2 Empath

by Edie Claire

  My cheeks flushed with warmth. “You have no idea how good it is to hear you say all this,” I gushed. “Particularly when you make it sound like it’s coming from a college professor!”

  “It will, someday,” she answered. “Don’t you see? It all makes a weird kind of sense when you look at it scientifically, instead of just running scared, like I was doing. Of course Zane can’t remember what happened in Oahu — his brain wasn’t there, and it’s the brain that lays down long-term memories of events. But he did carry back into his body whatever that energy is capable of carrying. Feelings, almost certainly. Images, perhaps. I’ll bet you anything that when he gets back to Oahu, the things that he sees and hears and smells are going to bring back all sorts of feelings, even without his brain remembering the events that actually happened there.”

  I couldn’t restrain myself anymore. I lunged at her with a hug, bowling her over onto the mattress and knocking her stuff off onto the floor. We both bounced back laughing. “Tara, I love you! Do you have any idea how much I’ve wanted to hear something, anything like what you just said?”

  “Yeah, I’m getting that.”

  I could not stop smiling. “If Zane remembers feelings, then that’s all that matters!” Because he’ll remember how he felt about me!

  Tara smiled back. She started to say something else, but was interrupted by a knock on my door, which came at the same time that Kylee opened it and stepped inside. She took us both in with a glance, but her gaze stopped dead on Tara. A very slow, delighted-in-an-evil-sort-of-way smile spread across her face, twisting her features like the cartoon version of the Grinch. She dropped everything she was carrying at her feet, then crouched down, unzipped her backpack, and extracted a shiny new curling iron.

  “Tara, my dear,” she said ominously. “Tonight, the hair is coming down.”

  ***

  “I am so excited I can’t stand it!” Kylee squealed as we approached the “red carpet” that led from the parking lot to the side door of our rather excellently decorated gymnasium, which the junior class had helped transform into a showplace for the seniors’ “Night in Hollywood.”

  I grinned back at her, feeling the same.

  We were walking three across, with me in the middle and with Kylee looking past me every couple seconds to make sure that Tara hadn’t bailed on us. The gown that Kylee had picked out for herself was appropriately dramatic — a hot neon pink that hugged her curves with no apology and showed off her dark hair and eyes to perfection. Ordinarily, Kylee could be counted on to spend at least an hour preparing herself for even a casual dance. But this evening she had shrugged into the dress, fluffed her hair, and thrown on her own makeup in about five minutes — spending every other available moment working on Tara.

  “I have been waiting for this moment since we were thirteen years old,” Kylee proclaimed, her voice nearly catching as we reached the door. She turned and stood a moment, looking at the results of her labor with moistening eyes. “Tara, babe,” she said with pride. “You look like a freakin’ Disney princess.”

  “Oh, crap!” Tara exclaimed.

  Kylee and I both laughed out loud. But it was true. Tara did look like a princess. Her dress, which was the exact same shade of blue as her eyes, was elegance itself, sweeping down her lean frame to reveal a feminine form never before seen beneath her usual baggy tee shirts, sweats, and I-swear-those-came-from-her-brother’s-closet jeans. Her dark blond hair flowed halfway down her back, ending in soft, gentle curls. A few shorter blond tendrils curled around to frame her china-doll face, from which her newly uncovered blue eyes shone like sapphires.

  “Tara,” Kylee chastised, scooting around me to take hold of her opposite arm. “You are not going to wimp out on us now. Remember what you used to keep telling yourself, whenever the mean girls made fun of your glasses and your clothes and you felt like crying? Brave like a warrior.”

  Tara’s eyes rolled. “That was in the third grade!”

  “Still applies.” Kylee ordered. “Haven’t you been wearing whatever you darn well please ever since? And tonight, you are choosing to look amaza-freakin-throw-down gorgeous!”

  “Thanks,” Tara replied. “But… you know I hate attracting attention. A lot of people are bound to notice I’m not wearing glasses.”

  Kylee shot me a wry, sideways glance. Tara really had no clue how beautiful she was.

  “Come on, Tara,” I said, putting my arm through her free one and propelling us all forwards. “We’re doing this thing together. We promised. Now, let’s go!”

  The red carpet led past an outdoor security checkpoint with the chaperones and then passed through the double doors to a cleverly designed “grand entryway.” Here, everyone got to walk down a short flight of steps and have their picture taken while Hollywood spotlights spun around illuminating the newcomers in full view of the crowd.

  All Kylee and I could say, in defense of the decorating committee, was that it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Somehow, the word “intimidating” had never come up. But as the three of us neared the entrance, Kylee and I exchanged worried glances. When Tara saw the gauntlet she had to walk through, would she bolt?

  Definitely. No sooner did we step through the doors than Tara saw the lights ahead and the crowd gathered below and halted like a mule. “Oh, I am so not doing this!” she exclaimed, shrugging off our arms and whirling around.

  But Kylee and I were prepared. We darted behind her and stood shoulder to shoulder at the door, blocking her retreat. “Brave like a warrior!” we chanted.

  Tara stared at us for a long moment, her blue eyes blazing. Then, much to our surprise, she laughed. “Oh, fine! Let’s just get this damned spotlight thing over with so we can dance!”

  Smiling with relief, we turned Tara around again, took deep breaths, and made our grand entrance.

  We couldn’t see who waited below, because the lights were in our eyes. But I could sense the crowd’s reaction. Both guys and girls were… speechless. And not over Kylee or me.

  We posed for a quick picture, then stepped down onto the dance floor. It took a second for our eyes to adjust, during which I felt a manly elbow jabbing me in the ribs. “Hey, Kali,” Tara’s older brother Damon said offhandedly, giving Kylee and Tara on my other side only the briefest of glances. “Where’s Tar? I thought she was coming with you.”

  I fixed him with an appropriately withering look. “She did,” I answered, refraining from adding, you moron!

  “Well, where’d she get to? I gotta ask her—” His eyes widened suddenly to saucers. His stubbled jaw dropped nearly to his chest.

  The next word out of his mouth was that word. He said it clearly. He said it really, really loud. And he said it, quite unfortunately, just as the last chords of the song died out, making his astonished voice reverberate to every corner of the room. “No!” he continued shouting, oblivious. “Get out! Tara? Is that really you?”

  The entire assembled crowd stared right at us. Kylee and I exchanged a tension-filled glance. Damon wasn’t a bad guy, really. He was friendly enough, and like his sister he was actually quite good looking — tall and athletic with sandy brown hair and blue eyes. Unlike his sister, however, he was neither particularly interesting nor particularly bright. Tara always said that her brothers had the collective intelligence of a bran muffin.

  A few people tittered. A nearby chaperone threw Damon a disapproving glare. The next song began, but despite its familiar upbeat sound, no one moved.

  Kylee and I watched anxiously for Tara’s reaction. Would she bolt again?

  But Tara merely groaned. “Of course it’s me, you idiot!” she snapped. “Who did you think it was? Now shut up and make yourself useful. I like this song.” She grabbed him roughly by the hand, spun him around, and led him, unresisting, to the dance floor.

  Kylee and I relaxed. “She’s going to be okay,” Kylee assured.

  We watched together as Damon clumsily began to dance with his sister, only to be replaced within sec
onds by one of his smarter — and smoother — senior friends. “Something tells me we won’t be seeing her for a while,” I said happily.

  “Nope,” Kylee agreed, her dark eyes sparkling. “My job here is done.” She then turned and looked at me with equal fervor. “Now, back to you. I had a long talk with ba noi this afternoon. She says you’re an empath.”

  My eyes widened. “I’m what?”

  “An empath,” she repeated. “It means that you have the ability to pick up on other people’s emotions. Anybody can try to read emotions by picking up on obvious cues, like tone of voice, facial expression, body language. Some of us are better at that than others — and women tend to be better at it than men. But a true empath is different —they actually perceive other people’s emotions and feel them like they’re their own. That’s what you’ve been doing. It’s a separate gift from seeing the shadows, but it’s a lot more common. Ba noi knows a bunch of empaths in San Jose, and she’s going to ask them for advice on how to control it. You know, learning how to shut out the background noise so it doesn’t get overwhelming. How cool is that?”

  “That’s…” I said breathlessly, “pretty darn cool.”

  I felt a surge of giddy excitement. Part of it, no doubt, I was picking up from the people around me, most of whom were mindlessly enjoying a good party. But it wasn’t all them. I felt like a sick person must feel when — after a string of doctors tells them their symptoms are all in their head — one doctor finally takes them seriously, diagnoses their trouble, and prescribes a cure. I was not crazy, and I never had been. I had some rare and unusual gifts, true. But aside from that, I was a perfectly normal person.

  Sweet.

  “Hey, Kali!” came a voice to my left. I looked over to see one of my guy friends, Lucas, smiling at me from behind a cup of punch. “You look awesome!”

  I smiled back. Lucas was a bit of a nerd, but he was a nice guy. I noticed he had trimmed his ordinarily shoulder-length hair for the event, and might have actually looked decent if he hadn’t chosen to wear an eggplant-purple tux with a bright red vest and bowtie. But what did I care? At least he could move to music, which made him the closest thing to a good dance partner my high school had to offer.

  “Thanks,” I responded. “You don’t look so bad yourself.” Relatively speaking, I added silently. “Want to dance?”

  He threw back the remainder of his punch with one gulp, then shrugged. “Not much else to do, is there?”

  I turned back to Kylee, but the spot where she’d been standing was empty. She was already out on the dance floor, demonstrating some moves to a circle of adoring guys who couldn’t imitate them if their lives depended on it.

  Oh well. So what if the guys at my high school weren’t into dancing as much as the ones I’d met at the Spring Fling in Oahu? I had a lot of friends here, and I would miss them when I moved. Even if the guys did continue to swoon over Kylee and the flirty girls while thinking of me as just another “gal pal.” The music was good and my best friends had my back.

  I would not think about Zane. I would not try to imagine his reaction to seeing me in this dress, certainly not in the one I didn’t buy. I would not remember how he could always make me feel attractive, no matter what I was wearing or what I was doing, just because I was me.

  I was going to dance with a bunch of guys who saw me as just another one of the guys, and I was going to enjoy myself anyway.

  I turned back to Lucas. Awkward, too-skinny, apparently colorblind Lucas. We’d known each other since before my braces came off. He saw me just like the others did: a down-to-earth, undemanding tomboy of a friend.

  He held out an elbow and smiled at me. “Shall we dance?” he said jokingly.

  Lust.

  My breath caught in my throat.

  Holy crap!

  I tried to clear the system; reset the channels. The face he turned to me looked as it always did: self-conscious but good-spirited, slightly sarcastic, always ready for a laugh. But what was he actually feeling?

  Lust.

  Oh my. Was it the dress? The occasion? Or had he been giving off the vibe all along, but I wasn’t sensitive enough to feel it? Surely not!

  “Something wrong?” he asked, lowering his arm again.

  Concern.

  I managed to return a weak smile. He really was worried about me. How sweet was that?

  “No, I’m fine,” I lied, taking his arm with a flourish. “Let’s show these losers how it’s done, shall we?”

  He grinned back at me broadly. “After you.”

  Lust.

  Ackk!

  I averted my eyes and led him briskly out onto the dance floor.

  Chapter 8

  Lucas was not the only one. The only thing keeping me from feeling totally creeped out by the rapid-fire onslaught of desire I felt from every guy — yes, every guy — I danced with was the even more powerful vibe of excitement and fun that radiated from nearly everyone in the room. It was a great dance. The DJ was tons better than last year’s (so I understood from the seniors), all the songs were familiar, and the sour-cream guacamole dip on the back right table was to die for.

  For whatever reason, at least a third of the crowd had come without dates, so there was plenty of mingling and flirting going on, which meant Kylee was in seventh heaven. And as for Tara… well, Tara was having the time of her life. She insisted, on the few occasions when she could shake off enough admirers to have a word with me, that it was all about her lack of glasses. I could have told her that her face was in fact not the focus of Jack Mason’s attention during their frequent dances together, but I decided she was better off not knowing that.

  And I would be better off not knowing that Caitlin Martin was ridiculously jealous of Erin Pruitt, even though Caitlin had been the one to break it off with Nick over a month ago. Or that my precalculus teacher was way too fond of my American history teacher, considering that they were both married with kids. And I could definitely stand to live another day without realizing that Amy Alexander felt horribly guilty every time she looked at her super-sweet boyfriend, which probably meant that she’d been cheating on him with her thoroughly despicable ex. Again.

  “Hey, girl!” Kylee chirped, joining me at the guacamole table. “Is this a fun one, or what? Do you see Tara?”

  I nodded as I finished swallowing a mouthful of chips. “Listen, Kylee, when did your grandmother say she would call again? I’ve got to shut this empath thing off!”

  She threw me a puzzled look. “Really? Like, totally off? But why?”

  Because, despite her saying about a thousand times that she forgives you for stealing her boyfriend freshman year, I know now that Maddie Silverman still hates your guts. And I really wish I didn’t.

  “Because it’s driving me nuts,” I answered. “There are some emotions that people are better off keeping to themselves, you know?”

  Her eyes gleamed. “Like what?”

  I shook my head. “Just let me know as soon as you hear anything, okay?”

  “Will do,” she answered cheerfully. “Oh, look! Bryan is calling me over again!”

  She sailed off into the crowd, and I dipped another chip into the guacamole. Calling you, indeed, I thought ruefully, remembering how Bryan’s “emotions” regarding the new Tara had nearly burned a hole in my back every time I had accidentally stepped between them. Too bad the guy was not only an operator, but an all-around, first-class jerk — something it didn’t take empathic abilities to pick up on.

  I made a mental note to chaperone Tara home tonight.

  A group of hungry-looking people approached the food table, and I reluctantly gave up my spot by the chips and dip. As I stepped away, I was struck by a sudden feeling of melancholy. I looked around, wondering if I was sensing someone else nearby. But I didn’t see any likely suspects — living or dead. This time, the feeling was my own.

  I sighed. Everyone else’s good spirits had kept mine up so far, but left to myself, I was short on cheer. I might as
well face it: I missed Zane. Despite knowing better and constantly warning myself to cut it out, I couldn’t help daydreaming all spring about how much fun we could have together at prom. He was such a fabulous dancer — untrained, but with natural talent. We could rock out like no one else.

  But it was more than that. Even if he came in a wheelchair with his leg in a cast, I would have fun just being with him. Laughing with him, enjoying his killer smile…

  Missing him was seriously painful.

  Kylee and Tara had urged me to go for it and just invite him. “What could it hurt?” they had asked. What they didn’t know was how many times I had already hinted to Zane in texts — and not at all subtly — that I would be happy to road-trip out to visit him in California. It would have required no effort on his part. I had money saved up. But every time I had mentioned the possibility, he had deftly made a joke of it, or twisted my meaning, or changed the subject. He didn’t want me to come.

  I wasn’t sure why, when everything else he texted was so reassuring. He never left any doubt that he wanted to see me again, but in his mind that clearly didn’t mean now — it only meant at some unspecified point in the future, and in Oahu. I still had no idea exactly what his injuries were, or how quickly he was recovering from them, because his few texts on that topic were intentionally vague. So how could I ask him to travel to Wyoming, when he obviously wasn’t well, just to indulge me with a stupid high school dance?