It took a while to figure out. That whole summer with Riley, I wasn’t sure why, exactly, I saw certain things and not others. Eventually, though, I realized everything always fell into one of those two categories.
I sneak a glance at Noah. He looks serious. Thoughtful. “What’s it like? The things you see?”
There’s a butter knife on the table. I pick it up and turn it over, catching the reflection of the spinning fans that dot the ceiling, trying to gather and parse my thoughts. How do you explain something that feels so inexplicable? “There was a woman on the bus on my way here. Old. Friendly. She looked like someone’s grandmother and she smelled like vanilla. Like she had just baked cookies. She sat down in the seat next to me, and I wasn’t careful enough. She touched me. All of a sudden, I was drowning. I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t break free.”
“She was scared of drowning?”
“No . . . I didn’t see fear when I touched her. It was a desire. She was holding me down, holding me underwater. But it wasn’t really me.” I struggle to put it into words that will make sense. “Sometimes, when I get sucked in, it’s like I’m forced to act out a part. I’m not myself. When she touched me, I became the person she wanted to hurt, but I just as easily could have seen the whole thing from her eyes. It’s a crapshoot. I can’t control it.”
I scoot forward in the booth. My knees brush Noah’s. Out of habit, I flinch, but then I remember that we’re both wearing jeans. I should still move away, but there’s something comforting about the contact. Even though it’s slight. Even though he probably doesn’t even realize we’re touching.
His face darkens as he thinks through what I’ve just said. “So, she wanted to kill someone?”
“Maybe. Probably not, though. She probably just wanted revenge, and that was the form the image took. Think about how many times in your life you’ve thought you were mad enough to kill someone.”
The way he looks at me makes me wonder if he’s thinking about that night in my bedroom, if he’s worried about what was running through his mind when he touched me. “Everyone thinks that sometimes,” he says carefully.
“Exactly. Everyone thinks that sometimes. The things I see aren’t literal. The same image from two different people can mean two completely different things. Sometimes,” I add, thinking about what happened with Skylar on the bridge, “what people fear and what they desire are tangled together. And sometimes people fear the things they want or want the things they fear.”
Noah is quiet for a moment, turning over what I’ve said. “What happened on the bus? After you saw what you did?”
“I changed seats at the next stop.”
The ghost of a smile breaks through the seriousness on his face. Something inside of me unknots. I had done it: I told someone. I told someone, and the world didn’t end.
“Can you control it—whether you see desire or fear?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I’ve only ever tried a couple of times. And it’s not like I’ve had a lot of chances to practice: I don’t make a habit of touching people.” I shrug, the gesture stiff and awkward, the aches in my body reminding me that I haven’t slept enough in the past twenty-four hours.
“And when you touched Riley, you saw the medal because . . .”
“That’s what he was most scared of that day. He was scared he’d get in trouble for keeping it.”
I’ve thought about it sometimes, those times when I’ve let myself think about him at all: What would have happened if I had seen desire that day instead of fear?
“Did you ever touch Riley before that?” asks Noah. “Did you ever see anything else?”
I hesitate. Fears and desires are personal. Maybe the truest reflection of who someone is. Sharing them seems wrong.
But then Noah leans forward. Anxious. Attentive. In that moment, he reminds me so much of his brother that it makes my chest constrict. On the surface, they don’t look alike. But sitting here in the booth, eager for any scraps I can give him about Riley, Noah’s face gives up some of its harsh, guarded look. That’s when I see it. The similarities that are subtle. The ones that have to be searched out. The angle of his jaw and the way his eyebrows pull together when he’s thinking. The way he leans forward, one elbow resting on the edge of the table. Something about those small similarities—those tiny things that remind me of Riley—loosen the words and quell the thought that they might be some form of betrayal.
“I try not to touch people, but it was all still new to me that summer. And it was hard around Riley. It was easy to forget to be careful. It didn’t happen a lot, me touching him. Maybe a handful of times. He was scared of the forest at night. I never quite understood that—how he could want to spend so much time in a place that scared him on some level.”
“That’s it? Just the forest?”
“He was worried your dad was going to leave.”
The waitress returns and sets our food on the table. I wait until she’s out of earshot before speaking again. “Most of his desires were normal kid stuff. He wanted to be an executive at Disney so that he’d get free passes to Comic-Con and could control what Marvel stuff got made. And he wanted to be strong enough to beat up some of the kids at his old school.”
I nod toward Noah’s burger. “It’s going to get cold.” I lift my knife and fork and dig into my own food. The eggs are overcooked and the bacon is practically black around the edges, but eating gives me an excuse to stop talking.
Riley was so certain that what was happening to me could be managed with practice. We’d sit on his bed, door open a crack because his mom insisted, and go over and over the things I had seen. “What about this one?” he’d ask, leaning in and pointing to a line in the list he’d made, not noticing the way my breath would catch or how I’d trip over my words a little when I responded. Not noticing the way I’d watch him sometimes.
And I’d try to help him, too. When I could. When the thoughts in his head got so loud he needed someone to tell him it was okay.
After a few bites, Noah sets the remainder of his burger down. “Did you try to control what you saw when you touched me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I hadn’t seen you in five years, and practically the first thing you said to me was that you didn’t want Riley to be found. It didn’t make any sense.”
“What did you look for?”
“Desire.”
“And what did you see?”
“That you didn’t mean it. That you want someone to find him.”
“And the other time?”
“What other time?”
“When I touched you in your room.”
I tug at my sleeves, making sure they cover my wrists. First one and then the other. On some level, I think I’ve been actively trying not to think about it. Not because I don’t understand the desire for revenge, but because I don’t want those images in my head. “I don’t remember,” I lie. “Anyway, I don’t understand how my little messed-up ability can help—even though I want to.”
“You said you saw the medal because Riley was scared of getting caught. Odds are, whoever hurt Riley and Rachel has to be scared of getting caught, too. Especially since Rachel is alive. All we have to do is get you in the right place with the right person.”
“Or persons,” I say, to be thorough.
“Or persons,” Noah agrees.
He makes it all sound so reasonable, so easy. But it’s not. Not at all. The thought of what Noah’s proposing simultaneously makes my skin crawl and my stomach drop. “You’re banking on the fact that I can control it. That I can choose to see each person’s fear. I can’t. Even if I could, it’s not like I can just walk up to every person in town and try to see what they’re afraid of on the off chance it’s connected to Riley or Rachel.”
“Why not?”
“There are probably laws against touching random people on the street. This is Canada. You’re all ridiculously considerate and reserved.”
&nbs
p; Noah does not laugh.
“Fine.” I sigh. “For one thing, I’ve only tried to control it twice and I have no way of knowing if either time worked. Maybe I saw exactly what I would have seen if I hadn’t tried to do anything at all. For another, did you not notice how sick I was that night you came up to my room? That’s what happened when I tried to control what I saw.”
“But the pills help?”
“They help a little. They’re not some magic cure-all.” I pull in a deep breath and let it out slowly. I know I sound angry, but I’m not. Not exactly. I’m frustrated and still kind of scared at the idea of talking to anyone about this. “That first year, after it started happening, I got headaches pretty much any time I accidentally touched anyone. Bad ones. Sometimes so bad that I couldn’t do anything for hours. It happened often enough that eventually my father noticed and took me to a doctor who ran a whole bunch of tests and then told him it was migraines.” I want to tell Noah how hard the appointments and tests had been for me. How I had to work so hard at not flinching each time I was plunged into the head of someone who was just trying to help me get better. But I’m not sure I can describe it. Not adequately. “Over the years,” I say, “it’s gotten more bearable. At least some of the time. Touching someone always hurts, but I usually have to go for the pills only when someone’s desire or fear is particularly strong or if I touch them for longer than a few seconds. And in those cases, the pills help. Other times, though, the pain is a lot stronger. If I touch too many people in too short a period of time, they barely make a dent. And it seems to be the same when I try to go looking for something on purpose.”
An older couple comes in. For a second, I think they’re going to sit near us, but then they take one of the booths near the front.
Once Noah seems sure they’re too far away to overhear, he says, “If you became desensitized to some of it over time, how do you know it wouldn’t eventually get easier—less painful, at least—to read people on purpose, too?” He holds out his hand, palm up, the way you would at a fortune-telling booth. When I don’t reach for it, he raises one eyebrow. “Scared?”
“Of getting hit in the middle of the head with an invisible sledgehammer? You bet.”
“I just think maybe it would be worth practicing. See if exposure could help—both with the pain and with being able to choose what you see. Maybe you could even control the vantage point.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning no more being the person who gets drowned.” He nods down at his hand. “You’ve already touched me, so I’m a perfect guinea pig.”
I make no move, and he eventually lowers his hand. “You can’t go the rest of your life like this, Cat.”
“Like what?”
“Afraid to touch anyone. Wearing long sleeves in the middle of summer to cut down on the chance. When’s the last time you hugged someone? Or let someone hug you?” I don’t answer, and he presses on. “When was the last time you were held? Other than my brother when you were a kid, have you ever even kissed anyone?”
“How did you—?” I shake my head. I guess it doesn’t matter how he knows I kissed Riley that summer. My first, disastrous kiss.
Noah mistakes my silence for confirmation. “Don’t you want that?” His eyes grow darker with the words. “Don’t you want to touch someone and be touched?”
“Not everyone wants that.” I try not to think about Aidan and that night on the porch or watching Joey touch Skylar or the chances I’ve let pass by because I’ve been too scared of what might happen. Because I know what will happen.
“You’re right,” says Noah. “Not everyone does want that, and if that’s the case with you, I’ll never say another word about it. If that’s the case, I shouldn’t have said anything.” His voice is so earnest that it breaks something inside my chest. He half rises from his seat, leaning over the booth. Leaning down over me. He raises his hand and places it alongside my cheek, not touching, but so close that I can feel the heat radiating from his skin. “If I’m wrong, I promise you, I won’t say another word. But if I’m right . . . you need to think about this. You need to think about what it might mean, going through the rest of your life keeping everyone at a distance.”
“Do you honestly think I haven’t?”
His hand is so close. It would be so, so easy to turn my head. Just a little bit. To turn into that touch. Suddenly, the diner is too small and too loud and he is far, far too close.
I slide out of the booth.
I don’t run. Not while he’s watching. But as soon as I’m outside? Then I run and I don’t stop until I hit the very edge of the parking lot.
Noah Fraser thinks he knows everything, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t know anything at all.
He wants me to trust him, but I still haven’t recovered from the last Fraser boy who thought he could help me.
Sixteen
I HEAR THE CRUNCH OF NOAH’S SHOES ON THE GRAVEL parking lot before he speaks. “Cat . . .”
I tug on the door of the BMW. Locked. I can’t look at him. I have this horrible feeling that if I look at him, I’ll end up yelling or crying, and neither option is all that appealing. “I want you to take me home.”
“Just let me explain.”
But I don’t need any explanations. He’s already said plenty. He thinks there’s something wrong with me. That I need to be fixed, somehow. If it weren’t for Dad and his stupid technology ban, I would just call Aunt Jet to pick me up. For a second, I think about going back into the diner and seeing if they have a pay phone, but then I remember that Jet is at work; she traded shifts so that she could be home with me at night. “Just take me home, Noah.”
He doesn’t say anything, but after a long moment, I hear the jangle of his keys as he pulls them from his pocket.
We drive back in silence, and as soon as the car comes to a stop in front of Montgomery House, I’m out the door.
“Cat—wait!” Just before I turn away, I see him reach for something between the seats.
I almost make it to the porch steps before he catches up with me. “Just take it,” he says, stepping in front of me and holding out a brown file folder. “Please, Cat.”
“What is it?”
“Everything I’ve been able to find out about the week Riley disappeared. Please just read it. Maybe you’ll see something I missed.”
Closing my eyes, I draw in a deep breath. I let it fill my lungs and then slowly let it out. You’re not doing this just for Noah, I remind myself. It’s bigger than that. I open my eyes and take the folder.
“Cat, I didn’t mean what I said, I—”
I shake my head. “Please move.” I could squeeze past him, but he’s standing right in the middle of the stairs, not leaving nearly enough room for comfort.
“We need to talk about what happened.”
I shake my head again. “I don’t have to do anything.” When he still doesn’t move, I turn and walk around the side of the house, to the seldom-used kitchen entrance. I let myself inside, close and lock the door, and then lean against the frame, clutching the folder to my chest.
I’ll help Noah. For Riley’s sake and for Rachel. Because I held her hand down at the river and told her she was safe. I’ll help Noah, but I don’t have to talk to him. Not right now.
The three days that follow dawn hot and humid. Each day, Noah calls. Each time Aunt Jet answers, I beg her to make excuses. She doesn’t like lying—she keeps making these low, disgruntled clucking sounds like she’s some sort of chicken—but she does as I ask. Aidan’s been much more chill about the whole deception thing. Not to mention creative. The one time Noah came to the door, he told him I was at a public lecture about melting Arctic ice sheets and that he could find me on the second floor of the Montgomery Falls Public Library.
The Montgomery Falls Public Library does not actually have a second floor.
Noah isn’t the only one who calls. Apparently, Jet hadn’t actually believed me when I said I’d call Dad, so she phoned him and told him
everything. To say he’s rethinking sending me here for the summer would be an understatement. Aunt Jet, too, seems worried that maybe he’s made a mistake. Despite the heat, she keeps fixing me cups of hot chocolate and offering to make runs to the video store. I don’t have the heart to tell her that I haven’t liked hot chocolate since I was about ten, so I keep surreptitiously tipping it down the drain.
When I haven’t been dodging phone calls or assuring my aunt that I really don’t need her to rent Frozen or Moana—movies I admittedly did love when last I was here—I’ve been poring over Noah’s folder and the pieces of information it contains. The names of people who saw Riley the day he disappeared. His class schedule. A reminder that he had an appointment with the guidance counselor to talk about colleges. I already knew Riley was an athlete, but I didn’t know that he was on both the baseball and basketball teams or that he was on student council. As I look over his schedule, I wonder when Riley had found the time to just breathe.
Skylar, Aidan, Chase, and Joey—all of their names are in the file. So is Rachel’s. It’s a stark reminder of how small Montgomery Falls is. Skylar and Aidan both had bio with Riley. Chase had basketball. Rachel served with him on student council. All five of them were at a party a few days before Riley disappeared. In another place, it might seem significant, but in a town where the graduating class of each high school is fewer than sixty people, it would be strange if their names didn’t show up.
The folder also paints a picture of what things were like in the weeks after Riley disappeared. Printouts of newspaper articles, lists of the people who signed up for search parties and the maps they used, tips called into a hotline Riley’s dad had set up for the reward—it’s all here. Even bits of what looks like the police file on the case. I have no idea how Noah managed to get his hands on all of it.
You Were Never Here Page 13