The Predicteds

by Christine Seifert

  “It’s not fair,” I respond.

  “Fair doesn’t matter much. We have to be safe. This is the only way things can be,” Dizzy says gently. “It’s us against them, and that’s the way it will always be. I don’t care if Jesse is confirmed. There will always be a question mark.”

  Confirmed. She’s speaking the new language of PROFILE. While the test can predict for an extremely violent personal crime, it doesn’t necessarily know the difference between self-defense and premeditated murder—a glitch in the system, I guess. Jesse is confirmed, which means he’s already committed a crime—a crime of defense. In this crazy new world of PROFILE, that makes him slightly less dangerous than a predicted. He might have committed all the violent crimes he’ll ever commit. Or he might not have done so. That makes him a different kind of social pariah—more like an ex-convict than a ticking bomb.

  “I’m really sorry about that night,” she says.

  “I know.” And I do know she’s sorry. Dizzy has apologized about a million times for leaving without me that night. But she couldn’t have known what Josh had planned. She’d been fooled by him. When she went back to the pool that night to get her clothes, she ran into Cuteny and Brooklyn and chatted for a long time about what an asshole Josh was being. By the time she came back inside to change, I was already unconscious in the pink-flowered room. Josh told her that I’d gotten tired of waiting and left. Brooklyn gave her a ride home later that night because Dizzy had been too drunk to drive. How was she to know that Josh had hit me over the head with a heavy stone statue of Buddha, taken from Richard’s office, when we were walking up those stairs? “It’s not your fault,” I say for the hundredth time.

  “Sure.” She flips through a book on my desk. “You know I want you to be happy, right?” Dizzy’s face is inches from mine. She has that look she gets when she’s ready to beg forgiveness, whether you want to give it or not. It’s not a fight I want to have today.

  “I’m happy,” I say, grateful that Dizzy can’t tell when I’m lying.

  ***

  “I didn’t think a pizza buffet was your thing.”

  “I’m expanding my horizons,” Melissa says, turning her nose up at the vat of gravy in the buffet line. “Pizza and gravy?” she asks.

  We’re at Pizza Heaven, my first foray into the outside world since the Incident. That’s how I think of it—the Incident. That phrase is nonthreatening. It could suggest anything: a flat tire, an unfortunate belch let loose in polite company, a conveyor belt gone wild with too many pies on it. It allows me to think of that night without thinking about Josh—or Jesse.

  Melissa selects a seat under a stuffed moose. “I have some news.” We haven’t talked about PROFILE in ages. “Nate Gormley has been arrested and is awaiting trial.”

  We’ve all been watching for his twitching little face. After the night at Josh’s, he simply disappeared. But he left behind the bat he’d used on January. The police found it in his bedroom with January’s blood all over it.

  I gnaw on a slice of chicken wing pizza while Melissa talks: “They found him in Oklahoma City. He confessed everything. He’ll probably spend most of his adult life in jail.”

  I chew slower. The buffalo sauce turns acidic on my tongue.

  “His sister Brit admitted that she lied about Jesse. They went out a few times, but he never stalked her, and he certainly never hit her. But Josh convinced her to spread the rumors because he thought it would put even more negative attention on Jesse. Everything Josh did was calculated. It’s scary, especially when you think about how many people he was controlling like marionettes.”

  “Why would Brit lie? That doesn’t even make sense.”

  Melissa chews loudly on a celery stick. “I guess you’re too young to realize that there are certain kinds of people out there who can convince anyone of anything. That’s what sociopaths are.”

  “I always hated Josh,” I say, trying to convince myself. “He didn’t fool me.”

  “Josh’s mom is probably going to get jail time for paying the school district to keep Josh off the predicted list. Utopia, in fact, had the correct list, but nobody bothered to check it against the school’s list, not even me. I feel responsible for that. I should’ve been more careful. I guess I was duped along with everyone else.”

  I give her a sympathetic look. This isn’t Melissa’s fault, but I still don’t feel like talking. Plus, it’s no big surprise to me that Melissa can be a scientific genius and still not understand the first thing about people. She was truly surprised when the news articles started pouring in.

  Nate Gormley is completely without a conscience, the reports said. Josh, the armchair psychiatrists told us, is a classic narcissist. The whole story came rolling out piecemeal, an article a day. Josh couldn’t stand the thought of looking bad, of having everyone know that he was with January. He had to get rid of her. When January didn’t die, Josh was temporarily relieved when he discovered that she didn’t remember a thing. By that time, he’d also found out that she’d lost the baby before the attack. No baby. He was safe and didn’t need to get rid of her anymore. I feel weird even saying that—get rid of her, like she was a bag of garbage or something—but that’s how Josh saw her.

  “The gravy isn’t bad,” I note.

  Melissa gamely tries dipping a carrot into it. “The superintendent is in some hot water himself, because he accepted the large donation that Josh’s mom gave him in exchange for losing Josh’s PROFILE scores. She’ll probably finagle her way out of the mess. She’s got a lot of resources and great connections. Nevertheless, Jesse’s dad has filed for divorce. I’ve heard the gossip.” It must be big gossip if Melissa has heard it. She once asked me if the Jonas Brothers was a fast-food chain.

  I stop chewing at the mention of Jesse’s name. I drop the slice. “All I want to know is if things are going to go back to normal now.”

  Melissa stares at her salad—a pile of bean sprouts on iceberg lettuce. “Once things are set in motion, it’s sometimes hard to stop the downward spiral.”

  “Translation?”

  “I couldn’t in good conscience work on that project. It’s just not right. And it’s all bunk, Daphne. The data is there, but we’re still a long ways away from ever applying it. If I had any idea what Utopia was going to do with that information, I never would’ve agreed to be part of this. This data they have—it’s useless. We don’t know enough yet.”

  I look up in surprise. I’ve never heard Melissa say that. “So it doesn’t matter? The predicted are just like everybody else?”

  She shakes her head sadly. “No, they aren’t. Don’t you see? The test has made them different. It doesn’t matter if the science behind it is all hogwash. We can’t undo what’s already been done. The predicted will become exactly what we tell them they are going to become. That’s the tragedy here.”

  “What can we do?”

  Melissa smiles a hopeful smile. “Well, we can try to be decent human beings. We can help people whenever possible. We can eat pizza.” She sniffs a piece of bacon ranch. “We can go for a jog immediately following this meal.”

  I wait until we are almost done eating, until I know the time is right. “Melissa?” I say.

  She wipes her hands on a napkin. “Yes?”

  “I’m going to QH next year. I don’t want to go to the Bass School.”

  “I understand,” she responds, surprising me. “It’s the right thing to do.”

  She holds my hand for just a second across the sticky table. But instead of making me feel like a toddler, I feel like I’ve grown up. And we both know it.

  “You know what?” I say. “I think I’m happy.”

  And now I’m telling the truth.

  chapter 31

  I don’t know what happens next.

  —Daphne Wright

  The lake is the only place where I can think. Dusk is my favorite time, the best time of the day. On the pier, in the hot, humid breeze, I can think. Sometimes I bring a book. Sometimes I
just watch the joggers.

  “Can I sit?” The voice comes from behind me. I whip my head around. And there he is. A million times I’ve imagined it. But he’s really here.

  “Jesse,” I say, trying out his name.

  He kneels beside me. He points to the brown lake water lapping at the shore. “Somebody dumped a toaster oven in there. It washed up right about here. I found it last week.”

  “Oh, yeah? Only in Quiet.”

  “Only in Quiet,” he repeats. He sits down next to me. We don’t look at each other, but the smell of him—his cologne mixed with minty gum—makes me picture him as if he’s looking right at me.

  “Almost time for school to start.”

  “The summer went by too fast. It always does.”

  “I’m ready for a change.”

  I pick up a stick and drag it through the water.

  “You like it here? At the lake?” he asks.

  “I love it,” I tell him. “How’d you know where to find me? Or maybe you weren’t looking for me,” I add quickly.

  “Does it matter?” he says. “Whether I was looking or not? The point is that I just knew you were here. Just like I knew it was you that night. I knew you were in trouble. We’re just linked together in some weird way, I guess.”

  I see his head move in my peripheral vision. “You didn’t call.”

  “Neither did you.”

  He’s right. I haven’t known what to say. I haven’t known what we are to each other.

  Until now.

  I know with a sureness that I’ve never had about anything: we are meant to be together. I turn to tell him. I don’t care what PROFILE says. I don’t care about anything. Except him. Except us. It just took me a while to realize it. And I just know he feels the same way. It’s time to start over.

  I turn my head toward him. My lips are ready to speak, but I can’t, because his lips are already covering mine. When we move apart, he speaks first. “Don’t say anything. We got lost, but we’re back where we’re supposed to be.”

  ***

  It’s too hot for boots, but I want to wear my new grey slouches with my skinny jeans. I throw on a white tank top with a vintage necklace Melissa gave me as a back-to-school present. “Don’t forget that the Perseids meteor shower is tonight!” she’d called this morning when I walked out the door. It’s exactly the kind of non sequitur I expect from her, and it makes me smile.

  Jessie drives me. When we pull up to the school parking lot, it’s eerily empty. Quiet High’s population has dropped in half. We still park far from the entrance so we can walk hand-in-hand to the front doors. We pause at the flagpole, where a handful of students are gathered to smoke and complain about the first day.

  I stop and turn to him, my hands on his shirt and his skinny tie—he’s dressed for work after school. “Do you ever regret it?”

  He doesn’t have to ask. He knows I’m talking about Josh. About that night.

  He stares at the flag, the chain clinking rhythmically against the metal pole.

  It all could’ve turned out so differently. Months later, I’m finally able to think about it. I know that I am lucky that Jesse came home, back to his dad’s house, that night. He’d gotten my email a couple of days before. “I needed to see you again,” he told me later. He’d left his mom’s house as soon as he got it and drove straight through the night. He went to my house first. Nobody was at home, although I’m sure Melissa was probably camped out in the garage, working away. She wouldn’t have noticed anyone at the door. He’d come back to his dad’s house just after midnight. The house was strangely quiet, he’d told me. He went to his room—down the hall from the rose-carpeted guest room—and fell asleep immediately, with the intention of going back to my house in the morning. He woke up when he heard the scream.

  “Hey,” Jesse says now, “I don’t regret anything.” He pulls me into a tight hug. “We’re going to be fine, you know.”

  “We’re going to be fine,” I repeat.

  “I still like you, even though you’re confirmed.” I teasingly poke him in the ribs. And then, more seriously, I say, “And you like me even though I doubted you?” I ask because I still feel guilty about not believing in him. The last few weeks have been amazing, but we’ve never had this conversation. Coming back to QH brings it all back. We’re in the real world again. Not hiberdating, as Dizzy would say.

  “Daphne,” he says, putting his finger under my chin and turning my face toward him, “don’t you know? I love you.” My heart turns to a puddle of mush inside my chest.

  “I love you too,” I tell him. And I mean it. He kisses me gently, his lips softly brushing mine.

  “To senior year,” I say, raising my copy of 1984, our summer reading project.

  “To us,” Jesse says.

  “More specifically,” I add, “to the real us. The us right here and now. Not to the us that any technology says we may become. Only we can decide who we are.”

  Jesse looks at me solemnly. “To the us that we are, right at this very second,” he says.

  We kiss under the flagpole until the last bell rings and we enter Quiet High together, my hand in his, our futures intertwined.

  acknowledgments

  It turns out that writing a book is hard. Fortunately, I had a lot of help. First and foremost, big heaping thank-you’s to literary agent extraordinaire Alyssa Eisner Henkin. Her unerring judgment, superb instincts, and endless knowledge should be written about in epic poems. A big hunk of gratitude also goes to the marvelous editor, Leah Hultenschmidt. Not only is she a delightful person, she’s a spot-on reader with grace and elegance to spare. The whole Sourcebooks team has been terrific.

  Special thanks goes to my employer, Westminster College, who generously gave me a semester of merit leave to write and think. Thank you to my colleagues who let me drone on and on about writing. Drs. Rulon Wood, Janine Wittwer, and Helen Hodgson deserve special credit on that front. Thanks to Elisa Stone, Stacey Winters, Fayth Ross, Dan Boregino, and Camille Etter, dear friends who always encouraged me. Tiffany Dvorske and Sarah Pike were particularly helpful early readers. And thanks to all of my students, who never failed to ask how things were going.

  Lots of appreciation for unbridled enthusiasm goes to my terrific in-laws: Ken and Jeanette Twelves, Candie Cox, and Jennifer Jones. Greg Hoverson is still the coolest big brother ever. Thanks also to Taylor Hoverson for reading an early copy and for suggesting that he be a major character in my next book. My parents, Bill and Carol Hoverson, get credit for making me a lifelong reader. They also get all the credit for any other good qualities I might have. Finally, I never would have written a word if not for Robert Seifert, the very best thing that ever happened to me.

  about the author

  Christine Seifert, a native North Dakotan, is an Associate Professor at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah. When she’s not teaching writing and rhetoric, she’s an avid reader and an enthusiastic listener of podcasts (especially podcasts about books). She’s a fan of taking long walks on sunny days, browsing through the library on Saturday afternoons, and watching embarrassingly bad TV at any time.