Untethered (2 page)

Mom moved in front of the table with a handful of vegetables and glanced out the window. “That girl should have a hat on. It’s January, for God’s sake.” But before I could see who she was talking about, she said, “Outside, you two,” and stuffed my brother Sam and me into our snowsuits, yanking woolen hats hard onto our heads.

That’s when I saw her. She wore a heavy sweater and a scarf, but no coat.

My Moon Boots punched holes into the snow as I made my way to the hedge. The girl’s green eyes followed my progress, her skin pale under a dark smattering of freckles. “Hi,” she said when I was standing across from her.

I wanted to be her. I knew it deep in my gut and tight in my heart. I wanted nothing more than to see her eyes and freckles in the mirror. To have that mane of hair free to catch snowflakes blown in the winter breeze.

A snowball whapped me smack in the back. I pointed over my shoulder and behind me, rolling my eyes: “That’s my brother.”

Cassie’s gaze slid over to Sam, then back to me. “Can I play?”

The three of us built a lopsided snowman with pinecones for eyes. Of course, Sam decapitated it the second we were finished. When he went in for hot chocolate, Cassie and I stayed outside to make snow angels.

We didn’t want to mess up the angels with our footprints, so we stayed lying on the ground. The minutes passed as we lazed there, sinking into the snow, staring at a wisp of a cloud in the cerulean sky. As the cloud disintegrated into nothing, my entire body prickled and there was a huge squeeze from my feet up to the top of my head, like all of me was suffocating.

Suddenly, I was floating outside myself, above myself, for the first time ever. Everything showed up brighter and in more minute detail than normal, from the poppy red Cardinal clinging to the bristly top branches of our tall pine tree, to the snappy twitching of a squirrel’s tail as he ran across the telephone wire, to the diamond surface of the snow in the yards all down the block. And I could see two girls below – me, bundled up and stiff in my pink snowsuit, hat pulled tight over my head and Cassie, loose as laughter in her fuzzy wool sweater and scarf. Her long hair was spread out around her, a shock of color against the white snow.

I wasn’t scared to be out of my body. Maybe because I was too young to grasp what was going on. Or maybe because it was so peaceful that first time – after all, it’s only recently the shadows have shown up.

Regardless, I didn’t freak out.

I came back to my body, not with the jolt I usually feel now, but I slid back in, almost imperceptibly. A strand of Cassie’s hair tickled my cheek.

She turned to me then, her smile radiant. “Hey,” she said. “Wanna be friends?”

Now eleven years later, our friendship is ... well, perfect. Except that nothing’s perfect. You just have to look a little closer and a little longer to find that out. Even supermodels are photo-shopped.

I lean against the hedge and can now see Cassie clearly, despite the darkness. A pinprick of envy pierces my chest; Cassie has really gotten gorgeous. Even with her hair in a messy ponytail, even in a T-shirt and well-worn jeans, beauty clings to her like fairy dust.

What I wouldn’t give for a pinch of that dust.

I give her an exaggerated smile and say, “So. Your place or mine?”

She laughs and motions for me to go there. I move close to the house where there is a tiny break in the hedge and squeeze through, passing fluorescent patio furniture and an industrial-sized grill. Cassie is already lying on her back in the grass. I lie down in the opposite direction, the top of my head almost touching hers.

How many times have we done this – met in the middle of the night, in her or my backyard, looked at the stars and talked? I don’t remember how young we were when it started – when we met at night instead of day — because like most everything with Cassie, it’s always just been that way. I do remember how old I was when my mom freaked out about it, though: thirteen. Cassie and I had fallen asleep out in my backyard, and in the morning when my mom saw us there she completely lost it (for a yoga nut she can get pretty wound up). She started screeching at us never to go out alone at night (even in our own backyards) because who knew what kind of murderers or kidnappers or rapists lurked waiting to get their hands on us. Who knew what would happen to me if I were out of her sight. Of course, Cassie’s parents thought the whole thing was hilarious. They would let Cassie sleep on the lawn every night if she wanted to. So now Cassie comes out with no worries, while I always have to sneak around as if I’m doing something criminal like selling drugs.

The grass is cool but dry. I bend my legs, knees in the air, and grip the lawn with my toes.

“Tonight was the worst, Sylvie. I swear that Ted is deranged.” Cassie lifts a long leg up into the air as she talks. From where I am it looks like her toes are pointing to the Big Dipper. “Get this: he bought two big servings of pasta from Infusino’s — not to eat – but to show me how they splattered all over the place when he ran over the boxes with his Harley!”

I laugh and lift my own legs into the air. But next to hers, they look like short twigs.

Cassie sighs. “I can’t believe I spent the last night before school starts with him. I should’ve spent it with you.”

“Yeah, well. I was pulverizing pasta tonight, too,” I joke. “Messy, but fun.”

Cassie giggles, but she knows what I did tonight. Same as I usually do while she’s out with boys: absolutely nothing. We stay quiet a minute, listening to the crickets and gathering our thoughts.

I take a breath, hold it, then let it out long and slow. “My dad moved out today,” I whisper.

I feel a whoosh of air behind me as Cassie sits up and looks down at me. “I don’t believe it.”

“It’s true.”

“While you were at the sleep lab?”

I nod.

“He really did it. I thought he was bluffing. But he really did it.” Cassie bites her lip and puts her hand on my arm. “Oh, no. I’m sorry, Sylvie.”

The pain I’m feeling must be the same pain the lady in the box would feel if the magician ever actually sawed her in half. I sit up. Cassie’s hand falls from my arm, but she stays closer to me than usual. “Yeah,” I say. “Well, you’re not as sorry as I am. With Dad gone, Mom’s taking Dr. Hong’s orders to feed me healthy food a little too seriously. We had millet pilaf for supper. With a beet Bundt cake for dessert.”

“Beets for dessert?”

“According to Mom, they’re sweet.” I pause. “Actually, the Bundt cake was almost edible. It was the pilaf that didn’t turn out. Not for lack of trying, though.”

“She does love cooking,” Cassie says, cringing.

“Yeah. Too bad none of us have the heart to tell her how badly she sucks at it.” The thought of my Mom standing in front of the stove stirring something black and sticky brings a smile to my face. She thinks she’s a food alchemist. That she can carbonize dinner and still somehow turn it into something delectable. It never works, but she never gives up. It’s one thing I love about her.

I guess it’s one thing Dad doesn’t love anymore.

My smile fades.

Cassie gives me a hug. She smells like chocolate and Aviance Night Musk. I want to cling to her and cry, but instead I give her a squeeze and pull away. “Ugh. Let’s talk about something other than family.”

“Okay,” Cassie says. She smirks at me, raising one eyebrow (she can do that, raise one eyebrow at a time). “Gonna ask Kevin out this year?”

Kevin Phillips is a god. He is the sun and the rest of us are planets circling around him. He is the hottest, most popular guy in school: the pitcher on our high school baseball team and one of the best on the swim team. But I fell in love with him before his popularity – way back in fifth grade when he still had braces and thick Coke bottle glasses that got knocked off every time he played a sport.

Now that Kevin’s got straight teeth and contacts, he only looks at girls like Ashley Green or Kayla Conroy. Pretty, snotty, and easy.

“Shut up, Cass. You know I’m not going to ask him out. He’s been with what’s-her-name since March, anyways. They’re gonna have their lips grafted together soon.”

“So what?”

I cross my arms and study her. Cassie and I have always hung together, two loners against the world. Me, the medical misfit. Her, the caretaking kind that’s never left my side. Of the two of us, she’s the cute one. Even in first grade, people would comment on her thick hair, the sprinkle of freckles on her nose. However, by age ten, Cassie’s cuteness got eclipsed by her gawky limbs. We were a perfect pair then – me, the short, skinny one, her, the tall, gangly one. “Late bloomers,” my mom always said about both of us – although all I have to do is look at my mom and see that I’ll never “bloom” into something curvy. But just this summer Cassie did. She turned beautiful, really beautiful. Like some exotic creature, not my best friend. And here I am — barely skirting average on a really good day — right next to her like a nasty zit on a perfectly made-up face. There’s no way a zit like me is asking Kevin out.

“Just forget it, okay?”

Cassie finds a dandelion and picks it. Then she takes a breath and says, “Don’t get me wrong, Sylvie. But don’t you ever want to maybe ... look at other guys, too? He’s not the only one out there, you know.”

Fear trickles through me. “You like him, don’t you.”

“No, that’s not it.” She shakes her head. “I just think that either you talk to him or you ... branch out. That’s all.”

Thing is, there’s no “branching out” for me. Because maybe Cassie doesn’t remember, but I can’t forget how in fifth grade I would go to school nauseous with fear, knowing that Randy Lang would get me at some point during the day. How he’d call me
skinny
and
creepy
and, how no matter how hard I gripped my lunch money in my sweaty hand, he’d manage to pry my fingers back while grinding my spine into the rough tan bricks of the school wall. How I’d always end up a quivering mass of jelly on the ground. How Randy made me feel so small and worthless and scared, I never told on him. And how Kevin stopped it. Kevin, in his crooked glasses and bright orange braces, should have looked ridiculous standing up to Randy to defend the class weirdo. But instead he looked like a hero.

“Leave her alone, you stupid ape,” he said one day.

“Yeah, whaddya gonna do ‘bout it metal mouth?” Randy growled and pushed Kevin into the same brick wall.

And then Kevin did it. He bit Randy. Not a clean bite. A nasty one, one that left ripped skin stuck in the wires on his teeth. One that got Randy screaming like a baby. One that got Kevin a month of sitting in the principal’s office after school. And one that saved me from any more torture all the way through to the end of eighth grade.

Even now I can’t think of Kevin and that day without tears clawing their way out. I swallow and say to Cassie, “No other boys. No one but Kevin. I’m just not ready to talk to him yet.”
Yeah. Not until I suddenly grow a new face.

“You know you’re obsessed, right? “

“Cass, you don’t understand. You’ve never been saved by someone.”

She looks at me. “Yes, I have. You’ve saved me lots of times, Sylvie.”

“I’ve never
saved
you.”

“In a way. My parents ... I’m just glad you’ve been around. You’re there when I need you. Kevin may not know it, but I know you’re the best ever.”

“Oh, don’t start
that
B.S. It’s —”

But Cassie reaches over and pokes me in the side, my most ticklish spot.

“Hey!” I laugh and slap her lightly on the forehead. We poke and smack each other, giggling until I see the light go on upstairs in my mom’s bedroom window.

“Crap! It’s my mom. Gotta head.” I stand up, brush the grass off myself and race toward my house.

“See you tomorrow,” Cassie says in a loud whisper.

I slip into the kitchen silently and open the refrigerator, yanking out the cranberry juice. I turn on the stove light to see better and get a glass. Just as I’m filling it, Mom appears in the doorway.

“Ah!” She jumps and puts her hand to her chest. “What are you doing here? You almost gave me a heart attack.”

“Thirsty.”

“Can’t sleep either?”

I shrug and sigh, relieved she didn’t get up because of me and Cassie. Coming down for a midnight snack is acceptable in her eyes. Going into the yard isn’t.

She sits down at the table across from me. She looks like she’s been electrocuted, her hair is such a mess. And her eyes are all puffy, like she’s been crying.

I hesitate. We haven’t said much to each other today and I’m afraid a question might open up a dam. But I ask anyways. “Why are you up?”

“Oh, too much on my mind. With your father gone, I keep rehashing our lives, wondering what I could have done differently. What
we
could have done differently. Just looking at the bathroom sink, where his toothbrush should be—” She stops abruptly. “Oh, Lord. You don’t want to hear this, Sylvie.”

She’s right. I don’t want to hear this. It makes me too sad. I try to smile at her but it comes out lopsided. I get up and pour my juice in the sink. “Well, I think I’d better get some sleep.”

She nods and gives me a pat on the arm. I hurry up the stairs, but before I reach the top, I hear her sob. In my room, I close the door, shutting out the noise, wishing I could shut out so much more.

Three

August: Shadow Plays

I toss and turn in bed. The pain and anger of seeing my dad pack up his car and leave hasn’t gone away. In fact, it crushes me so hard, I’m squeezed out of my body. Literally. I try to clutch my bedcovers, to stop it from happening, but I have no control.

Oh, come on. Give me a freakin’ break. Like I don’t have enough going on?

I’m out in a matter of seconds. I feel solid, but insubstantial. Like Cool Whip.

I hear them before I see them: the shadows. An icy tongue of fear stabs through me. The noise is a high-pitched hissing. I know it’s a language, even if I can’t make out the words.

Dark inky pools enter the periphery of my vision. Long, liquid fingers curling around the room. Then around me. Their touch is frigid and insidious.