The Infinite Moment of Us Read Free Page A

kinds of big things waited for her right around
    the corner, all kinds of chances and risks and huge, crazy
    changes. She was supposed to let the thrill of it all sweep
    her away. But she was scared.
    What happened with Charlie—what passed between
    them when their guards were down—that scared her, too.
    The idea of a person’s hidden parts mattering most, when
    she was the one keeping a secret.
    In AP English, she’d read a myth about the vastness of
    the universe. In it, an old woman told her grandson that
    the world rested on the back of a giant turtle. “It does?
    Well, what does the turtle rest on?” the grandson asked, and Wren had read faster, naïvely hoping she was about to
    be given the answer to life.
    But no. The old woman laughed and said, “That’s the
    best part. It’s turtles all the way down!”

    c h a p t e r t w o
    Wren Gray was the most beautiful girl Charlie
    Parker had ever seen, and the most brilliant. She didn’t
    seem to realize she was either, which was crazy. But Char-
    lie had eyes. Charlie knew the truth.
    When she smiled, Charlie wanted in on the joke. When
    she pushed her dark hair behind her ears, Charlie thought,
    Yes, that is how you do it. When she walked down the halls
    in her collared shirts and knee-length skirts, he saw with
    absolute clarity how much classier she was than the other
    girls in their tight jeans and peekaboo thongs. Charlie had
    had some experience with girls in tight jeans and peeka-
    boo thongs, or with one particular girl in tight jeans and a
    thong. She hadn’t left a great impression.
    But Wren wasn’t like that girl, or any girl, even though
    she was clearly and definitely a girl. Once, on the senior
    patio during lunch, she’d lifted her arm to call over her
    friend Tessa, and her blouse hugged her curves. He drank
    her in for as long as he decently could.
    On Wednesday, Charlie drifted through the last day of
    classes as if he were in a fog. Everyone else was wired at
    the prospect of summer, but Charlie didn’t want sum-
    mer. He wanted Wren. But unless he manned up and took
    action—like exchanging more than half a dozen words
    with her—he was doomed. Wren would go her own way
    after Saturday’s graduation ceremony, and Charlie might
    never see her again.
    On Thursday, which was his first official day of no
    school, Charlie worked alongside his foster dad at the
    woodworking shop his foster dad owned. He clamped
    a slab of cream-colored birch onto the workbench and
    switched on the router, shaping the wood to fit an oddly
    shaped nook in a client’s bathroom. His thoughts stayed on
    Wren as he rounded the corner of the plank. Her sweet
    smile. Her shiny hair. The way her brown eyes grew pen-
    sive when the end of her pen found its way to the corner of
    her mouth, suggesting that she was contemplating some-
    thing important.

    One day in AP biology, Wren had argued with Ms.
    Atkinson about free will in the face of cellular determin-
    ism. It was at the beginning of the semester, but already
    most of the seniors were starting to tune out their teach-
    ers’ lectures, and Charlie wondered if that was why Ms.
    Atkinson had tossed out the sensationally termed “para-
    site gene,” a gene that supposedly triggered a propensity
    toward exploitive behavior in those who carried it. She
    encouraged the class to consider what the existence of such
    a gene might imply—“Is that what drives the president of
    a company to embezzle funds, or an addict to steal from a
    family member?”—and while Charlie drew into himself,
    Wren shook her head in frustration.
    “Humans are too complicated to be explained by unrav-
    eling their DNA,” Wren said. “Aren’t they? Otherwise
    wouldn’t our lives have no meaning?”
    “Why do you say that?” Ms. Atkinson said.
    “Because, okay, say a kid is born with the‘parasite gene,’
    if there is such a thing. Are you saying he has no choice but
    to grow up and mooch off others? He’ll never