by Tara K Ross
I’m dying.
Oh please, no—I can’t be dying!
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. The air is sucked from my throat. I can’t breathe. My ears pound. Strained voices fade.
Wait. What is that? A sound, soft at first, grows like a strong wind or a plunging waterfall. It overpowers my racing heart.
Be still.
These words are all I hear in my mind. I try not to move, try not to think. Hot tears form behind my eyelids.
Be still.
And then it’s over. Morning chaos resumes. Mom calls my name. With the cuff of my sleeve, I wipe away any possible evidence of what I’ve just gone through. But Mom has noticed. The bulging alertness in her eyes gives her away. She will wait, hands clenched, studying me until I share an explanation. But explain what? I don’t know what happened. I couldn’t even begin to describe it.
She asked me something. About leaving? What time is it? Seven fifty. I should be brushing my teeth by now. The sight of my instant oats brings a new wave of nausea. My parents are frozen, as though in tableau, waiting for me to say something. Anything.
I push my bowl away. “I’ll walk.”
Wow. Inspired. I may have almost died. Now would be an ideal time to share this with the people who care about me most.
There is no time to talk. And going for a run is out of the question. But this mass of uncontrollable tension needs to be released. Fast.
I bolt up the stairs, despite the strain in Mom’s voice. Maybe she is just chastising me for not putting my dishes away. But whatever she says gets muffled. The weight of my body pushes my bedroom door shut.
Tears release without restraint, falling freely as I slide toward the hardwood floor. I lower my head to my gathered knees and tangle my fingers in my hair. Expertly, I trace the path to a small section of scalp, cleared of hair follicles from past anxiety-ridden moments. I pinch a strand coarser than the rest. Yank. Release. A small section of my mind clears. But the level of fog that just encompassed me was nothing like my usual panic attacks. I search for another.
Ruffling from the edge of my bed skirt, Woolie emerges just before I pull the next strand. He saunters over to my side, seemingly aware I’m at my breaking point. It’s as if he knows his gray-velvet fur holds one of the few trump cards over doing something more destructive to myself. My parents’ rising voices drift through the vent in the floor, accented by a bass line of heavy pacing and fists against table. The front door slams shut, leaving an uncomfortable silence, broken only by Woolie’s purrs and my ticking wall clock.
My gaze shifts to the carved antique clock claimed from Grams’ room. Her words float to the front of my memories. Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Her soothing voice could often stop my racing heart when I was monitoring this same clock in her room. She was always sharing phrases at key moments picked from her frayed Bible. Most of the verses fell on deaf ears, but this one stuck. Probably because of my need for punctuality.
I lunge to my feet. I’m going to be late. Nothing like an unhealthy obsession with time to overpower the stellar habit of stress-induced hair pulling. The thought of being late makes my palms sweat. The awkward lineup at the office to explain my reason to a host of eavesdroppers. Slinking into class while everyone stares, and then needing to wait after class to figure out what I missed. Each hypothetical nightmare urges me to hurry on my invention of palm antiperspirant.
If I hustle, I can get rid of my jungle mouth, cover up some of my facial fiends—what I like to call my acne—and still grab a tea before school. Routine and caffeine, that’s what I need. Hopefully, it will clear my mind enough to arrive without any further freak-outs. I gather my math textbook and laptop from my desk and head for the washroom.
The shower is running in my parents’ bathroom. At least I can leave without any further encounters with Dad. The sharp mint of my toothpaste soothes me, and I wipe the last of my tears away with my free hand.
Wait. That sound. It is almost like the one I heard in the kitchen. Like a gentle waterfall, but more alive.
It’s just the shower, Thea.
I study myself in the mirror, half expecting my reflection to fade into a blur. Nope. There I am in perfect, flawed clarity. Dad’s narrow nose. Mom’s full lips. I scrunch my dark curls to calm the frizz and frown at the unkempt state of my thick eyebrows.
The rusted squeak of faucets closing pierces through my parents’ closed door. No more time for primping if I want to make a Dad-free getaway. I switch off the light and stare at my darkened reflection, hoping to see something unusual. If not for Dad’s pasty contribution to my gene pool, I would fade into the background. I must have low iron, or maybe I’m not getting enough sleep. Nothing serious, I tell myself. You’re a rational human being who will figure this out.
But the quiver that grows in my stomach from fear, anxiety, or maybe intuition tells me it wasn’t nothing. This is more than just some nutritional deficiency. This is just the beginning.
Of what? I wish I knew.
CHAPTER TWO
Despite my best efforts, the front door creaks. I yank it open, needing to escape this house, this family, this morning. A lingering fog spreads low across the park, stifling my vision and quickening my heart. Thea, chill out. It’s just fog. I take a deep breath of cool November air, holding it in my lungs as I close the door behind me. Let go. I exhale, and the familiar neighborhood emerges through breaks in the mist.
The muted sky casts an eerie gloom over the playground across the road. The maples rimming the park have lost all but a few auburn leaves, most torn away by the last storm. Only the sole spruce tree my old Girl Guide troop planted near the park’s center, carries a touch of life. A gust of wind sends a morning chill down my spine like dripping water. I tighten Grams’ oversized scarf around my neck. Maybe I should surrender to the change of seasons and pull my heavy jacket from storage, but I am stubbornly ignoring winter’s early onset. I hate the shorter days. Suffocating darkness creeps in earlier each evening, and the cold freezes a little more of the world come morning.
Daylight savings time helps a little with the mornings. A couple of weeks ago, I was rolling over when my two separate alarms dinged to a disorienting darkness that made me second-guess my whereabouts. Now when the chimes jar me awake, I can find them by the second tone. And when I open my curtains, my mind unravels. I catch the sun rising from beyond the rows of townhouses and semis. At least, that’s the case on clear mornings. Today, the clouds have come down to intermingle with the houses.
A shiver shoots through my body again, but this time the cold is not the culprit. The fog blurs the distant homes with a sheath of light from the rising sun that is all too similar to my near-death experience. Thea, stop calling it that. Inhale one, two, three. Maybe it’s just a new level of panic attack. Mom warned this could happen. I step down my front walk and away from the sun. Exhale, one, two, three ...
Okay, so maybe the counseling Mom is coercing me to start could be helpful. Mind you, if she knew I was now hallucinating, she’d likely check me into the psych ward so she could monitor me twenty-four/seven. Gah. That would be horrible. I don’t even feel as though I have any real issues. Not enough to justify counseling anyway. So what if I pull my hair out when I’m stressed? I bet most of my friends do worse.
Sometimes, I wish I was like a teenager on TV, with a seriously messed-up family, or a deep mystery, a missing twin maybe, or a secret superpower. Then I would have designer clothes, perfect skin, and a super-hot boyfriend to help me through my woes. But no, my life and family are annoyingly mainstream, and unless I count Woolie, I don’t even have a male friend, let alone a boyfriend.
With a quickened pace, I stride up Hillside Road. I need to get out of my head and search my surroundings for a distraction. My neighborhood is like every other suburban sprawl, but because I grew up here, it feels unique somehow. The rows of houses nestle together. Five different models repeated with slightly different embellis
hments. Some have extra wainscoting or an upgraded bay window, others have different garage colors or professional landscaping, but at their core, they are all the same. There is one house, though, halfway up Hillside, that welcomes me on my walk like a personalized sign at airport arrivals. Unlike the rest of the builder homes, this bungalow, buried in a small grove of elms, must have been built at least forty years ago, when the community was still a farm field. Their roadside mailbox is one of the only left within town. The block letters are faded but still read SHEN. There is nothing exciting or striking about their property, but it stands apart—comfortable and secure in its humble place among the surrounding two-story cubes. It’s a home, not just a house.
During the warmer months, the elderly couple often sit on their wrap-around front porch, and on most of those days, they wave when I stroll past. They must make a habit of coming outside with their tea in time for the students. However this morning, beneath the veil of fog, their cast-iron bistro set lays vacant. Only a warm glow from their living room suggests that someone is home. A curling line of smoke rises from their chimney, the sole chimney for miles, and I’m drawn to the light cast by the fire roaring within. A warmth seems to literally touch my hand. I stop and stare at my fingers, then again at the house. The front window brightens near the edge, and the curtains frame the vague outline of a person in a peach housecoat. The wife, I assume. She seems frailer standing there alone. They’re almost always together. She holds her hands against her chest, steps closer to the window, and peers up and down the street. The light from the fire almost seems to reflect off her housecoat. She pauses on me and raises her hand. I flash a smile and wave in response, then continue to weave through the suburban duplicates. The warm tingling in my fingers disappears.
What is wrong with you today?
Ahead, the small strip plaza and locally owned coffee shop, Milk and Honey, appears. M&H is strategically placed across from Ridgefield Secondary and is profitable solely because of the constant stream of caffeine-addicted students. It has become a necessary comfort stop for me before embarking on another day of school. A large cup of tea evaporates unease like the sun absorbs morning frost. Please let there be enough time to stop today.
I search for my phone while crossing up the path to the plaza. “Dang it.” How did I manage to forget it again? Returning home would mean having to deal with Dad. And I might go into another weird whiteout. Moving forward without a phone sounds a tad better. I pull open the glass door, and the comforting aroma of coffee and banana muffins confirms my decision. The wall clock shows that I still have fifteen minutes before the entry bell at eight thirty. If the line is short, I’ll make it. The owner, Nadia, knows my order by an indication of one or two fingers from my spot in line.
Three people stand in front of me—two girls I recognize from the year above me at school and a steel-toed tradesperson, likely from the seniors’ home under renovation down the street. They should all be fast. The door swings open in my peripheral vision, and at least four more kids from school come strolling in. Great timing on my part. I dig out my change purse. I have enough for two London Fogs today. How appropriate. I shake out the jitters in my fingers. I’ve got lots of time. The two girls dressed in similar outfits are already waiting for their order, and the worker is paying. See? No need to panic.
Nadia grins and mouths hi to me as she stirs the milk in the order ahead of mine. I return the greeting with a two-finger royal wave. She chuckles and then calls for two medium Londons from her husband, Luis.
“Are you all right?” An unfamiliar but oddly calming voice interrupts my counting of change.
“Excuse me?” Behind me, a young man about my height stands just outside my personal bubble. I take a step back. My tooth-brushing regime was less than stellar this morning.
He seems to search each part of my face. The corners of his mouth rise, which softens his gaze. “You’re not from here.”
I bite my lip, unsure what to say. Was that a question or a statement? His easy smile distracts me, and I become captured by the vividness of each of his features. His eyes, an unusually light green, seem to absorb the light from the surrounding halogen bulbs. His skin, a shade of pale that rivals Dad’s, glows with a radiant sheen that most girls strive to achieve through hours of makeup application. He waits, despite what must be more than a full minute of awkward staring. Not someone I recognize from school, or I would assume that was some cheesy pickup line. But, I get the sense that he’s not interested in me … at least, not in that way.
Say something. “I basically grew up in these five blocks”—I sweep my arm out toward the surrounding neighborhood—“so I’m not really from anywhere other than here.”
Nice one, Thea. That mundane response is sure to end the conversation. Clearly, he’s mistaken me for a much more interesting person. And yet, his soft eyes hold my gaze. “This is not the here I was referring to.”
He nods toward the counter. Nadia presents me with two teas, and I tear my gaze from his to accept them. She smirks at both of us and proceeds to serve him a coffee and muffin. He reaches into his pocket, but Nadia shakes her head. “Don’t worry about it, Khi. Consider it a thank-you for helping Mrs. Shen again. She would have wandered around the plaza for hours if not for you.”
Is she talking about the same Mrs. Shen from down the road? I tilt my head at him. The strong angles of his jaw give him a maturity that suggests older than high school. And yet he dresses and carries himself in the same insecure way of some of my friends. Despite zero recollection of having met him before, he seems familiar, like a long-lost childhood friend. But I’d remember meeting him.
He brushes the nape of his neck and says something foreign-sounding under his breath, then accepts the coffee and muffin. With a slight bow to Nadia and me, he heads toward the cafe door. Unable to move, I watch while he exits. What was that all about?
He pulls open the door and doesn’t look back. My chest tightens. He can’t just leave. I toss my fistful of change to Nadia and heave my cemented feet forward. I catch the door with my hip just before it closes, sending a ricochet of tea across my knuckles.
There he stands, mellow in mid-sip. And I come out a hot mess.
“Hey, it’s Kyle, right?” I blurt out the question in between sucking steaming milk off my fingers.
“Khi, actually.” He passes me a napkin from his muffin bag.
“Sorry, Khi,” I correct myself, stacking my cups so I can accept the napkin. “I have this weird feeling, like I must know you, or should know you. Sorry, that completely sounds like a pickup line. Which it is not. Not that you aren’t worthy of being picked up. But I don’t know anything about you, except that you helped the lady who lives down the street from me. But I’ve never seen you before and . . .”
I stop myself and breathe in. Another bad habit of mine is nervous rambling around the opposite sex.
“Let me try again.” I exhale. “I got the sense in there you know me somehow.” I slant my head toward the coffee shop. He must be wishing he never talked to me, but he just smiles and nods, as if to encourage my blathering. “You asked if I was okay. Why?”
“I could see you were not,” he says with a soft but assured voice. “I … assumed you shared this same gift.”
“Gift? What do you mean?”
“Compassion.” He looks down to my hand holding the tea. “You were at Mrs. Shen’s house this morning, right?”
“I stopped for a minute, but I …” I shake my head. “How did you—”
He glances in the direction of the Shens’ house. “I was there with her. I walked her back home after she got lost. She’d burnt her hand, and with her husband now gone, she’s been easily disoriented.”
My hand, the same hand that felt warm at her house, begins to tingle again. I stare at it, almost expecting a burn to appear. “What do you mean by compassion?”
“For others. You feel it, don’t you?” He reaches for my shoulder and gently guides me away from the café e
ntrance door. A stream of students exits behind me toward school.
School. I’m going to be late.
“I need to get to class.” A poster in the window for the Open Mic Night on Saturday catches my eye. “I don’t normally invite complete strangers to something, but you know Nadia and you helped the Shens, so you can’t be a crazy stalker, and I shouldn’t have said that, but today’s been so strange already, and you seem …” Warmth rushes into my cheeks. I point at the window. “There’s an open mic night here in a couple of weeks.”
“Yeah, I heard. Sounds cool.” He says it with an awkward pronunciation of cool.
I squint at him, waiting for an explanation.
He squints in return. A wide grin shows no sign of malice, but no explanation either.
“A bunch of people from my high school are going. Likely not your scene, but if you were at all interested ...” Stop babbling.
“Can I let you know next week?” He tugs a journal out of a worn leather satchel and flips to a clean page. Is he trying to get rid of me? I take a step away, ready to retreat, but he looks up, pen already scratching across the page. “Your name is Thea, right?”
My eyes widen. “How did you—?”
“Nadia. She called your name out when she gave you your order.”
“I guess we know who the observant one is.”
He passes the pen and journal to me with number: jotted next to my name.
I place my tower of teas on the window ledge and write down my cell number. How nice it feels to write with a heavy ballpoint pen on decent paper. It’s unusual for anyone our age to not simply pass over a phone when asking for contact information. I embrace this small pleasure and some of the stress of the morning releases from my neck.
“I’m really not crazy or usually this forward, it’s just ... You know what?” I pick up my London Fogs. “It’s nice to meet you, Khi. I hope we can hang out soon.” I push my shoulders straight.
