2 Empath

by Edie Claire

  I couldn’t. So I hadn’t. End of story.

  I wound my way back around to the table where we’d left our bags and pulled out my phone. There was no point in pretending I wasn’t checking for a message from Zane, since pretty much everyone else I knew was either in the room with me or knew it was prom and was leaving me alone. There wouldn’t be any messages. But I had to check…

  I had missed a call.

  A call from Zane!

  My hands fumbled so badly I dropped the phone on the tabletop with a clatter. Luckily the music was so loud and the room so busy that no one noticed.

  Chill, girl!

  I picked up the phone again. He had called ten minutes ago. It was only the second time he had actually called me, ever. He hadn’t left a voice mail message. There was no text. Should I call him back?

  The phone vibrated in my hand.

  I dropped it again.

  Breathe!

  In one motion I swooped up the phone, hit answer, and sailed away from the noise of the music toward the relative quiet of the alcove by the locker rooms that was designated as a “cell phone area.” That had been Kylee’s idea. The girl was brilliant.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Kali!” The sound of his voice sent a shudder through me. He sounded so full of energy, so alive… so excited. “I’ve got something I want you to hear. You ready?”

  I hustled toward the farthest corner and covered my other ear. “Sure.”

  I strained to listen over the drumming bass beat. At first, I heard nothing. Then it came through loud and clear. A rooster crowing.

  A pleasant warmth flushed my face. I knew that sound.

  He was in Oahu!

  “Did you hear it?” he asked brightly. “There are, like, three hens and a rooster right outside my window! Guess where I am.”

  I laughed. “Where else would you go to find wild chickens but Hawaii?”

  “Ding ding ding!” he said, imitating a bell. “Where in Hawaii?”

  “Haleiwa?” I guessed, naming the small town on the North Shore where I’d nearly tripped over a chicken myself.

  “Almost,” he conceded. “I’m in a little apartment just off Kaunala Beach, near Backyards. You know where that is?”

  My smile broadened. I did know. Backyards was a surf break. He had taken me there. “Just north of Sunset Beach!”

  “Awesome!” he praised, obviously pleased.

  “You have an apartment?”

  He laughed. “Well, that’s probably not quite the right word for it. It’s more of a room. Tacked onto the side of a rental cottage. It’s got a bathroom about four feet square, a mini stove and fridge, and some furniture that looks like somebody picked it up off the curb on trash day. But it’s livable. And the location is amazing. I can walk to Backyards. And once I get a bike, I can be at the Pipe in, like, three minutes!”

  He sounded like his old self again — talking about surf breaks like a kid talks about Christmas. And he was sharing his excitement with me. “Zane, that’s fabulous!” I gushed.

  He went silent for a couple beats. “Hey, what’s all that noise?” he asked. “You at a party?”

  I tensed. “Kind of. It’s the junior/senior prom.”

  He was silent another moment. “Oh, wow,” he said, sounding a little deflated. “Sorry. I didn’t know I was interrupting the big event.”

  “You’re not!” I said quickly. “I needed something to get me away from the guacamole dip, anyway.”

  More silence. I didn’t know what he was thinking, but I couldn’t bear for him to misunderstand.

  Honesty, Kali.

  “The truth is,” I blurted. “I really wanted to invite you to come, but I was afraid you would say no. I didn’t know if you felt up to traveling so far… and besides, you said you’d see me in Hawaii.”

  “Oh.”

  Oh? Was that it? Oh?

  “But I really wish you were here,” I finished bravely. “I mean, not that you wouldn’t rather be in Hawaii, of course!”

  “I wish I was there, too,” he said quietly. “I missed all my own dances in high school; I was always working. I guess I probably told you that already.” After another beat, he cleared his throat and his voice became cheerful again. “So did I brag to you before about what an awesome dancer I am?”

  I smirked. “Actually, you did. And I didn’t believe you. Until I saw you in action.”

  “You saw me dance?” he said skeptically. “When?”

  Awkward. When I thought he was still unconscious, I’d given him a pretty good rundown of all the fun we’d had together on the North Shore. But of course I’d left a few things out. Like the fact that I’d gone to Frederick High School’s “Spring Fling” with another date. “It was a dance at the school in Honolulu that I’ll be going to next year,” I explained. “And yes, you are an amazing dancer.” A sudden mental image made me smile. “Think you can still do an arabesque on a moving shortboard?”

  “Um…” he answered uncertainly, “that’s not exactly the kind of dancing I was talking about. What’s an arabesque, again?”

  “Never mind,” I laughed. “How about I show you when I get there?”

  “Can’t wait,” he said immediately. “Listen, Kali…”

  “Yeah?”

  “I shouldn’t bother you when you’re on a date. I’ll call you later, okay?”

  “I’m not on a date. I came with Kylee and Tara. And I promise you, neither one of them is missing me in the slightest.”

  I couldn’t hear anything. But I imagined him smiling.

  “Send me a pic!” he insisted, his voice jovial again. “You talk about those two so much, it’ll be nice to have some faces to put with the names.”

  “Hang on a minute.” I flipped through the series of pictures my mother had taken on my camera before we left the house. I picked the one where my hair looked the least like I’d stuck my finger in a light socket, and hit send.

  “Okay, done.” Did I dare? The fact that I didn’t have a single picture of him had caused me no small amount of grief in the endless months since I’d last seen him. I never thought to take a picture of a semi-transparent wraith (would he even show up?) and it seemed beyond crass to whip out my phone and capture a shot of him while he lay in a hospital bed. All I had to look at was one low-res pic from his ninth grade swim team that I’d pulled off the internet (in which, despite his age, he looked totally hot). “Now it’s your turn,” I dared.

  “Fine,” he answered. I heard a series of muffled noises, then a ringtone on his end. He whistled. “Wow,” he said in a deadpan. “Remind me, when I’m running the world, not to hire any guy who went to high school in Cheyenne, Wyoming.”

  My eyebrows rose. “And why not?”

  “Because they must all be complete morons. How could they let the three of you get to prom without dates? The incompetence! Boggles the mind.”

  “Um… thanks for that,” I said with a chuckle. “Kylee had a date, but — well, it’s kind of a long story.” My phone beeped. I pulled it away from my ear and saw that I had received a picture. I opened it eagerly. Then I groaned out loud.

  “Zane!” I fumed. “This is a freakin’ chicken!”

  He cracked up laughing. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  “No!”

  “So come to Oahu,” he said smoothly. “When are you moving?”

  I gave him the latest date range; we wouldn’t know the exact day for a couple weeks yet.

  “That ought to be enough time,” he responded.

  “Enough time for what?”

  A beat. “Nothing. Kylee’s the brunette, right?”

  “Yep. How’d you guess?”

  “She looks like a Kylee. And Tara’s the blonde.”

  “That’s right.” I suddenly wished I hadn’t sent the picture. How good could I possibly look standing next to the two of them?

  “I’m sorry I’m not there, Kali,” he said with sudden seriousness. The regret in his voice made my heart mel
t. “I didn’t even think about your having a prom this spring. But of course you would.”

  “It’s okay,” I managed, my eyes threatening to tear. “It’s not a big deal. Really.”

  He chuckled sadly. “You really do suck at lying, you know that?”

  I laughed. “Yeah. So I hear.”

  “So if you’re really not busy at the moment,” he asked. “Tell me, what’s a prom like, anyway? Are Kylee and Tara having fun with the blind idiot guys? Is there a DJ or a band? I’ve always wondered what I missed. You’re a good storyteller. Take me there.”

  I imagined him in the perfect tux, his blond curls contrasting sharply with a tailored black jacket and crisp white shirt, his green eyes sparkling as he danced…

  Frederick High School, Honolulu, Hawaii. Senior prom. One year from now.

  I would make it happen.

  “Well,” I began with enthusiasm, settling myself into a folding chair in the corner. “Proms always have a theme, for one thing. This one’s is ‘Night in Hollywood…’”

  I took him through the whole evening, starting with Tara’s makeover and the effect of our grand entrance. I remembered how easy he’d always been to talk to. In Oahu, I figured it was because he was already dead and I felt like I had nothing to lose… but now I wasn’t so sure. Maybe it was because he was a good listener, and he seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say. Whatever the reason, I found myself sharing way more than strictly necessary. Like, for instance, the whole guy-lust-empath thing.

  “Wait a minute,” he interrupted. “Let me get this straight. You’re getting this vibe from every guy you dance with… and you’re surprised by this, why?”

  I bit my lip. How exactly had I stumbled into this minefield? Just because I was as comfortable talking to him as I was to Tara or Kylee didn’t mean I could forget he was a guy!

  “You don’t understand,” I argued uncertainly. “These aren’t guys who actually like me — it’s not like we’re dating or anything. We’re just friends.”

  “Yeah. And?”

  He was confusing me. “And?”

  He chuckled. “Well, what emotions would you expect them to feel when they’re watching a girl as gorgeous as you move around in a dress like that? Puzzled? Sleepy? Morose?”

  “No!” It sounded stupid, now. “But just… I don’t know! Exhilarated by the music, maybe?”

  He laughed out loud. “They’re guys, Kali. They can’t help themselves; it doesn’t matter who you are or what your relationship is. It’s a reaction. You can’t blame them for having basic instincts. Now how they act — that’s a different story. Do girls really not know this stuff?”

  I couldn’t help but think it was better if we didn’t. Lucas’s primal fantasies could stay in his own head, thank you very much.

  I had to turn this empath thing off, ASAP!

  “Maybe it’s just as well,” Zane proclaimed. “The guys in Cheyenne clearly don’t deserve your understanding. In fact, I take back my previous defense. They’re sexist barbarians, all of them.”

  I grinned.

  “And by the way,” he added. “Can you tell what I’m feeling right now?”

  I concentrated. I imagined him sitting in a studio apartment on the beach. It would be cramped and probably a little dingy, but brightly painted. It would be early evening there now, right around sunset. The breeze would be blowing in through opened shutters, carrying the sound of waves crashing on the sand. I could guess what he might be feeling. But the “emotion vibe” was a different animal. It was a unique sensation that I either picked up or I didn’t. Right now, I was getting zip.

  “No,” I answered, disappointed.

  “Excellent. In that case, I’m exhilarated by the music.”

  I cracked up laughing. “I don’t think you have to worry about me spying inside your head; I can’t feel Kylee or Tara, either.” I explained about the paradoxical “stronger with strangers” thing. “So your evil secrets are safe, at least for now.”

  “There you are!” I looked up to see a jarring display of purple and red. Lucas was beaming at me from the entrance to the alcove. “Everyone’s looking for you! You coming back to dance some more?”

  “That must be one of the barbarians,” Zane said dryly.

  “I’ll be back in a couple minutes,” I answered Lucas.

  He raised a cup of punch in the air, as if toasting me. “Cool,” he stated. Then he did some kind of marching band move — a stiff about-face which caused half his punch to splash out onto his pant leg — and left again.

  Lust.

  Sheesh!

  “I should let you go, Kali,” Zane insisted. “You only get one junior prom. Go enjoy it.”

  “All right,” I said reluctantly, sliding off the chair. “So…” I dared, “What are you going to do with all your free time, now that you’ve made it to the North Shore?”

  It was kind of a joke, but not really. Of course he would be dying to surf, but was he physically able to?

  “I’m trying to remember things,” he answered.

  It was hardly the response I expected. “Remember things?”

  “I meant to tell you earlier,” he began, his tone serious. “Seeing the ghost wasn’t the only weird thing that’s happened to me since the accident. Ever since I’ve gotten to Oahu, I’ve been having these sensations… like deja vu, I guess. I’ll see a place, and I’ll know I’ve been there before. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t remember a thing about it. It’s crazy making!”

  My pulse quickened. Yes. It was happening just as Tara predicted!

  In a rush, I explained her theory. “So when I get there, you can tell me what seems familiar, and I can help you fill in the blanks.”

  “That’ll be great,” he said, sounding relieved. “Now enough about me. Go back to your friends and dance!”

  I smiled. “Will do.”

  We said goodbye and I hung up, my face glowing.

  When I get there.

  I would get there.

  The “do-over” was coming soon!

  I moved through the doorway and back out toward the crowd, realizing only then that, once again, Zane had cleverly avoided my question about what kind of shape he was in. He’d also avoided sending me a picture of himself. A wave of fear struck through me. What if he was hiding the extent of his injuries? What if he was afraid to tell me that he could never surf again?

  Lust.

  I wheeled around to see Lucas approaching. “Ready now?” he asked politely.

  I nodded absently and followed him to the dance floor.

  Zane wasn’t hiding anything. I would know it if he was.

  Lucas flashed me a smile of pure innocence.

  Wouldn’t I?

  Chapter 9

  The last day of school. The last period. The last minute. Sad as I was to be leaving my friends so soon, every second of the day had felt like an eternity. One week. Seven days from now, I would be in Oahu.

  This time with a living, breathing Zane. And this time, I would be staying there.

  I was so excited, I couldn’t allow myself to think about it… or I might explode.

  Kylee and Tara didn’t want to think about it, either.

  “This,” Kylee announced, flipping the switch on her blender to pulverize our celebratory smoothies, “will be the best we’ve ever made.”

  We smiled at each other silently while the motor whirred. None of us wanted to talk about my leaving. In the beginning, we’d made plans that maybe they could visit me at Christmas break. But airfare was expensive. Tara had money saved up, but I knew she needed it for more substantial things, like college. And Kylee could work all summer and not make enough to cover both airfare and spending money for senior year. Maybe, I had suggested meekly, they could check out the University of Hawaii and consider it a college visit? I knew that Kylee, who loved the ocean, wanted to go to school somewhere on the coast. Tara didn’t care where her future college was located, as long as it had the engineering program
she wanted and would give her a good enough scholarship. But while Kylee’s parents could help her out with the costs of a legitimate college trip, Tara’s parents could not.

  My coming back to Cheyenne for a visit was the backup plan, of course. But none of us could get quite as excited about that.

  The blender ground to a halt, and Kylee poured the smoothies. “To summer,” she toasted, raising her glass.

  “To summer,” Tara and I echoed, clinking the tumblers and taking a sip.

  The drinks were heavenly. Strawberries, kiwi, pineapple, and lime. Kylee had thrown in some mystery ingredients, too. She was good at that.

  “You’re right,” Tara agreed. “They are the best ever.”

  “You do have a way with combining flavors,” I praised.

  Kylee smirked. “Must be my fab multi-continental gene pool. My profile had the greatest ‘ancestral diversity’ of anybody’s I saw. What did you guys get?”

  Tara and I exchanged a startled glance. “We forgot all about it!” Tara answered for both of us. She moved out of the kitchen to where our backpacks lay on Kylee’s family room floor. She handed mine over to me, then began to rummage through her own. “Mr. Stedman didn’t hand them out until after the bell rang,” she explained. “And then everybody was partying in the halls…”

  Mr. Stedman, our advanced biology teacher, had asked for volunteers months ago to enroll in an ancestral genetics study. It was the same type of DNA test other people were paying big bucks for on the commercial market, but we had gotten it done for free in exchange for swabbing a cheek and filling out a survey about our known family tree. We were supposed to analyze the results in class, but they took too long to come back and he had taught the unit without them.

  “I came out 49% East Asian, which is a no-brainer,” Kylee explained, pulling a crinkled piece of paper out of her back pocket. “But my mom had no clue where her ancestors came from. She thought one of her grandmothers was Irish, but she wasn’t sure.” She hopped up on a kitchen stool, shook out her paper, and took another sip of her smoothie. “So it turns out — everybody ready? — not only am I half Vietnamese, I’m 22% Scandinavian, 16% British Isles, 6% Central European, and 6% European Jewish. How totally cool is that?”