Untethered (24 page)

“Crystal.”

She nods and tells me to have a good day. I walk out the front doors and follow a path until I come to a different entrance.
All right. Act invisible.

I get a few strange looks, but no one says anything to me until I get into the patients’ wing.

“Too early for visitors,” says the nurse behind the counter as I try to walk past unnoticed. She’s short, round and has glasses that look like they’re about to fall off her nose.

“Oh, uh, no, I’m not a visitor. I’ve got a physical therapy appointment.” I rub my shoulder for effect. “I’m on the swim team.”

The nurse pushes at her glasses and smiles at me. “Have to get your appointment in before school, huh? It’s a big complex. You’re in the wrong building.” She gives me directions. I nod and pretend to leave, but round the corner and wait for her to abandon her post instead. It takes ten minutes, but finally she disappears into a room down the corridor. I sprint after her, keeping an eye on the room numbers as I make my way down the shiny white hallway.
210 ... 212 ... 214 ... 216
.

I push open the door as slowly and silently as I can. A green curtain is drawn partially around the bed, so I see nothing but a lump underneath the blankets. I’m expecting to find myself alone with my body, but opening the door an inch further I see my mom. She’s wearing a rumpled pink sweat suit and looking out the window. There’s a hospital pillow on the only chair in the room and right away I know she’s been here all night. An ache twists my lungs inside out. How many times has my mom tried to touch me lately and I’ve pushed her away? If only she’d turn around now and hug me, tell me everything’s okay ....

She does turn around, but I can tell by the way her eyes flash that she won’t be taking me in her arms. She stabs the call button at the side of the bed and barks, “You’re the boy who made jokes about my daughter! Who do you think you are, coming here? Get out! Now.”

“No, look! Sam was wrong. I wasn’t making jokes—”

“Out!”

I make a lunge for the curtain around the bed – I just need to see for myself – but Mom’s suddenly Superwoman. She’s faster than a speeding bullet and is blocking my way before I even notice she’s moved.

“I just need –”

“OUT!”

Yeah. She’s stubborn. She won’t listen if I try to explain any more. And there’s no way I’ll fight her. So I slip back out the door and run down the hallway past the same nurse that gave me directions earlier. “Hey!” she says as I pass, but I don’t stop until I’m back at Kevin’s Camaro.

The only place to go is school. I start the car and make my way there. Okay. Kevin’s schedule ...
think, dammit!
Chemistry, math, free hour. That means working in the office. His locker code ... God, I’ve watched him so much I should know it ...
15-35-2.
Or is it 35-2-15?
Oh, crap.
This is so freakin’ unreal. Can I do this? Can I pull off being him? I’m going to have to because I am him. Or he is me. From now on, what I do, or think, Kevin does or thinks. Sounds like a fantasy — three days ago I would have thought that’d be great — but I never would have meant it all so literally.

The car rattles and kills as I let up too quickly on the clutch at the stoplight one street before St. Anthony’s. Dwayne Fischer pulls up next to me in his truck, and yells out, “Hey, Phillips! You drive like a girl!” He laughs and punches it to get ahead of me.

What? I can’t even catch a break in a different body?
I start the car again and wonder how Kevin would have responded to Dwayne. Except Kevin never would have killed the motor in the first place.

All of a sudden a scene flashes in my head, so vibrant, so real, I wrench the car over to the right and slam on the brakes to catch my breath. I see Dwayne in his truck after school. It’s the day he embarrassed me in the cafeteria, I know it. I don’t know how I know but I do. Dwayne’s laughing, then yelling out the window at Nelson Strange when I walk up. Only I’m not me. I’m Kevin. And I watch Nelson bang on the hood and say, “You’re a prick, Fischer!” which only makes Dwayne laugh even more.

Then the scene is gone and I’m blinking at the road in front of me.
What the hell was that?
Breathe in. Breathe out. I shake my head
. Weird. Really weird.

I drive the block to school.

There are only about two minutes to spare before classes start, so luckily I don’t have to chat with anyone in the hall. But as I slip into a desk in Kevin’s chemistry class, Tyrone Dickson punches me in the arm and motions to my glasses. “Stylin’.” He whips them off my face and puts them on his own. “God bless America, you’re blind!”

I take the glasses back.

“Hey, that Sylvie chick’s in the hospital,” he whispers.

“I know.”

Over the loudspeaker during the announcements, I’m mentioned. “Say a prayer today for Sylvie Sydell, hospitalized over the weekend,” says Sister Catherine in her high-pitched voice. I feel like I’m at the wrong end of a telescope. Like even though everything around me is close enough to touch, it’s strangely distant. There are a few whispers, but then class starts.

Mr. Paige complains about how little he’s paid to deal with walking hormones, but then manages to give us a few instructions for our chem experiment. It’s called
Genie in a Bottle
. We create a cloud of smoke in a bottle and let it free. I drop the tea bag full of potassium iodide into the hydrogen peroxide and watch a cloud rise up and out of its prison. Just like that. What an easy escape.

Suddenly, my throat tightens and tears sting my eyes.

Tyrone’s talking about the swim team’s next meet. I swallow and blink and forget to listen. He flicks me on the forehead with his finger and says, “Yo, Kev. Wake up!”

“Yeah. Still half-asleep.” I fake a laugh. From then on, I grunt from time to time, doing my best to act like I know what the hell is going on. But I guess I sound as much like a Neanderthal as Dwayne Fischer because Tyrone squinches his eyes at me and says, “Man, you got brain damage?”

That’s how the whole morning goes. With me just trying to make it through. With me wondering why I’m still stuck in this body.  Wondering why I can’t make an easy escape, too.

I feel people’s eyes on me as I walk down the hall, and hear giggles in my wake. When I turn around, everyone makes a point to pretend to be busy. It happens all morning until Ryan Witteck practically kills himself laughing. “What’d you stick up your ass, Kev?”

I watch how I walk from then on.

Before lunch I head to the boys’ bathroom. Some idiot’s blocked up all the toilets with entire rolls of toilet paper, so I wait until I’m alone and try peeing at a urinal. I manage it without splashing on my shoes. If it weren’t so twisted, it’d be a major victory. The handle to flush the urinal is sticky. I wash my hands so thoroughly I could be scrubbing up for surgery.

I go to the cafeteria and head towards the table where Cassie’s sitting with Kevin’s regular crowd. Except Sam isn’t there. I wonder if he’s stayed home until I spot him sitting by himself in the far corner. I change direction and head his way.

All sorts of guys from the swim and baseball teams smack me on my shoulder as I cross their paths:

“What’s up, Kev?”

“Hey, Phillips!”

“Yo, how’s it hanging?”

I nod and keep going, wishing for a second that Kevin wasn’t so popular. A group of sophomore girls giggle like idiots as I pass their table. Keri Nielsen comes up behind me and grabs my butt. I practically squeal like a little girl at that, but I continue towards Sam. He sees me approach him. The dark eyes behind his glasses turn black.

“How come you’re sitting here?” I try to give him Kevin’s winning smile. The one that melts everyone. I hitch my right side of my lip up a little higher than the left and lift my eyebrows. But I can’t do it right. It feels like a palsied twitching, not a mastered movement. And Sam isn’t melting at all.

“I don’t want to be near
you
, that’s why.” His eyes are bloodshot and he’s got Band-Aids over both thumbs. He hasn’t taken a bite of the hamburger in front of him, but the bun is riddled with holes where he’s picked off the sesame seeds. The sight of him is gut-wrenching. I can imagine he’s all alone in our house now, with Mom at the hospital all the time. Or maybe he’s sleeping at Dad’s on the air mattress until things are back to normal.

If they get back to normal.

Guilt and fear coat my tongue; I say thickly, “Sorry, Sam. But it’s not what you think. I’m trying to get things right.”

“Leave me alone, Kevin.”

I want to tell him everything, but I can’t seem to say any more. So I leave him, buy some limp french fries and a Coke and walk back towards Cassie’s table. Tori Thompson is there. There’s no good reason for her to be there – lately she’s been sitting by Dwayne at lunch. She’s just there for dirt, that’s it.

They’ve been talking about me – the Sylvie me — I can tell by the hot pink spots on Cassie’s cheeks, by the way Sarah is rubbing Cassie’s shoulder and kind of holding her back. There’s a twinge, and a longing washes over me. Like I want to touch Cassie, run my hands over the thick curtain of her hair.

Argh!
I grit my teeth and force the feeling to pass. Force myself to look at her like
I
always have —not like Kevin has. Cassie glances up and her eyes are wary. She’s still waiting for an explanation for my behavior yesterday.

I sit down at the table, feeling awkward and out of place. I push my tray forward and almost knock over the Coke. I let out a little yip and catch the cup right before it goes over. Everyone turns to look at me.

You’re Kevin, Sylvie. He doesn’t yip. He doesn’t feel awkward. He’s always at home.

And people listen to him.

Tori looks at me and raises her eyebrows as she sees my thick glasses. She smirks. “The nerds’ table is over there, Kev. Go work out some algorithms.”

“I’m glad for the glasses, Tori.” I point a french fry at her. ‘Cuz now I can see what a skank you are.”

“Ha!” Tori narrows her eyes at me, an uneasy smile on her face. She doesn’t seem to know if I’m joking or not. She puts a hand through her frizzy hair and squares her shoulders. “My parents are letting me have my car back ....” she starts.

“Go tell someone who cares,” I say, thoroughly enjoying bossing her around. “And take your tray with you.”

Tori’s eyes get wide then narrow again. “Don’t tell me what to do,” she growls, but she flips her hair and leaves.

“Don’t bother coming back,” I yell to her back.

“Well,” I say to the table at large. “So, I guess Tori’s happy. That I ... uh ... Sylvie’s in a coma.”

Sarah shakes her head. “Actually, when she heard Sylvie was in the hospital, she seemed pretty upset.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Upset she wasn’t the one who put her there.” That gets some laughs.

“I like Sylvie,” I continue. “I mean, she seems a bit weird at first, but she’s cool when you get to know her. And smart.”

Cassie stands up. “I’m gonna eat with Sam.”

I stand up, too. “Uh ... okay.”

“Alone.” She takes her tray and crosses the cafeteria. I watch, wondering how I’m going to get her to listen to me. But Bryce says, “Phillips, take a chair.”

Everyone kind of grunts and I shrug, sitting.

Michelle sucks on her Diet Coke with a big slurping noise. “What’s up with you and Cassie?” The smug look on her face gets my claws out. She and Sarah turned their backs on me the minute they could move to this table. And the only reason they’re here is because Cassie was with them. Now Michelle’s feeling a little too comfortable for my taste. I don’t know if it’s the testosterone or what, but I am so, so ready for a fight.

I shove Michelle’s tray closer to her and motion towards Cassie and Sam’s table. “Why don’t you go find out?”

Her eyes flit around to everyone and her face is bright pink. “Oh, that’s okay.”

“Thought so.”

No one says a word. I guess I’m a pretty bitchy Kevin. Actually, with the testicles and the underarm jungle, I’m surprised more guys aren’t. Bitchy, that is.

“Better wax her for me, Phillips. And I want her on a full tank, too,” Bryce says to me.

“Huh?”

“Don’t play dumb, dude.” Bryce lifts his eyebrows at me and gives me a malicious smile. I look around the table to see if anyone else knows what the hell he’s talking about, but everyone else looks just as confused as me. “You got ‘til Halloween. But the way things are going ...” He shakes his head in mock sadness.

“What’re you talking about?” But my stomach feels tight, and I involuntarily glance over to where Cassie’s sitting.
A bet. He and Kevin had a bet.

The bell rings and Bryce punches me in the arm, “See you at practice.”

Kevin has Art next. I get through it without much trouble. Kevin’s hands feel like paws, they’re so big. It’s not easy to work with any delicacy, but my artistic sense keeps me from making a mess of things. Mrs. Stilke looks at me funny when I finish my collage and it’s not a disaster. Art’s the one class I love – I can’t just blow it off completely.

“That’s ... that’s wonderful, Kevin,” she says, blinking like she’s trying to clear her vision. “I knew if you put your mind to it you could find the artist inside you.”

I almost laugh out loud. “Yeah, there’s an artist inside me. Just a little stuck.”

In English, Mrs. Huggan has moved on to
Twelfth Night
, by Shakespeare. “Guess what?” Mrs. Huggan announces to us all. “It’s not a tragedy!”

No, the real tragedy is I can’t focus on anything Mrs. Huggan is saying because the desks in this room are suddenly too small and too tight for me. I can’t spread my legs apart. And  ...
it ...
is getting crushed.
Oh, come on.
Mrs. Huggan continues talking. I tune in and out as I squirm and suffer. “Shakespeare wrote for all male actors ... Viola’s part ... played by a boy ... pretending to be a woman ... disguised as a man!”
Ow, ow.
Finally, I shift in my seat and do the unthinkable – I grab between my legs to move things around.
Ugh.
How can guys stand having all this equipment hanging off of them? It’s always getting sweaty or pinched or just in the way. I glance around the room, my cheeks pink with embarrassment, right when Mrs. Huggan says. “What do you think, Kevin, of all this gender-bending? Of appearance versus reality?”