“In a few months, I will turn twenty-two, and I will receive my box. Many of you, my fellow classmates, still have years to wait. Look, or don’t look. That is your choice. But it’s not the only choice we are faced with.
“We have a chance, now, to make a change. The strings are still new. We are still learning how to react. Which means we can start fresh. Reject the patterns of history. Promise not to repeat old mistakes. We can lead with compassion and empathy. Fight back against those who look to divide us, or pit us against one another, or make anyone feel less than. It is up to us—the ones who have yet to receive our boxes—to decide what type of world we wish to inherit, no matter how much time our strings may give us.”
The crowd of students whistled and clapped for the girl.
“A friend just showed me a video from America,” she continued, “where a boy spoke up at a rally. He said that nobody is different because of their string, we are all still human. I challenge everyone to do the same, to stand up against the people in your life who are acting unjustly. Help them see that we are all the same, all connected. We are all strung together.”
The girl was poised and passionate and eloquent, a striking combination of attributes for someone so young, Amie thought. The video was filmed closely enough that Amie could see some sort of broach or pin on the girl’s dress, small and golden.
We can start fresh, Amie repeated.
Perhaps it wasn’t too late to start over with Nina. She hadn’t missed the wedding yet.
Now, more than ever, Amie needed to be the same girl who sat outside Nina’s door for hours that night during high school, the same girl who read with Nina on the rug in the bookshop, who sent her novels across the country, filled with sticky notes inside. Amie needed to be her sister, the two of them strung together, always.
Ben
Ben was disappointed to return to the classroom yet again with still no response from Amie. But he couldn’t lose faith. Not yet. He gazed at Lea, seven months pregnant now, her tiny frame all but consumed by her stomach, and he couldn’t help but feel hopeful.
Lea carefully lowered herself onto a chair in the classroom, and then yelped in surprise when her brother and his husband burst through the doors behind her, carrying a dozen yellow balloons.
“What’s going on?” Lea asked.
Chelsea breezed in with a large chocolate cake. “You didn’t think we’d let you off without a baby shower, did you?” She placed the dish in front of Lea with a flourish.
“It’s important to celebrate every beautiful moment that life gives us,” said Sean. “And this is a beautiful moment.”
The rest of the hour dissolved into merriment. Terrell had joined the new short-stringer dating app Share Your Time, and was asking for the group’s approval of potential suitors before swiping. Maura and Nihal were relishing in Anthony Rollins’s humiliation at the hands of his nephew. And Chelsea was trying to convince Lea to audition alongside her for the next season of The Bachelor, recently spun off into two separate franchises: The Bachelor: Long Strings and The Bachelor: Short Strings.
“Come on,” Chelsea entreated. “You’re under twenty-eight in both age and waist size. That’s their favorite demographic.”
“Maybe I used to be . . .” Lea looked down at her outstretched abdomen.
“You’ll bounce back in no time,” Chelsea declared. “And the surrogacy will make for the best backstory! I bet you’d be the fan favorite.”
Though the evening bore an inherent note of sadness—the unspoken awareness that the twins would live most of their lives without Lea—there was something undeniably beautiful about the whole affair, just as Sean said. Lea was happy. Her family was happy. They were proof, Ben thought, that the world hadn’t stopped spinning when the boxes arrived. People’s lives still moved forward, new lives were created.
“And I want you guys there with me,” Lea said.
“With you?” asked Chelsea, incredulous.
“Well, obviously not in the delivery room.” Lea laughed. “But, afterwards, it might be nice.” She rested her palm peacefully on her stomach. “I’m doing this for my family, of course, but I think there’s a part of me that’s also doing this for myself . . . and for all of us. Maybe it’s just the hormones, or the fact that I can feel the babies kicking like crazy today, but I finally feel like a change is coming. Like, maybe we’re going to be okay.”
And the whole room understood.