by Robin Benway
“I told you!” June yelled. “No one can lie to me! I can see everything they’re thinking! I just wish I hadn’t tiptoed around you and May! I should have read your minds, too, because then I would have known what traitors my own sisters were!”
May sank back into the car seat and sighed loudly.
“And you’re not even sorry, are you?” June continued. “Believe me, I’m trying to find an apology, and I can’t even hear—”
“You’re not gonna get an apology!” I screamed at her, shocking her into silence. I had been right. The burden was too heavy and now it was falling to pieces. “You have no idea what I’ve seen!”
“I did just now.”
“And that doesn’t scare you?” I demanded. “You and sirens and red lights? That doesn’t scare the absolute crap out of you?”
June shrugged, her bravado firmly in place. “It doesn’t mean anything. You don’t even know what it means. I can tell. And if it was so important to you,” she added, “why’d you send May to be invisible and stalk me? Why didn’t you do your own dirty work?”
May sighed heavily. “Because she was keeping Julian away from you.”
“May!” I screeched.
“Well, what?” May snapped. “It’s true. Don’t pretend to be all innocent.” She turned back to June. “She saw Julian in the vision about you, and she’s trying to keep him away so nothing happens.”
June’s mouth fell open as she looked to me, and I felt about as big as a blade of grass. “You used some guy?” she gasped.
“Oh, don’t even,” I told her. But I knew she was right, and I was starting to feel really miserable and confused about this whole night. “You’re the one who’s been using people’s thoughts against them, ruining their friendships!” I insisted. “I told you this was dangerous. I told you that we needed to stay together and not—”
“You’re the one that divided us!” June yelled back.
“God, we’re so screwed up,” May whispered, covering her face with her hands.
“This could have been great!” June shouted. “This could have been amazing! And instead of dealing with it, you ruined everything!”
“Amazing?” I repeated slowly as the anger traveled from my stomach to my throat to my mouth. “What exactly did you think was going to happen? This isn’t television, June! This isn’t a movie! Giles and Buffy aren’t gonna appear and show us how to deal with our wonderful new powers!”
“April—” May started to say, uncovering her eyes with one hand to grab my arm, but I shook her off.
“Some fricking owl is not gonna come sailing in through your bedroom window with a letter from Hogwarts!” I continued to rant. “There’s no Dumbledore! The Cullens aren’t gonna show up and invite you to come live with them in Forks! There’s nothing! This isn’t make-believe! This is it! It’s us and it’s only us!”
June’s eyes were filling with tears, but her voice didn’t even shake when she spoke. “It’s always only been us,” she whispered. “And it’s not working anymore.”
I fell back against my seat and tried to catch my breath. June’s words were like a fist into my stomach, hitting so hard that it burned. Maybe she was right. My sisters and I had spent all night lying to innocent people, and I tried not to think of Julian’s laugh, how he had watched my eyes with his, how he had trusted me.
May stared out the windshield as the reality of June’s words settled around us. My stomach hurt, my throat hurt, everything hurt. And next to me, May was biting her lower lip. “She’s right, April,” she said after a minute. “We’re kind of falling apart.”
I watched a car drive past us, unable to speak.
“I want to go home,” June said. “I want this day to be over.”
I turned the key in the ignition with numb fingers, then put it into drive. The silence in the car on the way home was as bad as the silence after our parents announced their divorce, as heavy and melancholy as dark clouds.
Our mom was still asleep as we climbed the stairs, and one by one, we all shut our bedroom doors behind us. A house divided, I thought as I looked in the mirror. The last time I had seen myself, Julian had just told me he liked being with the real me.
But he hadn’t really seen me at all.
I sent thought after thought towards June as I lay in bed that night. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry. But she never opened her door, never left her room, and when I started to cry, I didn’t know if she was listening or not.
chapter 17
“A liar is a liar is a liar.” may
The pain.
Oh, the pain.
I woke up when the morning—actually, afternoon—sun hit me in the face. That’s what it felt like, too, like it was hitting me, bludgeoning right through my skull and into the soft, sensitive place in my brain.
“Uuuuuuuggggggghhhhhh,” I muttered. It sounded nonhuman, like an animal had made that noise while dying on the side of the road, and I rolled over and looked at the clock by my bed: one thirty-seven p.m. Saturday was almost half over, which seemed appropriate. I wanted this day to be done as soon as possible.
I lay there for a while, trying to breathe without moving any part of my body that hurt, and when that didn’t work, I tried being invisible for a while. I looked down at my messy bed, not seeing my body anywhere, but it still ached. And finally I reappeared and sighed.
If being invisible couldn’t even save me from a hangover, what good was it?
I listened to my sisters as they went up and down the stairs, slamming doors and then opening them with a whoosh! I wasn’t the mindreader or the future-teller, but I knew my sisters well enough to know that they were pissed at each other and also at me. They weren’t talking, and the house was oddly quiet. I hadn’t even heard June’s chicken alarm go off (which, I’m not gonna lie, was so far the best thing that had happened to me that morning).
By the time I made it downstairs, I was ready to maim anyone who made a loud noise or looked at me for too long. “Oh, hi, sweetie,” my mom said to me as she sailed through the kitchen. “Sleepyhead today, huh?”
“Something like that, yeah,” I said, wincing as she kissed the back of my head. The guilt I felt was nearly as bad as the hangover. I had thought maybe one of my sisters would rat me out, but that would mean turning themselves in, too. I guess a liar is a liar is a liar.
“Well, up and at ’em,” my mom continued, not noticing that I was clinging to the kitchen counter with both hands. I would have clung longer, but then I realized that my left foot was going again. (And why always the left foot? Why not my right earlobe or both kneecaps? What I wouldn’t give for an owner’s manual or an FAQ or something.)
“I’m gonna go back upstairs and, uh, straighten up my room,” I said to my mom. “It’s a disaster.”
She looked at me. “You’re seriously going to clean your room on a Saturday?”
“Um, yeah?”
My mom just grinned. “Good. Try to put some of your good influence on your sisters while you’re at it.”
“Yeah, maybe not,” I muttered as I went back upstairs.
April was standing by my bed when I got back upstairs, arms crossed and tapping her foot. “And a happy hello to you, too,” I muttered, crawling back towards my bed. “Now get out.”
“Just to make it clear,” April glared at me, “I’m not talking to you.”
“Really? Because current evidence proves otherwise.”
“I’m only talking to you right now because I want to find out what happened last night and June’s not talking to me.”
“We should have followed her more often, then,” I said, and was rewarded with the sound of June’s bedroom door slamming shut.
“She’s reading our minds like an encyclopedia right now,” April informed me.
“And you know this because … ?”
“You really think she’s not?”
April had a point. “Well, that’s just wonderful,” I muttered, then pulled the covers ov
er my head. “When are you gonna start not speaking to me? Please say now.”
“Tell me what happened last night.”
I pulled the blankets away long enough to scowl at her. “Why? You’re the one who sees the future? You didn’t see any of it?”
“Start talking.”
“Get out.” The last thing I wanted to do was relive my embarrassment in front of April, the Perfect Child.
“May—”
“What?” I yelled back, then winced. “Seriously, April, just get out. All I want to do is disappear.”
“Yeah, pretty handy trick for you,” she shot back. “Maybe if you had stuck to that plan, we wouldn’t be in this situation now!”
“What? The one where we’re not speaking to each other? Sounds ideal to me.” I burrowed into my pillow.
“You were supposed to watch June, and instead you could have been hurt, too!”
“I am hurt!” I hissed at her. “My brain is about three sizes too big for my skull right now. And June was fine. Or she was, until you made me follow her and it all went to hell. It’s your fault, not mine.”
I knew this wasn’t true, but I wasn’t in the mood to play fair.
“So I was the one who made you drink and puke on someone’s lawn?”
I pointed towards my bedroom door. “Would you just GET OUT ALREADY?” I winced again as my voice made my head pound.
“Fine,” she said, then spun on her heel. “Gladly. Happily.”
As soon as she left (leaving the door wide open, what a brat), I let myself melt away and lay there for a few minutes, looking at the crack in the ceiling. I thought about getting up and following my sisters around, unbeknownst to them, but after last night, the idea didn’t sound fun at all.
My phone started to ring on my nightstand, and I came back long enough to stretch an arm out of the blanket and look at the caller ID.
Shit.
I waited until the third ring to answer it. “What,” I croaked.
“Uh, hi,” Henry said.
“God, is everyone a morning person?” I groaned.
Henry just laughed his nervous laugh. “I was calling to see how you were feeling.”
“Guess.”
“Not so great?”
I uncovered my eyes and looked towards the bedroom door, trying to see if my mom was coming. I was so used to April or June giving me the heads-up that I felt like I was missing some important piece of armor.
“May?” Henry said. “You there?”
“Yep.”
“So how are you feeling?”
“Like a Mack truck carrying a bunch of angry chickens ran me over.”
“Really?”
“Twice.”
“Oh, wow. That’s not good.”
“You’re very astute, Henry.” I rolled onto my side and pulled the blankets over my head. I really felt like running Henry over with a truck at that point, after the way he had said, “Hell no, not her,” at the party last night. The words had been in my brain all night, mixed in with alcohol fumes and dizzy spells. Hell no. Not her.
It was enough to make me want to be sick again.
“So you don’t wanna study today?”
“Henry, let me ask you a question. Are you always an asshole to girls, or is it just me? Do I bring out that special side of you?”
It kind of sounded like Henry did a spittake of whatever he was drinking.
“Because if it’s just me,” I continued, “you can go crawl back into whatever hole you came from.”
There was a pause before he said, “As opposed to puking in a gutter?”
“That’s what I thought,” I said. “Ciao ciao, mon ami.” I started to hang up the phone, but Henry’s tin voice hummed through the receiver.
“Wait, May, don’t hang up! I’m sorry, just don’t hang up!”
My thumb hovered over the “end” button. “You’re sorry?”
“I … I feel really bad. I should have watched out for you last night. Mariah’s parties, the people there aren’t always the greatest.”
“Yeah, I know. In fact, I’m talking to one of them right now,” I shot back. It was sort of nice to know that even when it felt like my brain was about to rupture out of my head, it still worked.
I could practically see Henry bristle on the other end of the line. He was probably wearing his Stanford hooded sweatshirt, playing with the drawstrings the way he always did whenever he was tutoring me. “Is that all you’re sorry for?” I asked quietly.
“God, May, yes!” he finally said. “I called you up to apologize. What more do you want? Want me to come over to your house and do it in person?”
“No!” I hissed. “I want you to pull your head out of your Stanford-clad ass and maybe realize that just because you don’t see people doesn’t mean they’re not there!”
There was a pause. “What are you talking about?”
“Nothing. Look, I’m sure you’ve got a busy afternoon of highlighting college catalogues and doing Spanish vocab flash cards, so we can cancel the tutoring. In fact, cancel the rest of the sessions. Forget you know me. I’m sure it won’t be hard.”
Hell no, not her.
“So what, then?” Henry fumed. “I call you to apologize for the fact that you drank too much vodka, and your response is to just … disappear?”
“Sometimes it feels that way,” I muttered.
“Well, if you want to disappear so bad, maybe you should.” He was pissed, way more pissed than when I had spilled beer on his National Geographics. (Oops, forgot about that one. Well, he deserved it.)
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Henry, I think you’ve finally found the one thing we can agree on.” And then I pressed “end” and watched my arm vanish as it hurled the phone into the corner of my room.
Henry was right. Why didn’t I just disappear? After all, I was invisible . I could get on a plane for Fiji, and no one would know. I could move into the Ritz Carlton and charge room service to other people’s credit cards. I could fly to Paris and eat at cafés and go to museums and crash in homes that were too big for the people inside them.
I could go to Houston and see my dad.
I lay in bed for the rest of the afternoon, never once bothering to reappear.
chapter 18
“The inmates were running the asylum.” june
I’ve never been so happy to get to Monday in my life.
It was drizzling a little bit outside, so I put in some extra Frizz-Ease and hoped for the best before getting in April’s car that morning. May was curled up in the backseat, her hoodie pulled low over her eyes and her iPod set to LOUD. She hadn’t said anything to me since the party on Friday, but I didn’t care because I wasn’t saying anything to her.
April had tried a couple of times on Sunday, but I flat-out ignored her, slamming my door or going downstairs or even showering. I think I washed my hair three times over the weekend, letting the water drown out how betrayed I felt. I had tried to stop reading my sisters’ minds just to be respectful, you know? But now, I didn’t even care what they thought. May disappears and follows me like a spy? Super-creepy. April dates some guy to keep him away from me? Jealous much? She was always trying to scare me, always saying what could maybe happen, what we shouldn’t do. For all I knew, her “visions” of me and Julian and the red lights were totally made up in her own mind.
If you needed a serving of repressed crazy, you could definitely swing by our house and pick up a slice, is what I’m saying. It’s like, my sisters thought I couldn’t take care of myself, when really, they’re the ones who didn’t have it together. Barfing at a party? Dating a weirdo as part of some big master plan? The inmates were running the asylum. But I was this close to getting invited to Cabo with Mariah, and I wasn’t about to let my sisters ruin this for me, too.
The ride to school on Monday was long, thanks to April’s driving. I knew May was pissed because she didn’t even comment on it, just stayed huddled in the backseat, and when I finally turned on the
radio to a song I liked, a thought escaped her and made its way to me.
Outta here.
I didn’t even acknowledge her, just tried to smooth my hair down and make sure that steam wasn’t coming out of my ears. I can’t even ditch without April having a conniption, and now May was gonna bail on school? Nuh-uh. No way. Let April save the world on her own, I thought. There’s a beach house in Cabo waiting for me.
Mariah and I had texted a little about it on Sunday. Cabo still snds amayzing!! I wrote to her, and by the time she wrote back two hours later, I was a nervous wreck thinking that she had forgotten, that she had been drunk and never meant to invite me.
But then the little words splashed across my phone. u have no idea its awsome, it said, and I did a little dance right there in the middle of the kitchen, right where my sisters could see how happy I was.
Not like in this Car of Doom and Ever-Present Gloom.
As soon as April parked, I got out and started to walk away, slamming my door super hard because I knew it would annoy April. “Wait, June!” she called after me, but I ignored her and went up the front steps.
I really hoped she saw it coming, too.
As soon as I got inside, people from the party said hi to me. Derek, of course, waved and smiled with his buck teeth, and I said hi to a couple of girls that I knew wanted desperately to be Mariah’s friend. The word “Cabo” was bouncing around their brains, too, and I just smiled benevolently and said, “What’s up?” as I glided to my locker before finding Mariah.
She was sitting outside near the auditorium, looking as hungover as May had been on Saturday. Huge sunglasses obscured her face, and I realized that I needed a pair just like those. “Hey,” she croaked when she saw me. “I’m wrecked.”
She wasn’t lying. Her thoughts were moving at half-speed. “Did you just wake up?” I asked, sitting down next to her.
“Twenty minutes ago,” she grinned. “Blake drove me here.”
“He’s up this early?”
She grinned wickedly. “He never went to bed.”
I knew what she was implying, but it wasn’t true. Blake had been up getting high and playing PS3 all night while Mariah slept in her bed at home. I could see her texting back and forth with him, trying to get him to sneak over, but eventually he stopped writing back.