Through to You (10 page)

I breathe deeply and look down at the photograph, at myself … can I call him me? His hair is shorter, the way I used to cut it so my football helmet fit. He’s grinning like an idiot. Nina’s smile is wide too.

I blink. “How?”

“I don’t understand it either, but Cam—”

“There are
not
two of me!”

She grits her teeth. “No, there aren’t. You’re
you
… in your own world.”

My own world? My world … all I can think is I want to go home—where Viv’s shrine is still up and my dad no longer owns a boat. I reach for the doorknob.

Nina flies between me and the door. “What I’m trying to say is—you
can’t
go out there right now. You saw me last night, right? Only it wasn’t me?”

I envision her wearing that green diner apron, scrunching up her freckles when she smiled. My skin feels clammy.

“I think so …”

Her voice is shaking now. “What was she like?”

“She looked just like you.”

She gives a hard smile and steps closer. I can see the same sprinkle of freckles on her nose, but they don’t move. “And she acted just like me too?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“How was she different?”

I think for a moment. “She seemed more … cheerful. Or something.”

Her face darkens. “See? You could tell it wasn’t me. Just like everyone here will know you’re not our Cam.”

I think about seeing Nina for the first time, and wonder how I might’ve reacted to a transparent green version of myself instead. I shove my hand in my pocket and touch Viv’s picture.

“Then I should get back,” I say.

“Look, you do have to go back. But if you leave right now, someone might see you go through.”

I glance out the window, catching the beginning of a light pink sunrise. By the time I get back to the school, it’ll be full daylight.

“If I hurry—”

“It’s too late.”

She crosses her arms in front of her, and it’s so stupid because I could easily push by, whether I’m in shape or not. But she has a point about not being seen. I’m not super anxious to run into anyone who might think I’m
him
right now. I look down at the picture of us—them—and rub my jaw, unsure my face is even capable of that expression. All I’m sure of is that I need a shave. I look up at Nina’s solemn face. It strikes me again how opposite she is, both of us are, from our other … versions. What gives her a job and him a boat neither of us has? Why doesn’t she scrunch her freckles when she smiles? What makes him look so damn happy in this picture?

NINA CLOSES THE DOOR AND I LISTEN TO HER PAD DOWNSTAIRS TO
get breakfast for her brother. With no one to talk to, my ears tune in to the noise coming through the wall. Aunt Car sounds like a muffled freight train, but as long as she’s chugging, no one gets in trouble. I wander to the window. Mike’s rust-red Toyota is parked in front of his house down the street—nothing out of the ordinary there. I wander back. I pick a pencil out of the mug and set it sideways on the empty desk. I don’t know how Nina stands it in here.

The picture sits facedown on the dresser. I think about telling Dr. Summers the good news: I’m perfectly sane—the
world
has gone crazy. Worlds? I wish I’d taken physics or paid more attention in math or something. I lift the edge of the photo and peer at the other me. Trying to wrap my brain around this is giving me a headache.

I wander around the room, but the crazy tidiness makes it difficult to be nosy. A beat-up rag doll sits on the bed, but even its arms are neatly folded in its lap. The closet door is ajar, so I peek in. It smells like cedar. Nina’s clothes hang arranged by length in a scheme of mostly boring dark colors. I notice a stack of framed posters facing the wall just inside the door, and this piques my interest. I pull the first one back to have a look. It’s a movie poster from the original
Night of the Living Dead.
I thumb through the other frames and find a ton of classics.
The Pit and the Pendulum
,
Suspiria, The Exorcist
, even
Carrie
. I’ve seen all of these, and loved them—despite Viv hating horror movies. I glance out at the sterile walls of Nina’s room and back at the brightly colored movie prints. Weird.

I close the closet door and study the bookshelf’s insanely straight rows, which I notice are even alphabetized by author. It’s mostly fiction—some contemporary, some classics I recognize from school. I spot a well-used copy of
Ethan Frome
, among others. Maybe Nina can help me study. On the bottom row, a red hardbound volume sticks out past the shelf. I am instantly curious. It’s the only book that doesn’t conform to the obsessive-compulsive pattern. It’s too tall and too wide.

I bend to pull it free, pausing to listen for Nina’s returning footsteps. All I hear is snores rising and falling through the drywall. I grasp the spine of the book and slip it off the shelf.

INTERSECTIONS: FOWLER HIGH SCHOOL RED RAMS YEARBOOK

I have to admit I’m interested. Is there another Logan West in this place? I grimace. Maybe he looks like the douche he truly is in all his pictures … maybe I’ll discover more about my BFF Nina—maybe I’ll see Viv. My heart picks up until I recall the tattered shrine and mangled bushes by the utility pole in
this
world. I have to close my eyes until they stop stinging. Things here are more worthlessly the same than they are different. I slide my hand to my pocket, where her yearbook cheerleading picture is, but that was taken when we were freshmen. This is last year’s book, junior year. Neither one of us is going to be in it anyway.

I flip pages randomly. Some are black-and-white, some in color. Rows and rows of faces alternate with magazine-like spreads about
LIFE AT FOWLER HIGH
.

I stop flipping.

There’s Viv. In full color.

Her smile is so wide it seems to cut across the page. She stands in a silky red gown that rides her body as if she was sewn into it. People lean in close to her on either side. Paper hearts dot the air. There’s a tiara in her piled-up black hair. She stands under a banner that reads
VALENTINE
’
S DAY DANCE, RED KING AND QUEEN
, holding the arm of a stiff-looking guy in a tux.

I blink.

It’s me.

I sink into the beanbag chair and try to make out the other faces—Tash Clemons in pink, Nikita Roberts in white. They stand close to Viv, like her attendants or something. Mike lurks in a shadow to my right; a bunch of people crowd together below the stage. Everyone’s grinning just as big as Viv. The headache I’ve been harboring breaks loose inside my skull. My vision blurs.

But we don’t go to dances …

I slam the book closed.

I grip the hardbound edges of the yearbook, as if the pressure might change what I saw inside—Viv and me at a dance we never attended, crowned the Red Queen and King by everyone we hate? I tear it open again and slash through the pages, searching for
something
familiar—something true. Logan’s overdimpled grin sails by and I thumb back to that photo more carefully. It’s on a two-page spread devoted to Rams football.

The caption under the pic reads:
Varsity Captains
. On the field in full pads and uniforms are Logan West and Rashad Davis, last year’s senior star running back. They’re on the field, helmets in hand, kneeling on either side … of
me
.

All I can do is stare.

I’m in our red-and-white uniform holding a ball, smiling like a moron. Someone must have posed the shot, because not only is Logan kneeling at my feet, but I look like I own the field. My stomach twists—but I remember to breathe—until a headline at the top of the page catches my eye:

FOWLER QUARTERBACK OVERCOMES DEVASTATING INJURY FOR RECORD JUNIOR YEAR

I try to swallow, but my mouth is bone dry. I skim the article, eyes darting over the other pictures.
Camden Pike … right leg shattered … last year’s Homecoming game …
There’s a shot of me running, looking over my shoulder, not seeing the linebacker headed my way at full speed. I recognize the last moment of my last game, and cover my eyes.

I pull my aching knee to my chest.

One moment, that’s all it took. My life stopped rotating around schedules and practices and became a haze of pain between doses of morphine. They said I’d walk again, but the season went on without me. Sometimes the team even won with Logan. I didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore.

I run a shaky hand around the captain photo—I’m afraid to touch it.

Between my fingers I catch a glimpse of Viv on the sideline, all pom-poms and ponytail, filling out her uniform in ways I’m
too
familiar with. The dull ache moves from my leg into my groin.

“Hey, I thought I’d see if you were hungry—”

Nina stops short when she sees the book in my lap. She closes the door.

“That’s my yearbook,” she says.

“It’s definitely not mine.”

She leans against the door awkwardly.

“It’s funny …” I get up and hold the picture in front of her face. “
Your
best friend is the team captain, he’s the freaking Red King, and his cheerleader girlfriend was the envy of the school—”

“Keep your voice down,” Nina hisses.

“Is this why you didn’t want me roaming the streets?” I ask. “Afraid I might run into someone when I’m
so
not him?”

My knee throbs. I stare at her hard, but she won’t look at me, won’t speak. I push past her for the door.

“You can’t leave—”

“Fuck it.”

“No, my aunt!”

I’m out of her bedroom and halfway down the hall when I hear a door open behind me and a sleepy voice call, “Nina, what are you—But that looked like—”

I’m down the stairs and outside before I can hear her reply.

The chill is still in the outdoor air, but it looks like the sun might make its way out of the clouds. I spit on the front walk on my way out. At the corner of Genesee Street I realize I’m still holding Nina’s yearbook. I consider chucking it into someone’s yard, but I turn it over, study the red leather cover, and tuck it under my arm instead. I’m not ready to let go of anything that holds a picture that beautiful of Viv, no matter how fucked up it was to see. She looked happier than I’ve ever seen her—on the arm of her star quarterback. My stomach sinks at that thought and I bite my lip hard to remember to breathe. I scan the street, but don’t see anyone coming, which is too bad because I’m telling whoever I run into to fuck the hell off. The other me can deal with it. His life is charmed enough.

THERE
’
S A SMUDGE ON MY BEDROOM CEILING THAT LOOKS A LITTLE
like Jupiter, complete with a large red spot. I’ve been staring at it all day, since I forced myself back through the creepy green light and made it home. I’m pretty sure if I keep watching, it’ll start orbiting my room.

Today, that wouldn’t seem so weird.

My phone rings, directly in my ear. I fumble under the pillow, paw through the unmade sheets next to my head.

“Hello?”

“Camden? Where are you? Your shift started twenty minutes ago.”

I glance out the window. It’s almost dusk.

“Shit.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry, sir, I …”

I peer across the room at my closet and try to think of an excuse. A few shirts are hanging, but most of my clothes spill out onto the floor, avalanche-style. A white sleeve sticks up like a flag of surrender toward the back. A white jersey with a red number five emblazoned on it. My grip tightens on the phone. The
other
me somehow wore that number again.

“I quit.”

I hang up. Turn the phone off. It’s much easier to blow people off when you don’t have to hear their nagging voices.

I shove the pile of clothes inside the closet and lean against the door so I don’t have to see that red-and-white jersey, or think about him. How could I—
he
—be playing football? We couldn’t have had the same injury; maybe that’s the difference. The pain was … I was so doped, I can’t remember the pain. But the first day they made me try physical therapy, just trying to
walk
was harder than any practice Coach Reed ever dealt.

The doctors said it was unlikely I could play again.
Unlikely
—don’t bother, kid, your career is over. Viv was there. She held my hand when they said it. I made it till everyone left before I finally broke down, and she climbed carefully into the bed with me. She brushed back my hair, shaggier than it had been in a while, and told me she liked it better long. Then she put her cheek against mine and reassured me,
Who needs football as long as we have each other?

She stayed there by my side, every day and night, while everything around us went to total shit. Dad left that month. Mom turned into a bigger workaholic zombie. The team lost the season without me.

But I still had Viv.

Nina’s yearbook lies at the foot of the bed. I open it to the picture of the Red King and Queen, and trace my fingertip over Viv’s beauty-queen smile. She only gave up cheering when I left football. I don’t think she realized choosing me over them would cost her her friends. But … this … it’s like the picture restores her rightful place in the universe.