“No, it’s fine.” She smiles. “I should’ve remembered. Come on upstairs.”
“Thanks,” you say, relieved. You nod at Dr. Mitchell and follow her, trying to ignore the way your heart’s started jumping in your chest. This isn’t exactly how you fantasized about being led to Simone Mitchell’s bedroom, but the fact that it’s happening at all has you wound up tight.
Focus.
Simone’s house is a lot like yours: cleanly but cheaply built, creaking with age. You reach the room at the end of the hallway, and you can tell it’s hers by the decorative S hanging on the door. Inside, the walls are black, the floor littered with skinny jeans and blouses, the desk cluttered with makeup and hair supplies. A poster of the Paris skyline hangs over her bed. You feel as if you’re intruding. Probably you are.
“Sorry it’s such a mess. I had no idea you were coming,” she says, closing the door behind you. Her smile’s gone. She crosses her arms. “You want to tell me what this was about?”
What the fuck were you thinking?
You wet your lips, pull out your phone. “It’s, uh, it’s kind of hard to explain. But I didn’t know who else to go to. I think the Contaminant did something to me, and I figured you might be able to answer my questions because your dad . . . you know . . .”
You give up, show her the video. She sits down on her bed to watch it, gesturing for you to join her. You do, sinking into the mattress, practically sliding into her. Your legs are touching. The smell of her hair conditioner makes your head spin.
Simone doesn’t speak as she watches. She furrows her brow just like her father. You bounce your knee, not sure what to do with yourself while you wait, then stop. You don’t want to piss her off.
“You don’t have to watch the whole thing,” you say finally, your face warming. “There’s a lot of videos, and they get pretty long, but . . . it’s wild, right? It has to be the Contaminant.”
She hands the phone back, shaking her head slowly. “You’re fucking with me. You made this with a video editor or something.”
“No, swear to God,” you say desperately. “The Contami-nant messes with people on a genetic level, right? That’s what makes it so dangerous, especially long-term. So could it cause something like this?”
“If you’re worried about the water, you should go to a doctor.” Simone raises a brow. “The way you’re talking, maybe you should anyway.”
“The doctors don’t know much more than we do. You know that. You live . . .” You stop yourself. “I just thought maybe, since your dad works at the lab . . .”
Simone’s expression softens. “He’s trying to help. That’s the only reason he’s still there. He and some of the other scientists knew about the Contaminant long before the rest of the world did, but it was nearly impossible for them to get the story out. You can’t just show there’s pollution in the river—you have to prove it’s hurting people.”
“But it is.” You think of the houses on your street that have been abandoned, the neighbors you’ve watched grow sick, the protests that gather outside City Hall every Sunday, smaller and smaller as people move away or pass away or simply give up.
Simone looks at you knowingly. “You have to prove it’s hurting people they care about.”
You sigh. Right.
“It’s not even just indifference,” she goes on. “It’s worse than that. It’s like they see this as a good thing.” She laughs a little hollowly. “I’m sure they wouldn’t think so if they’d realized they were arming Black kids with these kinds of abilities, though. That might get them to stop.”
“So you’re saying you believe me?”
“I’m saying I want to.”
You hesitate, then hold out your hand. Simone looks at it, then looks back up at you.
“Go on, take it,” you say, your blood roaring in your ears. “I can prove this is real.”
You’re not entirely sure this is true. You know, from your experiments, that anything you touch will be lifted out of time with you. But you never tried it with another person. You don’t know what will happen.
Simone slips her hand into yours.
It feels like time stops before you even do anything. Just holding her hand has the same effect on you—the rush of excitement, the race of your heart, the sensation that you’re the only thing in the world that’s real. You try to quell your nervousness enough to concentrate—and then you do it. You stop time.
You can see she feels something, because she gasps. But it’s hard for her to tell in her bedroom that anything has changed.
You have to take her outside. You have to show her the rain.
“Come on,” you say, grinning a little. “And don’t let go, or it won’t work.”
She lets you lead her out of the bedroom and down the hall. The first thing she notices is her dog climbing up the stairs, suspended in motion. Then her parents, cleaning the kitchen, arranged like dolls in a house.
“Holy shit,” she whispers. Something about the utter lack of sound must compel her to be quiet herself.
“And here you were calling me a liar.”
“I never said all that.”
You both fall into silence as you make your way through the warmly lit entryway. You can feel Simone’s eyes on the back of your neck.
“How come it took this for you to talk to me, Jordan?” she asks softly.
Your face warms. You unlock the front door without turning around.
“We talk,” you hedge.
“Not like this. Not about anything real. I can tell you’re shy, though, so I tried to leave you alone.”
You step onto the front porch. It’s chilly outside, and neither of you stopped to grab your coats. You press closer together. The frozen raindrops shimmer before you like fallen stars.
“I just . . . didn’t want to force it,” you say finally. “There’s no reason the two Black girls have to be friends.” You laugh a little nervously.
“Well, you seem like you could use a friend.” She hesitates. “I didn’t mean it like—”
“No,” you say. “You’re right. I could.”
You look up at her, and she’s smiling again. Enjoying the perfect stillness of the moment. She leans in and kisses you. Lips soft and sticky-sweet with gloss, the smell of lavender soap on her skin.
Lightning shoots through you. You’re so startled you lose your concentration. Time starts back up again, the sudden patter of the rain almost masking her soft laughter. She breaks away.