a beat, “And Joni.”
I live for the almost.
“She’s out,” I say.
“Is she?” Jack asks, but he says it like a throwaway, like he isn’t actually surprised. He checks his watch. It’s big and official-looking like Joni’s. I wonder if I was supposed to get one with my uniform. It’s about as fashionable as overalls, which are only ever okay on reruns of Friends. “It’s one a.m.,” Jack says. He isn’t wearing his uniform—just jeans and a jacket—and he looks way more devilish without it. “Officially the morning. You hungry for breakfast?”
I feel the grin spread across my face. This is why I’ve always gone to bed in a cute outfit: you never know when you could be called out of your home and into the public eye due to a natural disaster, an errant burglar alarm, or a hot guy wanting you to sneak out with him. “Hungry?” I say. “In the middle of the night?” I fake a yawn. “More like tired.” But I’m smirking now, and when his eyes meet mine I know he knows I’m not tired at all.
“But breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” he says, his deep voice confident.
“True,” I say.
“And it’s tradition,” Jack says. “You have to break at least one rule during the first week of term.”
“Well, in that case . . . ,” I say, feeling like I could jump out of my skin at the prospect of breaking rules with him. Why is it so hard to be good?
“Exactly,” he says, grinning. “Traditions are important. We should go.” He grabs my coat and hat from the hook next to our door, then takes my hand and says, “Shhhh.” My fingers warm at his touch, and then so does the rest of me.
Nothing sounds better than escaping this week—leaving behind all the ways I’ve felt like a failure—but . . .
“What happens if we get caught?” I whisper.
“We’d get in trouble,” he says as he opens the door. “So we better not get caught, Frankie.” He squeezes my hand, and it sends something hot over my skin, and then he grins again, and it’s all I need. I know this isn’t a good idea: I know I don’t know him well enough; I know I’m breaking the rules; and I know I’ve promised my parents I’ll be better. But it’s like this force that comes over me, like no matter how hard I try to be the person my parents want me to be, I can’t. And since when is a little adventure a bad thing?
I step into the hallway and slip my feet into the snow boots I left outside my door. I laugh a little—a high-pitched giggle I barely recognize—as Jack leads me down the dim corridor toward a mirror at the end of the hall that reflects our glassy images. I feel like I’m watching someone else run toward the mirror, someone braver. Someone foolish? a small voice whispers, but I shush it down and keep moving.
Jack’s hand is tight around mine and my breath comes faster as he pushes open the door to the stairwell. We race down the stairs, our footsteps nearly silent. Before I realize what he’s doing, he grabs my shoulders and pushes me gently against the wall.
“Shhh,” he says, a finger to my lips. I don’t think I’ve ever been this close to a guy. Even when Josh kissed me, it wasn’t like this. He didn’t press his body against mine. This is something different. This is—
“Jack?” I whisper.
Is he going to kiss me? Do I want that? No. Well, mostly no, because I just met him and it might upset Joni, and plus I liked Josh five days ago, but God, Jack is so hot, so I kind of do want us to kiss right now, but—
Footsteps.
The soft padding of feet echoes from somewhere below us. “Stay here,” Jack says. I feel cold the minute he pulls his body from mine. I really need to stop thinking people are about to kiss me.
Jack moves to the railing and looks down into the stairwell. We’re on a landing just above the second floor; if this mystery person climbs toward us, we’re trapped. Jack edges back to me. “It’s probably a guard,” Jack says. A guard? That can’t be good! “If he gets off on the first floor, we stay put. If he starts toward us, we make a run for it.” My heart is pounding so loudly in my ears I can hardly hear him. “Just follow me and do what I do,” he says.
Nerves race through me. My eyes follow the cut of Jack’s jaw, and I swear I can see the glint in his dark eyes even in the near pitch-blackness.
“We can’t keep hiding like this,” a girl’s voice says from somewhere down the stairwell, and then another voice says something I can’t quite make out—something whispered.
I’m not sure if it’s the whispers and the darkness or the wonderful strangeness of being pressed against Jack, but suddenly time seems to slow. I feel like I’m suspended in this moment, like its unexpectedness has made it surreal. But then I look up to see Jack’s dark brows stitched together. “It’s Joni,” he says into my ear, his voice urgent.
“Are you sure?” I ask.
Jack grabs my hand and pulls me toward the stairs. Considering I can count the number of guys who’ve taken my hand on one hand, it’s not exactly easy to act normal about all this. We start racing back up the stairs. “Why are we running?” I hiss as we near the door that leads to the third floor. “Is she going to tell on us?”
“She’s not going to tell on us,” Jack hisses back. Our footsteps are so loud they may as well be drumbeats.
“Hello?” Joni’s voice whispers. I can hear how nervous she is—like she’s trying to suss out if we’re just other students breaking rules like she is, or if we’re guards or TACs about to get her in trouble.
My hand sweats against Jack’s no matter how much I will it to stop.
“Hello?” Joni calls out again, her voice hollow, and this time, it strikes me as sad. I’m about to call out that it’s just me so she won’t be nervous, but then Jack tugs my hand and starts moving even faster up the stairs. He shoves open the door to the third floor and pulls me into the hallway. We zoom over the carpet, and I nearly crash into him as he stops short in front of my dorm room. “I don’t want to get you and Joni off on the wrong foot,” he says, not even out of breath from the sprinting.
I arch my eyebrows. What the heck is that supposed to mean?
“There’s another stairway,” he goes on, and I can feel the warmth of his hands through my cotton top. He nods over his shoulder toward the other end of the hall. “You can go back to your room, or you can come with me.”
I lock on to his eyes, so dark and serious.
“You,” I say. “I’ll go. With you.”
This time he doesn’t take my hand. He sprints down the hall so fast I can hardly keep up. A door slams behind us: a few more feet and Joni will round the corner and see us. Jack shoves open the door to the stairwell.
“Why didn’t we go this way the first time?” I ask as we slip inside, relief coursing through me. The hallway was still empty when we shut the door—Joni didn’t see us, I’m sure of it.
“Because Lt. Sturtevant sleeps downstairs,” Jack says. His voice is soft as we descend the steps. “Her room is right next to the stairwell, and I swear she has bionic hearing.”
Freaking Sturtevant. That’s all I need.
“Then you better shut up,” I whisper playfully. “I already have one demerit!”
Jack laughs, and somehow not even the threat of Sturtevant can burst my bubble of giddiness now that I know we’re safe from Joni seeing us, which obviously means my priorities are wildly out of balance. We go deadly quiet as we pass Sturtevant’s floor, and then Jack inches an exit door open with a barely audible click.
“That was close,” Jack says as we spill onto the quad, his words warm and heavy against my cheek. He opens my jacket for me to slip inside. He’s so careful putting it on me.
“Too close,” I say, but I can’t stop smiling. I put a hand on my knee and try to catch my breath.
“We’re not off campus yet, private,” Jack says, reaching for my hand again. “No time for a breather.” He guides me around a stone fountain. A sculpture of a woman in uniform rises from the center of the fountain, her carved medallions dangling from her granite chest. “This place is going to whip you into shape, Frankie Brooks,” he says.
“Um, yeah, see, I’m actually very worried about that,” I say as we make our way onto a sidewalk. “The PT is putting me over the edge. Literally every day I pull a muscle I didn’t even know I had.”
Jack laughs a little. Then he glances at me, and he must realize I’m not kidding because he says, “It’ll get easier every day. It’s hard for everyone when they start.”
“I hope you’re right,” I say softly. “It’s just nothing like my old school, and I really miss my family, and my friends, and my free time to blog and read magazines, and also the lattes my mom used to make my sister and me every morning before school. God, lattes! Have you ever had one made with camel’s milk?”
“Um, no, I haven’t,” Jack says, but I can hear a smile in his voice. “But I was homesick when I started here, too.”
Streetlamps illuminate our path. Jack has one hand holding mine and the other hand over his left eye. I’m about to ask him if he’s all right, but then he takes a sharp right and we move off the sidewalk onto a grassy field. It gets darker and darker, but I can just make out a line of trees twenty-five yards away. I stumble over rocks and Jack catches me way too many times. My foot crashes into something that feels warm and I freeze, praying it isn’t a dead animal. “Oh my God,” I say, letting out a small scream I try to muffle that ends up sounding way too prissy.
Jack reaches into a deep pocket of his jacket. His handsome face is silhouetted against the dark sky. “Here,” he says, passing something heavy into my hand that might be binoculars. “Night-vision goggles.” I can feel the outline of them, and how solid they are, and then Jack takes them back and carefully places them over my head. I almost say I don’t need them, but then he gets them on right and I see everything in the dark.
“Wow!” I say, like an idiot. But it’s seriously so cool. There’s a yellow/green tinge to the landscape but I can make out everything, including the grooves on the log I just tripped over, and two squirrels with glow-in-the-dark eyeballs staring at me a few feet away. It’s so weird and cool and I’m so nervous that I burst out silent-laughing, and then Jack says, “Okay, Amateur Hour, let’s keep moving.”
“Don’t you need these, too?” I ask when I finally get myself under control.
“I covered one eye back there so it’s already adjusted to the dark. That’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re about to be submerged in pitch-black terrain.”
“Oh,” I say, because it’s a pretty good idea and obviously not something anyone ever taught me. I stare up at Jack, imagining what I look like with my night-vision goggles on. I’ve never accessorized quite like this.
“When I lost my hearing, my eyesight got crazy-good,” he says. He smiles at me, and with the goggles I can make out each pearly white tooth in his crooked grin. “Even when I got my implants and I could hear again, I swear my eyesight stayed bionic.”
“So you just carry these goggles around for us mere mortals?” I ask.
“Exactly,” Jack says.
We push through taller grass, careful about our footing.
“How old were you when you lost your hearing?” I ask.
“Six,” he says.
I wait for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. What I want to say seems so personal I don’t know if I should. I can’t stop thinking about how scary that must have been, and finally, I just say, “You must have been scared when it happened.”
“I do remember being scared,” he says, “but what I remember most is my parents being really scared.” He pauses. I feel him turn and take me in, and then he squeezes my hand. “I don’t remember it as well as I want to,” he says. “What I remember is how it got harder and harder to hear things, like my mom’s voice—that was the worst—and we didn’t know what was wrong. Then all of my hearing went, and after like a million trips to the doctor I got these,” he says, pointing to the implants.
We walk a bit longer. Why is it when someone shares something that makes him or her scared, you feel a real friendship start? Why do we all ever bother acting like we have everything under control? “Sometimes I don’t know what to say when someone tells me something important,” I tell him. “So I’m just going to shut up for a little bit so I don’t say something stupid. And then I’ll get back to you when I have something well thought out that conveys what I actually mean.”
Jack lets out a laugh. “Okay. Cool. So I guess that means we have to hang out again?”
My insides flutter. “I guess so,” I say. I’m so nervous it’s hard to think straight. And it’s taking so much concentration to escape from campus. My emotional and physical capabilities are already being way too challenged at this school. Why do I get the strange sense this is just the beginning?
The grass gets short again and Jack picks up our pace until I feel like we’re flying across the field. It’s so much easier with the goggles on. I feel awesome, like I’m on a secret mission or something.
“You doing okay?” he asks me.
“Just a little out of breath,” I say. And also my heart is racing, which is both a result of being out of shape and also the fact that we are sneaking out and also you are seriously so hot.
“Are we almost there?” I ask, trying to breathe like I would into a paper bag.
“T minus two miles to go.”
“What?!” I blurt. I haven’t walked two miles except at the Westchester mall, which is different because I take lots of breaks to try on clothes and drink Frappuccinos.
“You’re doing great,” Jack says.
I am?
I concentrate on our feet passing over the uneven ground. Jack’s Converse are getting soaked. Thank God I wore my boots. “So why aren’t you wearing your uniform?” I ask him.
“I figured you’d be more likely to sneak out with me if I looked like the rest of the lame, nonmilitary guys you probably know back home,” he says.
I stifle a laugh. “I guess your disguise worked,” I say.
“I’ll say,” he says. He’s being gentle and considerate about it, but he’s basically dragging me. “Where are we going?” I ask as we bolt toward a fence.
“I promise it’s not too much farther,” he says. Then, maybe to distract me from the exertion, he says, “Joni told me you’re a fashion blogger.” I’m impressed that he got the term right and also that he’s able to carry on a normal conversation as we basically sprint.
“Yes, I am,” I huff, and he looks at me, but it isn’t like the way Joni looked at me when I told her about my blog, and not only because I’m wearing the night-vision goggles and he’s slightly neon-colored. It isn’t confusion on his face; it’s interest. The goggles make me sure of it. And maybe it’s not romantic interest, but it’s at least interest in what I’m saying. “So you think you can tell a lot by what someone wears?” he asks.
I can’t tell if he’s challenging me or not. Because obviously I agree with the whole don’t judge a book by its cover mentality, but still . . .
“Don’t you?” I ask. It seems so obvious to me I don’t know how to answer the question any other way.
“Hmm. I never really thought about it,” he says.
“You’ve never thought about style?” I ask, bewildered.
Jack laughs. “Maybe I have a little. And I can see what you’re saying. My mom wears yoga pants and tunics, and she’s pretty Zen. Or at least she used to be.”
“Mine too!” I say, smiling.
“So what do our military uniforms say about us?” Jack asks. I follow his eyes to take in the gauzy clouds that lumber across the sky. They shroud the moon, and then clear to let light shine on our faces.
“That’s the problem with uniforms,” I say, trucking over the grassy field and breathing slowly. In. Out. “How are you supposed to express yourself when you’re wearing the same thing as everyone else?”
“I guess you’ll have to find a way to express yourself other than with clothing,” Jack says. He seems to mean it lightheartedly, but I feel a little embarrassed. I know he’s right: it’s not like your clothes are who you are. But for me, it’s always been the way I said hello to the world around me.
I’m quiet as we head toward what I can now see is a small break in the fence. “I guess to me style feels like a way to talk to other people without relying on words,” I finally say.
He cocks a dark eyebrow, but nods like maybe he agrees.
We get to the fence. Jack bends and pushes aside a patch of tall grass growing wild even amid the snow. It makes me think of summer. No matter how much I love fall/winter fashion, my heart belongs to the warm weather. It’s even worth surviving other teenagers—and worse, adult women—who wear short-shorts. (Why, God, why?)
Jack starts working at the fence. He’s pulling it aside, gently but efficiently. He’s noticeably big sitting there on the grass—he looks so much stronger than the guys back home. He yanks more fencing so the hole becomes almost wide enough that I could slip through. I glance around us to make sure no one’s watching, but Jack doesn’t seem nervous. He is totally and completely in charge, but not in a pushy way, just like that’s who he is.
I take off the night-vision goggles and hold them in my lap. “I’m glad you came for me tonight,” I say. Jack’s dark eyes widen, but he doesn’t say anything. He just stares at me. I made him nervous for the first time tonight—I feel it. My heart pounds against my chest like a trapped bird. His eyes are still locked on mine.
Kiss me.
The words come to me unbidden and I try to shake them off.
I just met him. Joni might not like the idea of us getting together because they’re obviously best friends. I need to wait.
I inch away so nothing happens, no matter how much I want it to.
Jack doesn’t say anything for a beat, and I can feel him trying to recover from whatever that was that almost just happened between us.
I run my fingers over a knotted tree root that snakes through the grass between us, and Jack helps me through the hole in the fence. He carefully protects my head so I don’t hit the wire. “Always take care of your fellow soldier,” he says. “That’s the Academy’s motto.”
I laugh a little, but what he said makes me think about tomorrow and how scared I am to do everything all over yet again, to be like a deer in headlights when Lt. Sturtevant springs something else on me. “Forget about what the Academy says,” I say, feeling defiance surge through me like a shock.
Jack raises a dark eyebrow. “My kind of girl,” he says, and my blood warms a degree. “Just for tonight, then,” he says. “Tomorrow we go back to being rule-following cadets.” He pulls back the fencing even more and follows me through. “You ready?”
We hold hands. I nod. I am.