Because really, Krista was never coming back. And what she had was a lot like a disease. Something she was born with, something that couldn’t be cured, something very, very bad.
What Krista Pace had was a Talent.
* * *
Joss
God save us from guidance counselors…
I swiped my sweaty palm down the front of the vintage army field jacket I always wore before grabbing the doorknob and letting myself into the guidance department office. I handed my hall pass to the woman at the desk inside the door whose name I’d never bothered to learn.
I absolutely hated it here.
“Jocelyn. Yes, Mr. Dobbs is waiting for you. Go on in.”
I turned away and moved to the door, thinking belatedly that I should have said thank you. Eye contact, a smile, thank you. But I never was any good at that politeness stuff. I was a lot better at the being quiet and melting into the background stuff. Having someone call up my Math teacher, being singled out and told to report to the guidance office while the rest of the class waited to get on with the being bored—er, educated? It really messed with my whole don’t notice me program.
I was already on edge from that morning—because of the whole Krista thing—and this just made me twitchy. It didn’t help that I knew exactly why Dobbs had called me in here.
I did not want to talk about it.
“Joss.” He shuffled some papers into a folder, closed it.
“Come on in. Have a seat.”
I took the seat across from the desk without speaking, keeping my messenger bag on my shoulder and my notebook to my chest. I kept my expression blank, rather than overtly sullen, but Dobbs prided himself on the whole reading the body language thing and my message should be clear.
He took off his glasses and drew the side of his hand along the bridge of his nose as he set them down on the desk.
In a moment he would pick them back up and put them on again, because he needed them to see. But his ritual of taking them off, setting them down… that was his way of saying he was serious, yet caring, concerned, and open-minded.
See, I could do body language too.
“So….how’s it going?” he asked, dragging out the question.
“Ok.”
He picked up his glasses and put them back on.
“You’ve heard about Krista.”
I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t a question, and what was I supposed to say, anyway? It wasn’t like the school had any kind of official stance on this stuff. They must cooperate in whatever investigations went on, but they never made, like, statements to the press or anything. There was nothing for me to quote or agree with.
“I thought you might have some feelings you’d like to talk about.”
You thought that? Really? Are you new here? “No, not really.”
“Joss, I know this must bring up some issues for you, feelings I don’t think you’ve ever really dealt with. About Emily.”
The name was like an execute command, automatically flashing a series of images across my brain that started out like a real estate or life insurance commercial. Little girls playing, laughing, holding hands, dancing in sprinklers, birthday parties, sharing secrets, fire, screaming, end of reel.
I jammed the playback to a stop before it could loop, forced my eyes from the stupid cartoon character on Dobbs’s tie, and actually met his eyes. I shoved the discomfort at the personal contact aside with the rest of my feelings and made myself cold. “Emily moved away. Lots of kids have childhood friends who move away. It’s sad at the time, but it’s not, like, traumatic or anything.”
Dobbs waited for me to say more. I figured it was safer to let him steer the conversation rather than take the lead and risk saying the wrong thing. These counselor types could be so tricksy. It wasn’t my first time in his office, and I knew he liked to try to read into things people said.
“But Emily didn’t just move away. A child’s parent might get a job in another town, they break the news, and there’s weeks, maybe months, of house-hunting, packing—a period to adjust before the actual move. It wasn’t like that with Emily. One day the two of you were joined at the hip, running up and down the block, picking the dandelions from everyone’s yards…Then all of a sudden she was just…gone.”
I continued to hold the eye contact, because to drop it now would be a show of weakness, like I had something to hide. I did a mental check and loosened my fingers on my notebook a little before he noticed my white-knuckled grip.
Dobbs had lived a few houses down and across the street for as long as I could remember. He was the kind of neighbor who waved if he saw you, but didn’t walk over to chat. He didn’t mind if you went through his gate after a lost ball or a Frisbee, but he never invited you to swim in his pool. In all the years of casual neighboring, he’d never once tried to talk to me about Emily. But since my first day in high school, he’d used any excuse to drag me into his office to try to discuss my feelings on the subject.
Why was I suddenly of interest? Was it just because talking to me became part of his job? Or was there something in that folder he didn’t know from just living in the same neighborhood? Had someone told him to ask questions?
Get a grip.
“And then there was the fire…” he continued.
“I told you I don’t remember any fire.”
“The last time we spoke I suggested you discuss it with your parents.”
“I did. I asked my mom about it. She didn’t know what I was talking about.” This was a planned answer. If Dobbs went to my mom, she would explain that she and dad felt it was best that I wasn’t reminded about the incident.
His eyes narrowed as he mulled over that response. I could see the wheels turning behind his pale eyes, realizing that my parents would probably not be open to the idea of him helping their daughter achieve any kind of emotional breakthrough.
Point scored for Team Marshall.
“Hmmm, well…. If you’re sure there’s nothing you’d like to discuss…”
“Nothing I can think of.”
“Don’t forget to have Ms. Clark give you a hall pass.”
During class the girls’ bathrooms were usually deserted, but not the one closest to the guidance offices. That one was too close to the gym, and chances were it would be occupied by those whose decisions to skip gym were more whim than plan, and hadn’t come up with any better option. So I’d had to shuffle along two hallways and up a flight of stairs before finding a quiet stall where I could take a few shuddering breaths and try to pull myself back together.
God, I hated Dobbs, the supercilious bastard. And then there was the fire… I mocked him in my head, using my best idiot voice. Yeah, now that you mention it, I do suddenly want to talk about it. And, you know, I feel so close to you now that I feel like I can share my secret.
As if. Asshat.
Thing was, I could be pissed all I wanted to, but that didn’t seem to be stopping the movie in my head, the feelings of dread as I watched it play out, knowing I couldn’t stop the little girls from their stupid plan. It didn’t stop me from reliving the terror as things spun out of control, or the equally worse fear in the aftermath as we waited to see what would happen. As the unthinkable happened. As everything changed.
I felt wetness on my face and muttered a curse, leaning down for some toilet paper. But of course it was empty. I banged the back of my head on the door as I rummaged in my bag with one hand. I had to get a grip on myself. No better way to get noticed in school than to walk around looking like I’ve been cry—
Still clutching the oversized notebook in my arms, I fumbled the bunch of stuff I’d pulled out of my bag to sort through for a tissue. Instinctively, I reached out with my mind and caught everything. The objects hovered in the air above the bowl: a pen, a scrunchie, a few crumpled bills, and the tissue.
I held them there a moment, feeling in my head those fragile, invisible strings between each object and my mind. It would hardly take any effort
at all to open up my bag, tug at those imaginary strings, and float everything right back in.
But in my mind I could hear my dad’s voice saying, “The best way to seem normal is to be normal.”
I put out my hand, grasped the crumpled piece of Kleenex, and let the other things go. The scrunchie bounced off the seat and landed on the floor, the pen and the money hit the water. I put my boot to the handle and flushed.
Be normal, I thought. It’s just that easy.
Hush Money is currently available at many of your favorite places to shop for books, in ebook and paperback formats.
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Heroes ’Til Curfew, coming in 2011, is the second novel of the Talent Chronicles and continues the story of Joss, Dylan, and the Talent friends and enemies from Hush Money.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Impulse Control Page 5
