Page 90 of What You Wish For

“None of that is math.”

Alice gave me a look like I was pitiably naïve. “Everythingis math.”

I sighed.

“I’m just saying,” Alice said, suppressing a little smile, “if I plotted your slopes on a graph, they’d intersect.”

I pointed at her. “Nope.”

But she was having fun. “If you were geometry, you’d have proved yourselves weeks ago.”

“Alice!”

But she couldn’t resist one more. “If you were algebra, you’d both be solving for X, if you know what I mean.”

“Cut it out!”

She straightened, hearing something real in my voice. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s bad,” I said.

She shifted gears. “Why is it bad, again?”

But I didn’t know how to answer that question.

Because it was too good. Because it made me want him even more, and there was no way wanting him was going to end well. Because he would never remember that kiss, and I would never forget it.

“It’s bad,” I finally said, “because it was so good.”

“Oh, Sam,” Alice said.

Did she understand? Could she? I wasn’t even sure that I understood. All I knew was this feeling I had—like I was carrying a terrible secret about myself… a secret that would always ruin everything.

“If you never let yourself want anything,” I said, trying to explain it without saying it, “then you’re never disappointed. But if you want something…someone…”

Alice leaned in, her eyes soft with sympathy now. “Are you afraid he won’t want you back? Because—I promise you—he does.”

“It’s not that,” I said.

I didn’t know how to explain. But this was why I hadn’t even tried to date anyone since my epilepsy came back. I said I needed stability, and that was true—but it was deeper than that.

The truth was, there was something wrong with me. Something I couldn’t fix.

Something disqualifying.

On the night my father had left my mother, when I was eight, I’d overheard them arguing. I’d had a grand mal seizure that night—I’d had them constantly back then—and this was a particularly bad onethat made me lose all bladder and bowel control at a country-club party for some of my father’s clients. Back home, after my mother had cleaned me up and put me to bed in my favorite flannel nightgown, I had slept—you always sleep after a seizure—but the sound of them arguing woke me up a few hours later.

I listened for a little bit, but when it didn’t stop, I crept to the edge of the stairs, where I could peer down at the entryway.

They were just out of view, standing close to the front door. I could only see their shadows, but I could hear the voices loud and clear.

“I didn’t sign up for this,” my father was saying.

“None of us did,” my mom said.

“She’s not getting better, she’s getting worse.”

“We’re doing everything we—”

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