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1
The first time one of them witnessed a tonic-clonic seizure—once referred to by science as grand mal seizures, referred to by Noah as The Big Ones—it was Gansey. It was always going to happen, this overlap of friends and symptoms, and it made sense, probability wise, that it happened to Gansey first. He’d known Noah the longest, after all.
They were at Monmouth because they were almost always at Monmouth. The renovations had finished over the summer, and many memories had since been forged in the warehouse-home. Gansey was lying on his stomach, on his floor, reading aloud from a book about the Appalachian Mountains.
“The Appalachian Mountains and the Scottish Highlands were once part of the same mountain range,” he said.
This was not anything new to Gansey. This book in particular he’d read four times over, but he read it again. He had a fascination with Pangea. That everything had once been connected, that the echoes of those connections remained. That something once whole could be broken with such finality, that only sea shore scars remained.
“Gansey,” Noah interrupted.
Noah was sitting in the chair at Gansey’s desk. He’d been swinging his feet and listening quietly. He’d been fiddling with a pen, clicking it open and then closed, open and closed. Now, Noah was completely still. He put the pen down.
“Noah?” Gansey asked. A sick feeling rolled in his stomach. Somehow, he already knew.
“I’m—” Noah swallowed. He swallowed again. “I’m getting an aura.”
There were triggers, things like stress or flashing lights, that could forewarn a seizure, but really, a seizure, big or little, could happen at any time without any reason. Gansey had seen the little ones before, but not a Big One. Noah only got an aura—a metallic taste on his tongue—before The Big Ones.
From the very start of their friendship, Noah was open about being epileptic. Over and over, mostly at Gansey’s insistence, they discussed what Gansey would do when this day came. It was never a question of if, it was always an inevitable when.
Gansey was prepared for this. He did not feel it.
“Okay,” Gansey said.
Noah nodded. He seemed scared. “Okay.”
Gansey closed his book without marking the page, and he stood. There were steps for this. First: they had to get Noah to the ground. Gansey hovered while Noah abandoned his desk chair for the hard floor of the warehouse. Gansey couldn’t help but think it wouldn’t be very forgiving. He should’ve bought a rug. One of those plush ones, the fluffy ones that shed like a dog. Ronan would hate it. Impulsive, Gansey pulled the comforter from his bed, and he laid it out on the floor. For a moment, Noah just stared at him. Then, Gansey pointed, and Noah moved to lay down on the duvet.
Second: Gansey cushioned Noah’s head. He snagged a pillow from his bed, too, and slipped it under Noah’s skull. Traitorously, his brain flashed with false images: Noah’s skull bashed against the floor, Noah’s skull splitting open, blood frothing and gushing. Gansey blinked and the truth returned. Noah turned onto his side, and he just laid there, waiting.
Third: Gansey cleared the area. Monmouth was big, a wide open space with minimal risk of collision, but he pushed his desk chair farther out of the way, just to be safe. He sat down, three feet too far away from Noah. He was not supposed to touch him during a seizure.
“Noah,” he said.
Noah blinked at him. The action was slow, almost clumsy. “Gansey.”
“Tell me again when I’m supposed to call 911,” Gansey said. He already knew. If Noah seized for longer than five minutes, then he was supposed to call for an ambulance. He knew it the same as he knew that, if he was stung by a wasp or a hornet or a yellowjacket, he was supposed to call 911 immediately. He was supposed to administer the first EpiPen, and then wait ten minutes, and then if the ambulance still hadn’t arrived, administer the second. He knew these instructions intimately. He did not need to ask, but he needed to hear it.
“Five minutes,” Noah said. He still seemed scared, and Gansey didn’t know how to fix that. Gansey was scared, too. “You’ll stay?”
It was a question Noah already knew the answer to. He just needed to hear it. Gansey said, “Of course.”
Gansey opened his phone, and he readied a timer, and then all he could do was wait, too. After the aura started, there was no telling how long Noah had. Once, he’d gone four hours with the taste of blood in his mouth, teetering on the edge of something terrible. Gansey was caught in an awful loop of contradictions: he wanted it to start because then it would be over; he never wanted it to start because then it would be happening.
Gansey considered grabbing his book again, if only to distract them both, but then Noah’s breath rattled. His inhale trembled, and then he did not exhale, and then he seized. Every muscle in his body coiled tight, he thrashed, he shook. His head hit the pillow, and even with the cushioning, it seemed too violent. Gansey fumbled to start the timer. One second, two seconds. You never realized how long a second was until your whole world was narrowed down to three seconds, four seconds.
Noah’s back bowed, an arch pulled taut with tension. The tendons in his throat stood firm. Gansey ran through everything Noah had ever told him about the tonic-clonic seizures. I might bite my tongue, Noah said. Gansey didn’t see blood yet. I might piss myself, Noah said. There were no signs of that either. I might stop breathing, Noah said. His breathing was bad, but it hadn’t stopped. Every few seconds he would manage a gasp, a thin tug of air, and then he would lose control again, and then nothing got through to his lungs, and then the cycle repeated. It was like he was drowning. It was awful.
Gansey hated this. He hated this so much. Was this how his parents felt? The first time he was stung in front of them?
One minute had gone.
Nobody had ever told Gansey how loud a seizure could be. Noah’s gasps, Noah’s body ricocheting off the ground, the silence. All of it was deafening. Gansey hated this. He hated this so much. It was awful.
Noah bit his tongue. Bright red pooled at the corner of his mouth and then dripped down his chin, joining the mess of drool and spit. Noah’s eyes were rolled back into his head. Gansey had never seen Noah like this before, and yet Noah was still perfectly recognizable. It would have been better if he became a stranger like this. But he was just Noah. Beautiful Noah, a towhead blond with big blue eyes, blue eyes disappearing into his skill, and a bigger smile. He was just Noah, and he was hurting, and he had been scared, and—
Gansey thought of Pangea again.
Noah started to slow. Noah managed to grab a larger breath. Noah’s limbs shivered less. He started to slow, and then he stopped. His strings were cut, and everything went slack. Gansey stopped the timer, and then he waited for Noah’s eyes to open, and then he wondered if he should have left the timer going until they did.
“Noah,” he said.
He didn’t know what else to say. Noah had explained this too. Sometimes it took him a few minutes to resurface, to reunite with his body after being torn from it so violently. He said it helped if someone talked to him, but Gansey didn’t know what to say.
“Noah,” he repeated. “It’s over.”
He wasn’t sure that it was. Sometimes one seizure was followed closely by another. Gansey watched Noah’s chest rise and fall, greedy for oxygen after being deprived of it for two minutes and thirteen seconds.
“Noah,” he said a third time. “You’re okay. You did good.”
Noah’s eyes opened. He blinked a few times. He rubbed his face against the pillow, just the tiniest twitch. If he noticed the wetness of his own blood and saliva, he didn’t react. He opened his mouth to say something, but no words came forth. He was still struggling back to the surface, but that was alright. As long as he was still, as long as his eyes were open, as long as he was breathing, Gansey could be patient.
“Two minutes and thirteen seconds,” Gansey said because he knew Noah would want to know. “Do you want me to call your parents? Adele?”
Noah managed a croaky, “Not yet.”
Gansey nodded. He wanted to touch Noah, to comfort him with more than words, but he wasn’t sure he was allowed to. He said, “You were brave.”
“No,” Noah said. “I was…” Noah fumbled. “Afraid.”
“So was I,” Gansey said. He could feel it still—that terror. It wouldn’t ever leave him, not when the threat of repetition lingered always overhead. “You can be afraid and still be brave, Noah.”
Noah didn’t have anything to say to that.
2
Noah couldn’t drive. He has never been, and probably never will be, seizure free for six months or more. The longest Noah had ever gone was three months, and that was when he was a kid. So, Noah couldn’t get a driver’s license. So, Ronan drove him.
When Noah had a doctor’s appointment, Ronan drove him. Usually, the appointments were in the middle of the school day and gave Ronan an actual excuse to skip World Hist—it was the one and only time Gansey didn’t scold him for being a terrible student. Once, Noah had asked Ronan to go inside with him, but mostly Ronan just sat in the parking lot playing Angry Birds. Noah was always quiet after appointments, and Ronan did his best to cheer him up by blasting terrible songs, like Murder Squash.
When Noah needed to pick up a prescription, Ronan drove him to the pharmacy. Ronan made it his mission to embarrass Noah badly enough that his face went red and splotchy. He bought condoms neither of them would actually use; he asked the clerk if they sold the morning after pill (they did but not to minors); he bought an impressively tall pile of laxatives. These days, Noah was mostly immune to his antics, so Ronan wandered the shelves. He bought a pack of gum and made Noah take a piece, even though gum was, apparently, a choking hazard.
“Fuck that,” Ronan said. “It’s gum. If you can’t swallow a piece of gum without dying, then maybe you deserve to die, loser.”
Noah said, “You’re an asshole.”
“No gum, no ride,” Ronan said.
“For someone who doesn’t lie,” Noah said, “you sure are a liar.”
He took a piece of gum, but he didn’t unwrap it or chew it, and Ronan scoffed. He let him into the BMW anyway and drove them both home. He was an asshole, but he wasn’t that much of an asshole.
When Noah needed to go to the record store, Ronan drove him. Noah was a music junkie, and Ronan accepted his demands to go right now only because it reminded him of the furious way his father used to play and teach his sons to play their instruments—not that Ronan was going to tell Noah that. He watched Noah flick through records and CDs alike, and he watched his face split with a grin when he found something worthy of his time. Ronan scuffed through the aisles, entertaining himself finding the stupidest band names or the album covers with the most red or the songs his father used to strum.
Most of the time, though, when Ronan and Noah piled into the BMW, they weren’t driving anywhere in particular. They were just driving. Ronan got behind the wheel, and he revved the familiar engine, and he tore out of Monmouth’s lot. Henrietta whirred past them in a blur of green and tan. Roads winded down the valley and into the winding mountain passes. Noah was the only one who could actually tolerate Ronan’s speeding. In fact, he enjoyed it.
Noah rolled the passenger window down, and cold winter air blasted into the car. It must have hit Noah harder than it hit Ronan, but still it scraped at his skin, mean as frozen ice. Ronan shivered. Ronan had to shout to be heard over the music, the wind, the engine. “Close that!”
“No!” Noah shouted back. He tipped his head back, laughing.
Ronan rolled the window up himself, and Noah pouted at him, and Ronan ignored him in favor of watching the road. Probably Noah liked driving with Ronan because Ronan was reckless. It didn’t matter who was in the passenger seat, it didn’t matter that Noah had a fucked up brain that did fucked up things to his body, Ronan was still reckless. A lot of people treated Noah like he was fragile, and maybe he was, but so was everyone in a car pushing eighty miles per hour. That was the thrill of it. You could die like this.
Ronan pressed harder on the gas. The BMW gave him a few more miles; they winded higher into the mountains. It was safer to speed like this on the main roads, on the straight shot, wide open highways, but Ronan had bored of those roads years ago, ran them thin with squealing rubber tires. Besides, that’s where the cops were, and Declan said if Ronan got another ticket, he would take the car. Ronan would kill Declan before he let that happen, but he didn’t really want to have to commit fratricide. Ronan tugged at the wheel, making sharp turns. The rear wheels kissed the edge of a cliff.
Noah laughed again. “Oh my god, Ronan. Ronan. Slow down!”
Ronan did not slow down, and Noah did not ask again. He was gripping the oh shit! handle like his life depended on it. Maybe it did. Ronan said, “Don’t be a pussy, Czerny.”
Noah reached below the seat and dragged out a box, filled with their growing collection of CDs. He rifled through them, and he swapped out Ronan’s blaring electronica for some pop punk bullshit. Ronan didn’t hate Noah’s music taste, but he didn’t love it. He groaned at the choice.
“Seriously?” he asked.
Noah turned up the volume, and that stupid pop punk accent flooded the car. “Seriously.”
“You’re poisoning my dad’s car,” Ronan said. “You’re tainting it. You’re desecrating it. This is— This is sacrilegious.”
Noah had never met Niall Lynch, had only heard Ronan speak of him posthumously, but he was correct when he said, “As if your dad would prefer your electronic crap.”
Ronan jerked the wheel, just a little, as payback for that truth. Noah shrieked, and he dumped half their CDs onto the floor of the car. “Ronan! We’re going to die!”
They could die, but they weren’t going to die tonight, and that was the triumph of it all. Ronan steadied the car, and slowed just enough to take the next curve without skidding off the mountain side, and said, “You’re cleaning those up, you little shit.”
Noah was already organizing the spilled CDs. He had a system that Ronan could never understand and could never replicate.
“You’re the worst,” Noah said. He was grinning, bright and wide.
“Don’t insult me,” Ronan said. “I’ll drop you off right here, don’t test me.”
Noah said, “You do know if you keep threatening to abandon me, you’re going to have to go through with it eventually, right? Otherwise you lose all your street cred.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Ronan said. He wasn’t abandoning Noah anywhere.
Noah smirked. “Turn around,” he said, “I want to go down now.”
Ronan used someone’s driveway, ignoring their no trespassing sign, to make an illegal u-turn. There was no one around for miles, just the two of them and their blaring music and their pounding hearts. Ronan sped down the mountain, and that felt more dangerous than the ascending climb had. Noah and Ronan didn’t speak much after that. Adrenaline washed over them in a crashing wave, stealing their voices and their breath. Occasionally Noah gasped or winced, but he never told Ronan to stop. He liked this as much as Ronan did.
Tomorrow, Ronan would drive Noah an hour out of Henrietta to see his neurologist. Today, Ronan drove him to hell and back.
3
Adam didn’t care for the Fourth of July.
There were many things wrong with the holiday. One, he didn’t want to celebrate the formation of a terrible country. Two, it was the day after his birthday, which meant his father was still lingering in the bad mood brought on by the reminder of his existence. Three, the fireworks allowed a cover of noise loud enough to hide many hurts.
This year, Adam was no longer living in the trailer park. This year, Adam had fewer reasons to dislike July 4th. Still, he wasn’t particularly looking forward to it. Ronan was rambling about Henrietta’s—or perhaps Kavinsky’s—annual fairground bonanza. He wanted all of them to go. He wanted to get drunk and watch lights bounce off the dark night sky.
“I can’t come,” Noah said, quiet enough that only Adam heard. He’d spent the last few weeks missing a lot of conversations, still getting used to the burning silence in his left ear. Noah was standing at Adam’s right side though, and surprisingly, Adam heard him.
He understood, immediately, why Noah could not go. The sky would explode with flashing lights, the fairground would glare with shining headlights, the fairground would overwhelm with busy bodies and raucous sounds. That environment was not Noah-friendly. That environment would only risk inducing a seizure.
But Blue chimed in with unexpected excitement, and Noah did not repeat himself, resigned to be forgotten and miss out on all the fun. It would have been so easy for his warning to go unacknowledged: Adam could pretend he hadn’t heard, and he could pretend he didn’t know why Noah wasn’t there when he didn’t show.
That wasn’t very kind, though. Adam was trying to be kinder now that he was free from his father. He didn’t want to be angry forever just because he got knocked around a bit as a kid.
“Noah and I aren’t going,” he said, loud enough to be heard by all. Blue stopped talking, Ronan glared at him, Gansey raised his eyebrows, and Noah turned—hard and fast—to stare at Adam. His eyes were wide and almost… hopeful? Adam wished Noah wouldn’t look at him like that.
“Why the fuck not,” Ronan said. It was not a question.
“Noah can’t go, and I don’t want to,” Adam said, simple, like if he didn’t make it a big deal, then neither would the others. Adam was not Noah. Adam was not disabled. But Adam knew what it was like to have to say over and over, either because of his father’s rules or his empty wallet, I can’t do that. It was shameful and awful and it hurt a little every time. He did not want Noah to hurt.
Of course the others were quick to realize what Adam meant by can’t, and of course they weren’t smart enough to just accept it.
Gansey frowned and asked, “Are you sure?”
Noah frowned back at him and said, “Yes.”
“We don’t have to go,” Blue said, like she hadn’t been looking forward to it only moments ago. Because it was Blue, Adam knew she truly wouldn’t mind a change in plans. She valued being together more than anything else, but still, it had the cadence of disappointment. “We can just hang out, maybe at Fox Way? Barely anyone will be around.”
Noah shook his head. “No. You guys go.”
Ronan was the only one who didn’t offer Noah a denial, which probably meant he was more bothered than he wanted to let on. To Adam, though, he asked, “You couldn’t come up with an actual excuse?”
“You want me to lie to you, Lynch?” Adam asked.
Ronan flipped him off.
“I don’t want to go,” Adam repeated, more for Noah’s benefit than Ronan’s. He wanted Noah to know that he wasn’t skipping the fireworks out of charity or pity. Adam was offering to hang out with Noah because he would much rather hang out with him than a sweaty crowd of noisy drunk people.
“Fine,” Ronan said. “Have fun sucking each other’s dicks.”
Blue scolded, “Ronan.”
When July 4th rolled around, Ronan, Gansey, and Blue took to the fairgrounds while Adam met Noah at Monmouth. Noah didn’t live there—his parents wouldn’t allow their sick child to live in an abandoned warehouse, which made sense, even if it was a little unfair—but he was there more than he was home. Adam jimmied the door open to let himself in. He found Noah sprawled on Gansey’s bed. His head popped up when Adam entered, and he grinned.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hi,” said Adam.
“I brought Uno,” Noah said.
“Can you even play Uno with only two people?” Adam asked.
Noah shrugged. “We’ll find out, I guess.”
It turned out you could play Uno with two people, but it took ages. They went round and round in circles for over an hour. At times, both got down to a single card, but each time, the other blocked them from winning. They could hear fireworks echoing in the distance, a boom like gunfire so familiar in the rural south, and neither flinched even though Adam sort of wanted to. Adam placed a skip card, granting himself two turns in a row, and then he placed a draw two.
“This is ableism,” Noah said. He took two cards.
Adam laughed. “You can’t say that every time you don’t get your way.”
“Sure I can,” Noah said. “It’s my consolation prize.”
Noah placed a red eight, and Adam looked at the two cards he had left. Neither was red. He groaned and started drawing from the pile. He had seven cards in his hand by the end of his turn. This game was never going to end. Probably Adam should give up and let Noah win—if only to make this stop—but Adam was too competitive for that.
“You’re going to lose,” Noah said.
“Doubtful,” Adam said.
Noah took his turn, and then Adam took his, and so on and so forth. Adam did lose, in the end, and he was less grumpy about it than he normally would be, if only because it meant he could toss down his hand and declare, “I hate Uno.”
“You’re such a sore loser,” Noah said, undeniably amused. Adam considered shoving him for that, but he kept his hands to himself. “Do you wanna order a pizza? Nino’s is still open for another hour, I think.”
“Just one,” Adam said. He decided he was allowed to let Noah order and pay for a single pizza, as a consolation prize or something.
Noah agreed amiably, “Sure.”
They ordered a pizza, and they waited for it to arrive, and Noah had to sit on the phone for five minutes directing the delivery driver to Monmouth. Yes, it’s that building. Yes, I know it looks abandoned. No, this isn’t a prank call. Look, I’m waving, can you see me? No? Okay, I’ll come out. Do you see me now? Yes, okay, thank you!
Noah brought their pizza inside, and they sat on either side of the box, and they dug in. Cheese pulled between teeth and the slice, sauce burned their tongues, and grease stained their fingertips. As a group, they indulged in Nino’s at least once a week, but still, it never got old.
“Thank you,” Noah said.
Adam blinked. “You paid. I should be thanking you.”
“Please don’t,” Noah said. He put his slice down, and he wiped his palms on his jeans, leaving a smeared stain in their wake. “I mean, thanks for staying in with me.”
Adam was good at many things. He was top of their class at Aglionby. He was nearly fluent in Latin. He could change any car’s oil without spilling a drop. He could go at least two weeks without spending a dime. Adam was not good, however, at accepting— things like this. Appreciation. Praise. Adam was not good at caring for other people, and so on the rare occasions he did care for other people, he didn’t know what to do when that care was noticed.
“I really didn’t want to go,” Adam said. “I hate the Fourth.”
Noah smiled. “Yeah, but you could’ve picked up a shift, or taken a well deserved nap, or done some studying. You didn’t have to spend tonight with me. Thanks for that.”
Adam couldn’t say anything except, “You’re welcome.”
4
The absence seizures were Noah’s most common seizures. Blue had witnessed them more times than she could count: sentences cut off mid-word, blank stares at the wall, lips smacking, eyes twitching, completely still otherwise. It was impossible to say which of Noah’s seizures were the worst—they were all bad, after all—but there was something uniquely troubling about Noah sliding away.
Noah had confessed, once, that he found Fox Way overwhelming. Blue was briefly offended, but then she let him explain. Noah grew up in a big house with a finite number of occupants. Noah grew up in a house that became more and more sterile as his diagnosis took shape. Fox Way was the opposite of everything Noah had known in youth, neither stagnant nor sterile. Fox Way was busy and messy, loud and ever changing, so of course, Fox Way would be overwhelming. Noah still came over anyway.
Sharing her bed, the two of them took scissors to canvas, making new shapes to decorate her walls. The trees she made in middle school were finally starting to peel away. Blue decided to replace them with a constellation of stars.
“What is that supposed to be?” Blue asked.
Noah had a big circle of canvas on his lap. Not even slightly star adjacent. “The moon,” he said. “Duh.”
Blue had not asked him to make the moon, but it fit the night sky theme, so she let him do what he wanted. Layers of canvas could carve interesting craters in the moon’s surface, she thought, and paint could illuminate them in shades of purple and blue. She agreed, “Duh.”
“Duh,” Noah said again, something about the sound making him smile. “What constellation are you going to make?”
“I don’t know,” Blue said. She considered making her own, a nonsense shape that signaled some feeling of rightness within herself. She had in the past likened their group to a constellation, and there was something pleasing about the idea of putting that to life. But then she remembered that the trees had been temporary, and she did not want them to be temporary, so. “Orion, maybe.”
“Cliché,” Noah said. “You’re better than that, Blue Sargent.”
Blue laughed. “Fine. What do you suggest?”
Noah shrugged. “I only know the constellations everyone knows. Orion, the dippers, that bear one, the zodiac signs. Did you know I’m a Pisces? Our symbol is a fish, and apparently we’re very emotional.”
“You’re talking to the wrong Sargent if you want your chart read,” Blue said.
“Sure, but you’re still the daughter of that Sargent, so c’mon,” he goaded. “Prove your infinite knowledge of the universe. Tell me a better constellation.”
“Andromeda maybe,” Blue said. “She’s got the galaxy closest to the Milky Way, which is cool, but I don’t really like the mythology for Andromeda.”
“I’m not Gansey,” Noah said. “You’re going to have to tell me the myth if you want me to understand.”
“Andromeda is the chained woman,” Blue said. She knew this story, as she knew the stories of all the constellations, the way other children—those with non-psychic parents—knew the stories of Goldilocks or Red Riding Hood. “She was the daughter of a king and a queen, and her parents bragged that she was more beautiful than the sea nymphs, and angered, Poseidon sent sea monsters to destroy the kingdom. Andromeda’s father saved the kingdom by offering his daughter as a sacrifice basically, chaining her to a rock to be killed by the monsters. She was saved by Perseus, the son of Zeus, and then she married him. It’s all very,” Blue waved a hand, “woman without agency.”
“Hm,” Noah intoned. “So not that one.”
“Not that one,” Blue said. “Did you know Perseus was the one who slayed Medusa?”
“I did not,” Noah said. “Do we hate him for that?”
“Yeah,” Blue said. “We hate him for that.”
Noah laughed. He fiddled with the frayed edges of his canvas circle, thinking. “Any bird constellations?”
“Of course,” Blue said. “There’s Aquila. She carried Zeus’ thunderbolts.”
“Was she a raven?” Noah asked. Henrietta was known for its ravens, and so Aglionby was known for its raven boys, and so Blue was known for her hatred of raven boys and her hypocritical love for her raven boys.
“I don’t think so,” Blue said. “There is a corvus constellation though.”
“That sounds p—”
And then Noah stopped talking. The worst thing about the absence seizures was that they came without warning and often without a trigger. In one moment, Noah was smiling and talking, and in the next, he was still and silent. He slipped away, like the wind through your fingers. There was nothing Blue or anyone could do to hold onto him. He was just gone. He was an abandoned, vacant shell.
His eyelids twitched. His lips smacked only once. His gaze pinned to the moon and did not waver. His eyes went glassy, almost damp, almost teary.
Everything about this was horrible, Blue thought. Noah was such a full bodied person—so much nuance, so much heart, so much personality. To see it all vanish so quickly was horrible, terrible, just plain bad. He went, and where he went, Blue could not follow. Blue missed him. He was right there, but she couldn’t reach him, and she grieved. She mourned someone still living, and she didn’t let herself feel guilty about it.
The best thing about the absence seizures was that they were brief. Each seizure lasted no more than ten seconds. Every time, Blue feared he would go away forever, disappear and never return, but it hadn’t happened yet. Blue breathed through Noah’s silence, and as soon as it started, it was over.
“—erfect,” Noah said.
He blinked. He blinked again. He lifted a hand and scrubbed at his eyes. Sometimes, Noah had an absence seizure without noticing. He would leave, and then he would come back without a hitch, carry right on like nothing had happened. In those instances, Blue and the others tried to play along, protecting him from the truth. Other times, Noah came back, and he knew. Blue could tell this was one of those times.
Noah’s smile had faded into a frown. “Um?”
Blue didn’t say anything. The glassiness of Noah’s eyes cleared. He tugged at a loose fray of the canvas, and Blue did not tell him not to. She let him soothe himself however he needed to.
“Oh,” he said.
Blue nodded. She put her hand over Noah’s, tracing his knuckles with her forefinger. There was never adequate comfort for this. Blue hated feeling powerless, and she hated watching Noah hurt, knowing that she could not heal him. “You went away,” she said because she knew Noah would appreciate the confirmation, “but you’re back now.”
Noah made a quiet noise in his throat. Sometimes the absence seizures came in clusters. He could go days without having a single seizure, and then they would rear their ugly head, and he’d be in and out, over and over, for hours at a time. Blue hoped this was not one of those sometimes. Blue badly wanted Noah to stay.
“I’m back,” Noah said. He moved his pair of scissors closer to Blue, and Blue took them without a word. When he was young, he’d dropped a knife during an absence seizure, and he had to go to the hospital for stitches in his finger. He was very careful not to repeat that. “So, one of the birds, then?”
Blue smiled. “Yeah. One of the birds.”
5
Henry Cheng was new to being friends with Noah Czerny.
When his mom decided to move her business to the United States, Henry transferred to Aglionby as a junior. It took him almost an entire academic year to find his footing in Henrietta. It wasn’t that he couldn’t assimilate to America—his English was nearly perfect and he wasn’t the only Asian student at Aglionby—but rather that his peers had solidified their places with each other years ago. Henry was forced to carve a new place for himself, and that took time. Eventually, though, he managed.
Strangely, it started with Adam.
Henry didn’t know, at the time, that it was strange. He didn’t know that, other than maybe Ronan, Adam was the most standoffish of anyone in their group. Henry just knew what he had gleaned from observation: Adam was the top of every class, Adam was part of an inseparable foursome of Aglionby’s most interesting students, Adam was studying in the library. Henry asked to join his table, and then they started talking about their Statistics final, and that was the start.
That was seven months ago, but Henry was still new to being part of the foursome that was actually a fivesome that was now a sixsome. He was new to being friends with Noah Czerny same as he was new to being friends with the others.
The point was: being new meant Henry had fresh eyes on a situation the rest of them had grown accustomed to long ago. He saw the others’ obvious and omnipresent care for Noah. They were always sparing him quick glances to check in. They were gentle with him when an absence seizure tugged him away. They were immediately willing to ditch inaccessible plans for yet another night at Nino’s. He saw, too, the way Noah struggled. He was always shrugging off concern. He slumped at his desk in thinly veiled exhaustion, sleeping through Latin. He caught his clumsy balance on Ronan’s shoulder, Adam’s locker, Blue’s elbow, or Gansey’s car.
If the others noticed how Noah was affected beyond seizures, then they didn’t say. Henry had a theory that it was all just Noah to them now, too commonplace to really be considered. Henry was considering it.
Probably it was a bad idea. Probably it was wrong and taboo and rude to buy someone else a mobility aid without being asked, but Henry had been thinking about it for weeks, and he especially could not stop thinking about it now. For the first time since they met, Noah had one of The Bad Ones. Over the weekend, Noah had a seizure that lasted longer than five minutes. An ambulance was called, and he was rushed to the hospital, and now it was Monday, and his absence in class was glaring—weighing heavy on each of them.
Henry just wanted to help. He was going to buy him a mobility aid. If Noah was angry, which Henry could not quite imagine, then Henry would just blame it on cultural differences. It was as good an excuse as any.
After school, Henry went to Henrietta’s pharmacy. Choices were limited, but he snagged a bright red cane from the shelf. He remembered the time they met Adam during his shift at Boyd’s and found a bright red Mustang being serviced in the lot. Noah had ooh-ed and aw-ed over the flashy paint. Henry drove his purchase out to the Czerny estate.
Adele opened the door for him. “Hey, Henry.”
She looked at the cane, and then she looked at him. She gave nothing away—neither approval or disapproval. Henry decided he would take that as a win.
“Hey, Adele,” Henry said. Every member of their group was close to Adele in some way. She was Noah’s favorite person in the world, and the one he always asked them to call after an incident. “Is Noah up for a visitor?”
“Is it just you?” Adele asked.
Henry nodded. “Just me.”
Adele said, “Promise Lynch isn’t hiding behind you?”
Henry laughed. “Promise.”
“Okay,” Adele said. “You can come in. You’re quiet.”
If Henry didn’t know Ronan Lynch, he might imagine that Ronan Lynch was loud in the way of yelling or cursing or roaring engines or blaring music. Henry did know Ronan Lynch, though, so he knew what Adele meant. Ronan was loud in the sense that he and Noah brought out the reckless, joyful, immature children in each other. They made each other laugh hard enough their stomachs cramped, and that would be too much for Noah when he had been discharged from the hospital just this morning.
Henry made his way upstairs to Noah’s bedroom. His bedroom was not neat: CDs and records crowded every surface, a skateboard sat askew in the middle of the floor, band and movie posters peeled off the walls, his comforter was a tangled mess around his legs. Noah was not asleep, but he looked sleepy: eyes heavy lidded, breathing slow, quiet.
“Hi,” Henry said.
Noah stretched a little. “Hi.”
Henry opened Noah’s curtains just enough to let sunlight into the room, casting beams of light over the mess. He sat down at Noah’s desk and rearranged some of its contents, separating school assignments from poems.
“Quit snooping,” Noah said.
Henry stopped snooping. “How are you feeling?”
Noah groaned. “Don’t ask me that. I’m so tired of that question.”
Henry figured that meant the answer wasn’t a good one. Henry figured he must still be sore all over and exhausted and scared. The Bad Ones were scary because the extended lack of oxygen to Noah’s brain could cause lasting issues, but it was always hard to tell right away what was lasting and what was temporary, what was a permanent consequence and what was just recovery. Probably Noah didn’t have an answer for how he was feeling because he didn’t know. Henry, collector of information and answers, hated that.
“I brought you something,” Henry said.
“I can see that,” Noah said.
The cane was propped against the desk, a shock of color that fit neatly into the space, like it had always been there. Henry wasn’t disillusioned enough to think that meant Noah would accept it.
“I can return it,” Henry said. “You don’t have to keep it. I just— I noticed that you struggle with your balance sometimes, and I thought it might help.”
Noah didn’t say anything. He was glaring at the cane, clearly unhappy. Henry didn’t want to upset him. Probably he should have waited to do this when Noah was on his feet again, feeling better, but it was too late to take it back.
“You know how I have my quiet days?” Henry asked.
Ever since Henry was young, he’d struggled to communicate. His words never matched his thoughts, and his words sometimes wouldn’t leave his mouth at all. They got stuck in his throat and he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, speak for hours or days. When he was young, his mother had taught him Korean Sign Language to fill in the gaps. These days, he and Gansey were learning ASL together.
“Yeah,” Noah said.
“It’s kind of like that,” Henry said. He wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to explain this in a way that made sense, but he was going to try. “I don’t need to rely on sign language. For all intents and purposes, I can talk, but sign language helps. You can walk, but this could help. It’s not a bad thing. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s not a crutch, it’s just support.”
Noah looked at him. “I don’t feel good ever. I always feel— unsteady. It happens so fast, Henry, and it could ruin me. I’m scared.”
“What are you scared of?” Henry asked.
“That… that… if I accept this, then I’m giving in. I’m giving it permission to get worse,” Noah said. “I’m letting it win.”
Henry nodded. “But isn’t it the opposite? Aren’t you more vulnerable if you ignore it, if you just resign yourself to how things are? If you keep finding ways to adapt, then it’ll never be able to ravage you entirely.”
Noah shrugged. “I dunno.”
“I don’t either,” Henry said. He picked at his nails. “You really don’t have to keep it, Noah. I just thought it might help. I won’t be offended if you tell me to fuck off.”
A laugh ripped from Noah’s throat, and then he coughed a little, and then he sighed. “I’m not going to tell you to fuck off.”
“No?”
“No,” Noah said. “I don’t know if I’ll keep it, but I’m not mad. I’d like it if you stayed for a while. Keep my parents off my back for a bit at least.”
“Okay,” Henry said.
Noah eyed the cane one more time, and then he said, “I like the red.”
Henry smiled. “Yeah, I thought you would. Do you want me to put a record on?”
+1
Today was going to be a good day. Noah could tell it was going to be a good day because when he woke, he did not reach for his cane. (He decided to keep it after all. It was rude to return a gift, and it was helpful on the days when he felt especially… wonky.) He could tell it was going to be a good day, too, because Ronan had come to pick him up. The BMW sat askew in the Czernys’ driveway and the Pig sat right behind it, the whole group already assembled.
“We’re going to the Barns,” Ronan said. “You coming?”
Noah told Adele where he was going, and she told him to call the ambulance at four minutes instead of five, if he had one of The Big Ones. It would take longer than usual for an ambulance to reach Singer’s Falls and the Barns property. Noah agreed, and he let her tug on his ear, and then he climbed into the backseat of the BMW. Adam was already installed in the passenger seat, and he started telling Noah about how Ronan let him drive halfway here before he stalled the car. Today was going to be a good day.
The drive from the Czerny estate to the Barns was long, one entirely outside of Henrietta and one on the town’s most opposite edge. It should have taken them forty-five minutes, but with Ronan behind the wheel, it took thirty-five. Those minutes were spent singing along to classic rock while Adam pretended to cover his good ear.
“Put something else on then, Parrish,” Ronan said. “CDs are under the seat.”
Adam dug out the case of CDs, and he flipped through the mess of them. Ronan often complained that he could never find anything, but Noah wasn’t brave enough to tell him the CDs were sorted by which of his friends they reminded him of. Ronan got all the loudest music, Blue all the most powerful lyrics, Adam all the homegrown favorites, Gansey all the oldest ones, and Henry everything else that could not be categorized or pinned down. Adam put on Fleetwood Mac and Ronan groaned.
“Fucking hippy,” Ronan said. His fingers drummed, familiar, along to the rhythm.
“Fucking poser,” Adam said. “I know you like ‘Songbird,’ don’t pretend you don’t.”
Noah laughed loud at that, and reached up from the back seat to offer Adam his fist. Ronan batted him away before their knuckles could so much as brush.
Noah said, “Jealousy isn’t a good look on you, Lynch.”
Ronan said, “Go to hell, Czerny.”
The Barns was as beautiful as ever. Green fields sprawled out almost as far as the eye could see, framed only by mountains and their trees. The farmhouse sat tall and proud with chipping white paint and a wrap around porch. The gravel drive crunched under Noah’s shoes and a plum tree lingered over head. He stretched up onto his toes to snag one of the fruits, and then he dug his thumbnail into the skin until it bled, dripping sweetness down to his palm. He mouthed at the mess.
“Stop destroying my fruit,” Ronan said.
Noah did not say he was too nervous to take a bite, fearful that there might be a bug inside. He couldn’t remember if that was plums or peaches or some other fruit or an urban legend. He threw the plum at Ronan and Ronan caught it. Let him risk the crunch of an antenna, then.
The Pig pulled into the driveway seven minutes after the BMW did. Gansey was unwilling to speed, even when it got him called old man. Together, they trekked deeper onto the property, abandoning gravel for grass. They stopped to pet the grazing cows. They smelled like animals, but they did not smell bad. Their fur was soft under Noah’s hands.
Blue nudged her elbow against Noah’s flank, and Noah looked at her. He knew she was assessing him, searching for signs of trouble, but he didn’t mind. Sometimes his parents’ care made him feel smothered, but for some reason, his friends’ never did. Perhaps it was because they were not obligated to look after him, and yet they did, and that was too kind to be anything other than appreciated. “Good?” she asked.
“Good,” Noah said.
Henry refused to touch the cows, and Ronan told him to stop being a little bitch, and Blue jumped in to tell Ronan not to use that word, and Gansey swooped in to assuage her, and Adam watched it all with a smirk.
“They’re dirty,” Henry said.
“No dirtier than your dick, and I bet you touch that all the time,” Ronan said.
Gansey opened his mouth, likely to scold Ronan, but Adam beat him to it. “You talk about dick way too much. How you ever fooled anyone into thinking you were heterosexual is a fucking mystery.”
Ronan’s attention swiveled to Adam, wide eyed and betrayed, and soon they were rough housing. Ronan got his arm around Adam, putting him in a chokehold, and Adam elbowed him in the stomach—a much harsher parallel of Blue’s soft nudging of Noah. Ronan pinched Adam’s cheek and Adam scuffed a palm over Ronan’s skull, and then they weren’t rough housing at all. The tension changed to something else.
“Are we doing this or not?” Blue asked, interrupting.
“Yeah,” Ronan said. He shoved Adam away, and he led the way.
Noah had no idea what they were doing, but he followed the others regardless. He fell in step next to Gansey and asked, “What’s going on?”
“Ronan wants to dig a pool,” Gansey said.
Noah frowned. “That’s not going to work.”
“No, Mr Czerny, it is not,” Gansey said. But they were going to do it anyway because Ronan wanted to be home, and this was an excuse to drag them with him. They followed Ronan to one of the outhouses, and he passed out shovels. Noah took one, but when Ronan found what he deemed the best spot, Noah dropped his shovel and did not help dig.
He watched Blue tell Gansey to put his back into it. He watched Henry glare at the dirt and then at his hands and then at the dirt again. He watched Adam wipe a bead of sweat from his brow. He watched Ronan’s eyes travel over the expanse of his childhood home, and Noah did the same. He looked again at the farmhouse, and the distant trees, and the moseying cows. The sun gleamed bright above them, playing hide and seek with the clouds, and everything was so damn beautiful.
“Hey,” Ronan said. “Pick up a shovel, Noah.”
Noah did not pick up his shovel. Instead, he sat down in the grass, letting it tickle at his hands and the backs of his knees. “No.”
“Noah,” Blue complained.
“I can’t,” Noah said. He tipped his head back, eyes half lidded. “I might have a seizure. I might fall in the hole and have a seizure in the hole and die. Can’t help, sorry.”
“You’re such a little shit,” Ronan said, but he let Noah get away with it because he was nice like that.
Noah closed his eyes, and he breathed evenly, let it out and let it in. He could only smell fresh dirt and cows. He could only taste plum juice. It was a good day.