by Robin Benway
“We’re talking about you, not me,” May said, tugging on her black T-shirt. “And I’m not ditching.”
This was kind of the part where I was glad I was the mindreader, not my sisters. Because honestly? Ditching wasn’t really that awesome. I mean, it was Mariah and me and her boyfriend, Blake, who wasn’t exactly the cool rebel boyfriend that you see in the movies. He was sort of … I don’t know. He was different. He didn’t really talk a lot or wear his seatbelt or respect Mariah’s personal space. And all we did was just go to Del Taco and then back to Mariah’s house, where we watched Scary Movie while Blake and Mariah made out on the couch. Mariah giggled and kept trying to push him away at first, but Blake was what April would call “goal-oriented.” “C’mon,” he kept saying, laughing at first and then insistent, and finally Mariah giggled and said, “Fine.” Then they went up to her room while I sat on the couch and watched the movie from the beginning so I wouldn’t have to think about the thoughts floating down from upstairs.
Because … ew.
But at least it was better than going to gym.
“June,” April said again, shaking me out of my thoughts. “You better not be ditching.”
I shrugged. “If I am, I am. You can’t stop me.”
April seethed in fury, but all she said was, “Promise me you’ll say no.”
“What?” I said, but then I saw Mariah standing towards the edge of the campus. She was in the spot where we had ditched before, far away enough that it was easy to slip away, and close enough that it didn’t look conspicuous. “Adios,” I told my sisters, then hurried over to her.
“Hey!” I said. “Are you ditching again?”
Mariah laughed a little. “Maybe. You in?”
“Duh,” I said, tossing my hair over my shoulder. “I’ll go if you’ll go.”>
God, I need a cigarette, Mariah thought, but all she said was, “So I’m having this party next Friday.”
I tried to stay calm, but inside? I was dying. This was the party she’d been planning for in her head the other day. “Cool,” I said. “Who’s going?”
“Everyone,” she shrugged. “My mom’s going out of town with my stepdad. I don’t know—some romantic getaway shit. So the house is ours.” The romantic getaway thing kept rattling around in her brain like a pinball, though, kind of like the way April kept thinking about red lights, or May thought about crimson and Stanf—
Wait. I didn’t care what my sisters thought anymore. I was being invited to a party. There were bigger and better things happening to me than my sisters’ lamebrains.
“So what kind of party is it?” I asked.
Mariah raised an eyebrow. “It’s the kind of party where people get trashed.” Hasn’t she ever been to a party before?
I began backtracking furiously. “Good,” I said. “Because the parties where I used to live were so stupid. They actually played board games.” I decided to leave out the detail where I was the one who brought Scattergories.
“Board games?” Mariah scoffed. “Good thing you moved.”
I was going to a party! Just like in the movies!
My real life was finally starting, all because of some crazy mindreading skills
It was about time.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Good thing.”
chapter 13
“This was a MacGyver-style mission.” april
I’ve seen things that I never want to see for the rest of my life.
May knows, too. I mean, I had to tell someone about the vision I had that night, and my brain was already too fuzzy and weird to keep the whole secret. Besides, it’s not like I could tell June what I had seen.
I knew I wasn’t dreaming when I had the vision. Dreams never make any sense; they always have strange things like a school of fish swimming through your living room or something. Every time I saw the future happening, it always made sense. There was never anything odd or surreal.
I wish that it had been a dream that night.
I saw the red lights again. This time I knew they were emergency lights, ambulance or police cars or something. The sirens were there, too, louder than they had ever been, and I saw Julian standing there just like I had before.
The only difference?
This time, I saw June there, too.
I told May about my visions of June in the hall the next day. But I didn’t tell her about Julian.
After school for the next few days, I tried to get more information. I sat at my desk and stared at a lemon-and-rose-scented candle that ended up giving me a headache, trying to meditate myself into some sort of hypnosis. June found that hysterical. “Dinner’s ready, Dalai Lama,” June announced one evening, but she didn’t understand, and how could she? I didn’t even know what to tell her. “Yeah, June, bad news, it looks like you’re going to be in an accident involving lots of emergency crews and sirens.” I mean, no. I can’t do that. Not until I know more.
I’ve seen that vision a hundred times since, but there was nothing new. It always stopped just after I saw June’s face, so I couldn’t even tell if she was hurt or injured or—
No. I wouldn’t even think that last part.
So when I finally saw Julian on the following Monday, standing by our lockers and flipping through the combo lock like he didn’t care what numbers he stopped on, I stormed over to him, my eyes on fire.
“Do you know my sister?” I demanded.
“What?” He glanced down at me, his hair falling in his eyes even as he kept spinning the lock.
“Do you? Know? My sister?”
“Who’s your sister?”
“You tell me.”
Julian just looked down at me like I had two heads. “Seriously,” he said, “you’re insane. You’re the craziest girl I’ve ever met, and that’s saying something.”
“I don’t doubt it for a second,” I replied. “But this is all you need to know. Stay away from her.”
“From who?”
“My sister!”
Julian finally got his locker open and practically knocked the guy behind him in the head as he swung the door open. “Sorry, dude,” he said, then turned back to me and leaned against our lockers. “I will gladly and happily stay away from your sister. I will stay away from your whole damn family if they’re anything like you. The only problem, Genius, is that I don’t know who the hell you’re talking about.”
I glanced around and saw June coming in through the front doors, arm-in-arm with Mariah. “Well, crap,” I muttered, pointing towards the girls. “That’s her. Her.”
Julian followed my gaze and then started to laugh. “That girl is your sister? You’re related to Mariah? Which one of you is adopted?”
“No, the other one. The one that isn’t carrying any STDs and doesn’t look like she’s going to end up on Judge Judy.”
“I love Judge Judy,” Julian said. “She’s awesome.”
“Hey, buddy! Eyes on the prize!” I snapped my fingers in his face. “You don’t talk to June, you don’t look at her, you never acknowledge her presence. Got it?”
June walked past us as I spoke, giving me the evil eye without breaking her conversation with Mariah. I made eye contact with her and held it for a few seconds, trying to look threatening and big sisterish, but a vision suddenly got in the way, and I instinctively clutched at my locker, trying not to fall down.
June and Mariah were at a party. June was wearing her pink skirt and a pair of red shoes I had never seen before. She looked cute, flushed, happy, and Mariah looked wasted. It was crowded and hot, and a straight-A report card was stuck to the refrigerator door. Friday night. Someone was yelling in the background about some girl being drunk in the bathroom.
“I’m so going,” June whispered to me as she walked by, giving me a triumphant smile as I came back to the present day. I glared at her, but she was already floating up the hallway. She did that on purpose, reading my mind like that. What a brat.
Julian, blessed with ignorance, just shut his locker without
taking anything out, chuckling to himself. “So you’re giving me the ‘stay away from my sister’ lecture, and meanwhile she’s walking through the halls with Mariah Bradden? That’s pretty classic.”
I faltered a bit. “Wh—You know Mariah?”
Julian shook his head. “I was wrong earlier. The only person crazier than you is Mariah.”
“Oh, well, that’s just great,” I muttered. “What, are you dating her? Did you date her?”
Julian held up his hands. “Not guilty on all counts, Judge Judy. I just … know things.”
“Things?”
“Yeah, things. Like she’s not on the honor roll.”
“I suspect that even my grandmother could have figured that out,” I snapped. “What else?”
Julian rolled his eyes. “She’s got this boyfriend, okay? And he’s sort of an asshole.”
“No one is ‘sort of an asshole,’” I pointed out. “It’s an all-or-nothing description.”
“Then he’s officially an asshole. He used to go here, but he dropped out.” Julian paused for a minute before adding, “Blake and I used to be friends. We hung out a lot, but …”
“But … ?” I prompted.
Julian suddenly stopped walking and turned to look at me. “He’s sketchy, okay? I just don’t trust him.”
This was worse than I feared. “Define sketchy,” I said, and when Julian hesitated, I added, “My sister is hanging out with his girlfriend. How damn sketchy is he, Julian?”
Julian took a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair. “Sketchy like he gets a kick out of sleeping with other girls even while he’s with Mariah.”
I almost fell over again. “That’s not sketchy,” I said. “That’s cheating.”
“Yeah, I know. But he knows what he’s doing, and he knows how to do it. He gets off on it. He outlined the whole thing for me one night when we were both smashed, and that’s when I stopped hanging out with him. So all the energy you just spent yelling at me? You’d be better off yelling at him. That’s all I’m saying.”
“I don’t know Blake,” I admitted. “But my sister ditched school with Mariah the other day.”
Julian whistled under his breath. “Stupid move. Blake probably drove them.”
“I know, right?” I hugged my books closer to my chest. “I should have stopped her. I should have dragged her—”
“Well, you didn’t know,” Julian said, and I bit my tongue before I could tell him that yes, I definitely had known.
I knew lots of things now.
My brain started to work fast, putting all the tiny pieces together. Something bad was going to happen with June and Julian. June was friends with Mariah now, no matter how hard I tried to stop that from happening. Mariah apparently had Blake, the idiot boyfriend. There was a party on Friday night. Bad things tended to happen at parties. Maybe Julian would be at the party that night. Maybe the bad thing was going to happen that night.
Before I could really panic, I got another flash of Julian and me at the movies. We were sharing popcorn and it was dark, and the people behind us were talking.
Suddenly I had a plan.
“Hey,” I said to him. “Are you gonna ask me out?”
Julian’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. “I, uh …” he coughed. “You’re really not one for a smooth transition, are you?”
“If you’re not, it’s cool,” I continued. “But I just need to know.” I had no time for subtlety or nuance.
Julian laughed a little and ran his hand through his hair. “You’re one of those take-charge girls, aren’t you?”
“Dude, you have no idea.”
“Well, I, uh, I was gonna ask you if you wanted to do something stupid and clichéd, like the movies, but now I’m afraid you’re gonna punch me.”
I guess I was a bit tense. I tried to relax, but my brain was still going at warp speed. Tiny flashes of Julian were popping up everywhere: eating, sleeping, yelling at someone when they cut him off in traffic, his face once again illuminated by red lights. “I’m not gonna punch you,” I said. “Not unless you look at my sister.”
“So do you want to go to the movies?”
“Friday’s great for me.”
“Really?” He sounded surprised. “That’s, uh, okay, cool. Friday night.”
I eyed him. “If we go to the movies, you should know that I don’t like to miss the previews.”
“Imagine my surprise.”
“And no blow-’em-up action crap with cheesy dialogue. I like movies with plot. And subtitles.”
He paused, then smiled. “So you like to go to the movies to read. Of course.”
“No, I just like to enhance my cultural awareness.”
Julian laughed out loud, that deep hearty laugh again. “What a load of pretentious bullshit.”
“Excuse me?” I reared back, putting my hands on my hips. “Have you ever asked a girl out on a date before? Because I’m not exactly an expert on getting asked out by guys, but I have a feeling you’re doing it all wrong.”
Julian paused for only a second, but it was enough. “Oh,” I said. “You haven’t asked a girl out before.”
“Bad idea to call you out on your pretentious bullshit?”
“Yeah. Not advised.”
“Noted. But,” he added, “you haven’t really been nice about me asking you out yet.”
“I said yes,” I protested. “That’s about as nice as it gets.”
Julian paused, then smiled. “You were serious about the subtitle thing, weren’t—?”
“Oh so very serious,” I said. “Look at me. This is my Serious Face.”
Julian narrowed his dark eyes at me and then nodded. “Serious Face committed to memory. Not that I’ve ever seen anything but Serious Face, though.”
I fidgeted a little. My mom hadn’t met him yet. My sisters were gonna launch themselves into orbit the minute they figured this out, and I was just starting to realize that I was about to go out on my very first date. Breakfast wasn’t sitting well in my stomach.
But all I said was, “So. How does this work?”
Julian shrugged. “I think I have to pick you up and pay for shit.”
I sighed. “Do I have to wear heels and look cute? ’Cause I really don’t have time to do all that.”
“Hell, I don’t care. I’ve already seen you look like this”—he gestured to my jeans and sneakers”—so it’s not like you have to impress me.”
That wasn’t exactly what I was hoping to hear, but at least I didn’t have to worry about tottering around in kitten heels in front of him while I was supposed to be saving my little sister’s life. I’m just one person, after all. “You should probably meet my mom when you pick me up,” I said.
“Is she gonna give me the Serious Face, too?”
“Along with the Serious Talk and the Serious Life-Threatening if you don’t bring me home in one piece.”
“Awesome.”
I had to laugh at that. “So Friday. This Friday, right?”
“What’s your obsession with Friday?”
“Fridays are my favorite.” They weren’t. I like Thursdays better because then you still get the anticipation of Fridays, but that wasn’t important at the moment. “You plus me plus movie equals date?”
“Multiplied by your mom’s Serious Talk.”
“Exponentially,” I added, then looked up at him. He was gazing down at me sort of oddly, and it made me uncomfortable, like when I knew that June was reading my mind. “Are you going to ask for my number?” I said. “You know, so I can tell you where I live?”
He pulled his phone out of his pocket, and I gave him my cell number, making sure he entered it correctly before I let him put it away. “Wow,” he said when I was done checking. “You are the most control-freaky girl I’ve ever met.”
“I’m also the second-craziest,” I told him, then gathered up my bag. “Consider yourself warned.”
I don’t know how anybody can date another person without h
aving the power of foresight. (That’s what I called it in my head. The Power of Foresight. It sounds a lot more impressive than “Girl Who Can See the Future” or even worse, “Girl with Superpowers.”)
But if I hadn’t already seen my and Julian’s date from start to finish, I would have been a nervous wreck in the days leading up to Friday. As it was, I still found it hard enough to keep my sisters at bay, June especially. Lucky for me, she was too busy running around with Mariah, going shopping with her or talking to her on IM or the phone. I didn’t really want my sister hanging around Mariah, the girl whom Julian dubbed “the craziest girl,” but I didn’t know how to stop her, either. I kept tabs on June, though, watching through the day to see what she would be doing. She ate a lot of Del Taco and hung out at Mariah’s house, as far as I could tell, and Blake wasn’t in the picture for the next few days. I didn’t even want to know where he was. I hoped he was in a Russian work camp or on the coast of Antarctica, but I wasn’t that lucky.
But really? June’s life looked sort of boring.
And I was determined to make sure it stayed that way. I had already seen flashes of June at the party, and as far as I could tell, she was fine. I even saw her going into the bathroom to help someone who was sick, so that was great news. June could be Florence Nightingale if she wanted. Just as long as she was safe.
The Friday afternoon before my date with Julian, I came home from school and washed my hair and shaved my legs, going extra-slow so I wouldn’t nick myself. Not that I had seen Julian touching my legs (oh my God I would die), and not that I had seen us getting into any kind of situation that involved the emergency room, or a swimming pool either, but shaving my legs just felt like the kind of thing I should do before my first date. I was pretty sure that was one of the rules involved.
I already knew that Julian was going to pick me up at seven ohthree (the three minutes late was because he got stuck behind a bus at a red light on the way to my house. The lights in this neighborhood last forever sometimes.) We were going to see the new French film at the one arthouse movie theater that was twenty minutes away. I also knew that around the forty-three-minute mark, Julian was going to try and hold my hand, so I had already planned to knock the popcorn over and create a diversion. It made me feel better to have a game-plan. I had to start seeing Julian’s future more, trying to look for June in it. I had no time for surprises now. Surprises only reminded me of everything I couldn’t see.