Then he went and got his keys, and his truck went off down the street, announcing itself to the whole neighborhood, and Caleb went up to his room and lay on his bed with his shoes on and looked at the ceiling until it got dark.
The box sat on the dining room table all night, half unwrapped, with silver stars around it like confetti after somebody's party had been called off.
* * *
The wave came at 11:48 p.m., which Jordan knew because the clock on his desk was the kind with red numbers and he watched them while it happened.
It always started in his hands. Dr. Ines said that was common, that lots of people felt it first in their hands or their chest or their throat, and that it wasn't dangerous, even though it felt dangerous, even though it felt like his heart was a bird that had flown into a window and was now flying into it again and again. His fingers went tingly and then numb, like they'd been asleep, and then the tingle climbed his arms, and then his chest got tight and small, like it had shrunk two sizes, and there wasn't enough room in it for air.
Five things you can see.
The red numbers. 11:49. The book of illusions on his nightstand, the staircase that went up forever and down. The glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling, which Caleb had stuck up there when Jordan was six, standing on his bed, saying, "That's the Big Dipper, that's Orion, that one's just a random one I made up, it's called Caleb's Belt." The blue package on his desk. His own hand.
Four things you can touch.
The blanket. The wall, which was cold. His knees. The edge of the package, the paper, the place where the tape was.
He didn't get to three. He didn't need to. The bird had stopped hitting the window. It was just sitting there now, stunned, breathing hard. He breathed with it. In for four. Hold. Out for six.
It was supposed to go differently.
He'd had it planned since January. He'd planned it the way Grandpa planned an engine rebuild, with every part laid out on a towel in order so nothing got lost. He'd open the big box. Everybody would say whoa. Then, before anybody could say anything else, he'd hand Caleb the little box, and Caleb would open it, and it would be the red controller — the Cosmic Red one, the exact one, the one Caleb had shown Dev on his phone back at Thanksgiving while Jordan was sitting right there on the other end of the couch and Caleb hadn't even noticed him noticing. Jordan had looked it up that night. Seventy-five dollars. Three Saturdays and three-quarters of a fourth.
And on the controller there'd be a sticky note in Jordan's handwriting that said PLAYER 1.