The older woman gave the girl’s arm a shake and then let her go. “I caught them necking in the stacks,” she said, angry.
Emma looked at the girl and realized it was Samantha, a junior. The boy she didn’t recognize, but he looked at least as old as Samantha or older. A senior maybe? She didn’t understand why Samantha would do that, she’d always been one of the good students—straight As, a little shy but always friendly and pleasant in the library. She liked to read, Emma remembered as she rubbed her forehead, her own headache growing stronger. Somewhere in the distance, she felt Duncan take notice. She didn’t understand what would make the girl disobey one of the major rules. “What happened, Samantha?” she asked gently, waving at Portia to go help some of the students lining up to get books checked out. The faster Emma could fix this problem, the sooner she could go get a painkiller.
“I can’t help it, Ms. Bell,” Samantha began. The boy reached for her again and Emma didn’t prevent it, wanting to see what he’d do. As soon as he touched the girl, her face smoothed out and they both sighed. Emma frowned. What was going on?
“You couldn’t help what?” Emma tried to understand.
“It hurts when we’re away from each other,” the boy said, his voice cracking. Emma winced, understanding his nervousness. “It’s like, when we’re together, everything is okay. When we have to go to class,” he paused, shooting a look at Samantha, “different classes, I mean, everything goes wacky.” Emma looked at Samantha. The girl was nodding.
“I don’t know what’s happening to us. And my arm is so itchy. It’s like I’m having an allergic reaction or something.” Samantha absently rubbed her arm.
A chill went through Emma at those words. Could it be? “Can I see your arm?” Samantha nodded, and Emma gently rolled up the girl’s sleeve. On her forearm, it looked like a faint bruise was forming. Emma’s heart began racing. It looked exactly like her own arm did before the tattoo manifested. She turned to the boy and saw him rubbing at his right arm. “What about you?”
“I didn’t do it! I swear!” He looked pale.
Emma shook her head. “No, no, I know you didn’t. I meant, is your arm itchy too?” Emma noted how he didn’t seem to even realize he was still fingering the skin of his arm, too.
He looked down at his arm. “You know, actually it is, but I’ve been so worried about Samantha that I didn’t notice until you said something.”
“Here, let’s see,” Emma said, feeling Jake watching now, too. Duncan was alert, and she knew they were both seeing what was happening through her eyes. Or, at least she thought she could feel them. She grimaced as the boy pushed up his sweater. The skin on his forearm was red from his rubbing at it, but there was a slight bruise coming up, the same shape and size as the one growing increasingly defined on Samantha’s arm.
“What were you doing in the stacks?” Emma asked, almost dreading the answer. She felt Jake trying to soothe her worry, and wished she could frown at him. “And what’s your name?” she asked the boy.
“I’m Jonathan,” he said, then went quiet. Emma noted that he seemed reluctant to answer the rest of the question.
“Samantha?”
The girl was quiet for a split second, a look of intense guilt on her face, then she broke down. “I’m sorry, Ms. Bell! I know we weren’t supposed to! But I felt so awful, and when we agreed to meet here, I didn’t even think about, about—” Samantha was in tears now, but she quieted down as Jonathan hugged her.
Emma sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers. “Let me guess. You met here and as soon as you touched you felt better.” Both teens nodded, looking guilty but calmer. “And then after making out for a few minutes, you realized that kissing not only made you feel better, it made you feel incredible, right?” Both of them were looking at her like she was talking a foreign language, and Emma didn’t blame them. Usually when a teacher caught kids making out somewhere in the school they got immediate detention. Emma knew what she was supposed to do, but they were showing the same symptoms she’d just spent two weeks suffering, the same symptoms she could no longer deny were real. She took a deep breath. “Have either of you heard of bonding?” They looked at her blankly. “It was on the news about a week ago? How two people are drawn to each other, and then strange markings appear on their arms, like tattoos?”
Jonathan cleared his throat. “I saw it on the internet but didn’t think about it much. Seemed weird. And anyway, this bruise isn’t a tattoo.”
Samantha shook her head. “No, Ms. Bell, I never heard of bonding.” Emma noticed that though Jonathan was no longer hugging Samantha, their hands were still clasped. Emma didn’t want to think about what prying them apart would do to them. In the back of her mind, she felt Duncan and Jake agreeing with her.
“Okay, look, I’m sending you to the nurse. I think you should both go home for the day.” They protested that they didn’t want to be separated, but Emma ignored them. “And I will personally tell the nurse about the bonding thing. I’m sure we can work something out.” They nodded at her, trusting that she would help them. Emma felt a sinking sensation in her chest. Their parents were not going to deal with this well, she just knew it. In her mind she felt Duncan frown and caught the stray thought that at least the kids were boy-girl and not gay. She felt her blood go cold at the thought of trying to untangle that kind of mess. Emma worked in a very conservative community. She knew that many of the parents weren’t that open-minded. She watched as the marks on the kids’ arms grew more prominent the longer they touched. This is a disaster waiting to happen, she thought as she ushered them out of the library.
Much later, Emma dropped onto her sofa, exhausted. She knew that she should get up, get ready for the concert, but she was totally wiped out after dealing with the nurse and the kids’ parents. Samantha and Jonathan refused to be separated. It took a lot of cajoling, but Emma was finally able to convince the parents not to force the issue. She showed them the news reports on the internet. They weren’t easy to find, which worried her greatly. The phenomenon was widespread, and just a few days ago, she was able to find a lot more data on bonding. Now, however, articles she remembered reading were missing. It was as if someone had done a methodological search and erase on all bonding data on the web. That freaked her out because she knew how hard it was to get rid of anything once it appeared on the internet. She’d finally had to resort to a little-known archive that cached articles and web pages. Something was happening, and she didn’t understand what it was. Why weren’t the people who were experiencing the bonding posting anymore about it on any of the social networks? What happened to all the blog posts? And even more disturbing, why had all the official articles about bonding disappeared? It was weird, and Emma was too weary to think about it any longer today. She closed her eyes and idly followed Duncan and Jake around the pre-show sound check, smiling as she felt Jake freaking out over some detail or other with the venue’s PAs. She tried not to think about the fact that Julie would be here in fifteen minutes, ready for their drive to New York. They had just enough time to get to the city, park, and not miss too much of the opening act. Emma felt a flutter of nerves in her gut thinking about the concert. Two weeks ago it sounded like a great idea, but now she was terrified at the thought of meeting Duncan and Jake face-to-face. Duncan was singing and joking around with his band right now, she knew that, but that didn’t prevent him from pausing to send her reassurances as he got wind of her mental state. Emma groaned, dropping her face in her hands, embarrassed.