Echoes Between Us

by Katie McGarry

  Lucy’s like a limp rag doll as Sawyer helps her into bed. They’re saying prayers, both of them reciting something about God’s protection and then on to a list of people they want God to bless. He kisses her forehead and as he starts to pull away, she leans up and hugs him tight.

  It’s a sweet sight, and I’m confused how this guy has the ability to act like a jerk at school yet be so loving to her. Not wanting him to know I was watching, I pretend to be staring at something fascinating on the floor.

  Sawyer leaves Lucy’s door open a crack then turns to face me. “Sorry it took so long. She’s been having nightmares since moving in so I try to make bedtime as pleasant as possible in hopes it’ll help.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Would you like something to drink?” He goes for the kitchen. “We don’t have much to choose from. We have milk, orange juice, Mom might have something diet in here and—”

  “Did you tell your friends or anyone else about my brain tumor?” I cock a hip against the door frame of the kitchen as he opens the fridge. He stares into it longer than needed then shuts it.

  “No.”

  “Are you going to?”

  He shakes his head then meets my eyes. “Not my news to tell.”

  I should feel relieved, but I don’t. He could be lying to me now or he could change his mind later.

  “Is it fatal?” he asks, and his straightforwardness throws me off guard.

  “Are you asking if I’m dying?”

  Sawyer places his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Yeah.”

  “Yes.”

  His eyes practically pop out of his head.

  “We’re all dying. In fact, I have some theories about this. Have you ever considered that maybe we could live forever if we found something we could breathe other than oxygen? I mean, what if oxygen works, but at the same time, it’s slowly killing us? What if we aren’t meant to age, but it’s oxygen that’s the poison?”

  He mashes his lips like he’s annoyed, and I really don’t know why he is. I didn’t invite him into my personal business.

  Footsteps behind me, and Sawyer’s gaze snaps to over my shoulder. A cold shiver down my spine, and I’m dying to look and see if the little girl is there, but I know she isn’t. She’s playing with me and she’s playing with Sawyer.

  “Did you hear that?” he asks.

  “Yes. I told you this house is haunted.”

  “Ha.”

  “My tumor is small and it’s benign.” I change the subject because he’s not ready to believe. “It can cause headaches, but other than that, I’m fine.”

  Sawyer’s eyes flicker from the living room to me, back to the living room and then to me again. “Is that why you act different all the time?”

  My spine goes rigid. “Is your lack of a brain tumor why you’re an ass?”

  I don’t know why, but he grins. It’s not a huge one, just a minor lift of his lips, but it’s strangely adorable. “That would answer a ton of questions as to what’s wrong with me.”

  I fight it, yet I smile. I push off the door frame and enter the kitchen. On the wooden table with four chairs is the box and duffel bag Max gave us. I pick up the digital recorder and point it in his direction. “There’re a few things I should mention if you do agree to work with me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “There’re places I want to visit that may not be open to the public so we might have to be creative on how we do our investigation. Meaning I want to do a thorough investigation of the TB hospital up the hill, and it’s a risk since the police like to visit it often.”

  “Are we going to break in? Past the lobby? Past the wooden barriers?”

  The ones the authorities put in place to keep teenagers from exploring the rest of the hospital. It typically works. Most people find enough of a thrill by just attempting the climb and then walking in. A few though, like Leo, will risk danger and go further.

  I bob my head. “More like asking for permission to enter only if we get caught. Actually, you’ll be trespassing and then inviting me in because that’s how I roll. So are you in or out?”

  There’s a daring glint in his eyes that I find appealing. Maybe there’s more to Sawyer Sutherland than I originally suspected. Maybe he’s just as hungry to live as I am, and if that’s the case, the next few months will be a wild ride.

  “I’m definitely in.”

  SAWYER

  It’s Monday, and I walk in the moment the last bell rings. My English teacher gives me a disapproving glare, but can’t say anything as I’m technically on time. “Cutting it close, Mr. Sutherland?”

  “More like perfect timing.”

  She grins, and I can tell she likes me, which is good because I’m going to struggle in this class. Me and reading comprehension tests aren’t friends. Especially the timed ones.

  Miguel and Sylvia smile at me, and I take a seat next to them in the middle of the room. I glance over at Veronica. She’s in the back corner staring out the window as if having the best daydream. Her short blond curls fall around her shoulders, and with how the beams of sun hit her hair, she looks like an angel with a halo.

  Miguel asks if he can have a ride to practice, and I tell him yes. Sylvia starts in about some drama that happened at her pool party on Friday. A guy talked smack about his girlfriend’s best friend and the girl is rightly pissed. Now the two friends are fighting because the girlfriend is defending the guy instead of her best friend and the drama has carried over to social media.

  “Lunch is going to be tense.” Sylvia slumps in her desk like this fight is the end of the world. “Both of them expect me to sit with them, and I don’t know how to choose.”

  I don’t get dating and why people want to do it. When I was a kid, I once heard Dad yell at Mom that he was sick of her nagging. She yelled back that she was sick of his irresponsibility. When they weren’t yelling, Dad worked or watched TV while Mom took care of me. In public, they’d pretend to be in love. Couples at school act like they’re in love for a day then fight for months. Relationship love is a ton of bull that tears the people around them apart. “Don’t sit with either of them.”

  Sylvia’s head jerks up. “I have to. They’re my friends.”

  “If they’re your friends, then why are they making you choose?”

  She doesn’t have a chance to respond as Mrs. Garcia brings the class to attention. She’s a twentysomething, overenthusiastic, slender woman with straight black hair and a big smile. In fact, that smile gets bigger as she announces that we will continue our top-five senior journal project. My groan is internal while there are several others who loudly voice their distaste for the assignment. I wonder if other people’s agony is how she gets her kicks.

  “All right.” Mrs. Garcia claps. “Now is the moment of truth. I need to know who your group will be. After you tell me, sit with your group, and I want a list of possible project ideas turned in to me by the end of the hour.”

  No one volunteers, and when I look back at Veronica, she’s still stuck in a daydream. Figuring the easiest route will be the fastest, I put my hand in the air.

  “Mr. Sutherland, who will you be working with?” Mrs. Garcia asks.

  “Veronica Sullivan.”

  “What?” Sylvia says, and I can’t ignore the other whispers going on in the class.

  When I glance back again, I finally have Veronica’s attention. Her blue eyes meet mine, and there’s curiosity as if she’s been caught off guard. Veronica is a challenge, a puzzle I can’t quite figure out, and I have to admit I like it.

  Mrs. Garcia moves the class forward, gathering the names of the other groups, then dismisses us to work. I gather my notebook and folder, stand to head back toward Veronica, and Sylvia wraps her fingers around my wrist. “I thought you said you weren’t mad?”

  Her question is barely a whisper, but Miguel is turned around in his desk and he’s also waiting on an answer. There’s lots of noise in the room. Desks squeaking against the linoleum floo
r, the low rumble of conversation starting, but I feel like her accusation was a shout.

  “I’m not.”

  “Then why aren’t you working with us? Your mom convinced the counselor to put you in this class so we can help you with the project. Otherwise you wouldn’t be in here.”

  “Sylvia,” Miguel says in warning.

  “It’s true,” she shoots back at him. “And he knows it. I told him everything Friday night. He said he’s not mad, but he obviously is and it’s causing him to make bad choices.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to be a charity case.”

  Sylvia flinches. “You’re my friend, not a charity case, and have you stopped to consider how mad your mom is going to be?”

  Yeah, she probably is. “I need this project to be my choice. Not hers.”

  “It’s not too late,” Sylvia continues like I didn’t speak. “Go tell Mrs. Garcia you made a mistake.”

  “Sylvia,” Miguel reprimands. “Let it go.”

  I use that as my cue to leave and drop into the desk facing Veronica. I slam my notebook onto the desk and look up in time to spot Sylvia glaring at me, but then she turns away.

  “Something vexing thee?” Veronica asks in an Old English accent.

  “I’m good.”

  “You sure?” She resumes her normal soothing tone then circles a finger in Sylvia’s direction. “Because that looks like a lot of something. Nothing good, but a lot of something.”

  Agreed, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. “What’s going on with our project?”

  “Deflection. My favorite defense mechanism as well.”

  “What?”

  “I’m taking AP Psychology, which probably isn’t good for anyone. Deflection—when you deny your emotions, but then again you could be taking part in sublimation. That’s where you pour your feelings into doing something else, which will be fantastic if that means you’re going to pour yourself into this project.”

  I stare blankly at her as I got nothing.

  “I have good news for you,” she says. “Your mom’s check cleared.”

  “Never thought it wouldn’t.” I’m lying, and it should bother me, but it doesn’t. Lately, I lie more than tell the truth.

  “Tell me something about you,” she says.

  “What?”

  “We’re going to be working together, and before you moved into my house, we’d never said a word to one another. It feels like we should at least attempt to pretend to be cordial.”

  Right. “I swim.”

  “I don’t.”

  “The pool at the Y is pretty good, and it’s not far from your house. I’m allowed a guest if you’d like to—”

  “You don’t understand. I can’t swim.”

  “Did you have a bad experience?”

  “I’ve never learned. I’m assuming that would equate to sinking like a rock. That doesn’t sound like fun so I don’t swim.”

  Wow. “How is it possible you’ve never learned?”

  “The impossible is always possible. Any-hoo, back to the project. There’re a couple of places I’d like to visit. There’s this covered bridge that is said to have the ghosts of people who died when their car missed the bridge and went into the river. Then there’s this stretch of road where a girl died, and she walks along the road waiting for someone to pick her up. If you do stop, she’ll get in the backseat and then disappear when you pass where she actually died.”

  “Are you for real?”

  “I’m dead serious.” Her lips twitch. “Did you get the pun?”

  When I remain deadpan she giggles, and the sound moves something inside me. The tension in my muscles eases, and I lean forward on the desk. “Dead people on bridges and then on a road. Anything else?”

  “That sounds like a messed-up Dr. Seuss book. ‘Could you, would you, on a bridge, see them, see them, on a ridge. Maybe in a park, not in the dark. I do not like ghosts, I’m not a fan, I do not like them, Sam-I-Am.’”

  I actually chuckle. Damn, she’s funny.

  “Of course, I want to investigate the TB hospital.”

  The idea of trespassing gets the juices going in my brain. The same way it does when I jump off a cliff. Not nearly as intense, but it’s a good substitute. “I’m game.”

  “We’ll need to research the actual background information of the place then also investigate the legends. I thought about what Max said about understanding the difference between fact and legend. I think that should be part of the angle of our paper.”

  It all sounds good to me. “I’ve heard about the TB hospital. All sorts of weird stuff went down in that place. Experiments, torture and satanic rituals. I’ve heard that sometimes the ghosts hurt you when you go into certain areas.”

  First time I’ve seen skepticism on Veronica’s face. “You believe?”

  “Not at all.”

  “That’s what I figured.” Veronica studies me, and I shift as her intense gaze makes me feel as if I’m on display. “Have you read it?”

  “Is there a how-to book on how to catch Casper the Friendly Ghost?”

  “No. Evelyn’s diary. How far in are you?”

  I shrug my shoulders. “Probably not as far in as anyone else would be.”

  “What do you think of it?”

  I think of the last entry I read—while she had been making a life for herself at the hospital, she was sick and tired of the place and longed to go home. She wanted her life as it was before her diagnosis.

  Sometimes I wonder what life would have been like if Dad had been more interested in being a father and a husband over his devotion to his job, TV or video games. Would I be as hungry as Evelyn for my life before the divorce? Even though our circumstances are different, I understand her. She wanted to live and to be happy. So do I. Problem is—how do we do that? Especially when she faced TB and I can’t stop jumping off cliffs?

  There’s a sick sensation in my gut as I’m not sure I want to read to the end. When you struggle daily to gain a pound, what is the end result? “Did anyone survive TB once they were diagnosed?”

  She nods, but isn’t answering what I want to know—if Evelyn survived.

  I go for a change in subject. “Listen, I’ll be able to hold my own on this project. I may need more time than you on reading and writing, but I can do this.” English has never been my best subject, and I’ll admit that last year, I gave up. I got tired of everything having to be so damn hard, but I’m not giving up again.

  Veronica’s wink unravels the knots gnarled in my chest. “Are you trying to make me feel better because I have a brain tumor? I sat in front of you in math last year, and you’re a math god. Shocking, I know, that we shared a class, since you ignored me.”

  “It’s not like you talked to me,” I counter, but there’s something in how she looks at me without blinking that makes me wonder if I’m wrong.

  “I was surprised you aren’t taking the math AP course this year,” she says.

  Me, too. Along with discovering that Mom had placed me in AP English, it turns out she also switched me from AP math to another class. We fought over the change, but like always, she won. “My mom and Coach are worried about me keeping up my grades so they didn’t want me to overload my schedule.”

  “My dad was like that when I was first diagnosed, but he got over it pretty quick.”

  “You proved him wrong?”

  “No, I can be a real bitch when I want to be.”

  I laugh and the sound causes several people to look over at us.

  Veronica touches a flower barrette in her hair and a hint of sadness tarnishes her beautiful face. “It helped that Mom was on my side. Dad always listened to her.” She shrugs like what she said didn’t mean anything and tries to smile. “Anyhow … life happens.”

  I want to ask about her mom. I’ve not seen a woman at the apartment yet, and I can’t help but wonder if her parents are divorced, too. I don’t ask as I don’t want the question turned around on me. “Does the tumor make things harde
r?”

  She fiddles with her pen, and as I’m about to take the question back, she says, “I have bad migraines. Some are super awful, and I can hardly function. I’ll miss school over them, but when there’s something important happening, I try to fight through the pain and show. I promise I won’t let my migraines get in the way of the project.” She drops the pen then plays with the edge of her notebook, and I can tell that admitting that wasn’t easy. “The headaches are out of my control, and sometimes they take over my life.”

  I understand something taking over my life—being all twisted up until you can’t breathe.

  “Thanks for not telling anyone,” she says. “I don’t want to deal with people’s pity and whatever else they’d say about me because of the tumor.”

  We’re in the corner of the room, isolated from everyone else, yet I have a hard time wrapping my head around having such a deep conversation with so many people near. At least for me. I don’t like having people in my personal business, but she’s sharing and it feels wrong not to share as well.

  “Having dyslexia … sometimes people think I can’t do things. When people find out I have it, I see how their face draws down like they feel sorry for me, and I hate it. Dyslexia sucks, it’s not something I’d choose, but it doesn’t make me less.”

  “What’s dyslexia like?”

  “It’s different for everyone. What I experience isn’t what another person with dyslexia might experience. We can all be different. For me, the letters jump around in a word, and it’s not like once they jump they stay that way. They keep moving. I can read, but it takes a ton of concentration. I can understand what I’m reading, too, but it takes so much time to read that I can barely finish reading a passage on those damn reading comprehension tests before time is called.

  “I have an IEP—Individualized Education Program. Sometimes it helps because I do get more time, but sometimes it doesn’t help. Sometimes I have teachers who forget I have an IEP, and sometimes I don’t feel like having to remind them. It brings more attention on me, and sometimes I get tired of it.”