The Outliers

by Kimberly McCreight

  When I turn, Jasper is staring at all of it.

  “Um, did Cassie say something about us camping somewhere?”

  We don’t need it, part of me wants to confess. I do. To get me out the door.

  “You never know,” I manage, then motion for Jasper to grab up what’s left on the floor. I point to the button on the wall next to him. “Can you press that? It opens the garage door.”

  I twitch when the door grinds up loudly, squeezing my supplies so tight that they cut into my ribs. The pain is weirdly reassuring, though. Before I pass out always comes the numbness and then the tunnel to blackness. And I don’t feel any of that, not yet. Just deep underwater, the pressure crushing my skull.

  As the door rattles the rest of the way up, maybe Jasper says something, maybe he doesn’t. Because I can’t hear anything but the roar of that door. Can’t feel anything but the thumping of my own heart.

  There’s a rush of cold air on my face as the night sky finally rises before my eyes. I can see the house across the street, the front yard I played in so many times as a little kid. The side yard that was once my shortcut to school. Memories now from someone else’s life. The air smells good, too, like wood smoke and snow. Safe. And yet all I feel is more afraid.

  Jasper is already out on the driveway, marching toward his car like the totally normal person he is. Loading up his trunk with the rest of my useless supplies. A second later he’s back, standing next to me, staring. But even with the shame of Jasper’s eyes boring into me, the pain of knowing that I could be wasting Cassie’s time, my feet still will not move.

  There’s only one way out of this garage: to believe that I can. You can do it. You can do it. I hear my mom’s voice in my head. I can feel her fingers crossed as I inch my way for hours up the side of that stone. It got me up that stone. It’s what will get me out that door.

  “Give me your arm,” I say to Jasper without looking at him. He hesitates, then holds a bicep out toward me. I wrap a couple of fingers around his bare elbow, which was supposed to feel less weird than actually holding his muscular arm. But does not. “I just need you to walk me to your car. Don’t ask why, please. I’m not going to tell you anyway.”

  And then I close my eyes. Because pretending I’m not actually doing this couldn’t hurt either.

  “Okay,” Jasper says, almost like a question.

  My eyes are still closed tight as we walk forward through the garage. Still, I can feel the darkness rush in around me when we finally step outside. Breathe, I tell myself as we make our way down what I’m guessing is the driveway. I don’t open my eyes until I feel the cool metal of the car in front of us. Finally, I suck in some air, dropping Jasper’s elbow and opening my eyes only long enough to dump everything inside the open back of his old Jeep. I squeeze my eyes shut as I feel my way over to the passenger door. Behind me, I hear Jasper close the trunk.

  I climb into the car, heart pounding. But for the first time it’s a rush of something good: I made it. I almost don’t believe it, looking down at myself sitting in the Jeep. I brace myself for all the questions Jasper will have when he finally slides into the car next to me. The ones I told him not to ask. And I can feel him staring at the side of my face again for a long minute, like he’s considering.

  “Okay, then,” is all he says when he turns the key. Like maybe he thinks I’m a little crazy, but has decided to be polite and keep it to himself. And I can accept that. I’ll have to.

  Instead of starting, Jasper’s car makes a loud coughing sound. “Don’t worry. It does this. It’ll catch eventually.”

  And I’m so relieved when it finally does turn over. Because if I have to go back inside, there’s zero chance I’m ever coming back out. And then a second later we’re pulling out of the driveway, and another second more and we’re already halfway up the street. We’re really going. I’m really going. And I am almost starting to—well, not relax. No, that would be a huge overstatement. But nothing is getting worse. I haven’t passed out, haven’t thrown up, which in this case—in my case—just might count as better. That is, until I see headlights at the top of our street: my dad coming home.

  I feel an unexpected stab of guilt. He’s going to be so worried when I’m not there. He wanted me to lock all the doors, and instead, I leave? And my note: Be back soon? It’s not like it explains anything. He’s going to freak.

  It’s true my dad isn’t my mom and he never will be. He doesn’t get me. And sometimes I feel like he doesn’t miss my mom enough. Like maybe they had fallen apart for good before the night she died. But he is trying his best now. I have no doubt about that.

  Still, I duck down as we roll past my dad’s car, moving fast in the opposite direction. I again choose protecting Cassie’s secret—whatever it is—over waving him down and telling him everything. Right now, I am Cassie’s friend first, a daughter second. And I could pretend that’s about me doing what’s right for her, but the dark truth is it feels a whole lot more selfish. Like it’s a lot more about proving her wrong about me.

  On cue, my phone vibrates in my hand, and I brace myself for a text from my dad, begging me to come home. But the text isn’t from him. It’s from Cassie. And it says so very little. But also way more than I want it to.

  Hurry.

  We do as Cassie has told us. Jasper and I drive briefly north on 95, then to Route 3 and onward north on 93 for almost an hour. The lights of Boston fade out behind us quickly and soon we pass out of Massachusetts and into New Hampshire. The highway is still wide, but pitch black on either side. Jasper and I each text Cassie again, more than once, hoping she’ll tell us something. How far north on 93? What next after that? What town are you in? Anything that might get a response. Are you okay? Please, answer us. But Cassie hasn’t. Not a single time.

  The only person I have heard from is my dad. He’s already sent half a dozen texts, all of which sound pretty much exactly the same as the one that just came through: Please, Wylie, tell me where you are. Please come home. I’m worried. He’s called a couple of times, too. Left a message once, though I haven’t been able to bring myself to listen to it.

  Not surprisingly, my dad found the Be back soon note I left in our kitchen lacking. But he’s trying so hard not to freak out. To even act like he’s also kind of proud of me for making it outside. To be honest, I felt pretty good about it, too. For a whole twenty minutes after we pulled away from the house, I was on an actual I’m-cured high.

  Now, that prison-break rush is gone, but I still feel better than I have in months. Like being in the middle of this actual emergency is exactly the cure I’ve been searching for. Or maybe it’s just harder to hear all the alarms sounding in my head now that they match reality. Because there I am, hurtling north to an unknown destination for an unknown reason to save a friend whom I love, but whom I also know cannot be trusted—and I feel calmer than I have in months.

  Jasper and I don’t talk much as the miles pass except “Are you cold?” and “Can we change the station?” Pretty soon almost every alternative on Jasper’s old-school radio is static, except some talk-radio program about the evils of psychiatric drugs and teens, which under the circumstances—my circumstances—feels pretty awkward.

  Luckily, it’s hard to hear much of anything anyway over the roar of Jasper’s car. Riding in the worn Jeep feels like being a stowaway in a cargo plane. Like I’m in a space not meant for passengers. And the farther north we go, the colder it gets. Soon, my toes are almost numb, despite the fact that Jasper keeps turning up the heat. As I check the time on my phone—almost eight thirty p.m.—I’m starting to worry that the cold and the noise might be a sign something is dangerously wrong with the Jeep. I peer over toward Jasper’s feet, where the sound and the wind seem to be coming from.

  “There’s a hole.” Jasper points down.

  “In the floor?” I ask, squeezing the door handle so hard my hand starts to throb.

  “Don’t worry. It’s not dangerous or anything,” Jasper goes on. “It�
�s nowhere near the pedals. My brother should fix it. It’s his car. But he never thinks about anything, except getting laid and beating the shit out of people.” Jasper looks like he’s going to say something more. Instead, he half smiles. “Like me, for instance, when he realizes I took his car.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  “Whatever. It’s fine. He’s big, but seriously slow. I can usually outrun him. Once I didn’t.” He points to a scar next to his right eye. “Pushed me into the corner of our coffee table. Only five stiches, but the blood was insane. Luckily, my mom is a nurse, so she was pretty calm about it. She did have to replace part of the carpet afterward, though.”

  “That’s terrible.” I wince. “She must have killed him.”

  Jasper glances over at me. “Yeah, not so much. In my house, it’s survival of the fittest.”

  This must be the “hard-knock life” Cassie told me about. “Oh,” I say again, because I have no idea what I’m supposed to say.

  “Yeah, my mom only gets involved in my life if it’s going to have a direct effect on her wallet.” He smirks like he doesn’t care, but I can tell he does. “She’s got high hopes about my future as a human ATM.”

  “That sucks.” And it does.

  “Yeah,” Jasper says quietly. “There are worse things, I guess.”

  My phone buzzes in my hand again then. Wylie, please don’t do this. Answer me. Right now.

  “Cassie?” Jasper asks hopefully.

  I shake my head. “My dad again.”

  “Is he pissed?”

  “Worried, I think mostly.”

  “That’s nice,” he says, like my dad being worried is proof that I’ve got it so much better.

  “Yeah, I guess,” I say, staring down at my phone. And maybe it should feel nice, but it doesn’t. Probably because the more texts he sends, the more it feels like it’s about him getting me to do what he wants instead of how much he loves me.

  Jasper holds up a hand. “Sorry, I hate when people say that kind of crap to me. ‘Your mom loves you, I’m sure. She’s your mother.’” And now he sounds pissed—a little bit like a guy who could punch somebody in the face. “My mom is living proof that life is full of messed-up options.” He shakes his head. Shrugs. “Maybe your dad’s an asshole. How would I know?”

  I don’t feel like I know either. But I do think the time has come that I answer, tell my dad something that will calm him down.

  We heard from Cassie. She’s totally okay. She just got mixed up in something and needs us to come get her. We’ll be back soon! Xoxo

  I hit send, staring at my totally unconvincing x’s and o’s. Even the exclamation point was overkill. But it’s not a lie. Not completely.

  NO, comes my dad’s response almost instantly. You should NOT be doing that. Tell Karen where she is NOW and she will go get her.

  “He wants me to tell Karen where Cassie is,” I say, staring at his all caps, which are digging under my skin.

  “You think we should tell him?” Jasper asks. I can’t tell if he sounds judgmental or I’m just hearing it that way.

  “And you don’t?” I ask. Because the truth is I’m not sure what I think. It does feel vaguely insane that this—of all situations—is when I suddenly decide to do what Cassie wants, the way I used to. But then again, me feeling worried about something isn’t actually a very good indication of whether it’s the right course of action.

  “Technically, we don’t know where she is yet,” Jasper says. “Can’t we wait? See what she says next? You could pretend you didn’t see his message yet or something.”

  “Lie.”

  “Buying us some time to think, I’d call it. But sure, lie is another word for it,” he says, like I’m the jerk. “I’m okay with a little misdirection, as long as he’s not a cop or something.”

  My stomach pulls tight. Why is Jasper worried about cops? “No, he’s a scientist. Why?”

  “I dated this girl once and her dad was a probation officer,” he says. “I didn’t find out until after he caught us together. He had one of his friends lock me up in a holding cell overnight.” He shakes his head and almost laughs. “She and I were both kids. It’s not like it was a crime or something. But man did her dad scare the crap out of me. I didn’t go near another girl for weeks.”

  I stare at the side of Jasper’s face. Does he actually think his girlfriend’s best friend is going to enjoy hearing about his sexcapades?

  “Anyway.” He clears his throat and looks confused when I keep scowling at him. “What kind of scientist is your dad?”

  I put my phone facedown on my lap, trying to pretend I’m actually interested in this conversation instead of just buying myself time before I answer my dad’s text like Jasper suggested. But it does feel like the best I can do for Cassie is wait to find out what’s going on before I decide to rat her out.

  “Live Conversation and Emotional Perception: Implications for the Integrative Approach to Emotional Intelligence,” I say, repeating the title of my dad’s study, trying to make it sound like something Jasper would never understand.

  “Right,” Jasper says with a thoughtful frown. “I mean—I don’t have any idea what integrative whatever emotional perception is. Am I supposed to?”

  I shrug. “I wouldn’t if my dad didn’t talk about it nonstop. He set up this test to look at this one small part of ‘perception,’ which is this one small part of this one approach to emotional intelligence—that’s the ‘integrative’ part. Anyway, my dad started studying emotional intelligence, which is basically like IQ but for feelings, after he met my mom and got totally convinced she was psychic because she always knew what he was thinking. I think she was the only person who ever really understood him.”

  I was passing through the foyer on my way upstairs to bed when I spotted the green flyer on the floor. It was in front of the mail slot, tucked under yet another Wok & Roll menu.

  The Collective, it read in big black letters across the top, and beneath it the details of some kind of lecture: The Spirituality of Science, Seven p.m., December 18! Explore the intersection between freedom, faith, and science.

  “Huh,” my mom said, appearing behind me and reading over my shoulder. She twisted her wavy hair into a knot at her neck. “Life in a college town—the good, the bad, the vaguely fanatical. Sometimes I love it, and sometimes I wish the flyers were all about garage sales.”

  She was trying to make like the flyer just happened to have been slipped under our door. She did the same thing the time I met her at work and someone had stuck a collage of the Middle East under her windshield wiper. It had a skull and crossbones over it.

  “Is this about your story?” I asked, thinking, of course, about the baby dolls. Almost a month and a half after the first one, another had been delivered three separate times.

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” she said, like the possibility had honestly not occurred to her.

  “And what’s ‘The Spirituality of Science’?”

  “Who knows?” she said, a hint of humor back in her voice as she wrapped an arm around my shoulders and squeezed. “More proof it’s a free country. And thank God for that.”

  “And so it’s nothing to worry about?”

  “No, definitely not. It’s just more proof that you cannot control the world,” she said, taking the flyer from my hands. She folded it crisply into a small, sharp square and slipped it into her back pocket, then kissed the top of my head. “Luckily, you don’t need to. Now, your dad didn’t see the flyer, did he?”

  I shook my head.

  “Then let’s not tell him,” she said. “After the baby dolls and Dr. Caton’s plummet from Mount Olympus”—she rolled her eyes—“I think his head might explode from even something as innocuous as this.”

  “Why did Dad fire him anyway?” I wasn’t as curious about Dr. Caton’s fall from grace as Gideon, but the whole thing had seemed so weird and out of the blue and dramatic when it had happened a couple of months earlier, especially for my dad, Captain No
Emotion. And my dad had still refused to talk about it.

  “Dr. Caton was so used to getting his own way, he wouldn’t listen to your dad, who is not only a very gifted scientist and a very smart person, but also his boss,” my mom said. “I’m sure it’s hard to be well adjusted when you graduate high school at fifteen. From what your dad’s told me, Dr. Caton also came from an extremely wealthy family, who didn’t exactly take the time to socialize him down to size. Always getting what you want can make people extremely shortsighted. Which just makes me more glad that we’ve kept Gideon with his peer group.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call Gideon socialized.”

  “Well, we are trying.” My mom laughed. “The point is sometimes it’s not what you believe that’s the problem, it’s how you believe it.”

  “Break it down for me, then,” Jasper says, startling me back to the Jeep and the dark with his pseudo-surfer-boy twang. It reminds me of all the reasons I don’t like him.

  “Break what down for you?”

  “Your dad’s stuff.”

  “His ‘stuff’?”

  “Yeah, his research. We’ve got time. And I actually like science—you know, the dumb-jock version.” Now Jasper is mocking me. He thinks that’s why I don’t like him, because he’s a “jock”? I stare hard at the side of his face until he holds up a hand. “Too soon for jokes, I see that now.”

  I don’t feel like talking about my dad’s work, but if I don’t distract myself, who knows where my mind will wander. Conversation about anything is a good thing. And my dad’s study is for sure a lot safer topic than Cassie and Jasper’s relationship.

  “He’s done lots of studies about EI, but in this one he wanted to prove that with the part of emotional intelligence that is reading other people’s feelings, ‘perception,’ some people do it not just by looking at people’s faces or listening to their voices—which is how most people do it.”

  He shrugs. “I wouldn’t say I’m exactly badass in that department. But I get that it’s a thing some people can do.”