One (6 page)

EIGHT

T
he alarm on my cuff screeches, ripping me out of the most vivid flying dream I’ve ever had. I realize I’m lying on my stomach and think — in my fuzzy half-awake haze — that that makes sense. That’s why I was dreaming about being pressed up against something. I never sleep like that. My body normally takes up the whole bed, limbs flailed every which way.

I roll over and turn my face toward my window, soaking up the early morning sun. This is my morning’s guilty pleasure and why late spring into summer into early autumn is my favorite season. First thing in the morning, I bask in the gorgeous, glowing rays that invite themselves into my room. I’m obsessed with it.

There’s something new to the ritual this morning. A foreign scent, unfamiliar and enticing, a little woodsy, a little musky. I open my eyes, reluctant to give up the sensation of the orange glow of sunlight filtered through my eyelids.

Oh, God. I fell into bed last night still wearing Elias’s sweatshirt. I can’t wipe the smile off my face.

I stumble out of bed, finding my flip flops — the bathroom I share with the boys is always gross — and wash my face and run a comb through my hair, still wearing the stupid sweatshirt. I look up in the mirror, and sure enough, I’m still smiling. Still.

It’s the drums, I tell myself, the drums that were so beautiful and sounded so amazing and felt so solid and responsive. But every time I say the word “drums” to myself, all I can think of is how Elias looked, how he felt, in that damn concert hall of his. How his voice sounded when he told me to come back any time, cautious but inviting. The look in those stupid, gorgeous, multicolored eyes of his as I drove off.

I take a deep breath, unzip the sweatshirt, fold it up, and stick it in my bag.

I flip through my closet and pull on a stretchy jersey skirt that swings around my knees, red flats, and a t-shirt that clings instead of hangs. I own a ton of skirts because I always liked the way they swung around and let the air move around my body, but after the incident last year, all I wanted to wear was old jeans.

Today, I feel a little safer.

I run downstairs, and Mom raises an eyebrow at me. “You look nice, sweetie.”

I’m not feeling that generous, so I kind of raise an eyebrow at her and make a lot of noise unwrapping my brownies so I don’t have to talk to her. I shift my weight from leg to leg, fidgeting while eating, impatient with the slowness of my own chewing.

To avoid eye contact with Mom, I pull my reader out and pretend to be reading something. Really, I’m watching the news feed on the countertop. An image of Julian Fisk, President of the Hub, with his arm around a woman in a white coat and holding a beaker, stares at me from the screen. The headline screams, “A STEP TOWARD ADVANCEMENT FOR THE SINGULARLY GIFTED?”

Holy shit. Are they working on Ones now? Finally?

Maybe it’s a sign. I should ask Mom and Dad for their signatures today. That application for the Hub internship is due before winter break, but I want to get it in as soon as possible. My heart jumps. I swing my bag around to my front to reach for my tablet.

Suddenly, Mom clicks the feed closed.

“Don’t worry about that, Merrin. It’s nothing but marketing. Feel-good stories. I work there. I know.”

I look up at her, narrowing my eyes, and her face is tight, her stance tense.

“I’d be one of the first to know,” she says again.

“I made some eggs, honey,” Dad calls from the stove, breaking the tension.

I swallow hard and call, “Thanks. Gotta go though.” I would rather die than eat the jiggly yellow-and-white grossness that is scrambled eggs, and Dad knows that. He doesn’t want to feed me. He wants to hear about me studying with other kids. Like I’m normal or something.

“Oh, and by the way,” Dad says, stepping over to the table and handing me a plate anyway. “I called Mr. Hoffman. A couple of times. Left messages, but I still haven’t heard back.”

“Um…yeah. Okay. Thanks, Dad.”

“Do you still want a tutor? I can ask around…”

“No,” I say, pretending to be very focused on getting my reader in the pocket inside my bag. If I look up at Dad, he’ll be able to see the lie in my eyes. Plus, I’d rather not give him something else to worry about. “I’m okay. I’m doing better, Dad. Just like I said, remember?” I glance up to check his expression as I shove some snacks in my bag. He’s watching me so carefully, with a tight half-smile on his face.

“Really,” I say. “Remember? Friends? Studying for calculus? The holo-teachers aren’t as bad as I said. I was just being a brat.”

I snap my bag closed and look up to see Dad’s familiar sympathetic smile. As much as he loves me, even he wants me to be a Normal. Pick a side already, stop moping around, live like a regular person. Stop hoping for something I’ll never be able to have. I can hear that much, at least, in his answer. My fingers mechanically snap my bag shut again.

I slug back a glass of chocolate milk, throw it in the dish sterilizer, and stride out before I even get to hassle Max and Michael for the morning.

There’s a damp chill to the air made up of the first days of autumn and the dew from the grass. I slump into my car and fumble through my bag for my keys. My fingers fidget like I’ve had too much coffee, even though I haven’t had a drop since yesterday morning. I crank up the heat, rub my hands together half to warm them and half for something to do. I briefly consider digging out Elias’s sweatshirt and then decide that wearing it would make me look like a tool or, at least, like one of the girls crushing on him. No chance.

Only then do I glance down at the time on my cuff — quarter to seven. Half an hour before I have to leave for school.

At least being this early to school means I can sneak into the classroom ahead of everyone else. I duck into the bathroom and spend two minutes checking my makeup.

The halls are still empty when I get out, even though a few kids are starting to trickle in from the parking lot. I’m halfway to my locker when Mr. Hoffman practically crashes into me from an adjoining hallway.

“Oh, Merrin! I’m sorry.” But neither his voice nor his expression indicate that he’s surprised at all to be nearly knocking me over. I guess he was always pretty chill in class. He adjusts his glasses. “You’re here awfully early.”

“Oh, yeah. I’m a little weird with time today, I guess. I was out kind of late last night.”

He raises an eyebrow.

I laugh even though most teachers by now would have told me to have a nice day and been on their way. “Just studying with some kids.” He doesn’t say anything, just keeps looking at me with his eyebrow up and a half-smile on his face. “For calc. No science stuff.”

A relaxed smile spreads across his face. “Good. We’ll be studying some high-level material, and I wouldn’t want it slipping out in your study sessions. You understand.”

I nod. I don’t know if he understands how low-level the science classes are here, but nothing I learn with him will ever come up in a Nelson High classroom. I’d bet my drums on it.

“I’ll contact you about our next meeting, alright?”

“Thanks, Mr. Hoffman. It’ll be a welcome change of pace.”

I don’t even think to ask him what he was doing here so early before he turns and continues on his way.

Calc is fourth period, and I’m pretty sure Elias has it second. It takes me longer than usual to pack up my reader and tablet at the end of that class. The first students for second period trickle in and give me weird looks — most of the juniors haven’t seen me around much — but no Elias. I walk out, frustrated with myself, and bump shoulders with Daniel. He lifts up his head in greeting.

I stalk toward my next class through the thinning crowd of students, staring at my shoes, watching them flash across the speckled floor. Where is he? He seemed fine last night.

Someone nudges shoulders with me, and a flash of orange hair swings in front of my face. “Merrin!” Leni says, smiling. “Lunch with me today?”

I’m not fast enough to come up with an excuse for why I can’t possibly have lunch with her. She catches my arm, nods, and smiles wider. “Come on.” She drags me through the lunch line while pointing to a table populated with half a dozen girls as gorgeous and confident as she is.

I punch my lunch choice into my cuff and scan it at the screen at the beginning of the line. I glare down at the tray that rises up on the platform in front of me.

I don’t care what anyone says — that gloppy, pale yellow mush is not mac and cheese.

I sit down and crane my neck toward the door, waiting for Elias to show up and stride toward his seat at the table.

“Hey. Have you seen, uh…”

“Elias?” Leni smiles at me, like we share a secret.

“Yeah. I have something to give him,” I say, pointing to my bag to show that it’s not just an excuse.

“That’s cute,” one of her friends — another cheerleader, I assume, with shining brown locks — says.

“Is she crushing on Elias?” another brunette asks. “Save your energy, honey. Elias VanDyne has only dated one girl at this school, and that was back when we were little freshmen.”

I raise my eyebrows at her, silently questioning — I can’t help it — and she suppresses a grin and points at Leni, her index finger making a circle in the air.

“Yep. Helen and Elias, sittin’ in a tree…”

Leni rolls her eyes, pushes the girl lightly on the shoulder, and says, “Quit it. You know I was too good for him.” She laughs, and all the other girls eye each other, responding with lighter, shorter laughter.

So Leni’s the ringleader of this group. That could be really good or really, really bad. Depending on how much she feels like sticking up for me.

“Yeah. Too good for all the boys at this school, apparently.”

“You know it.” Leni’s smiling, but it’s the same smile I’ve seen on her before — and on Elias. Faking it.

One of the brunettes points at me. “She’s not really going for Elias, anyway. Not dressed like that.” My chest burns, and I’m sure my cheeks do, too, but once again I’ve got nothing to say. I don’t want to be the Girl Who Stomps Out of the Lunchroom. Not if I’ve got three more years here. I concentrate on feeling heavy, on staying in my seat.

“Oh, lay off, girls. I’m trying to save Merrin from eating lunch in some classroom and being hassled by the janitor.” Now they laugh on cue.

I manage a smile at Leni, grateful that she’s deflected the attention from me. She reaches down and squeezes my knee. The contact surprises me, but it’s not too bad.

It’s an art day, and I’m sure I’ll see Elias in that class, but he’s not there, either, or at our lockers afterward.

All the students seem like they’re normal height now without Elias’s head bobbing around the hallways above everyone else’s. It’s weird, and I don’t like it.

After I fidget through the rest of my classes, it’s like I’m on autopilot. Get in the car. Text Dad: “Going to study again.” I already finished all my mindless homework in sixth period study hall anyway.

I tell myself I’m just going to drive by his house, see if his car is there. I don’t know. Make sure he’s okay.

I zoom in one side of Superior’s suburbs and out the other, feeling lighter and freer when my car hits the dirt-and-gravel roads of the bonafide country.

Even though it’s only a couple miles out of town, everything feels so huge out here. Like it’s mine to reach up and grab if I want it. The clouds roll across the gray-blue autumn sky in billowing mammatus puffs, and for a second, I’m not thinking about Elias, but about the pictures I used to draw as a kid — illustrations of myself stretching out across the clouds like they were pillows.

I spot the glass walls of the VanDyne house reflecting bright patches of sunlight out into the road. The glare blocks my view into the house, but my eyes train on the music room at the end of the wing anyway. I think about the drums in there, waiting for me to play them again.

What I’m really wondering, I admit to myself, is whether Elias is in there too, thumbing over the guitar strings, remembering what it was like to play with me, missing my angry, loud pounding.

Because I know I’m thinking about the way his fingers looked playing that guitar, the relaxation on his face when he looked up at me. Like, in that moment, he was really home.

No, I realize, as I pull into the driveway without really realizing it. He’s not in there. He’s not here at all. His sleek blue car isn’t in the driveway, and neither is anyone else’s.

Perfect.

Suddenly, I feel very brave. I crank up the brake on the car and trudge toward the step we walked down last night.

I plunk myself down and let my hand wave through the grass, resting my chin on my knees. I can see my drum set gleaming in there. I look up at the handprint sensor panel and wipe my palms against my skirt to wipe off the sweat. But I can’t make myself go in. It doesn’t feel right somehow. Not without him.

My chest aches, and it feels like loneliness and emptiness and missing something, which I suppose are all kind of the same thing.

The swaying blades of grass make breathy rustling noises in the late afternoon breeze — it must be five o’clock by now — and I can almost hear them talk to me.
You don’t belong here
, they say.

Yeah,
I think.
Except I don’t belong anywhere else either.

The sound of a rolling crunch interrupts my conversation with the freaking weeds. Dammit. Someone’s here. I look up and see a flash of blue. It’s Elias.

The tension in my chest deepens to a knot, and now it feels something like excitement. I tamp it down, willing it not to push my face into a smile. Last night with Elias was a dream world, and I’m still not sure whether I can imagine it into a reality.

I watch him unfold himself from the car’s seat, see me sitting there, and grin. The slowly setting sun throws a sharp shadow of him across the driveway, exaggerating his height. As he gets closer, the shadow almost touches me. When it does, I stand up.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey,” he says back, still smiling and watching me. “I see you came prepared today.” He reaches out and flicks the hood of my sweatshirt. He doesn’t stand that close to me, but his arms are so freaking long it’s easy. Not threatening.