by Ayres, Jamie
For a moment, the whole world disappeared and I stood in a classroom of sorts. Gasping, I pressed a hand to my chest. The angel from my dream grabbed my other hand.
“Congratulations. You passed.”
He patted me on the back and gave me one last glance before popping his wings out. Then he was too beautiful to behold, so I looked away.
The vision dissolved as Tammy called to me from the door, telling me to hurry up and change. In that moment, I knew my intuition was right. These things had happened; they were real memories. For better or worse, I couldn’t remember everything, but going forward, I knew I’d be a different person now. These past six months, life had a way of darkening my vision until all I could see was the rainy cloud of my problems. Somehow I’d forgotten a chunk of my life, but I still sensed the wonderful lessons that I’d learned to help me grow as a person buried inside me but fighting to rise up to the surface. If I changed my focus to becoming that stronger and more peaceful version of myself, then maybe the cloud would disappear and I could become again the person I once was.
“Just because someone doesn’t love you the way you want them to,
doesn’t mean they don’t love you.”
—Nate’s Thoughts
didn’t see Conner again until the next afternoon. The ER was a hot mess with the full moon and all, so getting all the tests the doctor ordered took forever. By that time, visiting hours were over; the hospital staff kicked us out. Then of course, he didn’t come to school. Nic had to work, Tammy had cheerleading but as the captain excused me from practice, and Kyle went home sick, so I bummed a ride with Sean to visit Conner, unsure what version of him we’d be visiting.
“How you doing, man?” Sean asked as we walked into his room.
“Hey, Sean.” Conner held out his hand for a fist bump. His eyelids fluttered, and then his gaze met mine. “Olga, how are you?”
Frozen in my spot, I regarded his expression and tone for a moment. This was definitely my Conner. I struggled with my thoughts, wondering what I should do or say, before deciding I should just enjoy him while it lasted. “I’m good. So, you’re really okay?”
He winced. “My head hurts. Had to get staples.”
Sean frowned. “Well, maybe the accident knocked some sense into that noggin of yours. You seem like your old self again. We’ve missed you, dude.”
Conner drew back and sank into his pillows. “You noticed something different about me?”
“I’d have to be blind not to.” Sean picked up the remote and flipped through the channels.
“You told him about my visit,” Conner whispered to me.
I shook my head, tears burning the back of my eyes.
Conner cleared his throat. “Sean, I’m really sorry for the way I’ve been acting.”
Sean shrugged, his eyes locked on the TV.
“I promise I’ll find a way to make it up to you, to the Jedi Order.”
Finally, Sean looked at him. “Well, you better. You’re my boy and all, but you need to stop acting like a whack-job. Think you can handle that?”
Conner’s eyes filled with sadness, and he rubbed his face with the back of his hand. “I sure hope so. I need you guys. I can’t lose you. I don’t know what I’d do if I did.”
I released a huge sigh of relief.
Conner glanced at me. “Sean, do you mind running down to the cafeteria to get me a root beer? The nurses won’t bring me any pop.”
Sean set the remote down on the side table. “Sure thing. You want anything, Olga?”
Nervous, I adjusted my glasses. “Nah, I’m good.”
We watched him leave the room before turning toward each other.
“Conner.”
“Olga, I’m so, so, so, so sorry.”
I fought back a wave of nausea. Why was my heart racing so fast? Hadn’t my heart decided to not care just a week ago? No, not my heart, my mind, and my heart rarely went along with what I thought. Some feelings I just couldn’t seem to get rid of, no matter how much I tried.
“You remember everything you did to me? To everyone?”
He patted the extra space beside him on the bed, signaling for me to sit. “Not really. Some of it, yes, but it’s not like the last time I came to. I’m losing track of time. I’m really scared.”
The air tightened around me. “Did you say anything about it to your parents or the doctor?”
He reached out and tentatively tucked a long piece of hair behind my ear. “I’m too scared they’ll lock me up in a white, padded cell. I have no idea what I should do, or what’s going on with me. You?”
I picked up his hand and squeezed his palm. “I’ve been doing some research. The best theory I’ve come up with so far is maybe the trauma of your accident is causing a bipolar disorder. I think we should tell a doctor. Maybe there’s a drug you can take to help you get through this.”
Conner glanced around the room, looking more terrified than ever. “I don’t know. I don’t want to rely on some drug all the time to be myself. There has to be another way.”
Feeling a little lost for words, I nodded once. “Look, maybe there is, but until we find it, what does it matter if you have to take a few pills a day if it helps you?”
“Yeah, because drugs have helped me so much these last few months.”
I knew his sarcasm was the indirect expression of his truth. “Conner, don’t be an idiot. You obviously need serious help, and who knows how long you’ll stay good again before you destroy yourself?”
He closed his eyes and let out a breath before glancing at me again. “When did you get so tough?”
“The night you slept with Tammy.” My voice broke.
“Ouch.”
“Whatever, Conner. After everything that’s happened, you’re lucky the Jedi Order isn’t telling you to get lost. The least you can do is man up and get help.”
I choked on the reprimand. Honestly, being so hard on Conner after all he’d been through killed me, but sometimes people needed tough love.
“Ugh. I know. But unless you can dig up Freud himself to do a case study on me, then I don’t know what will help.”
Placing my hands over his, I said, “Maybe that’s what you need, a psychiatrist. A visit from Dr. Judy temporarily helped you before. If you keep up regular visits with her, maybe a few times a week, then maybe you’d be okay.”
He hugged me close. “You know you’re a genius, right? But I can’t do this without you by my side. My parents will be here soon to take me home, and I want you to come with me. Can you call your parents and ask them if you can spend the night?”
My mouth went dry at the thought. “I haven’t spent the night at your house since I was nine.”
He leaned forward and kissed my forehead. “The age your parents deemed coed was inappropriate, I know. I was so disappointed. But I know you can convince them. Play on their sympathy. Please, Olga. I need you.”
“Okay, but only if you speak to the doctor about what’s going on with you. Maybe they can do something besides medicating you. Maybe they can’t. Whatever the case, you can’t go on like this.”
Sean came back in with the can of pop, and I took the opportunity to step into the hallway to call Dad. I knew he was my best bet. Sighing, I slid my phone out of my pocket.
“What?” Dad barked on the other line after I asked the question.
I explained the situation, minus the part about Conner’s split personality.
“I don’t know,” Dad answered. “For one, it’s a school night. Two, your mom won’t like it. I don’t like it, either.”
My guilt over placing my dad between a rock and a hard place caused me to hesitate, but my concern for Conner won out in the end. “I know, Dad. But Mom will listen to you if you insist.”
Silence for one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, then, “It’s really that important to you?”
Heart pounding. “Yes. I’m worried about him. And his parents will be hovering over him the whole time, bu
t he said he needs me. Please. He’s been through so much these past few months.”
“Okay,” he said quietly. My parents knew Conner well, and I felt guilty for playing on Dad’s sympathy.
“Thank you, Dad. Thank you so much. I owe you big time.”
He chuckled over the line. “Oh, don’t you worry. You’ll pay up soon. Are you coming home for a change of clothes?”
“Yeah, but I’ll just stop by for a sec before you and Mom get home from the marina. Sean can drive me.”
“Okay, then. I’ll see you tomorrow. That is if your mom doesn’t kill me before then.”
“Dad,” I said more sharply than I meant to. After all, he was letting me go. I still couldn’t believe I had the nerve to ask.
“Just make sure you come straight home after school tomorrow, all right?”
“Yes, sir.”
I put my phone back in my pocket, then headed down the hall to tell Conner some good news for once.
Conner sat down at the card table in his basement, swinging himself around the chair to face me over the back. “So, guess what happened at the hospital when you and Sean left?”
We’d just finished dinner, a five-course meal when it came to Erin, his mom. His parents were delighted I was spending the night, weird as that sounded. They trusted me, and they hoped my presence was a good sign things were finally going back to normal. At least, that’s what Erin whispered to me as we cleared the table together.
“They made you take some drugs?”
“Nope, they used electroshock therapy on me.” He made the announcement unflinchingly, like announcing he was taking the dog for a walk.
“What?” The only thing I knew about shock therapy came from reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and watching the subsequent film in English class last year. Hollywood’s portrayal didn’t exactly paint a pretty picture.
“Turns out I wasn’t too far off with my idea of getting struck by lightning again to reverse the effects.”
I winced. “Well, I hope it was less dramatic than that.”
“It was. The doctor gave me a muscle relaxant first and put me under general anesthesia. Then they placed electrodes on my scalp, and the current caused a brief seizure. Doc said ECT is one of the fastest ways to relieve symptoms in people who suffer from mania like me. It’s used when mood or psychotic symptoms are so severe that it may be unsafe to wait until drugs can take effect or when the patient doesn’t want to take drugs. Both reasons applied to me. I’ll go back Wednesday and Friday for another session.”
I took my glasses off and polished them on the corner of my shirt so hard I thought for a moment I might break them. “You think the shock therapy helped then? Because it still sounds barbaric to me.”
“Here’s the thing: while I was having my seizure, I also had a vision. Only it didn’t feel like a vision, but rather a—”
“Memory.” I slid my lenses back on, willing my hands not to shake.
With a fixed stare, he studied me. “Yeah, how’d you know?”
“I’ll explain later. Go on.”
“Okay. Well, I sat in a prison cell, naked, with fierce cuts across my back like I’d been whipped. And you were there with some girl named Grace. I’ve never seen her before.”
My eyes went wide at the mention of her name. “And that’s it? Nothing else happened in your vision?”
He shook his head. “No, Nate was there, too. He shot you in the neck with a tranquillizer gun, and then everything went dark. Told you I thought he was connected to all this. Then I woke up, and when I did, I had that same sensation of something leaving me like the night before school started.”
I just stared at him.
Hands clasped behind his head, he finally asked, “Well, what do you think?”
“It’s possible,” I said slowly, spinning the Morticia Addams ring on my finger, “that we are on the edge of glancing into an alternative universe. In a sense, we may be time traveling.”
“Huh?”
This wasn’t the response he expected, and I knew how strange I sounded, but what else could be happening? It took a while to explain my two visions with Nate, in addition to my weird dream that also mentioned Grace and the memory I had of the angel earlier today in Kyle’s backyard.
“I think you’re on to something,” Conner said when I finished.
“You do?”
Giving a shrug, he laughed. “I don’t have any better explanations, and you’re much smarter than I am. What do you think we should do about it?”
Now it was my turn to shrug. “We surrender ourselves to the process. I expect things will be revealed to us in due time. Until then, we focus on everything that truly matters. We won’t give up, but we’ll trust that whatever is meant to happen will happen, and that we’ll have the strength to deal with anything that comes our way.”
Conner half closed his eyes. “Sounds easier said than done, but I’ll try to follow your lead.” Then he added a bit sheepishly, “Did you know I got tattoos?”
“Yeah, I saw it that one day at lunch, the day after you came to my house.”
He nodded and smiled. “Right. But I used the plural form.”
My eyes widened. “How many do you have now?”
“Six.”
“Six! Where?”
Standing, he ditched his shirt, dropping the material to the floor. I’d seen him shirtless countless times, but never like this. Just the two of us. Alone. In his basement/bedroom, his parents upstairs.
His abs were still ripped with muscle, but now he had two black wings inked along each side of his ribs. Conner pointed, counting, “One, two.” He trailed a finger across his bronzed chest, where two red stars hung just above his nipples that were… pierced with two gold rings.
Oh, good Lord.
“Three, four. You already know about this one.” He turned his left forearm toward me, squinting at the naked lady. “You ready for the grand finale?”
No.
He turned around; an enormous Grim Reaper took up the back of his right shoulder. “Six. What do you think?”
He still had his back to me. I stepped forward to outline the ink with my finger, his body trembling under my touch. After a few seconds, I trailed my hand down his arm and squeezed his bicep. “I think you look like a rock star.”
He bent down, picked up his discarded shirt, then slid the material over his head before walking to his dresser. “Those aren’t the only disturbing new things I’ve found.” He pulled out a contraband of PlayBoy magazines, a six-pack of beer, a box of cigars, and a bag of weed.
I went to him, only needing to look in his eyes for a second to know it was safe to hug him. This was my Conner. Dropping his head to my shoulder, he cried. Now I could count two other times I’d actually seen him cry, even though he frequently fell off bikes, skateboards, and skis while growing up.
I half pulled, half drug him over to his bed to sit down. “Conner, whatever is going on with you isn’t your fault. I’m sorry I yelled at you last week when you tried to talk to me.”
His face twisted in anguish. “I deserved to be yelled at. I was acting like a turdnugget.”
I laughed.
“I’m not joking,” he said, no trace of a smile.
“I know. It’s just, you said turdnugget.”
He shook his head, but he smiled, too. “You’re so ridiculous sometimes.”
Raising my eyebrows, I said, “This coming from the guy who jumped off Sean’s roof in eighth grade and broke his leg.”
“Hey, Sean and Kyle jumped, too, and they were fine! I’m a magnet for freak accidents, remember? I’m the King Super Freak.”
I toyed with a loose thread on his black jeans. “Yeah, I’m sure it had nothing to do with them jumping off the lowest point of the roof and you jumping from the highest.”
“That’s because I was trying to impress you.”
Turning my face up to his, I told him, “You don’t ever have to try to impress me.”
Hi
s blue eyes went wide. “Maybe with other girls I don’t have to try. But with you I do, and I always will.” He reached over and flipped a switch off and another one on. His lamp went dark, but the wall lit up with “I love you” spelled out in Christmas lights.
“When did you do this?”
“While I waited for you to get here.”
As he moved closer to me, his arm and leg grazed mine, making my breath hitch.
Then a knock at his sliding glass door startled us. We turned. Sucking in a quick breath, I realized Nate stood just outside, a scowl on his face.
“What is he doing here?” Conner asked, flipping the light back on.
“No idea.”
Carefully, I rose from Conner’s bed and strode across the room to answer the door. Nate’s face was hard, and I tensed for a confrontation as I opened the slider. “Hey. What are you doing here?”
I counted to thirty in my head before he finally answered. “I should ask you the same question.”
My eyes narrowed. “How’d you even know I was here?”
He tapped his forehead.
“Nate, that’s not fair. You can’t stalk me like this.”
“It’s not knowledge I’ll ignore when I find out you’re alone in a room with this monster.”
Conner leaped off his bed and joined us. I was hoping he’d extend his hand like a gentleman and formally introduce himself, since Nate had never met my Conner before.
“If I’m a monster, you’re a freak.”
Nate’s eyes widened, clearly surprised that Conner apparently knew about his mind reading ability. I’d half forgotten I told him about the phenomenon the night he sneaked into my room.
“And you’re crazy if you think she needs your protection. I’d get out of here if you know what’s good for you.”
Nate shrugged. “Guess I don’t know what’s good for me then.”
He stepped around us, walked over to the couch, then proceeded to turn on the television.
“Is this guy for real?” Conner asked me.
Ignoring his question, I went and stood in front of the television. “Conner wants me to stay the night because he’s scared of what might happen to him. This doesn’t involve you.”