Untethered (18 page)

Mom wipes her eyes. “Oh, yes.”

Sam falls into a chair and looks at the cartons of melting ice cream. He must be upset by the sight of Mom eating dairy, because he doesn’t even grab a spoon. “I’m really popular at school, Mom,” he says.

Mom pats him on the knee. “That’s great, honey.”

“It is great. It’s awesome. But,” his voice breaks. “I come home and with what’s going on, I don’t feel great. I feel ... sad.”

Leave it to Sam to get eloquent about it. If only I weren’t here, maybe he’d still be happy.

I do my best to hold back tears.

Mom doesn’t hold back at all. Sam’s words gets her bawling all over again.

“You moron,” I mouth at him while Mom’s blowing her nose.

Then I see movement in Cassie’s house. She’s standing there, behind the lace curtains in her kitchen, watching us. When I catch her eye, she reaches up and pulls the shade down hard.

1:00 a.m. My mind is on overdrive. I can’t sleep. I slip my hoodie over my pajamas and pad downstairs to the backyard. I lie on the grass. It’s cool, but soft as velvet. The air smells like fall. The sky is clear, and I can make out the Big Dipper among the stars. I can never remember the other constellations.

I rip a handful of grass out of the ground and let it fall back down like confetti. I think about the fight with Cassie today. She thinks she’s better than me now that she’s so good looking. Now that Kevin’s interested in her. Why stick with someone like me?

I roll over onto my stomach. The grass is still green enough to smell tangy. I breathe in its scent and feel like crying, but my eyes stay dry.

All of a sudden I hear the faint squeak of a screen door.
Crap!
It’s Cassie. I plaster myself to the ground.
Don’t see me, don’t see me.
Her head bobs around above the hedge, then suddenly nothing. She must be settling down on the lawn.

Just seeing her perfect head for those few seconds gets me ticked off again. Anger comes off of me in waves. I yank at the grass and take deep breaths and wait for Cassie to go back inside.

But she doesn’t go in. She must have seen me because she says, “I was supposed to go out with Kevin tonight.” Her voice is just loud enough for me to hear her through the hedge.

The anger is practically strangling me now. I pull and pull at the grass. I’ve already pulled enough to feed a small cow. “Oh?” I say, trying to keep my voice even. “But you didn’t?”

“Well ... you don’t want me to, do you?”

“And that’s why you didn’t go out with him tonight?”

She’s quiet a minute, then she says, “No. I had to stay with my mom. Dad’s working and she ... I couldn’t leave her alone.”

My anger melts. Her mom’s been drunk and pulled this on her before. Several times. Passing out. Crying fits. Suicide threats. That kind of stuff. I move to get up. To reach across the hedge and give Cassie a hug. Because I always have. I always do. Because I’m her friend and I love her. Despite it all.

But a little voice in the back of my head stops me.

Okay
,
let’s get this straight. Cassie turns into a beauty queen and no longer spends Saturday nights with you. She embarrasses you to no end in front of your lunch table, then gets ticked when you get upset about it. She kisses and decides to date the one boy she knows you are completely in love with. And you want to be her friend?

Well. When you put it that way.

I hear a bit of movement and then Cassie’s standing behind the hedge, her arms crossed over her chest. “I want us to be friends, Sylvie. You’re ... like a sister.”

A pain sharp as a razor blade pierces my chest. I love her. I hate her. I feel sorry for her. I envy her. “So you’ll leave Kevin alone.”

She crosses her arms tighter. “No.”

I leap up and stand facing her across the hedge. “In that case, I already have a sibling, thank you very much.”

“Face it, Sylvie. You were never gonna make a move on him!”

“I was! I just didn’t have the chance.”

“You’ve had since the fifth grade!” Cassie’s voice gets loud enough to startle me.

“Shut up,” I hiss. “You wanna wake my mom?”

“I just wanna do what I want for a change, Sylvie. I never, ever get to do what I want.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me!”

“I’m not. I always do what I think is best for everyone else. But I’m sick of it.”

I blow air out of my mouth in disgust.

“Sylvie, it’s like Kevin was made for me. Now that I know him. He understands me, I think. Usually boys are all about themselves. He’s ... different.”

“I could have told you that.” My voice is steel.

“Get off it. Why don’t you go out with Nelson? He’s perfect for you.”

The nerve. “I can’t believe you! What, you’re hoping to pawn me off so you can steal Kevin without feeling guilty?”

“Come on, Sylvie. We’ve always been together, no matter what. Don’t let a boy come between us.” She holds up her finger. “Blood sisters forever.”

I take a step towards the hedge, its scraggly branches poking me in the stomach and legs. “I don’t know why you want to be my friend, Cassie. You’re not acting like one. You’re the one letting the boy get between us. Go out with Kevin, you backstabber. You can eat at his table and play with Tori. I don’t care. I don’t want to be your friend anymore, and I’m definitely not your blood sister.” I march to my back door and step inside the house. I hear Cassie say my name, but I let the door shut behind me.

I lean against the closed door taking deep breaths. For a split-second, I go astral without meaning to. The shadows surround me the moment I’m out. And when I slip back in my body, like dark smoke, the shadows fill my mouth, nose and lungs. Something happens deep inside me. Like a black stain slipping about then grabbing hold of my soul. I can feel it eat away at me, leaving behind only the oily residue of hatred.

And at the back of my mind is that voice that says,
Become her. Figure out how.

Twenty-Two

October: Speaking in Tongues

In the morning, I look like hell. My face is blotchy and I’m this putrid gray color, like I was up all night.

I did wake up. A lot. All night I had dreams, nightmares, and even once or twice I wasn’t sure if I had an OBE or was just dreaming it. God, I’ve got to stop hanging around with the shadows. They may make me feel good, but they also make me look like crap.

I stare into the mirror and swear. I don’t even need makeup. After last night, I’d fit right in with the Goths.

I sneak out, hoodie pulled up, before Mom can see me and call Dr. Hong.

Cassie and I manage to not meet up at our locker even once. I glimpse her in the hall, walking with Ashley and Tori, but we don’t come near each other. At lunchtime, I stop just outside the open cafeteria doors. Cassie is sitting at Kevin’s table. Sarah and Michelle are with her.

My whole table has deserted me. Just like that.

Did you really expect anything different, Sylvie?

“You want me to sit with you?” Sam comes up behind me. He doesn’t want to sit by me. He’s just being nice. Though I hate to admit it, he’s what they call a good soul.

“Thanks, Sam. But I’ve got stuff to do.” It’s really better that both of us don’t fall to loser status.

I say I want to work, so Mrs. Stilke lets me spend lunchtime in the Art room. I get on my smock and take out the painting I’ve been working on: ‘Home.’ Everyone else’s work shows an actual place. Mine is the only one that could be considered abstract. But it isn’t abstract. It’s very concrete, just unrecognizable to all but me. It’s the silver cord and the strange, golden, fuzzy-light way I see my hands and feet when I astral project. On a background of Prussian Blue to represent the nighttime sky, the whole effect is oddly eerie and comforting at the same time.

I’m pretty much finished already, but I’ll keep at it and at it for the rest of the year if I have to. There’s no way I’m going to sit at a lunch table alone.

I don’t really talk to anyone all day. And no one tries to get me out of my funk. I can’t even imagine how scary I look.

Nelson stays away from me in Art class. For some reason, this makes me feel hollow. I go to the sink when he’s there and tell him I’m sorry for how nasty I was yesterday. “Yeah, sure,” he says. But he still sits across the room.

I walk home alone.

Alone: it’s something I need to get used to.

I eat in the Art room by myself all week. And the following week.

I sit at Mrs. Stilke’s beat up table, a wilting watercress sandwich lying pathetically before me (bad idea to have asked Mom to pack me a lunch). The faucet in the back of the room drips, a metallic plonking sound alternating with the tick of the clock. Plonk. Tick. Plonk. Tick. If I strain my ears hard enough, I can make out the din from the lunchroom above. During Homecoming week, there are always food fights between the classes. The juniors in the lunch room will be sticking together regardless who usually sits where.
Yeah, whatever.

I take a bite of my sandwich but don’t feel like eating the rest. I shove it away from me and go to the supply room, hoping to take my mind off things. I’m in front of the pans of watercolors when the door to the supply room swings open.

It’s Nelson. “Oh,” he says, looking uncomfortable. “I thought you were Mrs. Stilke.”

“Nope. Just me,” I say.

“Hey, well, I’m skipping out on study hall. I should probably go back.” He turns to leave.

“Don’t go,” I say before I realize it even comes out of my mouth.

Nelson stops. His voice is quiet. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have lunch now?”

I keep my eyes on the watercolors.
Indian Yellow, Cadmium Orange, Faience Blue.
“I eat lunch here,” I say.

I can feel him go still. “Since when?”

“Since the other day. Since I fought with Cassie. Since I fought with you. Since I have no more friends, basically.” I can feel my eyes burning with tears but I force myself to look up and give him a smile and a shrug, like I don’t really care. “Who needs friends, right?” My voice catches and tears leak out onto my cheeks.

Ugh. Could I get any more pathetic?

Nelson must find me pretty pathetic, too, because he comes over and wraps his arms around me. I stiffen, then let go, leaning into the warmth of him.

My face fits perfectly into the crook of his neck. He’s solid and smells like a vanilla milkshake. While I cry, he rests his jaw on the top of my head. I feel it move as he speaks. “I’m sorry, Sylvie. I was a dickwad for not talking to you. Won’t happen again. ”

I pull back from him and wipe my face. “I can’t believe I’m crying.”

“When you cry, it makes the grey of your eyes more intense. Makes them silver.”

I laugh at that and smile up at him, so glad he’s back to being my friend. He smiles down at me, the dimples in his cheeks deep lines on either side of his mouth. The dimples disappear along with his smile, and he suddenly looks serious. His hands slide onto my hips.

“Feeling better?” His voice is low and masculine and amazingly sexy. He leans down and I can feel his lips on my forehead. His breath is warm and sends shivers all down my body. The shivers stay and pulse somewhere between my legs.

What the hell is going on?
I close my eyes in confusion and suddenly, his lips are touching mine. Suddenly, we’re kissing.

We’re kissing.

What are we doing?
I open my mouth to say this. Nelson takes it wrong and his tongue touches mine.

Zap! An electric current couldn’t have shocked me more. I back into the row of metal shelves and feel something sharp poke at my back. That’s all I need to lose grip of myself.

In a split second I’m above the two of us, by the buzzing fluorescent lights. My body stands there for a moment then kind of sags against the shelves. Nelson’s face is filled with horror. “Sylvie?”

The shelves are those flimsy stand-alones you can get at someplace like IKEA or Home Depot. The weight of my body topples them over. There’s an enormous crash, and tubes of paint, brushes and single-edge razors go flying. Nelson yelps and it brings me back to myself.

“Oh, crap,” I say surveying the damage and rubbing my sore back.

“What happened? Are you okay? ” Nelson’s eyes are open so wide I can see the white all around them.

“I’m fine. An X-Acto knife or something poked me in the back. That’s all. Freaked me out a bit.” I avoid looking at him. I’m still reeling from the fact we kissed.

Kevin was supposed to be my first kiss.

Nelson puts his hand out to help me up. “You ... you fainted or something.”

Or something.

“Maybe we should take you to the nurse,” Nelson continues.

“No.”

“You sure?”

“I said no, Nelson.” I grab his hand a bit too tightly and he pulls me until I’m standing. I let go the second I’m up.

“Didn’t know I was good enough to send girls swooning.” He attempts a laugh but it comes out sounding forced.

I feel like I’m on the Tilt-A-Whirl. Like all my emotions are churning around inside me in two different directions. Like I can’t find my footing anymore.

“I’m sorry if I –” he starts.

I cut him off and motion to the downed shelf. “Mrs. Stilke is gonna kill me.”

Silence. Then: “She doesn’t have to know.” Nelson grapples to put the set of shelves upright. I grab the other side, jumping on the chance to do something. Something other than talk about what just went on.

We work without saying a word until the end of the period. When the bell rings, everything is back in its place. Very little ended up being wrecked or broken.

“There,” Nelson says, as we shut the door to the supply room. “Like it never happened.”

“Yeah,” I say, thinking about my spontaneous projection, about my crying. About the kiss, that kiss that came out of nowhere. Now that I’m no longer bawling, Nelson’s probably feeling just as strange about the whole thing as I am.

“Yeah,” I say again and look directly into his eyes. “Let’s just pretend that none of it ever happened.”