Switched

by Аманда Хокинг

  “What do you mean?” I bent over to dig my English text book out of my bag, and I just happened to glance back at the table behind us.

  Finn sat by himself, his slender fingers absently straightening out his black hair. He had his head bowed, looking at his biology book, but only for a second. He must’ve sensed me looking at him, because he almost instantly lifted his eyes to meet mine. I wanted to keep looking at him and beat him at his little staring contest, but I failed immediately. Quickly grabbing my textbook, I turned to look at Patrick, who had launched into an explanation of The Lottery.

  “Its just so disturbing,” Patrick shook his head. “I know it’s mostly an allegory, but… I just can’t believe that people would ever be like that. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just naïve.”

  “People are pretty disturbing,” I shrugged. I was trying to keep my mannerisms and my conversations nonchalant, but it was hard to act natural when I knew I had an audience, in the form of Finn staring at the back of me.

  “You think so?” Patrick’s forehead creased in confusion and concern.

  Something about my tone of voice had given away too much. Plus, I think I had that face that kind of screamed “emotionally damaged.”

  “Yeah, I’d say so.” My hand instinctively went to my stomach, where the foot long scar was safely hidden underneath my shirt. As soon as I realized what I was doing, I pulled it a way and busied my hand with twirling a stray hair around my fingers.

  “Is that why you transferred here?” Patrick asked.

  “Cause people are disturbing?” I smiled, purposely hedging his question.

  “No, I don’t know,” Patrick laughed and ran a hand through his thick hair. “That’s probably too personal, anyway. Sorry.”

  “No, it’s not that personal,” I lied.

  Truthfully, it wasn’t actually that personal. I planned on answering him, but for some reason, I just knew that Finn was listening, even more intently than he had been before. He wanted to know my answer, maybe more than Patrick did, and I shifted uncomfortably. I wanted to steal a look at him out of the corner of my eye, but I couldn’t without it being incredibly obvious that I was trying to spy on him spying on me.

  “No, it’s making you uncomfortable! I’m sorry,” Patrick looked pained and his cheeks showed a hint of blush. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “No, no,” I shook my head again. “I just… I got kicked out.” Instead of hiding things, I decided to go the other route, and I raised my voice. Not so I was yelling or anything, but just loud and clear enough so Finn could hear everything perfectly. That would show him… something. That I wasn’t afraid and I wouldn’t be intimidated.

  “For what?” Patrick had already forgotten his unease about prying and leaned in closer to me.

  “Same thing I always get kicked out for,” I shrugged like it was no big deal. “Fighting. This last time I broke a girl’s nose and the family threatened legal action.” I waved it away like it wasn’t anything, but Patrick eyed me up skeptically.

  My appearance was deceiving. I was short and small, and I had a decidedly pretty, feminine face. My brown hair was a constant untamed mess of curls that I did my best to keep up in a loose buns or pulled back in some way so it wouldn’t completely take over my face. I had a rather tragic fashion sense with a penchant for skirts, which I think subconscious attempt at spiting my mother. She always tried to force me to wear them, and I refused. So now I wear them when she can’t see them. I’m sure I came across as a frazzled mess, but I was anything but.

  “You? Got in a fight?” Patrick cocked an eyebrow, grinning suspiciously at me.

  “Hey, I’m tough!” I protested. I thought about flexing my arms to demonstrate, but I was still acutely aware of Finn watching behind us. “I’m a lot tougher than I look.”

  “I bet you are,” Patrick nodded earnestly, and at least he believed that.

  “So anyway… what’s the deal with the story?” I tapped his open book, meaning to actually work on something.

  “Have you read any of it?” Patrick asked.

  “Just the title,” I admitted sheepishly.

  “You should read it. It’s good… but really twisted,” Patrick turned his book towards me so I could look at his instead of opening mine and scooted his chair closer to me.

  Patrick offered helpful asides as I read the story, and even though I didn’t necessarily need them, I enjoyed them. Or at least I would’ve, if I hadn’t become incessantly preoccupied. The back of my neck had started itching from Finn staring at it. That sounds totally paranoid and insane, and it probably was somatic, but I couldn’t help it. I kept self-consciously scratching it and rubbing it, hoping to ease the sensation, but it was useless. I had to read the same sentence four times and still didn’t understand it. On top of that, Patrick kept talking to me, and I couldn’t even concentrate on what he was saying.

  “Excuse me,” I said abruptly and stood up. It was stupid for me to just sit there like that. I don’t know why I was giving that idiot Finn kid so much power over me.

  “Okay?” Patrick asked, startled and confused.

  When I turned around, Finn was staring at me, just as I knew he would be. Unlike Patrick, his expression didn’t register any uncertainty or surprise.

  Swallowing hard, I walked over to his table, and I was a little stunned to find that I felt nervous. I almost never felt nervous, and there was nothing to even be nervous about. This kid was just looking at me, nothing more.

  “Why are you staring at me?” I asked him pointedly.

  “Because you’re standing in front of me,” Finn replied simply. He looked up at me, his eyes framed by dark lashes, and there wasn’t any hint of embarrassment or even denial about being confronted. It was definitely unnerving.

  “You’re always staring at me,” I persisted, trying to be as calm and collected as he was. “It’s weird. You’re weird.”

  “I wasn’t trying to fit in,” Finn said. I twisted my ring on my thumb and hated that I had to fumble for a response.

  “Why do you look at me all the time?” I rephrased my original question.

  “Does it bother you?” Finn’s eyes flashed at something that might have been surprise, but it disappeared so quickly, it was probably nothing more than my imagination.

  “Answer the question,” I demanded and stood up straighter, trying to make my presence more imposing so he wouldn’t realize how much he was rattling me.

  “Everyone always looks at you,” Finn replied coolly and leaned back in his chair. “You’re very attractive.”

  That sounded like a compliment, but his voice was completely emotionless when he said it. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to make fun of a vanity I didn’t even have, or he was simply stating facts. Was he flattering me or mocking me? Or maybe something else entirely?

  “Nobody stares at me as much as you do,” I countered as evenly as I could.

  “If it bothers you, I’ll try and stop,” Finn offered.

  That was tricky. In order to ask him to stop, I had to admit that it was getting to me, and I didn’t want admit to anyone that anything got to me. If I lied and said it was fine, then he would just keep on doing it. I had no way to win in this situation.

  “I didn’t ask you to stop. I asked you why,” I amended. That didn’t really help, but it made me look slightly less weak. Maybe.

  “I told you why,” Finn said.

  “No, you didn’t,” I shook my head. “You just said that everyone looks at me. You never explained why you looked at me.”

  Almost imperceptibly, the corner of his mouth moved up ever so slightly, revealing just the hint of a smirk. It wasn’t just that he was amused with me; he was pleased with me. He was glad that I had caught him, like he had been challenging me somehow and I passed. That pissed me off, but what pissed me off even more was that I was happy I had passed, that I had made him happy in some insignificant way. My stomach did a stupid flip thing I had never felt before, and I swallowed ha
rd, hoping to fight it back.

  “I look at you because I can’t look away,” Finn answered finally.

  His reply dumbfounded me. I was struck completely mute, trying to think of some kind of clever response, but my mind refused to work. My jaw probably slacked, and I imagined that I looked like an awestruck school girl, and I hurried to collect myself.

  “That’s kind of creepy,” I said at last, but my words came out weak instead of accusatory.

  “I’ll work on being less creepy then,” Finn promised.

  I had called him out on being creepy, justifiably so, and it didn’t faze him at all. He didn’t stammer an apology or flush with shame and regret. He just kept looking at me evenly. Most likely, he was a damn sociopath, and for whatever reason, I found that endearing. First Patrick’s overt naivety, and now Finn’s total disregard for human emotion. Something was really out of whack with me.

  It was impossible for me to come up with a witty retort, but thankfully, the bell rang, saving me from the rest of that awkward conversation. Finn just nodded, thus ending our exchange, and gathered up his books. Numbly, I went back over to the table to do the same, and Patrick was giving me a weird look.

  Finn was already long gone. He had had hurried away almost as soon as I turned my back to him.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled as we cleared up our things. I had rather rudely ditched him in the middle of his explanation, but he just smiled and shook it off. “I didn’t mean to just walk away. But that was bothering me.”

  “No, that’s good. You’re not the kind of person to keep things to yourself,” Patrick said.

  “No, I’m not,” I admitted wearily. “That kid’s just been bothering me.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about him.” Patrick slung his bookbag over his shoulder and smiled reassuringly at me. “He’s harmless.”

  “You think everyone is harmless,” I pointed out and started walking out of the library.

  “Do I?” Patrick wondered aloud and followed a step behind me. “No.

  I don’t think Tegan’s harmless.”

  “She actually is harmless,” I laughed.

  Patrick kept me company the rest of the way to my class, and he parted with a hearty wave. True to his word, Finn wasn’t creepy the rest of the day.

  Every time I saw him, he was doing something innocuous that didn’t involve looking at me. I still got that feeling that was looking at me when I had my back to him, but as it turned out, I couldn’t seem to do much about feelings.

  After school, Matt picked me up, but he was in a distinctly sour mood.

  I thought about asking him what was up, but he usually told me things when he was ready. When we got home, he was all about slamming doors and throwing things around. Naturally, I followed suit and threw down my bookbag and kicked off my shoes. One of them hit the cupboard with a heavy bang, and he looked at me funny.

  “What? Aren’t we all mad about something?” I asked in response to his expression. He just shook his head and walked into the living room. Sighing, I went after him. “What?”

  I don’t even know if the living room could really be considered

  “decorated.” There was a couch and two matching chairs from somebody’s expensive shabby chic collection, and an antique coffee table in the center of the room. A few cardboard boxes were stacked behind the couch, holding all of Maggie’s knick knacks and family photos which we never, ever put up. A few books were scattered across the coffee table, mostly Matt’s architecture books and a few of Maggie’s choices, which were things by Nicholas Sparks or had Oprah’s stamp of approval. The books were supposed to go on a built-in book shelf on either side of the fire place, but nobody ever got around to putting them away. Whenever we moved somewhere new, Maggie would quickly paint all the rooms, and that was the end of her decorating. Matt picked up one of his books and flopped heavily on the couch, preparing to ignore me by looking at famous buildings in Rome.

  “Where’s Maggie?” I had noticed an unfamiliar silence, without any sounds of music upstairs or Maggie harassing us about our lives. Matt grunted and angrily flipped the page. “Oh. Is that what this is about?”

  “It’s not about anything,” Matt replied curtly.

  “She’s there, isn’t she?” I sat down in the chair next to him, and he just shook his head, refusing to even talk about it. “It really doesn’t bother me, Matt.”

  “She promised she’d be back by now,” Matt muttered.

  “It’s like a two hour drive. How did you expect her to be back by now?”

  “She said she’d make sure you wouldn’t find out!” Matt had softened a little and warily looked at me out of the corner of his eye. He incorrectly assumed that I was more sensitive than I really was and always made a big show of protecting me from things that I didn’t need protection from.

  “You know, if you didn’t have this attitude, I wouldn’t have even know she was there,” I pointed out gently. He furrowed his brow and shook his head again.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry,” Matt sighed and rested his head on the back of the couch. “I didn’t want her to go. I don’t know why I agree to let her do this stuff.”

  “You let her?” I laughed a little and leaned back in the chair, pulling my knees up to my chest. “She’s 36 years old and she’s your guardian! You don’t let her do anything.”

  Matt humphed and went back to pretending to read his book. Maggie was technically both of our guardians, but Matt had probably done more

  “guardianing” than anyone else. He was disturbingly mature for his age, especially when he had been a teenager. Most nights, he’d skip parties and dates to stay home and try to get me to do some homework. Of course, this was almost entirely my fault since I never responded to anybody else’s attempts at help.

  “I don’t know why this bothers you so much,” I said when Matt seemed content to stew in silence. Sometimes I’d let him, but other times I couldn’t help but poke and prod him. “It doesn’t even bother me.”

  “It should!” Matt looked at me seriously, and it could still surprise me how much hurt he was carrying around after all these years.

  “Hello, hello!” Maggie chirped, coming in the door side into the kitchen. Matt glowered down at the book, getting angrier at the happy sound of her voice. “Anybody home?”

  “Living room!” I told her.

  Maggie walked into the living room, her big canvas bag hanging off her arm, and she pushed her oversized sunglasses up on her head. She looked like she had spent the day at the beach, and I imagined that’s what she had planned for her cover story. I’m sure she could sense the tension in the room, but she had expected that from Matt no matter when she returned, so she smiled brightly at me, trying to play it off as a cheery afternoon.

  “I heard you were visiting Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane,” I smiled at her, referencing the nuthouse from Batman.

  “Oh, she’s not like that,” Maggie replied, sounding deflated. Her smile instantly disappeared, and she dropped any pretense of being happy. Matt scoffed loudly at Maggie’s minor defense of our mother, but she ignored him.

  “I don’t know why you always do this. You freak out on me, insisting that Wendy can’t know where I’m at, but then you always tell her, and you’re way more upset by it than she is!”

  “Because you shouldn’t be seeing her!” Matt shouted fiercely and tossed his book down on the table. He rarely raised his voice in anger, so when he did, it was kind of a stunning thing.

  “Matt, I’ve gone over this with you a thousand times.” Maggie rubbed her forehead and looked down at the floor. “She is sick, and she is family.”

  “She is your ex-sister-in-law!” Matt growled, not for the first time.

  Maggie was our father’s only sister, and with Dad dead, Matt was always quick to point out that she had no real relationship with our mother.

  “We don’t abandon family!” Maggie retorted vehemently.

  “She is not family!” Matt bellowed and got
to his feet. There were only two things they ever argued about: me and Mom. I suppose those were only two things in life that Matt was really passionate about, for entirely different reasons. “Once you try to kill someone in the family, you’re out!”

  “She is sick, Matt!” Maggie was almost pleading with him to understand, but it was completely pointless.

  We had heard every clinical diagnosis of Mom, every attempt at explaining her psychotic break. Doctors rationally and repeatedly explained to me how none of this was my fault, although to be honest, I don’t think I’ll ever fully believe that. I do not think I did that anything merited a murder attempt, but I’m pretty sure that if I hadn’t been such a brat growing up, I wouldn’t have drove her to it.

  At any rate, nothing had ever satisfied Matt. For some reason, I had never been that curious about why Mom did it. I’ve been curious about her, wondering what life was like for Matt and everyone else that lived with her. But as for her motives, they never seemed that relevant or that blurred. She was fragile, and I was volatile. She was on the edge, and I pushed her. Maybe Matt’s problem was that he refused to believe that I had any part of what happened, so he was left with only half a story, and that was never good enough for him.

  “You were there, Maggie! You saw her!” His voice had that quavering edge to it. He didn’t cry, not ever, but his pain was always so transparent. “You saw what she was like and what she tried to do! You of all people know what she’s really like!”

  “Yes, Matt, I was there! I saw how crazy she was!” Maggie looked at him incredulously.

  “We’re making a new start here!” I interjected, and Matt looked down at the coffee table. I had a feeling he’d momentarily forgotten I was there, and he was ashamed that he had brought up anything about Mom. “Maybe we should… Maybe Mom should stay in the past.”

  Truth be told, I didn’t care one way or another if Maggie saw Mom.

  She could visit her every day, and it wouldn’t bother me at all. I had never felt any connection to that woman, not before she tried to kill me and certainly not after. I’d have felt about the same if Maggie drove to visit Jeffery Dahmer or something. What bothered me was how upset Matt got.