by Marissa Lete
I can’t let myself be more of a burden for them. All I want is for them to be happy, to enjoy their only child and the life they always dreamed about. I want to make them feel like normal parents, raising a normal teenager that does normal things. And for putting up with me the past seventeen years, they at least deserve that much.
Chapter 3
The next morning before school, I get a call from Grace.
“The Beast won’t start,” she says. There’s a click, then a low, stuttering sound somewhere in the background. “I think he’s gone.”
“Like, really gone?”
“Yes!” she exclaims. I can feel her excitement through the phone.
“Finally! I’ll be over in a few.” I hang up and call goodbye to my parents, shuffling out the door. The Beast is Grace’s car. Her parents, though they were definitely not short of money, bought it straight out of the nineties thinking it would help their daughter “build character.” The only thing it really built was a never-ending list of problems. Grace has been waiting for the thing to die for months now, hoping her parents would get her a new car when it did. This is her chance.
“I was beginning to think that old piece of crap was immortal. Thank goodness I was wrong,” I say when Grace gets into the car.
“They’re taking it to the shop tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed.”
“Trust me, I will.”
When we get to school, our friend Leo is standing next to our lockers in sweatpants and a plain white t-shirt, his eyes bloodshot and his shaggy red hair untamed. He waves, calling something out to us that looks like a simple, “hey,” but with the hallway noise from this year, last year, and the year before echoing all around us, I can’t hear him.
When we reach where he’s standing, Grace looks him over, barely trying to hide the disgust on her face. “Where have you been, it looks like you haven’t slept in weeks!”
“I had the flu, thanks a lot for checking up on me,” he deadpans. We’re close enough now that I can hear him a little bit better, but he’s always had a quiet voice, so even standing next to him I have to listen carefully.
“Gross!” Grace screeches, taking two big steps back, then using me as a shield between her and Leo.
“Hey!” I protest, backing up, too. “I don’t want to get sick, either.”
Leo throws his hands up like a peace offering. “I’m not contagious anymore! Promise. The doctor said I can come back to school today.”
Grace doesn’t look convinced, but she relaxes slightly, allowing herself to stand a few inches closer to him.
“Sorry we didn’t check in when you were absent yesterday,” I tell Leo, shooting a glance at Grace. “We were a little bit… preoccupied.”
“Brace yourself, Leonardo. I have big news,” she says, pausing to make sure his attention is completely on her.
He lifts an eyebrow, folding his arms across his chest.
“Andy and I broke up.”
“That’s big news?” Leo scoffs. “Okay, sorry, wait. Let me pretend to be shocked.”
“Come on, Leo! We’re not getting back together this time. Seriously.”
Leo rolls his eyes. “Okay, Grace, whatever you say.”
“I thought that at least you would be happy,” she says, turning to her locker to offload a few books from her backpack. It’s no secret that Leo despises Andy with a passion. The rumors tell me that sometime in middle school, Andy got a bunch of the other kids in our grade to start calling Leo names, and at some point, they poured chocolate milk down the front of his shirt. Leo’s been sort of a social outcast ever since. Grace befriended him in freshman year when she moved here, and I was the most recent addition to the group.
We’re kind of misfits, but I love our little trio regardless. Because of the echoes and the slew of mental health experts I had to see throughout my life, I’d been homeschooled for most of middle and high school, and I hadn’t been able to make many friends since I was a little kid. When Grace and Leo sat down next to me at lunch on my first day of school, it had felt strange to be talking to people my own age, who didn’t think I was mentally ill or knew anything about my history. I’d been shy at first, but soon enough, I found myself joining in on their banter and hanging out with them after school.
And it was nice. Nice to have friends to talk to and spend time with, who accepted me even though I usually turned down their invites to movies and festivals and other loud places. It helped me to feel like an actual teenager rather than a girl with a scientifically unexplainable ability. Normal. Or at least, almost normal.
The bell rings, interrupting whatever rebuttal Leo had most likely been forming, and we wave to him as Grace and I head to our first class.
✽✽✽✽✽
After school, trouble awaits Grace and me in the parking lot. As we walk, I spot Andy parked three spaces down from my car, leaning against his Jeep as he searches the crowd of students pouring out of the school. He notices us moving in his direction and waves his casted wrist in the air, calling out to Grace.
I try to veer Grace away before she notices him, but at that exact moment, she lifts her head from her phone and spots him. Her steps slow to a stop.
“Here we go again,” she sighs, putting on her best neutral look as Andy begins to walk toward us.
“We should just lea—” I begin, but pause when I notice someone walking up to Andy. It’s Dana Stevens. She tosses her arms around his neck, throwing her weight into him as she plants a kiss on his left cheek. To his credit, Andy looks surprised, but before he can push her away and go back to waving Grace over, I grab her by the arm and tug her to my car.
“He makes me so sick!” Grace exclaims as I slide into the driver’s seat. “And who does she think she is?” She cranes her neck to look outside at him, but I just focus on turning the key and shifting the car into drive. Better to make a quick getaway than get stuck in the drama.
“Not someone worth getting worked up about,” I reply as we roll out of the parking space.
“You don’t understand how done I am,” she says.
“Oh, I think I do.”
“I just can’t—” she begins to say, but her phone starts buzzing in her pocket. “It’s him.”
“Are you going to answer?” I ask, making a left turn.
She hesitates, then, “No.”
“Good.”
Except, a minute after the phone stops ringing, Grace exclaims, “He left a voicemail!” I glance at her, noticing the eager look on her face as she opens it up.
“Put it on speaker.”
Grace places the phone on the center console for both of us to hear. “Grace, please stop shutting me out,” Andy’s voice crackles through the phone. “Look, I’ve been trying to get rid of Dana for years. I don’t want anything to do with her. I promise. It’s you that I want. Grace, I-I love you. I can’t let us go like this. I’m sorry for what I did. I really am. It was a stupid mistake. Please call me.” The line goes dead. I shoot a look over at Grace to gauge her reaction, but she’s distracted by something she sees in the side mirror. I hear the blasting of a horn a second later.
“Oh my gosh, did you see that?” she flips around in her seat to look behind the car.
“What is it?” I ask, startled. I look in the rearview mirror as the sound of tires screeching fills the air, but all I can see is the shiny front grill of a black Suburban following too closely behind me.
“That Suburban just cut off the blue car that was behind you, big time. I thought they were going to collide!”
“Wow,” I glance at the Suburban again. The front windows are tinted, so I can’t see who’s driving the car.
“What a jerk. Now he’s tailgating you.”
“Should I slam on my breaks so he’ll hit me and collect some insurance money?” I joke, but Grace shakes her head, serious.
“I wouldn’t want to meet whoever’s driving that car.”
At the next light, when I make a right turn, the Suburban does as well.
“Oh please, don’t tell me he’s one of my neighbors,” Grace says. But when we turn off onto her street, the Suburban’s engine revs up and it speeds past us. “Freak,” she mutters after him.
When we pull into her driveway a few minutes later, Grace doesn’t have to invite me in. It’s become pretty standard that whenever one of us has to drive the other home, we’re expected to stay and hang out for a while.
When we enter the house, I leave my shoes at the door. At my own house, I wouldn’t bother to remove my shoes until plopping onto the couch or heading up to my room, but at Grace’s, it feels like a requirement to enter.
The cute downtown house was built in the early 1900s, complete with high ceilings, wide and spacious rooms, and massive paned windows. Even though it’s old, Grace’s parents have done a good job at modernizing the inside. The kitchen features sleek black countertops and stainless steel appliances, the living room includes a wall-mounted seventy-five-inch TV, and all of the windows are fixed with motorized drapes that open and close at preset times of the day. And because of a housekeeper that comes twice a week, the place is usually spic and span. It’s the kind of place that demands the respect of bare feet when you step inside.
The first time I’d come to Grace’s house and seen how old it was, I’d worried that the echoes inside would be unbearable. But apparently, the house had sat empty for a long time before Grace and her family moved in a few years ago, and despite them living there for that time, the place is usually eerily quiet. Grace’s parents work long hours, and Grace and her younger sister often spent most of their time out of the house. So only occasionally do I overhear a family conversation at dinner from last year, or a short conversation from two years ago, which is nice.
When we walk into the dining room, a note and two twenty-dollar bills are lying on the table.
Grace,
Dad and I have to work late tonight. Big project this week. We won’t be back until 8 or 9. Order some dinner with this, and keep an eye on Briana for me. Love you,
—Mom
“Pizza?” Grace asks when we both finish reading the note.
“Do you have to ask?” I reply with a grin.
“Now, or later?”
“Do you have to ask?” I ask, and she responds by picking up her phone.
We spend the rest of the afternoon doing bits of our homework while flipping through TV channels and munching on cheesy breadsticks. Grace’s younger sister Briana gets dropped off by the bus about an hour after we get home, but she gets busy with her own homework and isn’t much of a bother.
Grace seems to have either forgotten about or completely ignored Andy’s voicemail from earlier, which is strange for her. I start to wonder if maybe she finally sees that he’s no good for her, and has decided to let go. I can only hope.
✽✽✽✽✽
When I step outside later in the evening to head home, the air has cooled down quite a bit, and I crank up the heater in the car. Almost all traces of daylight have faded except for a soft glow around the horizon as I pull out and drive down the street. When I round the first corner, I notice a black Suburban that looks eerily similar to the one from earlier parked on the side of the street between a couple of houses. After passing it, I check my rearview mirror to get a better look, and as I do, I see the headlights pop on.
I try to shrug off the twitch of unease running through me, hoping that it’s all just a weird coincidence, but when I turn left onto the main road, the Suburban does as well. Except, this time it hangs back between a few cars, keeping its distance instead of driving right up behind me like before.
My heart rate quickens, and I keep an eye on the car as I drive. When it follows me at the next turn, I start to get anxious. Are they following me? Who could it be? And why? I can’t think of anyone or any reason, so I decide to test something just to be sure. I turn off onto the next road I see, one I’ve never been on in my life. I keep a tight watch on the rearview mirror and follow the movements of the Suburban as it turns down the road ten seconds later. When I look back forward, I catch a glimpse of a “Dead End” sign right as I pass it.
“Shoot,” I mutter under my breath.
Looking ahead at where the road curves, I think fast, pulling into a random driveway next to an old red truck just after rounding the curve, hoping the house’s occupants won’t come out to question me. I turn the car off and slouch down in my seat so I won’t be seen. Seconds later, the sound of the Suburban’s engine reaches earshot, and the headlights pass by my car. I wait in dead silence as the Suburban goes to the end of the street and turns around. When it comes back, it slows for a moment behind my car, the brakes squealing as it rolls to a complete stop. I hold my breath.
Eight, nine, ten seconds pass. Then, finally, the driver hits the gas and the Suburban speeds off into the distance.
I wait for several minutes before shakily starting my car back up and pulling out of the stranger’s driveway. I don’t know who was in that Suburban, or why they were there, but one thing is undeniably clear: they were following me.
As I drive home, a million scenarios are blazing through my head. None of them are good. I circle the block three times before pulling up in the driveway, just to make sure. I arrive twenty minutes after curfew, so Dad asks why I’m late, but I brush it off by saying that Grace and I got carried away with our homework. My parents trust me enough to let it go, and I quickly go to my room, my hands shaking.
Why me? Who would be following me? If they were going to hurt me, wouldn’t they have done it? But all they did was follow, then drive off. Maybe they were going to spy on me? But how would they know it was me? They aggressively pulled out behind me earlier, so did they know my car? If so, would they find out where I actually live eventually? What would happen when they did?
I think that maybe I should tell my parents. I’ve always tried my best to be honest with them. But it took them years to believe me about the echoes, would they really believe that someone in a black Suburban was trying to follow me home? And do I really want to worry them about something that might just be nothing at all?
I decide not to. Maybe the person following me thought I was someone else and will realize it soon. Plus, what real evidence do I have? I didn’t get a license plate number or even a description of a person. Even if the police got involved, it would be impossible for them to do anything about it.
So instead, I calm myself down, take a long hot shower, and go to bed.
Chapter 4
The next morning, an alarm is going off in my room that is not from today. I check the clock, and it’s only six o’clock, an hour earlier than I normally get up for school. I reach for my phone as if to turn it off but realize there’s nothing I can do. I groan, pulling a pillow over my head and cursing my past self. Today last year must have been my first day at the new school, so of course I would have gotten up extra early.
By the time my past self turns off the alarm, I am wide awake, so I decide to get up and make myself breakfast.
Halfway through cooking some eggs, I hear footsteps coming down the stairs. It’s noise from last year, so probably just my own echo coming down to eat before school, too. I remember leaving extra early that morning to allow time to find my classes.
As I’m sitting there, munching on a piece of toast, my phone starts ringing.
“I’m panicking. My homework is missing. That Chemistry assignment we spent an hour on last night. I can’t find it. Do you have it?” Grace starts talking the second I answer the phone.
It takes me a minute to remember what she’s talking about. “I think it might be in my backpack, probably got mixed in with all the papers,” I tell her.
“You think you have it, or you do have it? I need confirmation because otherwise I’m screwed,” she says.
“Let me check. It’s in my car.”
“I’m staying on the line until you confirm,” she tells me, and I laugh.
“Maybe if you kept better track of
things, you wouldn’t have to deal with situations like this,” I tease, standing up from the table and reaching for my keys on the key rack.
“I don’t need a Laura lecture right now. I need my homework,” she replies, serious.
“Okay, chill. Give me one second.” I walk to the front door, and just before I touch the handle I hear the sound of it opening up from last year. Twenty minutes early, just as I remembered.
However, something I don’t remember happens just as I’m about to open my car’s door. A voice calls from across the street.
“Hey! Laura, right?” It’s an echo of the same boy I heard two nights ago, coming from the direction of the abandoned house across the street. His voice is unmistakable. I look over as if to see someone there, but the street is empty. I freeze, one hand on the car door handle, the other hand with the phone in it dropping to my side.
“Yeah! Mark?” My past voice calls back from the driveway. Maverick, I correct myself now, though I still don’t remember any of this. I turn around to face the abandoned house, feeling a strong urge to hide as if I was eavesdropping on a stranger’s conversation. But it’s just me, alone.
Footsteps tap across the street, towards where I stand now. “Close. Maverick,” he replies with a laugh, probably a few yards away.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I can hear the embarrassment in my voice.
“No worries. First day of school?” he asks.
“Yeah, it is,” my echo replies. I find myself at a loss. You’d think I would remember somebody after meeting them twice.
“Don’t stress, St. Martin isn’t a bad school. Just don’t eat the lasagna and you’ll live.”
My echo laughs. “Thanks for the tip, I’ll avoid it.”
“Is that your schedule?” Maverick’s echo asks.
