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by Marit Weisenberg

  John surprised me by getting out of the car in one swift move, striding to my side, and opening the door for me. He offered me his hand, which he usually hid from me. Like a robot, I undid my seat belt, took his hand, and stood up next to him. He closed the car door and started to lead me to his house.

  “I have to get home.” If I went inside, I was agreeing to talk. I dropped his hand and stopped where I was on the sidewalk. John took a step onto his property.

  He turned to face me. “Come inside. Just for a little while. You know I’ve known for weeks, Julia.”

  I hesitated. At that last moment of decision, I felt suspended in time. I looked at him waiting, wanting me to say yes. The moment slid into the next, and I watched myself step toward him.

  “We forgot to turn off the lights,” John murmured as we walked into the small front room. The crisp air conditioning was a relief after the sticky October humidity outside. I looked around at the living room and the open kitchen beyond. I could see dirty dishes on the counter. I looked everywhere but at him.

  Eventually, I glanced over at John. He averted his eyes.

  “What?” I turned toward the mirror hanging by the front door. “Oh.” I had streaks of ash on my face and arms. My black sleeveless shirt was basically see-through, displaying the black bra I was wearing underneath.

  “Don’t laugh,” I said to him.

  “Who’s laughing?” he asked, looking like he was trying hard not to smile. “Look, do you want to shower? You probably don’t want to go home looking like you were just in a fire.” John put it out there like it was no big deal, but I could tell he was trying too hard to sound casual.

  I realized he was freaking out in his own quiet way. He was procrastinating, suddenly unsure of how much he actually wanted to know. I needed a moment too, before I committed myself to doing something stupid. And he had a point—I couldn’t go home like this. I was doing everything I could not to draw attention to myself.

  “Okay,” I said slowly, trying to calculate what to do with my clothes, which were just as telltale as my ashy face.

  Like he’d read my mind, John said, “I can take your clothes and wash them if you want.”

  I nodded. “Thank you.” We’d barely spent any time alone together, and now I was showering at his house. Both of us were trying to act normal when all of this was anything but.

  “Come on.” He led me down a short hallway to the first open door. John snapped on the light.

  I entered the small bedroom, now feeling extremely shy that I was in his room. It was overstimulating being surrounded by everything John—the person I had been fixated on, like it or not, for weeks now. A queen-size bed was pushed to one corner of the room, no headboard, dark-blue sheets on the unmade bed. The room had a wood floor like the rest of the house, and there was a hefty desk taking up too much space under the one window. French doors led to the backyard.

  While John gathered clothes from the floor as fast as he could and tossed them in his closet, I peered closely at the photo on his desk next to a wireless speaker. It was of John and his brother, a huge fish dangling in front of them for the camera, mountains in the background. They looked quite a bit younger—maybe thirteen or fourteen—but even back then, in their sunglasses and trucker hats, they appeared overconfident and cute. I’m sure girls—and boys, I now knew—had been chasing the Ford boys forever.

  Then I noticed a pink wristband on the desk scattered amid the ChapStick, school papers, and spare change.

  “Is this mine?” I held it up for John to see. He momentarily stopped his cleaning frenzy.

  “I’ve been meaning to give that back to you, and then I kept forgetting.” He shrugged, trying to sound offhand.

  “This was from the first match. I remember because I didn’t want to wear team swag. Did I drop it?”

  “You left it where you were sitting.”

  I dropped the pink wristband back on his desk. For some reason I wanted it to stay there. John was done cleaning and he scanned the room, as if looking at it from my perspective. There was no escaping that we were in his bedroom by ourselves.

  In spite of how reckless I was being, or maybe because of it, I had the feeling of being exactly where I wanted to be. It had been a long time since I felt this peace and thrill at the same time. Maybe since before I’d become a Lost Kid.

  “Do you have something I can wear while my clothes are in the washing machine?” Both of us blushed at that. Damn. I wanted to look like this didn’t faze me.

  “Of course.” This sent John into another small tailspin, and he started opening and closing drawers to find me something. “Here. Take this—” He quickly began unbuttoning his shirt. “It’ll be long enough.” He was still blushing. I took the shirt but probably didn’t look away fast enough. His body was even nicer than I remembered.

  “What?” he asked. I couldn’t help it. I started laughing.

  “What are we doing?” I grinned. “You’re standing there half-naked.”

  “I’m handing you my shirt! And I’m not naked.” But he quickly went to his drawer, threw it open, and grabbed a T-shirt, pulling it over his head. “Better? I didn’t mean to offend your delicate sensibilities. Wait, before you go in, let me make sure the bathroom’s clean.” He put his hand on the doorjamb of the connecting bathroom and leaned in, quickly taking a look. It was clear my presence was making him crazy.

  The bathroom smelled like a boy, but in a good way, like a bar of green soap. It was actually decently clean. The tile looked vintage, an aqua blue. John’s total of three products lined the side of the bathtub. I was surprised to see contact solution on the sink counter. I opened his glasses case, curious to see what his frames looked like.

  While in the shower, I wondered what I was doing. I couldn’t live with the anxiety of John knowing. It wasn’t too late to backtrack, put on my clothes, and leave.

  When I was done, I pulled the shower curtain aside and realized I’d forgotten to ask for a towel. I stretched my arm out to reach for John’s. Fluffy and tan-colored, it was slightly damp but felt fairly clean. Something was seriously wrong with me if I didn’t at all mind drying myself with John’s used towel.

  I stepped into my underwear and regretfully put my smoky bra back on, not feeling quite so clean anymore. I grabbed his shirt and buttoned it up, making a concerted effort not to bring it up to my face to deeply inhale his scent before putting it on. Gathering my pile of clothes that smelled like a campfire, I opened the door and walked back into John’s room. He was scrolling through his phone and looked up at me. His shirt swallowed me, but it did show a lot of leg. Still, he didn’t need to stare, making me feel even more self-conscious. John put his palm to his forehead and pressed like he had a headache.

  “When are your parents getting home?” I quickly reframed the question, which made it worse. “I mean, I didn’t mean it like that. I just realized this looks bad.”

  John cleared his throat but didn’t look away from me. At least he was looking at my eyes now, willing himself to stay focused on me above the shoulders. “It’s okay. They’re going to be gone until late.”

  At that moment we heard the front door open and the sound of Alex’s voice. John quickly moved to his door and paused before opening it. “I’ll go talk to him. Let me take your clothes.”

  I reluctantly handed over the evidence.

  While John was gone I paced the room, realizing I was trapped for an hour or more, and I started to get anxious.

  John walked back in, interrupting my rising panic. “He’s with his boyfriend, August, so we won’t see them. I told them you’re here.”

  “Great.”

  I sat down awkwardly on the edge of John’s bed, realizing too late I should have sat in his desk chair. I covered my lap and legs with the quilt that was half falling off the bed. John came over to join me and sat in the middle of the bed, facing me, legs crossed into a half-lotus position. I stared at his tanned bare feet, wondering for the first time in my life wh
at it would be like to be an ordinary girl.

  Since I first saw him, it was as if on some level I knew John would end up knowing everything. What was it about him that made me unable to lie to him? I didn’t want to lie to him. In the end the choice I made felt inevitable.

  “I didn’t say a word about Barton Springs even when I was under arrest, so you know I would never…”

  “I know.”

  “Is it that bad if I know?”

  “It is. But not if you never say a word for the rest of your life.” Before John I’d never had more than a cordial conversation with an outsider, and now I was considering telling him our secrets.

  He began by laying out what he knew.

  “After jail that night I read an article about your family. There was a comment about a group that was in Peru. You sound exactly the same.”

  So he had read that far. I looked him straight in the eye but didn’t say a word.

  He sat back. “So are you actually related to them? It was a tribe most people thought died out.”

  “It’s not a big deal. There are all kinds of tribes.”

  Holy shit. “Not magical ones.”

  “We’re not magical.”

  “Then what are you?”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. I gave him one last chance to decide whether he wanted to cross over into knowing.

  “Yes.”

  “The tribe I’m descended from lived in complete isolation until they were discovered in the late eighteen hundreds.”

  “So you’re from that tribe in the article. The ones the gold miners killed?” he asked.

  “Yes. There was a genocide, but a number of us escaped. I’m directly descended from that group.”

  “But you can do extra…” He searched for the words but couldn’t come up with anything.

  “Technically, we’re a different species.” I’d said it. He looked like he hadn’t heard me right.

  Please tell me he can handle this. All I heard coming from him was white noise.

  “Because of geographic isolation and serious inbreeding, at some point in time we shifted as a group. So we’re close, but we’re not identical to Homo sapiens. There’s just a shade of difference from a genetic standpoint. We became a separate species evolving in parallel.”

  John’s mind was still a blank.

  “No,” he said, flat out.

  “It’s true. Our DNA sequence is different. Just a tiny bit.”

  “What scientist would—”

  “Some of us have become leaders in genetic research.”

  It was silent for a full ten seconds.

  “Who else knows?” he asked, looking at me skeptically but with a touch of awe.

  “No one,” I answered. “We’ve managed to adapt quickly and figure out how to hide among the population. We’re too smart to get caught. We have every advantage.”

  “That’s hard to believe. Look at that article. And isn’t your dad under investigation? You obviously haven’t hidden that well.” So he’d done his research.

  He leaned back, almost like he was scared of me, although he remained in his position on the bed. It was craziness that my biggest fear was that I would repulse him.

  “What can you do, exactly?” he asked. I was relieved he’d moved on from the most difficult part, so I was almost happy to answer.

  “Better vision, better sense of hearing, sense of smell, all of that. It helps us pick up on a lot and stay ahead. So everyone is just pretty quick—with sports, how they learn, reading nonverbal cues….”

  “But there’s other stuff. How did your sister survive that day? And how did Magnus, or whatever his name is, destroy that grate?”

  “We can amp up adrenaline on command.”

  “Okay. But how did you know your sister was drowning?

  Or tonight with the fire? Even if your senses are great, how can you actually sense things before they happen?”

  I wasn’t entirely sure myself. “I think we’re just genetically more complex. Our brains evolved with more biological receptors.”

  “But how does that work? What does that feel like?”

  “It feels like a wave of energy goes through my body and I know. Maybe it’s picking up a different frequency of electrical waves, the way animals do. You know—how animals can sense an earthquake or storm before it happens? It’s all biological. Nothing magical.”

  “All of you can do that?”

  “Some of us.”

  “But you all have better senses? And you seem to heal quickly.”

  “Yes. To both.”

  “What about the tennis balls? That’s not possible,” he said.

  “Why not? Just because you’re told it’s not possible doesn’t mean that’s true.” I was getting frustrated, beginning to feel backed into a corner. “Look, have you ever had the feeling of being in ‘the zone’ when you were playing tennis?”

  “A few times.”

  “What did it feel like?”

  “It’s hard to describe.”

  “Try.”

  He looked like he was struggling to find words to describe it. “I don’t know. It’s quiet. It’s like your mind gets out of the way and your body knows exactly what to do. It feels like total focus and tunnel vision.”

  “And you feel like you and the ball are one and the same, right?”

  “Yes,” he admitted.

  “Exactly. That’s what it’s like for me.”

  “But I use a racket. How are you capable of moving matter…I don’t know…energetically?”

  “Actually, I have no idea.” I made it sound like it was just a fact of life. Which for me it was.

  “Okay, if you’re making it sound so natural, why are you all so secretive?” He sounded annoyed.

  “Why do you think?” I asked sarcastically.

  “Seriously, what would happen if people knew? What are you so afraid of?” he pressed.

  “I am serious.” I turned it back on him. “Tell me what you think would happen.”

  “I’m not sure,” he answered honestly.

  “Exactly. No one wants to believe what seems impossible. People don’t like to question their reality. It scares them. And they definitely would not like knowing there’s someone better out there. We were discovered once and almost annihilated.”

  “How is any of this possible?” he asked. The difference now was that he sounded like he was marveling at it, not like he didn’t believe it.

  “I guess it just is.”

  “So you’re…Chachapuri?” John tried out the name he somehow remembered from the article.

  “That’s something that person got wrong. We’re the Puris tribe.” I’d now actually said our name out loud. That was never done. It felt powerful and horrifying to say it.

  No one and nothing had prepared me for this conversation. It was like we assumed outsiders were just too stupid or afraid to ask.

  “But how do you feel sticking only to your own people and hiding all this? Don’t you feel trapped?”

  “No. That’s why we keep to ourselves, so we don’t have to hide it.”

  “How’s that working out for you?”

  “Great,” I said flippantly. Except for the fact that I’m not allowed to live up to my potential. And I can never be with you.

  “Can you just turn all this on and off whenever you want?”

  “I’m trying to work out how to be consistent.” I pulled my wet, tangled hair into a ponytail and then dropped it back on my neck. I found myself being more honest with him than I’d intended. It must have helped that he had started to seem so open to and relatively accepting of everything I was saying.

  “By practicing on me? With tennis?” He looked horrified.

  I put up a hand. “No! Well, it’s back to Barton Springs. I screwed things up for you, and I wanted to put them back together. And it helped me sort of…I don’t know. Figure things out.”

  “You didn’t screw things up for me,” John said quietly. Then, “Are there mo
re people out there like you?”

  “You mean living other places?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Sometimes we play a game and try to guess if someone in the general population has also made the jump—famous athletes, geniuses, celebrities who have that irresistible quality, you know? But no, I don’t think so,” I said. “Are you almost done?” I asked, letting him know I was.

  “Is there more you haven’t told me? About what you can do?”

  “No.” I shook my head, hoping I sounded convincing. There was no way I would ever let him know I was able to read his mind. I just couldn’t.

  “What about that guy? Was he your boyfriend?” John’s voice was suddenly cold. It made me want to laugh that of all the things we’d talked about, that was what got under his skin.

  “Who? Angus? No. He’s my sister’s boyfriend.”

  I shouldn’t have been surprised by his next question.

  “Why do you look so different from the rest of them?”

  I made a move to get up then.

  “Hey! What did I say?” He gentled his voice and tried to put a hand on my arm to stop me. It was the first time he’d touched me since we began the conversation, and I was surprised he still wanted to.

  I tried to stifle my reaction. “Nothing. I look different because I have a different mother than my sister. But I didn’t know her.”

  “You didn’t know her, or you don’t know who she was?” John looked confused.

  “Both.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s fine.” I couldn’t believe I had said the word mother out loud and lightning hadn’t struck. But John wouldn’t know I’d just broken yet another cardinal rule by mentioning the past. I needed a minute to recover. “Can I get a glass of water?”

  “Absolutely. Sorry, I forgot to offer.” He had incredible manners. John left and came back with a bottle of water. He closed the door and passed it to me as he sat down again. Our hands touched and I dropped the bottle. We both bent over to catch it—our reflexes equally quick.

  I had the feeling he was backing down from his questioning and in the next few minutes I’d know the fallout from his reaction. I realized how much I didn’t want to lose him and how ridiculous that was. Of course I would lose him. I had always felt superior, but now, looking at it from his perspective, I saw myself as a freak.