While You Were Gone

by Amy K. Nichols

  Mr. Ogden leans over and whispers, “Whatever happens, I just want you to know how happy you’ve made him these past couple of weeks. Thank you.”

  I don’t know how to respond. You’re welcome? My pleasure? I settle on, “He made me happy, too,” which isn’t a lie. I don’t think Mr. Ogden realizes we’re here because of me. Because I turned him in. Danny sure knows that, though. I have no idea what I’ll say to him. Sorry doesn’t seem to cut it.

  Warren’s phone buzzes. What comes next is a blur of noise and movement: a loud bang from the other side of the building, yellow lights flashing at the door, shouting from inside, then darkness and Warren yelling. My legs scream as I run behind them through dark hallways that have no end. I have no idea how we’ll find cell 24 in the dark, but I trust Warren knows the way.

  Figures run through the hallways around us, some shouting orders, others obscenities. I struggle to keep up, but my legs aren’t as long or fast. Danny’s dad looks back now and again to check on me, waving me on with his hand.

  We turn down a hallway—the place is a maze—and Warren slides to a stop. He pulls out his phone and shines a light at the door: 24.

  My legs shake and lungs burn. It takes him forever to get the door unlatched, but finally there’s a click and he rolls it across, standing back for us to enter.

  I step through first. The room is stark, empty. Danny stands against the far wall, his legs shackled to the floor. My shoes clap against the concrete, sounding echoes into the empty corners. Questions and apologies race through my mind. When I get closer, he lifts his face and I freeze.

  It isn’t him.

  It’s the other Danny.

  When my legs can’t run anymore, I walk, but it’s not like I have anywhere to go. My feet wander, shoes scraping the road, hands hanging limp at my sides. This body aches like every muscle has been pounded with a hammer. But it’s nothing compared to the hurt inside. All the pain I buried for years lies exposed, sparking like a live wire. My eyes take in the streets, the signs, the lights and trees, but all I see is what I’ve lost. Every breath, every blink splashes another image across my mind. Mom sitting in the living room chair, sharing stories from our past. Dad with the ocean wind in his hair. Germ’s crooked smirk as he rattles a can of paint. Eevee beside me in the grass. Eevee’s hand in mine. Eevee’s hair falling around her shoulders. Eevee’s soft lips and dangerous eyes.

  Being here is a slap in the face. A scab ripped off. I haven’t felt like this since—

  Light throws my shadow out in front of me and I hear the car engine, the blaring horn. I keep walking, though. Right down the center line. The driver swerves and misses. Taillights glare like angry eyes. Then it’s just me again, in the dark.

  I make a right, a left. The road turns to gravel and I pass beneath the iron arch. It’s been years but I still know the way. Some things don’t change, no matter how much you want them to.

  The grass dampens the sound of my footsteps. I pass pinwheels and glass globes and vases of plastic flowers faded from the sun. Then I see them, and I sink to my knees. Even in the dark, I know what the grave marker says: PARKER OGDEN. REBECCA OGDEN. My fingers trace the infinity symbol between their names. All at once, the pain wells up. I raise angry fists to the sky and, with everything I have, break the night with a scream so loud I know my parents hear it, wherever they are. Then I fall onto their graves, my arms spread out wide to hold them, and I cry. Not just for them, but for Eevee and for Germ. For Benny and for Warren. For the hurt I caused others and the hurt done to me. For all the things wrong in the world. For nothing being how it should be. For love and the hole it leaves when it’s gone.

  I don’t want to live here like this.

  I don’t want to live here.

  I don’t want to live.

  Is that the answer? I turn onto my back and stare into the sky. Stars blur through my tears, swirling lights in the inky black. My breath catches; my mouth opens. I feel her next to me, her head on my chest, her voice whispering as she points out the stars of yellow paint above. Isn’t it amazing?

  “Yes,” I tell her, my throat raw, my voice barely a whisper. “It is.”

  Jonas pulls onto the 303 and floors it. I hold the passenger seat headrest and watch the streetlights flash by. I’ve never seen him drive so fast. The dotted line on the road is almost solid. His face, though, remains calm, composed.

  The roads out here are empty and wide open, and Jonas uses that to our advantage, putting as much distance as possible between us and what’s going on back at the jail. When he approaches the Willow Canyon area, he slows to the speed limit, and soon we’re but one of many cars driving along the freeway. Blended in. Anonymous. Still, we ride along in silence, Mr. Ogden in the front seat, Germ, Warren, me and Danny in the back. Somewhere miles behind us, four guys in an SUV are being chased south, acting as a decoy so we can get away. Will they make it all the way Outbound? I guess I underestimated Neil, with his slicked-back hair and too-cool-for-you attitude.

  The road curves east, and Jonas maneuvers carefully through traffic. “We made it,” Germ says, breaking the silence. “I can’t believe it worked.”

  Everyone relaxes a bit, recounting what we just accomplished. I watch the lights play across Danny’s face. They’re the same eyes I gazed into, the same lips I kissed, but somehow it isn’t him.

  “We’d meet in the middle,” he says, telling us his version of the world jumping. “Run into each other and sort of duke it out for who goes where.”

  “I bet you’re glad to be back here,” Warren says.

  “Yeah.” The way he says it, I can tell he’s not sure. Mr. Ogden reaches his hand back and Danny takes hold of it.

  When we get closer to town, Jonas slows even more. The city is still in turmoil and security is tight. As other cars are stopped and searched, we’re waved on through. Soon we trade the freeway for major streets, then major streets for residential ones. The gates of Kierland Academy come into view, and Jonas steers the car through, passing the security kiosk with a tip of his imaginary hat.

  We made it.

  I lean forward to peer at the towering cottonwoods, the rising spire of Old Main. They’re ghostly this time of night. Otherworldly.

  The car veers right toward McConnell Hall. After much debate, we decided Danny would stay with Warren until I can talk to Dad about getting his name cleared. Warren put up a good argument that Danny’s presence could jeopardize his contacts. I countered that it would raise a lot more eyebrows if the governor’s daughter suddenly had a boy living in her dorm room, and that even with my personal security detail, Warren’s room was far safer. I won, which was a huge relief. Sharing my room with my Danny? No problem. Sharing my room with this Danny? I just…can’t.

  Jonas stops at the curb and puts the car into park. I make my goodbyes quick. A hand squeeze and smile with Mr. Ogden, a wave to Germ, a “See you soon” to Warren.

  Danny opens the door to let me out of the backseat and we find ourselves standing face to face. Memories flood through me, bringing with them a sadness so big it’ll drown me from the inside. He looks intently into my eyes, and I can tell he’s wishing I were someone else as well.

  For a second I think he’s going to kiss me. And for a second I think that might be okay, but it isn’t him.

  It isn’t him.

  So instead, I whisper, “Stay safe.”

  And he whispers, “You too.” Then he gets back in and closes the door. The car pulls away and I’m alone.

  There’s no sleeping after a night like that.

  I sit at my easel, palette on my knee, and pull the spiral of a swirling tunnel from the canvas. My brush moves to match the motion in my mind. He said the colors were black on black, differing levels, swirling but not mixing. I layer the paint in ever-thickening swells. As I paint, I find myself moving closer to the easel, pulled in by a kind of vertigo.

  There’s another Phoenix with another me.

  Is he with her now?

  I
load a smaller brush with a thinned mix of skin tones and paint the hand reaching out from the center of the dark. As soon as I start it, though, I realize it isn’t right. His hand shouldn’t be reaching out with the palm down and fingers extended.

  I scrape away the mistake with the palette knife. The edge scratches lines through the layers of paint. While I work to smooth the lines away, an image forms in my mind. I pick up the smaller brush and try again, painting a different story. His hand reaching, palm up, fingers relaxed.

  An invitation.

  Nowhere to land, I wander from one place to the next. Find some of my so-called friends. Crash on their couches. Eat their food and steal their smokes. It’s cool of them to help me out, but for some reason it makes me feel empty.

  I miss Germ.

  A few of the guys ask questions. Where have I been? Who’s that girl I’ve been hanging with? They must mean Eevee. Wish I had an answer so they’d shut up already. When I can’t stand the questions anymore, I decide to risk a visit to the foster home. Grab some fresh clothes, maybe see if I can scrounge up some cash for a bus ticket out of here, to anywhere.

  My feet have other plans, though.

  They retrace the route I wandered the night I got back. Everything looks different in daylight. I take a couple of wrong turns and end up on dead-end streets or facing a wall of traffic where there should be a park. The sun’s so bright it’s blinding. Makes me realize how cloudy it is in the other Phoenix. Too much gray there, too much blue sky here. Maybe there’s a universe where everything is just right.

  Finally, I find the right street, near the school, and the right house, with the gravel drive. I stop in the spot where I landed. Pick up a stone and turn it over in my hands. Why did I run? Freaked out, I guess. I push the gravel around with my shoe. Mac was there, and Warren, standing over by the front of the Jeep. Now that Jeep is gone. The windows are dark, the curtains closed. The only sign of anyone having been here is the deep tracks in the gravel leading from the stand-alone garage to the street and the sign on the front door that reads WARNING. THIS BUILDING IS UNSAFE. DO NOT OCCUPY.

  Shielding my eyes from the glare, I try to see through the slit in the curtains, but it’s dark inside. The front door is locked tight. My gut tells me to leave, but instead I look up and down the street to make sure no one’s watching, then duck around to the back of the house.

  There isn’t a gate. Anyone could walk back here, like I just did. Weird. The yard is huge and empty. Patches of yellow grass struggle to cover the ground. A single orange tree with a white-painted trunk grows near the back patio. Rotting oranges litter the ground around the well.

  The back door’s window is probably the easiest way in, as long as there isn’t an alarm system. Guess it’s time to find out.

  I pull my sweatshirt off and am shocked—again—by the scars. How long until I get used to this body? I close my eyes for a second and try to remember what it was like being in the other body, but all I feel is anger. When I open my eyes again, they stare back at me in the window’s dull reflection. Can’t even stand the sight of myself. I wrap the sweatshirt thick around my arm and smash my elbow into the glass. Shards rain down inside, leaving a hole large enough to reach through. I wait for the alarm, but all I hear is a dog barking somewhere nearby. I pull the sweatshirt back over my head, reach inside and unlock the door.

  Whoever lives here—I’m guessing it’s Mac—left in a big hurry. Either that or I’m not the first person to break in. The light switch doesn’t work, but there’s enough sunlight from the broken window to see that the kitchen cabinets and drawers are open and empty. Almost. A couple of plastic cups are still stacked in one, an abandoned straw in another. The air is warm and stale. A trickle of sweat runs down the small of my back. I open the fridge and close it quick after a blast of rancid air hits me in the face. Definitely left in a hurry. But why?

  I step into the dark living room and stop. This feels familiar. Like I’ve been here before. There are dents in the carpet from furniture. A couch and chair. The four legs of a coffee table. Square shapes, too, but not as deep.

  Packing boxes. Stacked three and four high.

  This is the room I saw before I jumped. Eevee sat with me here by this window. Across the room were the whiteboards. What was written on them again? GRAVITY and something else. Come on, Ogden. Think.

  My heart pounds as I move down the hallway. The house is so quiet it’s like that dead feeling your ears get after listening to music too loud.

  On the left is a room with an empty closet and closed blinds. A bathroom with checkered tile and a bar of soap still by the sink. On the right is a larger room with worn-down carpet. An office chair lies tipped on its side. I try the light switch, even though I know it won’t work, then open the blinds just enough to let in some light. Something heavy stood in the corner. The outline forms a long rectangle, set at an angle. Mac must have spent a lot of time in here. Everything about the room says this is where stuff happened. The walls are scuffed and the paint is scratched. The closet door stands half open. I slide it the rest of the way. A few papers are scattered inside, all blank. I let them fall back to the floor and lean against the wall. This is useless. Whatever I was hoping for isn’t here. Another dead end.

  I’m just about out of the room when something under the chair catches my eye. Probably nothing, but may as well check it out.

  I reach down and grab the wad of paper, then slowly open it, trying to be as quiet as possible. Pressing it up against the wall where the light is better, I run my hands over the wrinkles to smooth them out. My heart races as my eyes take in the pencil scrawl. PORTAL? is written in all caps across the top. Below is a sketch, an outline of a person. Scribbled circles cover the chest like someone traced and retraced the spot. Next to it are words written so sloppily and small I can’t read them. Below the sketch is a bunch of math that looks like something straight out of Einstein’s brain. I walk back to the window and hold the paper closer. One word pops out: gravity. And another: electromagnetic. The words from the whiteboard flash through my mind. WORMHOLE. EMP. Then I see what’s been staring at me all along. Right there, under the sketch.

  Danny.

  I swallow hard and look at my name—his name—and the circles outlining the chest. Mac was trying to figure out how the jumping works. Danny must have come to him for help. And Eevee must have brought him here. Which means she knows.

  Eevee knows.

  I fold the paper and shove it into my pocket. Mac might be gone, but she’s still here. Now if I can just get her to talk to me.

  Keeping teenagers confined in tight quarters should be a crime.

  Music drones through the walls of Warren’s dorm room, loud enough to be heard even over the hum of his dampening field. Out in the hallways, students mill around, talking and laughing, throwing a ball, playing a guitar. Classes are still on hold, but they’ve lifted more restrictions. We’re allowed to mingle in the dorms and dining hall, but we can only move between locations when the bell rings. Everyone is going stir-crazy.

  Especially Warren.

  There’s a loud thud against his door. He looks up from the projected keyboard and yells, “Keep it down! Don’t you know I’m doing important stuff in here?” He turns back to the monitor and groans. “This is never going to work. The modulating cryptography alone is making it impossible to hack, and that’s just the first of several layers. It’s like Dante’s hell for hackers.”

  “If anyone can do it,” Danny says, “it’s you.” He swivels in his chair to face me again. “Seriously. This guy must be a genius in every universe.”

  Every universe. I still don’t understand it. Other worlds like ours. Same people but different lives. Part of me thinks, Yes, of course. Another wonders how it could possibly be real.

  “So if the theory they came up with on the other side is right,” he says, adding two wavy lines between the two horizontal ones he’s already drawn on the paper, “then the opening occurs when the electromagne
tic waves in both worlds collide. It’s gravity, though, that actually pulls us through.”

  “And the whole thing was set off by—”

  “The EMP the morning of the parade,” he says. “The big bang, so to speak.”

  “Which everyone thinks was detonated by Red December, but Red December doesn’t actually exist.” I rub my forehead. Thinking about this has scrambled my brain.

  Beside the diagram is the letter Danny—my Danny—wrote before he left. I read it again, imagining his hand forming each letter. On the back, he outlined our plan to take down Skylar. It’s not much different from the alternate plan we’re trying to get off the ground now.

  Warren growls and pounds his fist on the desk. Danny mouths, He’ll get it, but I’m not so sure.

  I turn the letter back over and look at Danny’s signed name. “What do you think he’s doing now?”

  “Missing you.” He says it so matter-of-factly. “He doesn’t have many good things going on for him there. I can only imagine how much it sucks to suddenly be back.”

  “What about you?” I ask, pushing the stories of the foster home from my mind. “Do you miss her?”

  He doesn’t hesitate: “I would give up all the good I have here to see her again.”

  I would do the same for him.

  The knock at the door makes us all jump. “Did you invite someone?” Warren asks me accusingly, then turns to Danny. “You?”

  Danny and I both shake our heads. Warren walks to the door and peers through the peephole. He turns around, a look of surprise on his begoggled face, then scrambles to transform the room back to normal. The lights change, monitors disappear, and suddenly it’s just a regular—albeit pristine—dorm room.

  He cracks the door and exchanges a few words, and in walks Dr. McAllister. I scoot the diagram and letter toward Danny, hoping he gets the hint to hide them away.