Superluminary

by Olivia Rising

  The German Shepherd beneath the table gazed up at Chris with pleading eyes and a lolling tongue. He didn’t expect her to charm anyone, he just wanted a scratch behind the ears or, alternately, the remains of her steak.

  Chris shifted in her seat to stroke the dog’s fur, letting the dinner conversation drift past. Her mother was laughing at something Ryan said while her father nodded in avid agreement. Her sister smiled, eyes locked onto Ryan’s face with a sparkle of conspiratorial mischief. Missing the joke, Chris straightened in her seat before setting her fork down to indicate that she was done. She needed fresh air and a moment of solitude, and the addict inside her craved a smoke.

  “Why aren't you talking, Christina?” her mother asked, glancing at her.

  Because I don’t have a boyfriend, and we never talk about soccer, Chris answered in her head, avoiding another awkward silence.

  Everyone was looking at her expectantly now. This was where, in theory, she would have provided a witty response. Something with just the right note of modesty, intelligence, and optimism. But she wasn’t Helen, and she didn’t have a clue as to what she was supposed to respond to in the first place. Chris spent a few seconds by racking her mind, searching for something that would satisfy her family until the spotlight refocused on her sister.

  She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She wiped her hands on her napkin instead, half of her attention turned to the darkened front porch beyond the living room window. It was still early enough for a trip to the soccer field.

  Or maybe she would go to the cemetery. It had been weeks since she visited Dylan’s baby-sized grave, and she longed for the feel of the cold gray stone beneath her cheek. It gave her the sense of atonement she occasionally needed, especially when her mother was giving her one of those I don’t blame you, but you were responsible for him looks. Helen’s presence warded the looks off for the moment, but they would return. They always did.

  “I’m done. May I be excused?” Chris asked.

  Her dad responded with the good-natured ease which was always part of his family reunion act, especially in front of guests. He spread his hands, looking over the dinner plates. “That should be fine, Christina. It looks like everyone is finished eating. Helen, Ryan?”

  Helen and Ryan both nodded, Ryan’s characteristic partial smile tugging at one corner of his mouth.

  Chris pushed back her chair and was on her feet in an instant, hoping to make her way out the door before her father changed his mind. The last time Helen had been home, they leafed through the various family albums for hours, noting the cute, clever things her sister had done in pretty much every photo. She wasn’t in the mood for a sequel to that. In seconds, she was through the kitchen and pulling open the front door.

  “And no smoking!” her mother called when Chris was far enough away from everyone to pretend that she hadn’t heard.

  Once the door had closed behind her, she felt better, revitalized by the scent of the late spring evening. It had rained a short while ago, and the air was rich with fresh earthy smells. She could close her eyes and forget the steady approach of summer and the impending doom of life after high school graduation.

  She knew all too well she wasn’t on her way to professional success and widespread acclaim like her sister. She still remembered the disappointed looks on everyone’s faces when she told them that she had been rejected by all of the colleges she applied to, even their local community college. No, things weren’t looking too bright for her after graduation. She was bound to disappoint everyone who mattered.

  Chris crossed the patio, passing stone Zodiac figurines and African daisies as she thought about the option of a spontaneous jog along the museum parkway or, better yet, down to the beach. Running had always given her a refuge from the pressures of life. Besides, since it looked like it was going to rain again soon, she didn’t think the guys would head to the soccer field tonight.

  She didn’t know why all of her friends just happened to be guys. It had always been that way. She just didn’t click with the girls in her class, probably because she couldn’t muster up any interest in social pecking orders, the latest fashion crazes, or doing the popularity act.

  As Chris stood at the edge of the patio, a painful throb pulsated through her head and cut off her train of thought. For a second, her brain felt like it was getting stretched beyond its capacity. It felt as if a massive swarm of supersonic bumblebees had passed through on its way to find a new hive. At the same time, she picked up the unmistakable sound of a female scream from her left followed by something crashing on the ground and a barrage of swearing.

  Then nothing. The pain and noise faded as fast as they had manifested, leaving her confused and disoriented.

  What the hell was that? Chris thought, trying to make sense of what she had just experienced. She bowed her head and covered both temples with her hands. Was that what a sudden migraine felt like? She dropped her arms, and moved down the front steps to look for the source of the scream. The cry had sounded like it had originated from somewhere close, almost right beside her. She crossed the front yard to get a better view of the Chapmans’ house on the left.

  Everything appeared to be in order there. There weren't any screams from inside, and nothing looked like it was in disarray. There weren't any suspicious vehicles parked out front. No, if it was a scream, she would have heard it. And whatever caused it would have been visible. Right?

  Maybe the neighbors were just arguing; it wouldn’t be the first time. If Chris left her window open at night, she overheard most of their rants.

  She inched across the neighbors’ wet lawn, catching a glimpse of Mr. Chapman as he passed the front window. He had a newspaper in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other. Not exactly a felony.

  Chris watched the window for another minute until Mrs. Chapman came into view, passing a vacuum cleaner over the living room carpet with a sour, but determined, look on her face. She didn’t look happy, that was for sure, but she didn’t look like she was in danger either.

  I'm losing it, Chris thought, making her way back to the Chungs’ front steps to settle on the one at the bottom. When she was halfway comfortable, she rubbed her temples with small circular motions. It was a tic which helped her ward off headaches and deal with overwhelming situations. Still, she couldn’t get the memory of the screaming out of her mind.

  From where she sat, she heard her mother and sister laughing so loud that their muffled guffaws came through the double-layered front windows.

  If they’re having fun, so can I. Chris abandoned her seat and made her way to the other side of the patio where her mother kept a pot of butterfly weed that Helen had brought along on her last visit. It was too close to the road to attract any butterflies, but the fact that her mother never needed to water it made it a perfect cigarette cache.

  Chris picked up smoking a year ago, not long after her baby brother had died. She told herself it was to deal with all the pressure of struggling to play in Helen’s league, but the biggest reason was to spite her parents—especially her dad, who wanted everything regimented and picture perfect. As an added bonus, when her parents discovered her habit, it had gained her some remarkably intense attention.

  She retrieved a well-worn plastic baggie from its hiding place, reaching inside to pull out a crumpled cigarette package and grabbing a lighter from one of her hoodie pockets. The sweatshirt was baggy and slightly too big for her shape. But because it had been a gift from Ryan a few years ago, it was still valuable to her. Besides, it had a number of pockets that were useful whenever she spent the day outside.

  She looked down at the garment. The front was imprinted with a slogan: strong mind, strong body. She didn’t think the words applied to her, but it was nice that Ryan had thought of her on her birthday.

  Yeah, he was a pretty nice guy.

  As she lit the smoke and drew in a long drag, she forced down any remorse she felt over the loss of Ryan’s friendship. She had known that things between
them would never be the same after he left for Harvard a couple of Septembers ago, but finding out that Helen was dating her former BFF had been a shock that Chris was still struggling to absorb.

  She heard the front door swing open. Wincing, she pushed the cigarette packet back into the planter. Then she spun around, keeping her hand with the cigarette behind her back. But instead of facing a parent, she found herself face to face with Ryan. He cocked an eyebrow as she let out a relieved puff of smoke.

  “You of all people shouldn’t startle me like that,” she said, bringing the glowing cigarette back up to her lips.

  “Sorry, but I had to get out. They’re making fun of us guys now.” He jerked a thumb at the illuminated window behind him. “Your dad is holding the line, making a last stand. How are things out here?”

  Chris suspected that he was just checking up on her to make sure she was okay. Yes, that was something he would do. She shrugged. “Peachy. Looks like it might rain again, but I was thinking of going for a run anyway.”

  Ryan made his way down the stone steps with the casual ease of someone who was perfectly comfortable with himself and the world around him. He took a seat beside her, and turned to face her with his head bowed in that hangdog way he sometimes used to get her to open up. “You sure everything’s good?”

  She nodded. Since dinner he had done his shoulder-length brown hair up in a small top knot. It would have looked ridiculous—maybe even feminine—on anyone else, but not on Ryan. In combination with his athletic physique and the aura of confidence that clung to him, the hairdo emphasized his chiseled features. She had to grudgingly admit that he and Princess Perfect were a pretty good match.

  A faint lightness settled within Chris’s stomach as she looked at him, and she inhaled another lungful of smoke to keep herself anchored in reality. Her former BFF was way out of her league. It didn’t matter that she possibly knew him better than her sister did, or that she had known him longer. He had never looked at her the way he looked at Helen.

  Chris had stopped competing with Helen by the time her sister had reached puberty. Even back then, Chris had known that she wasn’t particularly pretty, or feminine, or successful at school. She was athletic then in a tomboyish sort of way, and she still was. There was nothing girly about her. Even the way she tied her dark hair back in a short unfashionable ponytail was done to keep it out of her face because it was too unruly to let it grow below her shoulder.

  Beside her, Ryan draped his forearms over his knees and hooked his thumbs together. He leaned over the porch rail to gaze up at the dimming sky beyond the roof, squinting at the sunset. “Have you decided what you’re going to do after graduation?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Going to aim for a professional parkour career, and maybe get a job at the mall until that works out,” she joked.

  He nudged her side with his elbow. “A parkour pro, huh? As if anyone would ever pay you to scale fences and jump over dumpsters,” he joked back. He had always found her interest in parkour amusing. “But be serious, Chris. What’s your plan?”

  Did my parents put you up to this? she wanted to ask him, although she knew him well enough to realize that he would never do her parents’ bidding.

  “Well, Coach Dunlop said he knows a few people who might be able to help get me into Averton Community College a year from now, when I’ve been out of school long enough to be considered a ‘mature student.’” She mimed air quotes. “I guess Helen told you that I couldn't get into any college because of what my file contains. Because of that fight I got in…”

  She grimaced at the memory of how she’d lashed out at some of her jerk classmates back in junior year. They’d kept on pushing her with pranks and snide remarks until she’d pushed back.

  “But I don’t think I even want to go to college,” she went on in a matter-of-fact voice. “I mean, what would be the point? In a dream world I would try for the pro circuit in soccer, or maybe the national team, but who am I kidding? Even I know the odds of that happening are, like, zero.”

  There was a pause and Chris’s words hung in the air.

  “Dad suggested I try for the police,” she went on, “but … I dunno.”

  “I think you’d make a great cop,” Ryan said with sincerity in his voice.

  She pulled a face. “I’m not becoming a cop.”

  “Does that decision have anything to do with your dad?”

  “Pretty much,” she admitted. “I just know he would be even more of a pain in the ass than he already is. He would have certain expectations of me, and expectations equal…” she trailed off, taking a drag of her cigarette to hide the tremor in her voice. “Expectations equal more control and disappointment in the end.” She couldn’t take her eyes off her sneakers.

  Ryan was silent for a moment before speaking. “Don’t let anyone pressure you into any kind of role. Just go with your gut, and something will come along that feels right. Besides,” he continued as he took her half-finished cigarette from her hand and snubbed it out on the stone step, “you’re smarter than you give yourself credit for. Even smarter than Helen, as far as I can tell, and I won’t deny that she’s brilliant.”

  You think? Chris was nowhere near as convinced as Ryan sounded. There were some really smart people in her class, and she didn’t connect with them at all. She just didn’t care like they did.

  She must have made a face because he went on. “But it’s a different kind of brilliance. Helen follows the established trajectory, and excels. You get bored and frustrated with the establishment, and break the rules. But don’t let people tell you that you’re not going places, Chris, because you're full of potential.”

  Potential. Something about that word had always been a double-edged sword for Chris. Her dad always used it against her. But coming from Ryan’s mouth, it didn’t sound so bad.

  Ryan broke into a rapscallion grin and brought a hand up to rub a thumb along her jawline. It was the smile-summoning ritual he had come up with a few years ago, back when she first rebelled against everything and everyone.

  “Come on, now,” he said. “How about some optimism? You’re almost free. Don’t you remember how much you used to look forward to getting out of high school?”

  “Yeah,” she conceded, swatting his hand away from her face. She did her best to flash him a smile, though she wasn’t sure how cheery it looked.

  “Keep your chin up, kiddo.” He lowered his hand to her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Brief as it was, his touch had an electrifying effect on her skin beneath her hoodie. The hoodie he had given her. She felt goose bumps spread around the point of impact, and that awful dizziness settled within her stomach again.

  She wished she still had a cigarette to hide behind. Instead, she busied her hands by pulling at a hangnail on her thumb as she tried her best to keep a poker face. She hoped that he had not caught on to what she was feeling. Shit, that would be awkward.

  “You should get back to my sister,” she said.

  “Yeah, I guess I should,” he replied, rising to his feet in one fluid motion. He started to the front door before stopping and turning back around. “Helen and I are headed to the movies. Feel like catching a flick? We’re going to grab milkshakes along the way.”

  No, she wanted to say. She didn’t feel like seeing Helen in action tonight.

  “Yeah, sure,” she said instead.

  ***

  Before heading up to Interstate 5 to catch a movie downtown, they stopped by Bob’s Body Shakes. The place offered a low-fat version advertised to have the same taste and consistency as regular milkshakes, and Helen had been dying to try one. Chris had wanted to go to her favorite shake shop by the wharf, but she agreed to go to Bob’s because Ryan asked nicely.

  She could have stayed in the car and sent the others ahead with her order, but the spring weather was nice enough to lure her off the back seat so she trailed a few steps behind Helen and Ryan. The two of them spent the three-minute walk from the parking lot to the shake joint with thei
r arms draped around each other, speaking in low soft tones, their faces glowing with happiness. Chris jammed her hands in her pockets and felt dispensable. She tried not to care, but it still hurt.

  As they rounded the corner before reaching Bob’s brightly lit storefront, Ryan looked over his shoulder to give her a thumbs up. Chris pulled her right hand from her pants pocket and gave a small wave of her fingers. It was a pitiful imitation of Helen’s dainty, ladylike wave because Chris’s fingers were just too stiff and uncoordinated to do the trick.

  Ryan opened the ice cream shop door for Helen, then held it for Chris. They ordered three signature low-fat shakes at Helen’s insistence. Ryan refused to accept Chris’s crumpled bills and paid for them all. On the way back to the car, Chris tried a sip of her pomegranate smoothie. It wasn’t as bad as she expected.

  She trailed behind the couple again as they made their way to the parking lot. They were midway when Chris’s senses abruptly flared—all of them—with a cranked-up simultaneous intensity that was overwhelming. Chris stopped walking, and raised her free hand to her temple to ward off the onslaught. Then a new sense resonated through her entire body, overpowering everything else with a single message: danger.

  Chris slumped down to her knees with a breathless grunt, every conscious thought knocked out of her mind. The plastic shake cup slipped from her hand, sending

  crimson fluid

  red berry milkshake spilling across the sidewalk.

  Something told her that a car was approaching, and somehow she knew that the vehicle was about to lose control—that the driver was

  alcohol, pills, effect just kicked in

  intoxicated, almost delirious. Chris felt, rather than heard, screeching tires drawing closer because the vibration of rubber on pavement sent a tremor through her bones.