Since fate mocked her, the one time a real conversation might have taken place was the day David arrived. Fiona had met him at the "L" platform nearest campus and walked him back to her dorm. They'd stepped into the refuge of the heated building just as Jackson was walking out. He'd held the door open-Fiona imagined he didn't realize who he was holding the door for until it was too late-and it was David who stopped and said, "Aren't you the guy from Memphis?"
Jackson stood there, at a loss. Finally he released the door and shook David's hand.
"Yeah. Jackson. We met at the coffee shop." Jackson nodded toward the bag. "You came to visit?"
"My spring break," David said, snaking his arm around Fiona's waist and pulling her closer.
After that rousing conversation, the three stood there awkwardly until Jackson said, "I've got class. See y'all later."
"He seemed friendlier over Christmas," David said, watching him leave through the glass doors.
Indeed, he did.
Now finished with her bagel and the paper, Fiona looked at her watch. David slept like the dead, something she hadn't known about him. Last night, two of her suitemates were partying with a bunch of friends in the suite common room-at one in the morning. David hadn't so much as flipped over.
He also took forever to wake up. He had time before his flight, and she didn't want it to look like she was kicking him out or anything-but still, she was ready. Her suitemates kept telling her how lucky she was to have a single-no closet space to argue over, no one else's alarm to sleep through, no quirky habits to deal with. Now she understood. Her tiny, cement-walled, perpetually cold room with poor acoustics was, at least, all hers.
Getting herself a refill and fixing a cup for David, Fiona started upstairs. She wrestled with the suite door a moment, juggling the two hot cups, before walking through the common room on the way to her own.
There on the couch sat Jackson. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his hands held in a tepee in front of him. "Got a sec?"
He looked awful-bags under dulled eyes, skin more yellow than olive. His voice sounded thinned. Whatever had taken him from there to here must have been quite a journey.
She stood there a moment, not sure what to do. His eyes traveled to the two cups.
"Oh," he said, getting up. "I didn't realize he was still here."
"He's sleeping, I think," she said, looking toward her door.
Jackson looked at the door, too. "I can catch you later. It's okay."
"No," she said, too quickly. Putting the cups on a table, she pulled a chair over. She was at a weird angle to the couch, but she wasn't sure how lined up he wanted her to be. "It's fine," she said.
He looked at the door again, his expression simply devoid-no sarcasm, no joy, no anger. Just emptiness. He resumed his original place on the couch, looking at his knees a long while.
They sat there several silent minutes before Fiona asked, "So . . . you wanted to talk about something?"
Jackson chewed on the inside of his cheek, glancing from his hands to the backpack at his feet and back again. "I've been meaning to come by, to check on you. You seemed upset, you know, after . . ." His voice trailed away. Fiona wasn't sure to which after he referred.
"I've been here. You could have just talked to me." Her voice sounded watery to Jackson's thinned. Both used only a fraction of their vocal cords.
"Yeah, well, it's pretty complicated." He dragged a hand through his hair, nodding toward the closed door. "Exhibit A." He frowned. "Or B."
She picked imaginary lint from her jeans.
Jackson's eyes were locked on his legs as well. His elbows rested on his knees. "I really fought my mom about coming up here-didn't see the rush and all that. But once I got here, I don't know, it was nice. Everything was new. Mine." He shook his head. "That sounds awful."
"No. I get it," Fiona answered quietly.
He spoke quickly, like if he didn't say it right then he wasn't going to say it at all. "Having a sick brother changed every part of my life. I mean, I let it. But still, it defined everything."
Fiona swallowed. She didn't know where this was going. She wasn't sure she wanted to.
Jackson leaned forward and dug through the backpack. When he sat up, he held five Moleskine notebooks. "They were sticking out of the trash downstairs. I haven't read them."
After a few seconds of gaping, Fiona carefully took the notebooks, resting them on her knees like they might break. She opened the cover of the top one, letting her fingers drag down the length of the page. As always seemed to happen in the presence of Jackson King, she struggled to speak past the lump in her throat. "Thank you."
"I know I should have given them to you earlier."
She nodded, not able to process past the shock. Maybe she should be mad. But, after everything, she figured he deserved a pass.
Jackson took a breath, looking Fiona head-on. Bloodshot veins turned the whites of his eyes near pink. "I wanted to see you. I just didn't know what to say." He gave a faint smile. "Ironic as it sounds, Marcus would have loved this little dilemma. The guy loved any and all hypotheticals. Not to mention he could talk to a post."
Fiona shook her head. She couldn't have this conversation. "Jackson-"
"Just hear me out," he said, holding up a hand. "I prepared a little speech and everything."
She gave a reluctant, terrified nod.
"Even though Marcus really believed some miracle would happen, he didn't waste a second." He gave a sad, lopsided smile. "So I learned this from my dying brother. Don't waste it."
"Waste what?" she whispered.
He looked at her a long time. "Everything that makes you."
"I don't understand."
Grabbing the arms of her chair, he dragged her over until they lined up knee to knee. His eyes drifted down as he spoke. Not deliberately away-more like he gradually focused on nothing in order to stay on track in his head. "Look, in the end we're all just experiences. Some are crappy, some are great, some are just plain dumb. But the more you have, the more you are. And I think Marcus knew that, it's why he wanted to do, do, do. It made him bigger than his disease.
"Being sick was part of that experience, too. It shaped his life, but it wasn't all that defined him. Eventually, the disease killed him. But it never, ever won."
Fiona felt humbled by this boy she'd never know. Even from a sickbed, he lived bigger than she did. He had looked his fate in the eye. He had faced his fear-while she always took the cowardly route around.
Even now that she was fixed, was she really any better?
No. No, she was not.
She swallowed, shaking her head. "It's not that easy."
For the first time since they discovered the horrible May 18 coincidence, Jackson touched her. After tucking some fallen strands behind her ear, his fingertips grazed her cheek for the slightest moment. Her skin tingled beneath his touch. Then he dropped his hand, wrapping it around hers and edging himself closer. With their knees staggered between each other-Jackson-Fiona-Jackson-Fiona-he nodded to the notebooks in her lap. "We've all got baggage, Fiona."
"I'm the only one wearing it on my face."
He shrugged. "So what? Other people wear it in bruises. Or on their hearts, when they lose the people they love. Kids who grow up surrounded by hate have it all over their souls. And the rest of us? We shove it way down where it rots, poisoning us slowly. Which way's better?"
She stared at her notebooks, watching fat tears plop on them one by one. "It's too hard."
"Only because you make it that way."
Again, she shook her head. "If I get up there and sing these songs, everything I feel, I am, it's just up for grabs. It becomes entertainment. Everyone knows me, but no one has to give it back. I'm naked when everyone else is in fur coats."
Jackson gave a short, unamused laugh. "Fiona, no one demands you write. No one's forcing you to play that guitar. There's no grand conspiracy to know you." Using the knot of their four hands, he pointed toward the notebooks, now splattered in tears. "So the question is, if it's not fundamentally important to you, why have you spent a small fortune on these notebooks? Why did you come to one of the country's best writing and music schools? If this isn't who you are, why are you so tormented over it?"
"It is who I am," she argued, annoyed now. "That's what I'm saying."