Instinct

by Mattie Dunman

  “So what is your talent?” he asks, apropos of nothing, and I am startled back into suspicion.

  “What do you mean?”

  Cole rolls his eyes and gives me an exasperated look. “I told you already, I know you’re different, gifted. So what can you do?”

  “Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, my earlier peace rapidly draining away. Now that I am thinking more clearly, I wonder what on earth possessed me to come with Cole, why I am not leaping out the door and running to the safety of my mom’s shop.

  “Ok, fine. I’ll go first,” he says, not appearing to care about my equivocation. “The first time you saw me, at the school, you were terrified. You felt like you couldn’t breathe, the pain in your head was excruciating, and you were petrified with fear, isn’t that right?”

  My mouth drops open as I hear him calmly describe one of the worst moments of my life.

  “That was me. I made you feel that.” Even as the logical part of my mind rejects what he is saying, some inner wisdom nods with satisfaction at this confirmation. “I can impose fear on other people, in different levels. You got a high dose, unfortunately. I can give people severe panic attacks, or even just a vague sense of unease. I’m sorry about that, by the way,” he continues, seemingly unaware of my stupefied response of stuttered breathing. “It was an accident, but I should have been in better control. When I’m angry, it’s hard to contain my ability, and I was really pissed off yesterday morning. I didn’t realize you were there until too late, and you got caught in sort of a radial blast.”

  “You’re crazy, aren’t you?” I beg, my throat dry. Cole shakes his head at me disapprovingly.

  “Come on, don’t do that. You know there’s something different about me. You can sense it, the way I could sense you.”

  I stare at him while my thoughts flit around too quick to catch. Yes, I did know there was something out of the ordinary about Cole, I felt it from that first moment, but it had never occurred to me that there might be someone else out there with unexplainable abilities like me. Now that I think about it, I am struck by how self-centered I have been. Of course I couldn’t be the only person in the world who is “special,” and it should have been obvious before now.

  “I know the truth,” I whisper, the words escaping before I can take them back. Cole’s eyes widen, but he waits for my explanation. With a sense of recklessness, I give in.

  “Whenever someone speaks to me for the first time, I don’t hear what they’re saying, I hear what they’re hiding, what they don’t want the world to know. Whenever I read something, the first thing I see is the truth. And anytime someone lies to me, I know. I get this buzzing under my skin, stronger when it’s a bigger lie, just a hum when someone sidesteps the truth a bit.” A nervous giggle bubbles up in my throat as my whole being screams that I’m an idiot, that revealing my ability for the first time to a complete stranger who made me nearly pass out from terror the first time I saw him is a mistake I won’t live long enough to regret.

  But Cole’s face splits into a heart-stopping smile, as though a blazing light has burst into life within, and he reaches out to take my hands in a crushing grip.

  “I knew it! I knew I was right about you! You have no idea how long…I’ve looked for you my whole life,” he exclaims, a startling passion in his voice that is both frightening and tempting. “I knew, I knew there had to be someone else out there like me. And then I found…Jake…but he’s in denial, he can’t admit what he is, but you! You’ve got control over it, I can tell.” He continues rambling, his eyes gleaming with possibilities, but the shock of what I’ve just done hits me like a bat to the head and I stop listening.

  Cole seems to realize I’m not paying attention and pauses in his outburst. “What is it? Are you sorry you told me?” His voice is uncharacteristically uncertain and once again I am struck by the set of contradictions he represents. He is gorgeous and sarcastic one moment, solicitous and sweet the next, and yet underlying it all, he is a walking vessel of fear.

  “No, of course not.” I pause, thinking it through. “Okay, maybe a little. I’ve never told anyone about me.” Cole nods his understanding, but hurt flickers in his still brilliant eyes. I look down at my hands, still encased in his, the calloused palms scratching against my skin. “Did you say that Jake is like you? I mean…us?”

  A cloud passes over his expression at my question, and I wonder if he really meant to tell me about Jake or if he just got carried away. “He is and he isn’t. I’m not even completely sure about what he can do, but I can feel that he’s talented. It’s something to do with emotion, particularly anger. And strength. I know that.” His expression is grim, and I get the feeling he has experienced the power of Jake’s anger for himself.

  I pull my hands away and take a sip of my cider, drawing back in disappointment at its now lukewarm temperature. If what Cole says is true, and I have no doubt it is since my skin is quiet, Jake’s violence toward me makes a little more sense, even if I still resent it.

  “Why didn’t he want you to give me a ride?” I ask.

  Cole sighs, leaning back in his seat. “Jake feels responsible for everyone.” I frown and start to ask more, but Cole doesn’t seem to notice. “I’m guessing you and he had some kind of argument earlier?” I nod. “Well, he probably felt guilty over that and when he realized I was interested in you, he felt like he had to intervene. I have kind of a bad reputation,” he says a little sheepishly, looking up at me through thick, dark lashes.

  I raise an eyebrow skeptically. “Shocking,” I respond, keeping my voice dry and even. Cole chuckles softly and then leans forward, keeping his voice quiet.

  “Yeah, I know. I ride a motorcycle, I wear black, I’m devilishly handsome.” He winks at me, and even though I know he’s kidding my heart skips a beat. “I used to have trouble controlling my gift; or actually, I didn’t bother to control it, and it made some bad things happen around me. People started avoiding me, even if they didn’t understand why. Then when my mom died…” His voice breaks, and there is such devastation in his eyes that I reach out for his hand and squeeze.

  “Don’t. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” I assure him. He smiles sadly and shakes his head.

  “No, I want to tell you. I want you to know about me.” He is so earnest that I don’t protest anymore, but give his hand an encouraging squeeze and wait for him to continue.

  “Mom never really got what was wrong with me, but she always had my back. I did some really stupid stuff, just mean things because I was angry all the time, and I got into a lot of fights. She never yelled at me; she would just look hurt, disappointed. Eventually I started working on my control. And I got better. Mom was so much happier not having to cover for me all the time. But then she was out jogging one evening and our neighbor was driving home drunk and hit her. It took her three days to die, and she was in pain the entire time.”

  His voice is shaking slightly and he pauses to take a few deep breaths. My throat is tight and tears burn my eyes as I think of how hard it would be to watch my mother die slowly and painfully, unable to do anything to help. A tear snakes its way down my cheek and Cole watches it with sad fascination, reaching up to brush it from my jaw, as though he wants to collect it before it’s too late. My skin is singed where his finger touches.

  “I was angry.” Cole’s voice is quiet and hard, and his eyes trap mine with their intensity. “Really, really angry when she died, and I lost control. I broke into the neighbor’s house the night of her funeral and found him sprawled out on his couch, empty beer bottles all around him. He was drunk, and he stank, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how sweet my mom was, how endlessly patient with me and that waste of flesh was the reason she wasn’t there anymore, and I killed him.”

  My breath catches in my throat and I feel dizzy. He is telling the truth. His eyes bore into mine, pleading, begging me to understand.

  “I didn’t mean to. But I was so out of contr
ol that I pushed fear on him as hard as I could. I wanted to hurt him, to scare him, but he starting shaking and fell over on the floor, and when I tried to wake him up, I knew he was dead. He had a heart attack. It was my fault.”

  There is so much unexpressed agony in his voice as he tells me what he’s done that I feel my initial shock being replaced by sympathy.

  “You didn’t mean to, Cole. That counts for something,” I say, needing to comfort him in some way.

  He just shakes his head. “Maybe I didn’t go there planning to kill him, but I knew what I was doing. I could have controlled myself. Mom would have been so mad at me.” He blows out a shaky breath and blinks rapidly. I realize he is mastering strong emotion and I reach out to take his hand again. He waves me away without taking it, and I pull back, rebuffed.

  “Anyway, once she was gone, I had to come here, to live with my father.”

  “Were your parents divorced?”

  He laughs bitterly. “No, they would’ve had to have been married for that.”

  I can feel the blush in my cheeks and bite my lip. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

  “No, don’t worry about it. It’s a long, complicated story. I don’t want to get into it now; it’s not important.” With a sigh he seems to refocus, but the hard edge I noticed the first time I saw him is back, making the harsh, beautiful lines of his face cold and rigid where moments before they were warm with sentiment. It is like looking at a different person.

  “I wasn’t happy about living here, and my father and I… don’t exactly see eye to eye. So I got into trouble again. Stupid stuff. At the end of last semester, a teacher was trying to break up a fight between me and David Sharp and I accidently hit her. I was expelled.” He wears a sarcastic smile now, reminding me forcefully of his attitude in my dream. I can’t help feeling disappointed.

  “So that’s why Jake doesn’t want me around you? Seems like an overreaction. I don’t get why he cares. He hates me, that’s pretty obvious,” I wonder out loud.

  “Yeah, well. He’s weird like that,” Cole says dismissively, clearly finished with the subject. His mood has changed so abruptly that I am beginning to wonder if I imagined the heartbroken, desperate boy who talked about his mother a moment ago.

  “Hang on, David Sharp? Is he related to Nicole?” I ask, suddenly registering the name. Cole cocks an eyebrow and nods.

  “Yeah, he’s her cousin. Why, do you know her?”

  “Kind of. We ate lunch together yesterday and she offered to show me around town, but I haven’t seen her today.” Remembering the fleeting hope in her eyes when we made our plans, I am again puzzled as to why she didn’t come to school today.

  Cole is watching me carefully. “You know what happened with her, right?”

  “Um, yeah. Her friend died and everyone started a bunch of rumors about her, right?”

  “Basically. She was nice. One of the only people who didn’t walk around on eggshells around me. She’s the reason David and I fought.”

  “Really? Why is that?”

  “You know, I’ve never talked this much about myself to anyone,” Cole says unexpectedly, looking at me with a calculated expression. “You seem to inspire confidences. Does this happen to you often? People telling you their deep dark secrets?”

  “Well, yeah. But I guess I’ve learned to ask the right questions. It’s easy when you know if someone’s lying or not,” I answer casually, thinking that should be obvious.

  “I don’t know, I think it’s more than that. This is really pretty unusual for me.” His eyes regain a little of their earlier excitement. “Have you considered that it might be part of your gift? Maybe people are compelled to share their secrets with you, tell you things they wouldn’t with other people?”

  I stare at him dumbly, my mind immediately rejecting any suggestion that I’m even more of a freak than I thought. Abruptly, the whole conversation is just too much for me on top of an upsetting day. I stand up and throw my bag over my shoulder, digging for my wallet.

  “Look, I’ve got to go. Mom’s expecting me at the store. Thanks for the ride. And for…for,” I stammer, unsure of how to address the intimacy we’ve shared. The friendly interest drains from his expression and it hardens into the cool mask of my nightmare.

  “Oh sure, don’t mention it,” he says dryly, lips pulled tight. “Don’t bother, my treat.” He closes my fist around the money I am holding out, fingers a rough caress on my hand. “We should meet again. There’s a lot to talk about.”

  Maybe when I get my head on straight.

  “That would be great,” I say with mixed feelings. The hard smile dissolves and there is another flash of the sweetness I saw before.

  “See you soon,” he says, releasing my hand, his fingers lingering a moment too long. Before I can do anything else stupid, I spin around and head out the door, forcing myself not to look back. His quiet laughter follows me as I exit into the bitter evening air.

  Snow is falling thick and fast outside my window. My homework is spread out on my bed in front of me, but I watch the white glitter cling to the glass, shrinking into beads of water that slink down and disappear into the dark. A heavy feeling rests in my chest, as though all my blood has solidified and is too heavy for my heart to support. My mind is running through all the events of the day, but foremost is the image of the murdered girl. There is no good reason for it, I didn’t know her, and I don’t even know all the details, but that smiling face surrounded by a cloud of flame-colored hair keeps pushing its way into my thoughts.

  Giving up, I shove my homework to one side and turn on my computer. Thinking there have to be follow-up stories on Miranda’s death, I pull up the local paper’s archive website. It takes me nearly ten minutes to find what I’m looking for, but eventually one article stands out.

  High School Students Questioned About Oglesby Death

  My source at the station told me that they have been questioning several of Miranda’s friends at school about her state of mind in the past few months. He wouldn’t tell me what they found out, so I interviewed her best friend and her boyfriend. The boyfriend seemed pretty upset, but it was hard to get him alone, since he was surrounded by sympathetic friends perpetually. He told me Miranda had been depressed lately because her ex had been stalking her. The best friend didn’t confirm this, but accused the boyfriend of being unfeeling and coming between them. She seemed to think the boyfriend might know more than he was telling. I tried to get in touch with the ex, but he won’t comment. The coroner is going with accidental drowning, probably due to a suicidal leap off the bridge. There is evidence pointing to a second presence at the scene, but the police don’t want to push the matter.

  The words reform into what was actually printed and I am struck yet again by the deviation between what the journalist perceived as truth and what he actually printed. The article is brief and simply states that police interviewed Miranda’s friends to check on her mental state, but doesn’t share the results. It goes on to explain the final ruling on the death as an accidental drowning, implying suicide without actually stating it.

  My stomach is queasy as I look at the now familiar picture of Miranda that seems to be everywhere. The same bone-deep instinct that tells me when someone is lying trembles in my veins as I stare at the round, smiling face in the photo. There is something hidden there, some truth that has never been spoken, but is still dwelling deep in someone’s mind, waiting for me to ask the right question. With a frustrated growl, I jump up and begin pacing my room, my hand on the phone, itching to call Nicole and get some answers from her. But I subside, remembering that I don’t have her number, and she hasn’t called me to explain her absence.

  There is a knock at my door and I halt, realizing I have been muttering to myself for the past ten minutes. Tossing my phone on the bed, I open the door to admit my mother.

  “I want you to quit school and work at the store every day,” she says, giving me her usual cheerful, ingratiating smile.

 
; With a sigh, I flop down on my bed and give her a stern look. “Mom, we’ve talked about this. I’m going to be gone in the fall anyway, so it’s better for you to start getting used to having me at the store less. What happened to hiring someone else part-time?”

  Her lips tighten in irritation as she sucks in her cheeks the way she always does when she’s trying not to say what she really thinks. “What did I say?” she asks finally, her voice impatient.

  “That you want me to quit school to work full-time. Again.”

  She passes a hand over her face and takes a seat next to me. “I just meant to ask how your day was. I’m sorry, I guess I was hassled at the store today and thinking how much easier it would have been if you were there.” Mom puts an arm around me and gives me a squeeze. I hold stiff for a moment and then relax, resting my head on her shoulder.

  “Sorry,” I say, guilt washing over me before firm resolve takes its place. She knows how important going to school is to me right now, and my sympathy dwindles as I consider her selfishness. My entire life I have used my talent to make sure she gets a good deal, to help her outthink her competition. I have even wielded it against my father for her.

  And lost him.

  “You know what? I’m not sorry. You agreed to this, and for once you could just let me do what I want. It’s not like I’ve asked for much,” I say roughly, jerking out of her embrace. “Anything else you want?”

  Bewilderment lines her face and I waver for a moment; she stares at me with childlike confusion, arms still open from holding me. Then her face clears and she rolls her eyes.

  “You are so melodramatic. I wasn’t going to say anything, but you asked. Don’t ask if you don’t like the answer. Goodnight.” She stands and brushes invisible lint from her sweater, carefully avoiding my eyes.