For Ever (4 page)

“’Morning.”

The sound of a gravelly voice behind me makes
me spin around. I wobble against the weight of the books in my
bag.

“Hi,” I say automatically. My heartbeat is
still staccato as I turn to face the man standing in front of the
custodial closet. “Um, do you know where the Art classroom is?”

Metal clanks at the man’s side as he wrestles
with an enormous key ring. Grunting, he waves his hand down the
hall.

“It’s unlocked.”

“Thanks.”

I wave and head in the direction he pointed,
slowing to peer into the glass cases lining the walls. Most of them
are filled with sports trophies and photographs of the various
sports teams. Baseball, girls’ volleyball, basketball, softball,
lacrosse. And football. Oregonians are obsessed with football, or
so my mom keeps telling me. Doesn’t really matter since I’m
allergic to team sports. Balls and other airborne objects have
always been magnetically attracted to my head. Or, maybe it’s just
my inability to catch them when they’re lobbed in my direction.

I study the pictures anyway, and my eye
catches on an individual photo. Jeff Summers. The guy from my
Chemistry class. MVP, the football team’s starting quarterback,
pitcher for the varsity baseball team. I wonder if he’s the same
Jeff that the girls from the bathroom were talking about. Before we
moved, I had envisioned Oregon as a vast wilderness, full of log
cabins and general stores. Wrong. My new high school is roughly the
same size as Pali. And with almost three thousand students, there
are at least half a dozen guys named Jeff or Jeffrey sprinkled
throughout my classes.

To my relief, the Art classroom is unlocked,
just like the man said. Flicking on the lights, I survey the room.
Multiple sinks, washbasins, metal jars filled with dirty
paintbrushes, trays of pastels, nibbled-on pencils, and charcoal.
Fifteen or so easels arranged in a semicircle. And a single bowl of
fruit sitting at the center. I can tell that this is the type of
class where the teacher walks around looking over people’s
shoulders while they work.

Setting down my stuff at the back of the
room, I decide to recheck my Chemistry homework and read ahead a
section in History. By the time I’m done, the first signs of life
have begun echoing in the halls. I get up and stretch my legs. The
walls of the classroom are covered with student artwork, and it’s
easy to tell that almost all of my future classmates have more
artistic talent than I do.

I walk over for a closer look at a canvas
leaning against the back wall. The entire sheet looks glossy and
uniformly black until I kneel down and stare at it. Squinting, I’m
surprised when the black gives way to abstract images. A swirl of
red fading into purple, a hint of orange. A green glow. Strange and
beautiful. It kind of reminds me of one of those posters where a
hidden image appears after you look long enough, though this isn’t
as commercial or trite.

The doorknob turns, and I jerk upright in
time to see a slim-built man lurch into the classroom balancing a
coffee mug, an overstuffed backpack, and an armful of rolled and
banded sheets of paper. Gideon, the Art teacher. He doesn’t see me
as he walks over to his desk, and I freeze awkwardly when I notice
him talking to himself. I listen more carefully. He’s actually
singing along to something on his iPod. I wait until he sets down
the mug of coffee and removes an earbud.

“Hi!” I call out. “I just enrolled.”

He looks up, patting his pockets.

Oh, new kid. So much for that cigarette.
Wasn’t I quitting this week? Where’s my nicotine gum?

He clears his throat, a guilty expression
lingering on his face. I let my face go blank and concentrate on
not looking like I’m scanning his thoughts.

“Welcome. I’m Mr. Gideon.”

Hurrying to where my backpack is sitting, I
grab my schedule and bring it over to him.

“Wren. Interesting name. Here, let’s get you
set up with some supplies.”

My palms actually begin to sweat at the
thought of having to produce something artistic.

“I’ve never taken Art before,” I shrug.

“Don’t worry about it. This is really an
intro class, and I grade based on effort and improvement, in case
you’re worried,” he says with a smile.

I exhale and follow him as he pulls an apron
from the wall and gathers up a set of pencils, paints, and other
artistic paraphernalia. Contemplating the fact that I’m destined to
horrify the teacher with my lack of artistic ability, I silently
curse Mr. Chernoff for his arbitrary choice in electives.

I’ve been sitting in front of a blank canvas
staring doubtfully at the art supplies when the door opens again. A
few students come in and begin retrieving items from shelves. After
several minutes Ashley, my savior from lunch the day before, walks
in. She waves and smiles, but ends up sitting several seats away
from me, which is most likely in her usual spot. I peek at people’s
canvases as they sit down. Each one reveals a perfectly proficient
bowl of fruit matching the model in the center of the
classroom.

Still art. Seems simple enough. Then again,
not for me.

By the time the classroom is almost at
capacity, the temperature is sweltering, and the space is getting
stuffier by the second. Mr. Gideon turns on some classical music,
and I catch eyes with a girl to my right. The smile freezes on my
face as her voice clangs in my head. She’s so mentally loud that I
don’t know if I could block her out if I tried.

She’s all right, but I dress way
better
. She sniffs dismissively.
Whatever. He won’t notice
her, either
.

I look away from her.
He
? I’m clearly
missing some key piece of information. That’s great. Another
surprise. I look at the empty easel to my left. It’s the one
remaining vacant seat in the class.

Jeff, the quarterback? I swallow hard. That’s
all I need.

When the bell rings, the seat next to me
remains empty. I take a deep breath when Mr. Gideon begins talking.
Do they have tests in an art class? I wonder. Just to be safe, I
take notes until the teacher stops mid-sentence.

“Well, Mr. Casey, once again you’ve decided
to grace us with your presence.”

Despite the sarcasm, the teacher sounds as
though he likes—even respects—whoever just walked in. My pulse
spikes. Whomever Mr. Gideon is talking to must be about to claim
the empty seat next to me. Which means he is also quite possibly
the root cause of my seatmate’s earlier tantrum. Looking around the
corner of my easel, I stop and stare.

The person at the front of the classroom is,
well, not a high school student, for starters. He can’t be. Too
old—a college student maybe? I look over at Ashley, who is grinning
at me like the Cheshire cat. I almost crack up when she gives me a
thumbs up. Turning back to the front of the classroom, I watch with
idiotic absorption as the newcomer begins walking in the direction
of the empty seat next to me.

He looks over at me, his emerald eyes
blazing. The blast hits me full force, my skin seared clean off my
flesh as a bone-crushing explosion tears through the room, sucking
all the oxygen from my lungs. The walls of the classroom
disintegrate into blackness, and I hear screaming from far away.
Then I see myself, like I’m looking down from above. My mouth is
open in terror, and
I’m
the one screaming.

A sickening pop in my ears leads to an odd
rushing sound. Suddenly every nerve ending in my body feels like
it’s being burned away by an impossible cold. I feel, or sense,
things coming out of the darkness toward me. I want to run, but my
feet aren’t there. I have no body—yet I’m still burning. This feels
like nowhere, a void.

Then it whispers to me. I don’t understand
its words, but I can still feel its hatred, moist and acrid, in my
mind.

Time is nothing
.

I scream the words into the blackness, but I
know they aren’t mine.

“
Wren
? Baby? Can you hear me?”

My mom is close by, but I can’t reach her
through the darkness. Her voice is unnaturally high-pitched, and
she sounds agitated, almost unhinged. I want to comfort her, but my
eyelids are too heavy to open. When I try to move, something
pinches the crook of my arm. Pulling at it, I feel a sharp sting,
which makes me want to throw up. I begin coughing, causing an image
to flash in my head.

Blackness, doom,
evil
.

The adrenaline in my bloodstream electrifies
my muscles. I shoot upright, and a hoarse choking sound erupts from
my chest. Sucking in air, I wince at the smell of clinical
antiseptic and re-circulated air. To the left, there’s a wall of
blue curtains. Medical utensils are lined up just so on a stainless
steel tray. A machine to my right keeps beeping incessantly.
Looking down, I see my legs are covered by a thin blanket the same
color as the curtains.

The shrill beeping speeds up, and it’s really
starting to drive me crazy. I want to hit the sleep button and
close my eyes again.

“
Help!
Nurse!”

A hand squeezes mine, and I look up. My mom
is screaming as she stabs at a button on the wall. A moment later a
woman in scrubs rushes through the curtains. She stops and stares
at me. It feels like I’ve been asleep for a million years and could
easily sleep a million more, and the taste in my mouth is bitter,
like the times I had swallowed too much seawater as a kid. The
woman in pastel pajamas adjusts a tube to my right. I stare down at
my arm. There’s an IV connected to a bag of clear liquid. I choke
and try not to gag when I think about the needle in my vein.

“M-mom?” The word slurs on my lips like I
have cotton stuffed in my mouth. My mom sighs and collapses next to
me on the bed.

“Oh, sweetie. You had me so worried.”

A man in a white coat walks in. He’s studying
a metallic clipboard, and when he looks up at me, I nearly giggle
at the practiced look of sympathy on his face.

“How are you feeling?” he asks pleasantly,
adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses.

Only twelve more hours. Can’t wait for
private practice.

“Twelve more hours?”

I frown. Did I say that out loud? I look from
my mom to the doctor. Neither of them seemed to notice.

“Is she okay?” my mom asks nervously.

“Her CT scan and MRI both came back normal.
It might have been a mild seizure, but there’s no evidence of
neurological damage. She’s just dehydrated and exhausted. We’re
giving her plenty of fluids. She should be fine in a day or so, but
we’ll keep her overnight for observation, just in case.”

“A seizure?” my mom squeaks, her voice
managing to climb a few octaves.

“There’s no sign of trauma. She’s young,
healthy—”

“And the slurring?”

She sniffles again. I want to tell her it
will be all right, but my lips won’t form the words.

“It’s the sedatives. You’re absolutely sure
there’s no history of neurological damage, prescription
medications?”

I lose track of their conversation, and my
eyes close, weighted down by a soothing fog.

***

“Mom, I … am … okay. Really.”

We’re sitting in front of the school. It’s
Thursday morning, and I’m fighting back déjà vu from Tuesday, which
I’m still wishing was just a bad dream—with good reason. Based on
my mom’s secondhand account, I started screaming demonically in
front of sixteen strangers before speaking in tongues and then
slumping unconscious straight into some guy, which was why I didn’t
hit my head on the floor when I fell, she said.

I don’t remember any of that—just sitting and
worrying about drawing fruit in a bowl. After that, everything
until I woke up in the hospital remains blank. At the moment, I’m
more worried that everyone in Art class thinks I’m crazy.

“If you’re sure, honey,” my mom says
hesitantly. “Or you could just call this week a scratch and start
over fresh on Monday morning.”

She sounds hopeful. I smile stiffly and grab
my bag from the back seat.

“Nope, I’m going.”

Her worrying is barely coherent, just a
string of anxious maternal thoughts. Squeezing her arm, I open the
door and look around. Unlike Tuesday morning, there are already
lots of students on campus.

“Call me if you feel sick, and I’ll come pick
you up. Promise?”

“I’ll be fine.”

Seeing the creases in my mom’s forehead, I
lean over and hug her one more time before jumping out of the car
and walking toward the school that I haven’t yet managed to attend
for a full day. On the way to first period, I stop at the front
office and drop off a medical release form that says I’m okay to
come back to school. When Mrs. Heinz asks me how I’m feeling, I get
an awful feeling that my blackout, which is how I’m officially
classifying it, was bigger news than I had been hoping.

I make it two steps into Mr. Gideon’s room
before Ashley pops up like a jack-in-the-box and rushes over to
me.

“Are you okay?” she asks, eyes wide.

I nod, wincing when I see the look of
uncertainty in her eyes. Swallowing, I try to search her thoughts.
My stomach sinks as I catch a blurry image of myself in her
memory.

I’m screaming and falling forward into
someone, just like my mom said. Ashley’s memory flashes to the
paramedics and a stretcher—with me on it. I turn away from her and
see other students whispering and casting sideways glances in my
direction.

“Do they know what happened to you?” Ashley
whispers, following me to the supply closet.

I shake my head.

“Not really, but I feel fine now.”

That much is true, but my voice still sounds
uncertain.

“You’re coming to lunch with us, right?” she
asks.

“If you’re okay having lunch with a crazy
person.”