Sleeping Jenny (21 page)

Taking a seat on the couch, I opened the album and flipped back to the pages dedicated to my mom and dad. Their wedding picture, one I remembered hanging over the fireplace, was on the first page. They looked so young and brave in that frozen moment, ready to conquer the world. Mom leaned on Dad's arm like he was her pillar. Dad wore a white tuxedo, a pink rose in his breast pocket. I often wondered who took the picture and what they were thinking at the time.

My chest tightened. Underneath their names was written
John and Lisa Streetwater, born nineteen-sixty and nineteen-sixty-three. Died two-thousand-seventeen
.

My stomach clutched as I fought for breath. Sweat broke out over my head and I felt feverish all at once. They died in the same year. Five years after I was frozen.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Visitor

W
aves of sickening unease spread through my gut as Valex cut the cake. I forced a smile as Len handed me a plate with a huge piece of cake and a spork. They were trying so hard to make me feel included. I couldn't let them know how much their gift upset me. They hadn't meant to scare me, only to show me our connection through time.

Pell nestled up close to me on the couch, her little knee pushing into my thigh, and Rainy sat on my other side, pulling out her mouthpiece to bite into a piece of cake. I couldn't ruin Pell's birthday party over something that happened hundreds of years ago.

“Try some cake, Jennifer.” Pell had already smudged pink frosting all over her cheeks, and there was a giant glob on her nose.

My stomach flipped as I brought a small sporkful up to my mouth. No matter what I did today, I couldn't fix whatever had happened. That didn't stop me from itching to run to my miniscreen in my room and scour the archives to dig up information. I'd told myself I wouldn't watch the rest of the discs.

The too-sweet, artificial taste of strawberries sickened my stomach. Had my parents been murdered, or even assassinated? I shoved down the thought as I swallowed.

The worst part was I blamed myself. Somehow, I thought, if I had been awake, I could have prevented their untimely deaths by altering the course of time. The thought was so ridiculous, yet I hung onto it, imagining myself traveling back in time to push them away from a crazed gunman's rifle or a terrorist's bomb.

After I managed to shove down most of the soycake, someone buzzed the door.

Rainy jumped up and shook her head. Pell shouted. “Awww, not yet. We've just started.”

Len put a gentle hand on Pell's shoulder. “You know Rainy can't stay out long. The oxygen tank needs to be refilled every few hours.”

The doors parted and Maxim stood in my living room, staring at me wearing my polka-dotted party hat, with a sporkful of pink cake hanging in front of my mouth. If I wasn't so freaked out about my parents, I would have been mortified.

“Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Streetwater, Rainy, Pell…” His voice changed on my name, growing deeper. “Jenny.”

“Fifteen more minutes.” Pell tugged on Len's silver tunic. “Just one more round of Pixie Swap.”

Len gave Maxim a questioning look and he nodded. “I'm in no rush. Go ahead.”

“Yay!” Pell jumped up and down and cake crumbs flew all over the floor. C-7 had his work cut out for him tomorrow.

Maxim rounded the couch and sat next to me. Len handed him a piece of cake. “Thanks for staying awhile.”

“No problem. Thanks for the cake.” Maxim dove right in as if he hadn't eaten all day. He watched his sister and smiled. Unconditional love filled his eyes, and I wanted both of them to be safe in their high-rise forever.

Len and Valex retreated to the kitchen to help C-7 clean up, leaving me alone with Maxim as Pell and Rainy played Pixie Swap on the floor in front of the wallscreen.

Maxim gave me a tentative smile. “I didn't know it was your birthday, too.”

I shrugged, my emotions spiking and falling like tidal waves. “Knowing how old I really am, I tried to keep it under wraps.” I'd give the Crypt Keeper a run for his money.

“If I'd known, I would've brought you something.”

“You can't give me what I really want.” My breath caught as I choked on a piece of cake. Did I really just say that out loud?

Maxim's eyebrows shot up. I'd stunned him into silence. He turned away, his shoulders slumping and his dark hair falling in his eyes.

“I'm sorry. I don't know what's gotten into me today. Everything was going well. Valex and Len gave me this family album, which is more than sweet.”

He swallowed hard and put his plate down on the arm of the couch. In front of us, Pell and Rainy cried out in triumph. His eyes met mine. “So what's wrong, Jenny?”

I felt I could tell him anything, and I needed someone to talk to. Valex and Len would only feel bad that their present had stirred up the past. Maxim had been my confidant all along. I could trust him.

I flicked my gaze over to the kitchen. How long did we have? Our conversations always seemed stolen, rushed into the cracks of life. Dishes clanged as C-7 loaded the tray and Valex and Len talked loudly about how successful the party was. Pell sang the winning-pixie tune, so they couldn't hear me even if I shouted. I had a few minutes, at most.

Leaning in close to Maxim, I whispered, “I found my parent's dates in the book. When they were born…and when…” I squeezed my eyes shut as if I could block it out. “When they died.”

“That's awful.” Maxim put his hand on my arm and shook his head. “You shouldn't have to see that.” He cast a glance over his shoulder. “What were they thinking?”

“They only wanted to help, to show me we were connected in some way. It's not their fault.”

“I'm sorry.” He squeezed my arm with his rough, callused hands. “I wish you hadn't seen that on your birthday.”

“It gets worse.” I breathed in deeply. “My parents died in the same year, only five years after I was frozen.”

“What happened?”

I shook my head. “The album doesn't say.”

Maxim pursed his lips. He studied me with a solemn hesitation in his eyes. “Do you really want to know?”

Biting my lip, I nodded. “It's the only way I can find closure. I
need
to know what happened.”

“Then we'll scour the archives, look for anything—”

I caught Maxim's hand, interrupting him. “I have a better way.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Truths

M
axim checked Rainy's nebulizer levels. Red digital numbers flashed on a small screen behind her head. Rainy swatted at him, but he hovered out of reach.

“Leave her alone, bothead.” Pell stuck out her tongue. I gave Pell a stern look. “He's making sure Rainy can stay longer.” Maxim ignored the girls and glanced back at me, his eyes intense.

“We have time.”

Time was only half the problem, but I didn't want to face the truth alone.

We walked into the kitchen and I scrounged up my courage. Valex and Len were reviewing birthday pictures on their camera. They looked up at me and Maxim with wary frowns.

“We have to finish a school project, so we're going to my room where it's quiet.”

“Doesn't Rainy have to go home?” Len's voice was soft, careful.

“Rainy's good for another hour or so.” Maxim leaned against the countertop, looking suave, like he asked to go into girls' bedrooms all the time. “Plus, she wants to stay.”

“Can't you study in the living room?” Len pressed, her fingers turning white as she tightened her grip on the camera.

As if to illustrate my dilemma, Pell shrieked and Rainy clapped as Pixie Swap's winning tune blasted behind us again. I gave Len a pleading stare. It was my birthday, after all. If you didn't count the

years I was frozen, I was eighteen, and I didn't need their permission. Though it
was
their apartment.

“Oh, all right.” Len quirked an eyebrow in warning. “Don't dally for too long.”

In any other circumstance, I'd have been giddily nervous to take him to my room, but my parents' mysterious deaths hung over me like a shroud. I'd gone from dreading truth to seeking it, and the complete one-eighty left me feeling the universe had chewed my heart up and spit it out.

I wished I'd taken the time to fold my rumpled tunics. Maxim stepped over my clothes like he didn't even notice the tragic state of my room and glanced at the recycling chute. “Up there?”

“Yup.” I stepped beside him, kicking away stray socks. “We'll have to climb on my bed, and you'll have to lift me.”

“Cyberhell, Jenny, why you'd make it so hard?”

“Because I didn't want to be tempted to watch the videos. I didn't want to know.”

He gave me an overprotective look. “Now you want to know?”

I sighed in exasperation. Every second counted. “Yes.”

“Okay. But if your guardians catch me on your bed holding you up, I'm done for.”

The corner of my lips curled. “They never come in here. Now get up there and hoist me up.” I'd shoved the discs so far back that it would keep me from watching them when temptation hit.

He slipped off his shoes and climbed on my bed, looking like a surfer riding an especially unpredictable wave. I summoned my courage and jumped up to join him.

“Ready?” His breath touched my cheek.

“Ready.”

Maxim wrapped strong hands around my waist and hefted me up. I reached over my head and felt for the discs. Dust wafted down and I sneezed.

“Can you feel them?”

“I think so.” My fingertips brushed a hard plastic case. “Just a little higher.”

Maxim stretched his arms and I swiped my arm across the chute. The discs tumbled out all over my bed, some of them hitting us in the head.

“Ah! You could have warned me.” Maxim sniffed. “I just swallowed a dust bunny.”

“And I thought you were all vegetarians in the future.” I double-checked with my arm to make sure I hadn't left any behind. “Got'em all.”

Maxim lowered me. “Good. I don't think I could stomach another round.”

We climbed off the bed.

“Look for twenty-eight through thirty-one.”

Maxim coughed like a cat hacking up a hairball. “Yes, ma'am.”

We dug through the pile and I checked for any that might have fallen under the bed.

He dusted one off and discarded it over his shoulder. “Nope. Eighteen. Why'd you stop at twenty-eight, anyway?”

The truth punched me in the gut. “I didn't want to accept the fact that my family moved on without me.”

Maxim put his hand on my shoulder, and I had to resist leaning into his touch, accepting his sympathy, drowning the hurt in his warmth. It would be so easy to rub against him, fall on top of him, press my lips against his…

Blinking back my raging hormones, I flung up two discs. “Here are thirty and thirty-one.”

It didn't take long to find the other two. I clicked on my wallscreen and Maxim held the disc in front of the drive. “Are you sure?”

I nodded, afraid if I spoke, my voice would break.

Maxim popped the disc in and joined me on my bed.

A narrator's voice echoed in my room. “This is the journey of the dwindling population of polar bears on Earth…” The scene panned out from a shrinking glacier to the vastness of the ocean.

“What the—”

“Try the next disc.” I handed him disc twenty-nine.

Sure enough, after Maxim popped the disc in, Angela came on the screen holding a baby in her arms. She looked older, her body a little more filled out, with tired wrinkles around her eyes. “Jenny,

I'm so sorry I haven't talked to you in so long. I've been busy.” She flashed that all-knowing, secret smile I knew so well, and the old Angela came back for a second. “I want you to meet the newest member of our family, baby Todd.” “Who's that?” Maxim whispered.

I froze up. Should I tell him the truth? What would he think of me after knowing I'd been best friends with his great-great-great-grandmother? I didn't want to weird him out, but at the same time, he'd done so much for me that I thought he deserved a decent answer.

“That's my best friend, Angela.” I wrapped a thread from my blanket around my finger so tightly the tip turned red. “She's also your ancestor.”

Maxim shook his head like he hadn't heard me correctly. “What?”

I had to tell him everything. While baby Todd cried in the background, my mind traveled back to that fateful day I forgot my shoes in gym. “I had a crush on this guy named Chad.”

Maxim crossed his arms like he didn't like hearing about Chad one bit. “And?”

“After I was frozen, my best friend dated him. They went to prom together and eventually got married. At first I felt betrayed, but now I'm glad she found someone to love. Anyway, when I watched the videos, I realized something.”

I looked down, wrapping the thread tighter. “There's always been something about you that I was drawn to. Something familiar, something I liked. I couldn't put my finger on it at first, but then one day Angela's face froze on my wallscreen.” I reached out and touched his dark hair where it curled against his neck. “You have the same hair as Angela.”

Maxim's lips tightened in denial. “That doesn't mean anything. There are thousands of people with this type of hair.”

I raised my finger to silence him. “I had C-7 go back through your family tree. Maxim, my best friend and the boy I liked were your ancestors.”

Maxim rubbed his hands over his face, stretching his cheeks out. He tangled his fingers in his hair and held them there. Spiky clumps stuck out between his fingers. “What does that make us?”

I knew it. Freak-out time. I took a deep breath. “If anything, it brings us closer. I loved my best friend. When I look at you, I see everything I liked about her.”

“Isn't it messed up? I mean, you kissed me.” Maxim furrowed his eyebrows until his forehead was a bunch of wrinkles. “Isn't that like kissing your best friend?”