The Infinite Moment of Us Read Online Free PDF Page A

withholding dan-
    gerous intel.”
    An only? Oh. An only child. As for “dangerous intel,”
    Charlie didn’t get the joke. He knew enough to know it was a joke, or was meant to be, but he’d learned over time that
    normal kids spoke a language particular to normal life, the
    subtleties of which didn’t make it into state-run facilities
    or foster families.
    “So ‘only’ kids are dangerous?” he asked, keeping it light.
    “Very,” she said gravely. She looked at him, or rather
    into him, and he felt sure she was telegraphing something
    that mattered. Something she wanted to give a shape to.
    Something sad?
    She ducked her head and gave a funny smile, and Charlie
    cursed himself for failing to decode her secret message.
    “Oh my God, are you all right?” Wren said.
    “What?”
    “Your hand,” she said, and he realized he must have
    flinched. Or maybe his fingers had tensed into a fist, or the
    start of one.
    She lay her hand over his, above the area of his wound,
    and gave him a brief squeeze. Tender, and then gone.
    Warmth, then cold.
    “All done,” she said. “Keep it clean. The thread’ll dis-
    solve on its own, so you won’t need to come back to have
    the stitches removed. Good news, right?”
    Was it? He would have happily come back.
    She was acting very polite now. She was packing up the
    needle, scissors, and gauze, but he wasn’t ready to go.
    “Wren. You didn’t hurt me. You’re going to be a really
    good doctor.”
    She gave him a startled glance.
    “That’s what you want to do, isn’t it? Be a doctor? You
    told us in biology.”
    “I did?”
    “Yeah. You applied early decision to Emory because of
    their pre-med program, and you got accepted, which is
    amazing. Not that you got accepted. Of course you got
    accepted. Any college would accept you. They’d be idiots
    not to.”
    Wren’s eyes were huge, making Charlie wonder if he
    was the idiot in this situation.
    “You should be really proud,” he said. “Um, I’m sure
    you are really proud.” Her deer-in-the-headlights expression didn’t change, making him feel acutely aware of the
    muscles of his own face, which felt rubbery and no longer
    within his control. “Aren’t you?”
    She snapped out of her trance and busied herself with
    an antiseptic wipe. For a moment, Charlie felt relieved.
    She wasn’t staring at him anymore. He could, and did,
    work out the kinks in his jaw.
    But he doubted that the small square antiseptic pack-
    age demanded all of Wren’s attention, and before long,
    her reluctance to look at him forced him to open his big
    dumb mouth again. He didn’t want to. He just couldn’t
    help it. Her sad-shaped something had returned, and Char-
    lie couldn’t stand it.
    “Did you not get into Emory?”
    She made a sound that was perhaps supposed to be a
    laugh but didn’t fool Charlie.
    “Then, what?” Charlie said.
    Wren stopped fooling with the antiseptic wipe. Keep-
    ing her head bowed, she said, “If I tell you, will you keep
    it to yourself?”
    “Yeah. Of course.”
    “Do you promise?”
    Was she serious? Charlie would promise her anything.
    The sun, the moon, the stars. “I promise.”
    Her lips parted. She seemed about to speak but then
    pulled back. “Oh my God, I’m being ridiculous. I mean,
    God , Charlie. For some reason it feels like I know you, but I don’t, and—”
    She covered her eyes and pushed on them.
    He thought, You feel like you know me? You feel that?
    About me?
    She opened her eyes and gave him a wobbly smile. “Okay,
    done now,” she said. She even managed a laugh. “That was
    really weird. I am so sorry.”
    “Don’t be,” Charlie said, his heart pounding. He glanced
    at Chris, who appeared to have nodded off in the hard
    waiting-room chair, then back at Wren. “I know we don’t
    know each other that well. That’s what it is. But we do
    know each other.”
    He struggled to find the right words, and, failing that,
    he struggled to force out any words.
    Charlie