Phobic (2 page)

“What’s with you?” I ask the house under my breath.

The sound crackles again and I pause. Even though I’m used to crazy sounds, this one I’ve never heard before. I should go; we’re going to be late. Todd’s waiting. It’s probably nothing. But curiosity wins over.

In a hurry, I duck into what used to be called the parlor area, just off from the front door, ears peeled for the source. Maybe the radio in here felt left out and decided to copy the TV turning on by itself. Like appliances can feel anything.

The room is ornate, filled with ruched chairs and tables from a different time. Lamps drip with fringe; thick, gaudy curtains pomp up the windows. A cream chaise lounge loiters across from the fireplace beside a collection of old pictures.

I walk over to the antique radio topped with an elaborate doily. Silence.

I look out the window. Todd’s truck gives me a dose of reality for about six beats, and then the crackling sound rides softly on the air once more. Definitely not the radio. I scurry back to the only other device the sound could be.

Black and white fizz covers the TV screen, powered on like before. Only the screen agitates slowly like its disturbed by hundreds of tiny bugs. What is with this thing? I roll my eyes and reach for the control when a voice breaks through the static.

“D—ort,” fizz. “Sor—pen—th,” more fizz, followed by a final sound: “—per.”

I freeze. Though I haven’t heard it in ten months, and though the phrasing is broken as if trying to contact me over a bad channel with only parts coming through, I’d know that voice anywhere. The same message repeats, ending in the same manner.

Todd’s horn honks one more time, and I turn the TV off, grab for my clarinet case and scramble out of there before the house can give me any other kind of creepy interaction. I don’t have time to deal with its mood swings right now.

Fortunately the knob doesn’t fight me this time, and I bolt outside, the screen door slamming heavily behind me.

To have the TV turn on by itself isn’t that unusual. To have it happen multiple times, and reveal a broken message that came across like a poor cell signal, is totally uncanny. I have no idea what the voice was trying to say, except that I’m almost sure it belonged to my dead father, and it ended with what sounded like the last half of my name.

T
he Ramones blast when I open the door to Todd’s pickup and climb in. The seats are worn, gray cloth, and the smell of fake berries swirls around. A circular air freshener sits in the cupholder beneath the stereo.

My pulse flares into a frenzy just being near him. Heat gathers in my cheeks and chest, and I sense him even across the gray seat. The lines of his face are different to me now. I’ve known them better than my own since I was nine, but now they’re like a language I’ve only caught bits and pieces of but have come to understand completely. The level of his cheekbones, the soft curve of his lips.

“What took you so long?” he asks. He wears a tan jacket, and his curly black hair tufts behind his ears. “I was honking for, like, fifteen minutes.”

For a moment I debate whether or not I should tell him about the TV flicking on, or about hearing my dad’s voice, but I decide against it.

“You were not,” I say instead, and then add, “you and your oldies,” before turning down the volume. The sight of Todd’s Snoopy Pez dispenser shoved among a gob of crumpled receipts in the cubby below the radio is oddly relaxing. I take a few breaths to slow my pulse. It was nothing, I tell myself. It couldn’t have been my dad’s voice. My house just does freaky things. That’s all.

“I’ll have you know The Ramones are one of the original punk bands that stick to the main three-chord guitar system—”

“Yeah, yeah.” I wave him off with a smile and sink back into the seat with another shaky breath. “Nerd,” I add, as if that says it all.

It wouldn’t be a surprise if Todd had a book somewhere on the history of rock bands, with a whole section on subgenres like punk. He’s a geek like that, the type of person to do extra reading on the Revolutionary War just so he can learn more about it than what gets covered in class.

The sunshine helps me relax further, makes everything seem brighter out here, helps me detox from grim thoughts. Or maybe it’s just being with Todd. He knows me,
gets
me, the way no one else cares to. I don’t have to rush around him, to be afraid he’ll poke fun at what I say or how I look. He sees
beyond
that.

I stare at the multicolored brick homes lining the street. Their quaintness is so different from the lavish Victorian architecture of my home, with its wide, white porch and triangular trim on the eaves. And I can’t get the desperate sound of Dad’s choppy message out of my head.

“Today’s the big day,” Todd says, turning the corner and providing a distraction.

“No, tomorrow,” I correct him. He gives me a grin that lets me know he’s joking. “You’ll still give me a ride, right? Because Joel has to work and he tried, but he can’t get it off—”

“We’ve been over this, Pipes. You know I’ll give you a ride.”

I was afraid once he made the football team he wouldn’t have as much time for me anymore, but nothing has really changed. Except for his new pack of friends. I think again of Sierra’s group. In any other case I’d grind my teeth, but this time another thought occurs.

If Dad is trying to contact me, I want to know why. The house would know I don’t like those guys—maybe inviting them over will trigger it again. It’s stupid, I tell myself. They’d never buy it, and who knows if it would work at all, anyway? And besides, I still don’t understand why the house didn’t want me leaving this morning in the first place. Or if that’s what actually happened.

Sigh.

Part of me wishes I could sneak off and run through my audition piece a few more times. The clarinet is free therapy. Instead, I keep hearing Dad’s voice, keep picturing his aloof presence. The way he would stand and watch me with a calculating gaze, or the way he acted most of the time since Mom’s crime—so consumed with himself and his library that he hardly cared whether I was above ground or six feet under. And now that non-message almost sounded like he’d been asking for help. But that’s impossible.

“You okay?” Todd asks.

“It’s just my audition,” I lie. Stupid, to have them all over. And what reason would I give, I’m hoping to hear from my dead father?

“It’s in the bag.” He dishes me a warm smile that I can’t help but return. “You’re going to blow them out of the water! And even if you don’t, I’ll be there. Right on the stage. I’ll tell them how your squawking wakes everyone up far too often, and they need to let you win just so you’ll stop practicing so freaking early.”

I laugh. “Because that’s an acceptable reason to award a scholarship.”

“Sure it is.”

Silence cocoons in the cab between us as Todd pulls into Vale High’s parking lot. The momentary elation of just being with him siphons out at the sight of cars and students in clusters or walking solo, laughing, staring, putting a kink in my stomach. “Beat on the Brat” plays, with its simple
boom chuck boom chuck
drumbeat and those odd inflections that only The Ramones can pull off.

“Coach was cool with you taking practice off?” I ask, fingering the rectangular black case in my lap.

“Oh yeah. I told him my mom needed a ride to the hospital.”

“And he bought it?”

“Yep.” Todd parks near the football field and kills the engine right as Joey Ramone sings,
Oh yeah, oh oh
.

I climb out of the truck and adjust my clothes. I leave my sweater on the seat since the sun is already at bake level. The smell of spent exhaust wafts on the air, and I ignore the clumps of kids gathered nearby or flocking through the doors across the lot, as if the school holds something they all want.

Smiles on their faces, heads to the ground, fingers locked with fingers. Everyone in their own world even though we’re all at the same place. I picture the reasons for the smiles, the hand-holding. I don’t get how one place can offer Spectacular for some and then Suckfest for others.

“Anyone ever tell you it looks like you’re planning on running away?” Clutching the strap of his backpack, Todd gestures to the clarinet case in my hand.

“It does resemble a mini-suitcase,” I say.

Todd gives the sky a careless look, his forehead smooth. The tan jacket hugs his broad shoulders, and he tucks a few fingers into the pocket of his jeans. It’s not fair; he looks so calm—and okay,
gorgeous—
when I’m fizzling like a dry-ice bomb inside.

“You coming?”

I shake myself and realize he’s standing by a car in the row across from where he parked.

“Do I have to?”

“Hey, Todd!” someone yells. Todd looks over and waves a long hand to a group of guys near the flagpole.

He gives me a beaming grin and says, “See you at lunch, okay?” before breaking toward them.

“Sure,” I say, even though he’s already gone. Students pass me, and like a trained dog I mount the sidewalk and join them, heading toward the heavy brown doors closest to my locker inside.

The halls are congested. Chatter and laughter fill the air, along with the sound of someone slamming their locker. Once I make my way through the thickest part of them, bumping a few shoulders and getting a sore toe in the process, I nearly trip.

At the mouth of the hallway stands Sierra Thompson and at least five of her friends. Right next to my locker.

They gathered there on purpose. They must have. Sure, they planned ahead of time right where to stand while waiting for the bell to ring.

I’ll just go around them. No biggie. Except my geometry book and finished assignment are both nestled snugly in that double-crossing locker, and unlike Sierra, whose only reason for coming to school is to display her cleavage, I care about my grades.

I can do this.

Walking toward them is like facing a firing squad, except I’m not blindfolded and I can see exactly when the shots will be taken. Sierra tosses her shoulder-length hair back and gives off a high-pitched laugh, and a few of the girls with her snicker, too. Sierra’s boyfriend, Jordan, pulls her to him as she giggles again.

Maybe they won’t see me. If I hurry, maybe they won’t notice I’m here.

Air is viscous, but I breathe it in and focus on the brown industrial carpet, drawing an invisible line for my feet to follow. A shoulder bumps into mine, but I keep looking down. Keep walking. The sooner I get my book, the sooner things will be fine. Fine. I just have to make it. Past.

Sierra’s eyes brush across mine, and she nudges Jordan and the other girls. Someone in the huddle starts coughing as I approach, and then the coughing doubles, triples. Vulgar, hacking coughs, way too loud and too many for all six of them to suddenly be sick. They all find a cure the minute our hall monitor, Mrs. Johnson, passes.

Just get your book. Open your locker, and get your book
.

My hand shakes, but I crank out my combination and yank the door, snatching my book as quickly as I can. My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I glance at the notification on Quizper. Then I wish I hadn’t the minute I see what the question is.

Is there even a leper colony that would take you in, Payback?

Thanks to the stupidness-slash-sweetness of the app, anyone can ask anyone a question, whether you’re app friends or not, and stay completely anonymous, but I still look around to see which of them sent it. By this time, though, they’ve cleared the hall. Figures. Slamming my locker shut, I force my gaze straight ahead, a hitch in my throat.

I hate their name for me. Everyone knows what the rest of it means. Payback’s a bitch. So by calling me Payback they’re basically calling me a B instead. That’s been my nickname since freshman year when they all decided that calling me Zittles or Pizzaface was too unoriginal or something.

I try not to let them get to me, most days. They can act like jerks if they want. Maybe if they’d get off their self-raised platforms and realize nobody likes them as much as they like themselves, then they could stop trying to one-up everyone else.

That must be why my house didn’t let me out right away this morning. I know better than to complain out loud, and I’d let something slip while I was getting my Pop-Tarts.

Or maybe it held me in because it wanted
me to hear Dad’s voice.

Nah. Couldn’t be.

It’s quieter once I make it to first period geometry, and I sink into my seat. The cold plastic strokes my back, and regret spills through me. Or guilt. I can’t tell the difference.
Something
clogs up my chest, anyway. Most of the time I just disregard what those guys say about me—and at least if I don’t answer no one else will see it. I think what bothers me more is my dad’s voice coming from the TV. I should have kept my mouth shut earlier. Either that or I should have just let my house trap me in.

“Good morning,” Miss Tewell says in her businesslike way. Her mullet is slicked back and hangs like a horsetail down the back of her head. A few kids mutter, but most of us don’t answer.

“Pull out your lines and line segments assignment,” she barks, and then goes to the whiteboard to pull out her trusty marker and begin going through the answers. I try to pay attention, but my thoughts keep drifting.