“You know I know everything. Just be honest with me. Why are you fucking this up?” John backed away, now completely regretting he’d even tried. He knew I was bad for him, so he didn’t understand why he’d lost all reason and kissed me.
Because I’m so attracted to her. Because I’ll never meet someone like her again.
But to me he just said, “Whatever.” Leaving me outside, he walked back into the deserted hallway, preparing himself to forget what he’d just done.
It was fine. It wasn’t natural anyway. I sat cross-legged on my bed, attempting to absorb myself in a book I’d once been excited to read. I had skipped school the last two days, pretending I was sick. Like a coward, I hadn’t been ready to face John.
I couldn’t believe I’d kissed him back.
Going forward I was going to be singularly focused on following the rules so I could come home, so to speak. I never should have done anything else, and I knew I should be grateful nothing worse had happened. I needed to remember what was at the end of this. I’d be back with my family and, soon, in a new place where we could all be ourselves again. For a few years at least.
I stared at the same sentence until I gave up, allowing my inner voice to take center stage since it wouldn’t shut up. I put my face in both hands and closed my eyes, my brain wanting to replay what had happened one more time. Who was that person? I couldn’t be her.
How could he kiss like that?
I had hated the guardedness of his face after I said no. That was how he looked at other people, but not me. When I said no, I could feel what he felt for a moment—embarrassment followed by emptiness.
Maybe because I knew John was, presumably, at that big party, it was even harder to stop thinking about him….
No. It was done. It had kept me occupied and I’d killed a whole six weeks of the semester. Not only that, I would always have the knowledge that I had read someone’s mind, even if it never came back or I could never use it again. In some ways it had been the most interesting six weeks of my life. I picked at a thread on my bedspread before reaching for my book again.
Friday nights were tough, since I knew I’d be holed up in my room for a two-day jail sentence until school on Monday. I picked up my phone and checked the time. It was nine o’clock. I was thinking about whether I could go to bed that early when I heard voices outside. I crawled to the end of my bed, snapped off the lights, and stepped silently over to the bank of windows. Lifting a shade with two fingers, I gazed out at the glowing expanse of the backyard.
I could see five people in the black-bottomed pool, illuminated by underwater lights. They were splashing, talking loudly, and laughing. I was about to lower the shade when the moonlight caught a large tattoo on one back. Lost Kids. The lake in the background glittered. I dropped the shade back in place.
Something broke inside me. It was one thing to be excluded by the people who had been my best friends. I’d grown accustomed to that these past several weeks. It was another thing for them to be right outside my window. Had they given me a second thought? No, they didn’t seem to care. They were here for my sister.
I had to get out of here. Even I had a threshold.
Since no one was going to see me tonight, I didn’t bother to change. I had on what I’d worn in my room today—not clothes for being in public. I bent to grab a pair of flip-flops in one hand and softly left my bedroom, clicking the door shut behind me.
At the far end of the long hallway, Liv kneeled on a window seat, calling out the open window to the pool below, her back to me. There was quite a bit of distance between us, but I honed in on what was different: through her sheer white shirt I could see the outline of a large tattoo on her right shoulder blade.
“I’m coming!”
The Lost Kids must have snuck into the backyard and jumped in the pool. Victoria and Novak had to be out of town and no one had bothered to tell me.
Of course Liv felt my presence, but she didn’t turn around. Both of us chose to pretend the other person wasn’t there.
As quietly as possible I wound down the back staircase.
I drew to a stop on the last step. Angus. He was in the next room. I had assumed he was in the pool.
When I entered the kitchen, he stood alone, almost like he was waiting for me. We were both silent, eyeing each other for a moment. I was wary, but I realized how much I had missed him. I’m sure I was wrong, but it seemed like he was feeling the same thing—that I was a sight for sore eyes. I had never gone this long without seeing him.
He was standing at the counter, looking bored, picking up forks from a stack he’d made. Without looking up, he imperceptibly flicked his wrist, piercing the ceiling with each one, waiting for a reaction from me. He’d made them spell out hi.
“Victoria’s going to love that,” I said. Asshole. Do that in your own house.
“You look different,” he said. He pushed off the counter and sauntered over to me. He lifted a hand to touch my hair but then thought better of it.
I cleared my throat. “I look different?”
“Your hair is longer, and what’s up with the freckles? You don’t look as much like us as you used to.”
I’d noticed the same thing, and it really bothered me. It was as if my physical appearance was affected by my proximity, or lack thereof, to my family. I’d been hoping no one else would notice, and I’d go back to normal as soon as I was with them again.
“You’ve gained weight.”
“Great. Thanks, Angus.”
“No, you look good.”
I was unsure of what to say. I hadn’t seen him since that day on the cliffs. I was surprised I didn’t feel the same attraction I used to. Now it was more that I wanted to talk to him. Badly. I knew that if I stayed, I’d make an ass of myself to my sister’s new boyfriend. I had to remember the last words he’d said to me at the cliffs and how much they hurt. I couldn’t fall back on him. He’d made that clear.
“Hey,” he said, conspiratorially, “I found out what’s going to be different about this Relocation.” He leaned in to share a secret, like the old days. When I remained stone-faced, he continued anyway. “This is the last place we’ll be going. No more moving around.”
“That’s impossible. People get suspicious, and then we move,” I said.
“I know, I know, we can only stay in one place for so long. I’m just telling you what I heard. My source is pretty good.” My sister.
“And you want to hear the latest thing that’s helping fund it? It’s genius. Novak bought a nearby utility and sold water to a city that was getting sick from their own tainted supply. For some ridiculous profit. What a hero.” Angus laughed. “Suckers!”
I knew Novak had been pumping vast quantities of groundwater from the aquifer located beneath land we owned in West Texas. Our whole group, me included, had laughed that Texas’s most precious natural resource was available to whoever pumped first and fastest, waiting to profit off the inevitable shortages. Somehow now it all seemed despicable.
“Where are you going?”
“On a drive.” I didn’t bother saying good-bye. I was so angry at him for suddenly acting like it was the old days, expecting me to play along after he had humiliated me.
Alone in the dark car, it all came up. Six weeks’ worth of hell.
My sister wouldn’t even acknowledge my presence now? What reason did she have to ignore me? She’d taken my almostboyfriend and my group of friends on top of everything else I’d handed over. Was it because she felt guilty? Or maybe the new Liv was so self-centered, she wasn’t thinking about me at all.
But I felt sick knowing that what was bothering me more than my sister or Angus was John. I had lost my mind. I kept coming back to thoughts of him. And now, in the safety of the car, I was crying over him. I was such an idiot and so weak. I finally indulged in images of John. When he asked me to hang out with him, he’d had his hands behind his back, which meant he’d been really nervous. And then I thought about how it had felt w
hen he kissed me and how I’d backed away when he tried to kiss me again.
I drove the winding roads of Scenic too fast. I hit Lake Austin Boulevard, driving farther away from the neighborhood. At the last possible second, I swerved into the right lane and got on the freeway. A short stretch took me over the lake, and I exited almost immediately, curving around Zilker Park. I drove the flat, fluorescent-lit streets, pretending to myself that I didn’t know exactly where I was going.
The car whirred to a stop fairly close to the party. I watched dozens of teenagers with red Solo cups gathered on the small front lawn of a two-story house. I couldn’t believe neighbors hadn’t called the police yet.
He was probably here. For a second I closed my eyes, searching for him.
A sudden smack against my window, inches from my face, made me jump. I turned and there was some drunken idiot cupping his hands around his eyes, smudging the glass with his forehead as he looked in my car. I sent a powerful, direct signal—Walk the hell away from here. Whoever he was, he was gone in seconds.
What was I doing here? If it was to somehow test myself, I could check that off the list. This was repellent. I realized I could go, and I wanted to, but something was keeping me here. Was it that I didn’t want anyone else to have him? Did I need to see him with another girl so I could let go? He’d have so many takers, with his dumb door-holding and the way he listened so intently and asked the right questions. And the way he could kiss.
I had to leave. What was I thinking, that I’d secretly date an outsider and then disappear on him one day?
Starting the car angrily, I glanced at my side-view mirror, scanning for him for one last time. In the mirror, an upstairs window caught my attention. Just like at Barton Springs, it felt like the scene in front of me was suddenly framed, individual features leaping to the forefront in extreme focus.
Maybe it was nothing. I watched it for a moment. Then I sensed a temperature change in that room. Even if someone was in peril, Novak had ordered us to turn our backs on the urge to intervene. But a sick, pressing feeling curled in my stomach. If I got out of this car, I was crossing to the other side. I couldn’t have it both ways and manage it all.
But I couldn’t leave it alone, not with John possibly in there. I turned off the car, got out, and jogged across the street. I kept my head down, though I could feel the stares as a few people picked me out of the crowd.
When I entered the house, a wave of stuffiness and the smell of beer hit me. The ceilings were low and the sounds of wall-to-wall people and pounding music hurt my ears.
I immediately saw Alex in the shadows near the staircase with a boy I recognized vaguely from the parking lot at school. I made my way to them, navigating through the crowd. Alex looked like he was about to kiss the boy when I shouted to him above the din.
“Where’s John?”
Alex looked annoyed until he saw it was me. Then he looked surprised.
“Um, I don’t know. Upstairs, I think.” They watched me as I bolted up the carpeted stairs.
Upstairs there was a short hallway with several closed doors. Even though I could have stopped and figured out which room belonged to that window, I started indiscriminately opening doors.
“What?” shouted a small group of people passing a bong around. I shut the door. I opened another, and a couple was sitting on a bed making out. I moved to another one. It was locked.
Smoke began to curl out from under the door. Without thinking, I slammed my shoulder into the hollow core door until it gave in.
A huge cloud of black smoke billowed from an area near the bed. A couple I couldn’t see well was trying to bat at the flames with a quilt, making it worse. I got closer and saw them, my eyes burning. It wasn’t John.
“It’s too late. Call 911.” I shoved the girl out. I saw that the idiots had put a scarf over the bedside lamp to create mood lighting. The scarf had shriveled, dancing with flames. The fire had quickly spread to the curtains behind the lamp. It had obviously happened fast, in the last minute or so, just as I got out of the car.
“Go!” I shouted at the boy, who was still in the room.
I’d stayed in the room past the point of what was tolerable. Coughing, I backed out.
“Julia!” It was Alex. He pulled me in the direction of the stairs, getting me away from the smoke.
“Wait! John?” I suddenly panicked.
“He’s outside.” I couldn’t tell if Alex was positive. He looked scared he might be wrong. The crowd at the party had mostly run outside.
I decided to trust Alex. We made it out into the front yard, and he yelled frantically, “I’ll check here! You go to the backyard!”
Running along the side of the house, I followed the din of the kids in the backyard. My eyes adjusted to the darkness, and I scanned the large group on the patchy grass. They had no idea what was happening since they were farthest from the smoke, but I could hear the news of the fire starting to spread through the crowd. Jesus, where was he? I was starting to get frantic.
There. I felt total relief. For the first time since Wednesday, I felt like I could breathe again. He was talking to Hudson and Reese from English class. She leaned against him as she laughed at something he was saying.
“John!” I yelled hoarsely. Totally inappropriate, and I was too far away. I just wanted him to see me right now.
He turned around at the sound of his name and looked expectantly for whoever called it. When his eyes landed on mine, there was no description for the look on his face. There was so much there—surprise, anger, relief.
I practically knocked him over, I hugged him so tight. I couldn’t remember the last time I hugged anyone. Besides what had happened two days ago, we had barely touched each other. And here I was….
“Hey.” He kissed the top of my head. Suddenly we were both acting like we were at this level. He started to let go so he could pull back to see me. I kept my hold for a second longer, and he tightened his grip on me again. Then I heard the sirens. I moved away and saw Hudson and Reese staring at us with looks of amazement. I looked down and saw the red cup in John’s hand. I grabbed it and tossed it as far from him as possible.
“Whoa!” John said, like What the hell?
“The police are coming. There’s a fire upstairs. We have to go. Now.” It took a beat for this to register.
“My brother…” He started searching the yard, suddenly alert.
“He’s outside. In front.”
Hearing that, John took the lead, pulling me out the side of the backyard and into the shadows of the neighbor’s front yard. It looked like a mass exodus had started. Black smoke now poured out of the upstairs window. A cluster of teens had gathered on the front lawn.
We saw Alex immediately, and John pointed in the direction of down the street. Alex nodded. I realized John was leading me to his house.
“Wait! My car is here.” I felt foggy. The adrenaline surge was over, and I was getting a hungover feeling.
“Give me the keys.” He held out his hand.
I started lamely searching my pockets. A fire truck pulled up in front of the house. John said something to me, but I couldn’t hear over the shrieking sirens.
When I kept fumbling, John pulled my hands to the side and started searching my pockets himself, immediately finding the keys. He opened the car doors, and I numbly let myself in the passenger side.
John pulled out. Behind us I saw more flashing lights. We had just made it out. Undoubtedly they wouldn’t be letting more people leave the scene until they’d been questioned. With the smoke, it had been hard to see in the upstairs bedroom. I just had to hope the couple would seem dazed and unreliable.
John parked my car in front of a small ranch house. Lights were on inside, but I could tell no one was home.
I suddenly felt so relieved and just better than I had in days, now that he was with me. I also felt completely spent.
John turned off the ignition but didn’t make a move to get out. The glimmer of the i
nterior light went out, making the inside almost pitch-black. I knew what was coming. He’d digested the oddness of the past few minutes.
“Were you there because you knew there was going to be a fire?”
I didn’t answer, just stared out the window, looking at the telephone wires lining the streets. Now I needed to begin the lying.
“Julia!”
I reluctantly looked over at him and then wanted to look anywhere but. All he wanted was for me to admit it.
“Just say it.”
“Why do you need me to?”
That hung between us, suspended. I hadn’t known I was going to say it. That one sentence began the unraveling of everything I’d been told to guard as tightly as I could.
“Because I do.” John’s voice was soft, wary.
I started to open my car door to get out and away, the rush of what I’d admitted hitting me.
“No, stay.” John’s voice was urgent. I was so relieved he wanted me to stay that I didn’t resist. When I leaned back into my seat, he said, “Explain. I think I know part of it.”
If I said the words out loud, I could never take them back, and it wasn’t just me I was supposed to protect.
Frustrated, John spoke. “You can predict things and…I don’t know…tamper with things. There’s truth to that exposé written about your”—he searched for a word—“people.”
I could sense he was waiting for me to deny it. When it became clear that my long silence was all the confirmation he needed, John said under his breath, “Thank you,” as in, Thank you, I knew I wasn’t crazy.
I put my hand to my face to rub away my total confusion at what the hell I was doing, and I felt a layer of grit. I pulled my hand away to look at what came off, but I couldn’t see in the dark.
“I need to go.” Two seconds after my silent acknowledgment, I was already starting to worry. But the thought of going back to my glass cage made me want to be sick.
“No! Look—let’s at least go inside. No one is home. You can get cleaned up.”
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