“Do you mind?” she asked, annoyed. “You’re blocking my locker.”
“No problem,” I said, suddenly able to speak again. “No problem at all.”
“You should have seen her, Ipod,” Lex said, laughing. “She was just standing there, frozen…and him, too. He was looking at her like she was—I don’t know—but that was some look.”
“I miss all the good stuff,” Ipod said, smiling at me.
“It was like they were under some kind of spell,” Lex said. “The hell, A.J.?”
“Clueless,” I said, leaning up against the trunk of a big cottonwood. I was still dizzy and dazed and confused. “I’m just grateful I disappear from Spanish. I can’t really think straight yet.”
“Here, sit down,” Ipod said, taking my bag and steadying me. I dropped to the ground by the tree. He tossed his own bag down and stretched out on the ground beside me, using his bag as a pillow.
We were in back of the school where there were trees, shade, and even a creek. The creek was flowing fast with spring snowmelt from the mountains. The sun was out, and it was nice there in the shade with the breeze off the water. We hung there a lot. Lex always knew when I needed a nature fix. She was good that way.
I looked at her. “Please tell me my mouth wasn’t hanging open,” I begged.
“Maybe a little, Sweetie, but it wasn’t bad. You just looked stunned. What gives?”
“I don’t know. At first, I felt like I was going to jump and had to totally focus on not. Not that I’ve ever been able to stop it. So much for me being safe today out of my disguise.”
“Hey, I’m no expert on your Oz situation, but I know it can’t have anything to do with your clothes. That stupid hoodie does not protect you.”
“Yeah, well…”
“Besides, you didn’t disappear.”
“I almost did. I don’t understand it. The tingle got really strong. Then this calm washed over me, and everything settled down. The calm part was really, really nice. And then when I looked in his eyes…I can’t even describe it.”
“What do you mean?” Ipod asked, pushing up his glasses.
“It’s hard to explain,” I said. “You’re going to laugh at this, Ipod, but for a moment in time, it was as though maybe a part of me actually knew him, but had forgotten or been asleep. Then it suddenly woke up, recognized him, and was massive happy about it. He just seemed familiar—intensely so. I know that sounds totally crazy. He’s…I don’t know. He’s not a normal guy.”
“You saw his eyes, right?” Lex asked, pulling her water bottle out of her bag. “I think he’s like you. Maybe you are an alien, and he’s from the same planet, and something about you recognizes your own kind.” She hesitated for a moment, gave a quick glance at Ipod, and leaned in to me. “Or maybe you knew him in a past life.”
Ipod snorted. He didn’t believe in past lives. “There’s a slight possibility, that he could have done something to trigger the release of chemicals in your brain, which in turn caused physical sensations. That I would be open to. What did it feel like, exactly?”
Aside from absolute bliss, it felt like suddenly I knew him on some deep, all-encompassing level. There was just a “rightness” about him. I knew it was crazy, and maybe I didn’t know specifics like the color of his toothbrush. But I knew him. And every second of it was wonderful. I wracked my brain for a way to describe it to Lex and Ipod. It was so fantastic; I couldn’t even begin to explain. But then, I had an idea. “You know that thing vampires do—”
“Hypothetically,” Ipod interrupted, “vampires, being fictitious creatures…”
“Yes, of course, hypothetically, Ipod, where they look into your eyes and you’re filled with ecstasy and you can’t move? Well, that’s what happened. Every cell in my body felt wonderful and drawn to him.”
“Surely, you’re not saying he’s a vampire,” Ipod said, “because—”
“No, of course not. Give me a little credit. But that’s the closest I can come to an explanation.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” he said, shaking his head. “Are you sure you weren’t imagining it?”
“I’m serious. That’s how it felt. I lie—I die.”
“But—”
“Ipod, get over it,” Lex said. “We never question I lie—I die. You know that. Something happened. You can dissect it later. What I want to know, A.J., is why you couldn’t at least say hi. We practiced this meeting, over and over. It wasn’t hard. ‘Hi, I’m A.J. Nice to meet you, Constantine. I’m just a normal girl, and you’re a very hot guy. Sure, I’d like to hang out with you. Yes, now that you mention it, I do disappear and travel back in time.’ Did what happened keep you from speaking?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. It just didn’t seem necessary at the time.”
“He really wanted to meet you,” Lex said. “He took off after you like a bat outta hell before I even got out of my seat. But then, after your zombie moment, I had to get you out of there before you collapsed to the floor.”
In spite of my lack of words, it was as if we were meeting, just in a different way. I just couldn’t explain it. But I knew she was disappointed I’d blown her attempt at matchmaking. “I know, I know,” I said. “I was just so caught up in it, I didn’t think about talking. How long were we standing there?”
“Maybe two minutes,” she said. “It was bizarre. You just stood there, staring at each other. I was waving my hand in front of his face, and it was as if he didn’t even see me. And then I had to half carry you down the hall.”
I stretched out on the grass beside Ipod, putting my head on his shoulder. Once she laid it out like that, it did sound bizarre. “I don’t know what happened. You’re right, Lex, I should have said something.” I sighed.
“Like a statue,” Lex said, shaking her head. “I couldn’t believe it. And today of all days when you look so—”
“Amazing,” said Ipod.
“Like a statue,” Lex said again.
Suddenly, I had a vision of myself, just standing there like an idiot. “I so suck,” I moaned, hiding my face in Ipod’s shoulder. I threw my arm across his chest and spoke into his jacket muffling my words. “Why. Can’t. I. Just. Be. Normal?”
Ipod patted my hair. “I wouldn’t stress about it, A.J. From what Lex says, he didn’t exactly say anything either.”
“Ipod’s right,” Lex said. “Really, when you think about it, it wasn’t such a bad first meeting. He seemed pretty happy about it. But next time, you have to talk to him.”
“I will,” I promised.
I had to. This guy was important. He might have the answers to my strangeness. But the funny thing was, that at that moment, I wasn’t thinking about answers or even my strangeness. I knew it was crazy, but all I could think about was his fingers on my cheek. All I could think about was way his eyes looked into mine.
All I could think about was him.
I was in love. I was in love and enamored and entranced. I was mesmerized.
I was lost. I was…
“Hey, Constantine,” screeched a voice a few yards behind me.
Bam! Hooker-heavy perfume slammed me back to planet Earth. At least the screech jolted me, so my body could function again. Without even looking back, I bolted down the hallway, evading the relentless, cheerleader flies. What was with that chick and why couldn’t she just leave me the heck alone?
I tore down a flight of stairs, taking them two at a time. I ditched the cheerleader, but there was no sight of Lex and A.J. I was determined to find them, no matter what it took. Enough of all the cloak and dagger crap; we needed to talk face to face. A.J. needed to know what was going on—with her, I mean—who she was…what she was. And we needed to discuss what had just happened in the hallway.
I could hardly wrap my mind around what happened in the hallway.
I sprang through the door, looking right and left—no dice. I sprinted across the campus towards the west parking lot. Maybe Lex had a car. Or maybe A.J. had one. Who knew? The only
car I’d ever seen a her house was the rusted Subaru. I scanned the parking lot. I didn’t see them.
Suddenly, I stopped. I was way to revved up. I had to slow down. I had to think this through first. I jogged back to the building and into a side door. I ducked into an empty classroom and took a seat. This was way too important to be impulsive. I didn’t want to end up kicking myself later for doing something stupid then.
What had I been thinking, charging after them like that? I hadn’t even considered an opening line. What was I going to say? “Guess what, you have alien technology in your head. And by the way, what happened in the hallway was a fluke. Nothing to worry about, but there might be some significant side effects.”
I drummed my fingers on the desk. I needed a plan. I needed to mellow out. At that point, I was way too buzzed to talk to anyone. I took a deep breath and slumped in the seat with my eyes closed. We melded in the hallway. I saw into her world. I experienced slices of her timeline. Now, I felt connected to her.
I thought back several years to my entry-level screening. I’d just been told about the planet of Oreon, six-hundred light years away. I’d been given the rundown on Editor Program. I was told about the sub brain the size of a Double Stuf Oreo and how it branched down our whole nervous system, giving us the capability to perceive and handle energy. I was told how energy could be shared and how that was a bonus feature of the DNA alterations. The concept of melding was just a footnote in the information package.
The Regent screening me told me not to worry about it. I remember his words exactly. “It’s highly unlikely to happen. If it did, it was just a fluke and not harmful. There had been no known cases of it being triggered in humans. The footnote had been included because, well, the Oreonians wanted full disclosure.”
Every Editor has a specific baseline vibratory rate when they deal with energy. For melding to occur, you had to match perfectly. For it to be triggered, not only did you have to be touching and be gazing into each other’s eyes, you had to have perfect genetic compatibility. In a sample size of roughly three hundred Editors on Earth, the chances of that happening were highly improbable. Yet what happened in the hallway was exactly how it was described in the footnote.
A fluke.
Everything on Oreon was oriented around energy compatibility. Melding allowed compatible partners to enter each other’s mental worlds. An Oreonian would never mate with someone with whom they couldn’t meld. It didn’t make you fall in love, but it made you feel connected. Maybe it was a fluke that it happened to us. But hey, I already really liked the girl. If something was going to give her a little nudge my way, I wasn’t going to argue with it.
But I needed to tell her about it. She was probably feeling drawn to me. She was probably really wanting to meet me. She was probably half in love with me already. I needed to find her, but I needed to go slow with all the alien stuff. I didn’t want to scare her.
I resumed my search, trying to mellow out. I did a quick scan of the lunchroom, but no dice. I walked the perimeter of the building. When I reached the back—score. There they were, all three of them, hanging out under a big cottonwood. Ipod was lying on the grass with his head on a backpack. The girls were sitting on either side of him. They seemed deep in conversation, probably trying to figure out what had just happened.
How convenient, since there I was there with the answers, ready and willing to enlighten them. It was lunchtime. There was no impending bell and no excuse to run. A wave of excitement washed over me—finally a chance for an actual conversation. Finally, I could show her that I could help her, make her life better. We frickin melded—we had perfect compatibility.
Not that I was going to get into that right away. No, I’d start with the simple stuff. I headed their way, so hopeful and happy I hovered a foot off the ground. But before I could walk more than three yards, that happiness hit a landmine and exploded right in my face.
A.J., my A.J., stretched out beside Ipod. She put her head on his shoulder and her arm across his chest. She just snuggled up against him as if she’d done it millions of times before, like a lover in a familiar place.
And him, the rat, he reached around and stroked her hair. My angel’s beautiful hair. Hair that smelled like jasmine. Hair that I’d never even touched.
I was a fool, a complete and utter fool.
I was an idiot.
I felt this overwhelming heaviness that seemed to anchor me to the ground. For a moment, I couldn’t move. I just stood there, stunned.
Then the critic in my head got in the game. “You moron!” he screamed. “What were you thinking? Get out of there before you make an even bigger fool of yourself. Vacate!”
Grabbing my last ounce of will power, I turned and ducked behind the building. I didn’t think they saw me. Dropping to the ground, I leaned back against the wall and just tried to catch my breath. How could I have been so blind? How could I have been so wrong? How could I have been so stupid? As for A.J. and Ipod—I didn’t see that one coming.
I should have.
“You idiot!” scoffed the critic in my head. “He lives with her, Dude. Of course, they’re together. What is wrong with you?”
Why was he asking me? I sure as heck didn’t know.
But I knew one thing.
It wasn’t fair…to have it be over before it had even really begun. To have what should be the love of my life dangled in front of me and then wrenched away like that. What a rip! Not that I deserved her—I knew. But this was a heavy blow. Once again Life was playing games with me. “Hey, look at this. You’ve won the lottery.”
“Ha, ha, made you hope, loser!”
I hauled myself up off the ground. I needed to leave in case they came my way, but I didn’t know what to do. I certainly was in no shape to handle going back to class. I figured I might as well go home. Home…yeah, that’s a fun place. I’ll go there to get cheered up. Have a nice chat with the parents. Play guitar with Devon. See my little sister. I wish. I headed there anyway.
I had nowhere else to go.
The afternoon went by slowly. I didn’t see or sense him for the rest of the day. I wondered where he went and what would happen the next time I saw him. Mostly, I just obsessed on what happened in the hallway. And funny, obsessing seemed to help me ease into post-hoodie life. I forgot to be invisible. I answered people who spoke to me. If someone said “hi” to me, I said “hi” back.
I knew I looked way different than I had in the hoodie and the glasses. I’d finally looked in the mirror a few times since the makeover. Not that I was suddenly any beauty queen, but even I could see that I wasn’t the scrawny, little freak I’d been in middle school. I wasn’t beautiful like Lex, but I wasn’t exactly ugly either. Besides, guys at school were staring at me as if I was—you know—a normal girl. Ipod would call that evidence.
Maybe I hadn’t made the best impression when I met Constantine. But if Lex was right and he was like me, he might understand my confusion. Because, strangely enough, I was beginning to entertain the thought that a guy might actually like me. For one thing, if he was like me, then I could get to know someone without having to worry about my secret. And if he was like me, maybe he wouldn’t think I was strange.
Of course, what I wanted…what we all wanted was answers. I knew that. That’s what meeting him was really about. But as the afternoon passed by, I realized that there was something more going on. Something inside of me had woken up and taken interest in a way I’d never felt before. I certainly didn’t tell Lex, but after what happened in the hallway, I started thinking about Constantine as more than a source for answers. I started thinking about him as a guy.
Imagine that.
I cued up some metal to get moving. Not my fave, but anger trumps hopelessness, and I marched home to the beat of a wildly, angry drummer.
It kept me from thinking.
Almost.
My body moved mechanically forward in a state of witless, clueless, human autopilot. My shades blocked the sun. But
I couldn’t avoid the fresh air of a perfect, spring day, slamming into my face, mocking me. The sun here was frickin relentless. Didn’t it ever just cloud up and rain? What was wrong with this place?
I needed rain…a heavy, pounding Seattle rain, to wash off the dark cloud that clung to me like Velcro. I kicked a rock that flew to the side and hit the tire of a parked car. I kicked another, with equal ferocity, but it just went into the road. A woman, passing by, smiled at me, and I scowled. She looked startled.
Whatever! I just kept stomping home.
Well, stomping to the house my family lived in, while we were waiting to implode. This sun soaked place wasn’t home. And my family was no longer a family. So far, I’d been the odd man out, the only one still having a foot in the real world. Thoughts of A.J. had given me something good to focus on. That gone, I was ready to plunge into the abyss and let it take me down with the rest of them.
Halfway home, I realized if I walked in the door now, my mom would know I’d skipped and have an unfair advantage if we got into an argument—which was highly likely, given my current state. I turned around abruptly and headed back downtown. The abyss could wait. I didn’t feel like losing anything else at the moment, even a fight with my mom. Besides, she had enough to stress about without me adding more.
I might be hopeless, but I’m not heartless.
My backpack was still leaning against the school building, where I’d hunched down, trying to sooth the ache in my gut. I considered retrieving it, but not for more than a second. My ripped out heart lay bleeding beside it. Screw it. I didn’t need either of them. I just kept walking.
Let Ipod explain what was happening to her. Let him teach her how to handle her power, the squirrelly, little geek. We’d see how that turned out. I was done with girls, done with school, done with trying to pretend things were okay. I didn’t need her. I didn’t need anybody. I’d figure out a way to save Devon on my own, without her precious, Shadow powers. I’d beg the Guild to reconsider. I’d give up asking for my travel block to be cancelled, accept permanent censure. I’d become their slave for life, if only they’d help me put my family back together. That’s what really mattered. Then I’d find a deep hole somewhere and crawl inside.
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