Underneath

by Sarah Jamila Stevenson

  “So … ” Spike says. “Having a good time?”

  “Yeah, I am,” I say honestly. “I wasn’t sure if things would be cool, but I guess it’s just Cassie who’s still mad at me.”

  “You’re still mad at her,” Spike points out.

  I look away from him, down at the lichen-encrusted rock.

  “Forget about it,” he says. “She’s doing her thing, you’re doing your thing. Don’t worry about her.”

  “I know.” I sigh. “It’s just hard.”

  There’s a brief silence, and then Spike sort of snorts. I look up at him, startled.

  He tries to control himself, and then a smirk spreads across his face. “That’s what she said.”

  I swat him on the arm. “You cannot be serious for even five minutes.”

  “Sure I can,” he says. “Check this out.” He leans toward me, closer and closer as if in slow motion. I giggle. Knowing Spike, any minute now he’s going to stick his finger up my nose or try to lick my face.

  But he doesn’t, and the closer he gets—so close I almost go cross-eyed—I’m suddenly paralyzed. It seems unreal, like I’m having an out-of-body experience, like it’s not really happening. I feel … dazed and close my eyes. I smell chocolate.

  —want this, what if she doesn’t, but it’s worth a try isn’t it, not like she hates you—

  I hear it like an urgent litany in my head, and our lips touch. For a moment, I’m frozen in place. I feel the warmth of his breath mingling with mine. I’m caught. My body leans toward his, my hand rises to touch the back of his neck. My arms are covered in goose bumps.

  —yes—

  But the desire surging through me isn’t my own.

  My eyes fly open and I scoot frantically back.

  It’s not just a joke. He meant it this time. And I’m not ready for it. I still have goose bumps but now I’m shivering, hugging my knees, looking everywhere but at him.

  He sits back, looking startled and a little crestfallen. To cover my embarrassment, my guilt at recoiling so abruptly, I say, “I’ve fallen for that one before. No face-licking.” I force a smile. But I feel terrible.

  Credit where credit’s due; he’s quick to save face.

  “Face-licking? Please. So juvenile. You’ll just have to wonder whether it was going to be nose-picking … or ear-

  snorting … or what.” He grins like nothing’s wrong. But I know the answer is “or what,” and I know what the “or what” was going to be.

  “Well, I’m not sure I want to stick around here and risk invasion of my facial space,” I say casually, picking my way down the rock pile toward the sand. “I think it’s time for another hot dog.”

  I expect Spike to say “that’s what she said” again, but he just raises his eyebrows at me as we walk back toward the group in silence.

  My breath catches. I can sense Spike glancing at me as we crunch across the wet sand, but I don’t turn his way. What’s wrong with me? I’ve known Spike since we were twelve. I’ve never thought about kissing him, not once. It’s not that he’s not attractive. He’s nice, and he cares about me. And, after everything that’s happened, we’re still friends. He wants to kiss me. Maybe I’ve never considered it, but I like him. I always have. Why did I flinch?

  If I hadn’t underheard him, would I have reacted differently? I felt something—it felt good—but what if they weren’t my emotions?

  I don’t even know how I feel about him, especially not now. But it’s not going to be easy to look at our friendship the same way anymore.

  Are all of my friendships going to turn weird, one by one?

  I cross my arms and hug myself tightly. That’s not going to happen. I can make this work. All I have to do is learn to control my underhearing; control when it happens—and when it doesn’t. And I’m almost there.

  Everything’s going to be fine.

  When I walk through the door, my mom calls out, “Sunny, honey, can you come in here, please?” in an overly cheerful voice. I walk into the kitchen and glance at the clock. That’s when I remember: Tonight is Auntie Mina’s scheduled phone call with Uncle Randall. Not just tonight; right now.

  I want nothing to do with any of this, so I turn right back around.

  Mom’s voice stops me. “Sunny. Now.” I look at her and lean against the counter, my arms crossed.

  “We’re going to have a little talk, now,” she says, sitting at the table. She reaches for a brightly colored ceramic mug, probably some ridiculous tea blend that she thinks is going to solve everyone’s problems. She pushes another mug in my general direction. I don’t take it. Instead, I just stand there in stony silence, waiting.

  “You see, this is exactly what I’m worried about, Sunshine,” she says, as if I’ve done something wrong just by standing here. “You haven’t talked to us lately. You’re either out somewhere or you’re hiding in your room.” She gesticulates jerkily with her left hand. “You just breeze out of the house to go to school, and on the weekends you’re out with your friends.”

  “I thought you were happy I’ve been going out. You kept saying you didn’t want me to ‘mope around.’” Who in their right mind would want to stick around here? I stare up at the ceiling.

  “Yes, but honey, you need to understand that there’s no such thing as a part-time family member. I want you to think about that. This is a difficult time, and we need you to be supportive.”

  I draw in a sharp breath. “I have been supportive. And if I’m such a full-time family member, how come I don’t have the same rights as everyone else? I don’t have any privacy around the house. Nobody cares or even asks me how I feel. Everything we do revolves around Auntie Mina.”

  “This is no time to start picking up an attitude.” Mom’s face is grim and her lips are set in a thin line.

  My voice comes out in a hoarse croak. “An attitude? Mom, you don’t know what it’s been like for me. If I don’t get the chance to get out of here, I’ll go crazy.”

  “Sunny—”

  “And now she’s talking to him like he didn’t do anything wrong. How can she give him that satisfaction?” I’m stomping back and forth across the kitchen now, agitated.

  Mom makes a wordless noise of frustration. She looks up at me, her eyes tired. “Sunny, it’s Mina’s decision to talk to him,” she says. “And they are both capable of acting like adults. They need to discuss a lot more than just the way he’s been treating her. It’s more complicated than you think.”

  “I know it’s complicated.” I slam my hand on the counter. “You don’t think my life has been complicated ever since Shiri died? Ever since Auntie Mina came here?” She doesn’t know the half of it. I straighten up. “I don’t want any more complications. I’m going upstairs.” Upstairs, where it’s quiet. Where I won’t have to deal with any of this.

  Mom looks at me, emotions warring on her face. Frustration. Sympathy. Sadness. But she doesn’t try to stop me this time.

  I only make it as far as the hall when Auntie Mina walks into the kitchen, her face pale but calm. Seconds later, Dad comes in from the garage; he must have been waiting around to hear the study door open.

  I hover in the hallway, indecisive. I can’t help wanting to know what happened. I hear soft voices talking around the kitchen table as I dither, and then the voices get louder.

  “You’re not going to tell us what he said?” my dad says loudly.

  “Mina, you don’t have to talk about it right now if you don’t want to.” My mom’s voice is softer, and I strain to hear more, huddling against the wall in the darkened hallway.

  “It’s okay, really,” Auntie Mina says. I’d expected more anger, but her voice is mild. “Surprisingly,” she says, “it was actually … fine.”

  I frown. How can any of us believe that?

  “It was fine?” My dad sounds like he’s never heard anything more ludicrous in his life.

  “It was,” Auntie Mina insists. “He was calm. He listened to everything I had to say. He didn’t re
ally say much. I think it’s finally sinking in, that I’m not just going to do what he wants all the time.” She trails off. When she speaks up again, her voice is soft. “I really think he heard me this time. And I really think I might be able to work things out with him.”

  My stomach churns.

  Could we have been wrong about him?

  Shiri didn’t think so, and she was the one who really knew.

  It just isn’t possible. Auntie Mina can’t be willing to listen to him, to consider going back to him. But somehow, it’s happening.

  From Shiri Langford’s journal, July 31st

  My father. My father. I can’t believe that we share genetics, that my mother somehow found him and married him and somewhere along the line I came along, that an entire X chromosome came from him and permeates my body. It makes me want to tear at my skin, rip my DNA apart.

  When I was a kid he could do no wrong. He was different then, when Randall Jr. still lived at home, when we were like a regular family and I was too little to do anything that would really piss him off. When I was his princess.

  But then … it all changed. I don’t know why.

  Earlier today, THAT happened and it was like I was buried under a pile of bricks. I couldn’t breathe. I was lucky to be in my room, sitting at my old childhood desk that seems so small to me now, when I broke into a cold sweat and it was like swirling darkness inside my head when I heard him.

  I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

  twenty

  I creep closer, peer through the doorway into the kitchen.

  “Talking to him on the phone is one thing, but getting together with him, alone?” My mother’s face is pale, and her voice trembles. “Do you think—”

  “Really, it’s okay,” Auntie Mina protests.

  “It’s not an option, Mina.” My dad’s voice is low and grim.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, it’s not as though I’m moving back in with him. All we did was agree to talk things out,” she says. “Maybe I can convince him to start going to therapy.”

  “Do you really think that’s going to help? Is it worth it, Mina?” Dad looks helplessly at his sister.

  “We’ve been together for twenty-six years,” she points out, her voice strained. “I can’t pretend none of that ever happened.”

  You can’t pretend he never hurt you, either. I feel like saying it. I almost do, but I clench my hands into fists and dig my nails into my palms to stay quiet. Auntie Mina looks over at me momentarily, a frown crossing her face.

  “Sunny, I’m so sorry. You of all people shouldn’t worry about me. Everything’s going to be fine with Uncle Randall. He’s still your uncle, and he loves you. We just have to talk it out.”

  There’s that word again: fine. I clench my jaw and don’t respond. How can someone so sensitive to everyone else’s needs handle living with someone like that? Uncle Randall’s always been like this, and there’s no way he’s going to change.

  I think of that whirling, horrible darkness, that feeling of something rotting from the inside. That feeling I was afraid wasn’t just in him, but also in me. But this time, instead of being scared, I’m gripped with the uncontrollable need to know, to be certain, what Uncle Randall wants. If I could find out, maybe I could convince her.

  My parents are both crowding around the kitchen table, trying to talk sense into Auntie Mina. I refuse to stand here feeling helpless.

  I sidestep out of the kitchen, quietly grab my keys, and sneak out the front door. They’ll hear me starting the car and driving off, but hopefully they’ll be occupied with Auntie Mina for the next few minutes. All I need is a few minutes.

  I start to drive. Speeding a little, I make it across town in record time. The houses start to get bigger, the gardens fancy and landscaped, and I’m in the neighborhood where Shiri lives. Used to live. Where Uncle Randall is right now.

  I drive past the house; then, nervously, I pull around the corner, about a block away. It’s dark outside, and when I turn off the headlights, the yellow glow of the streetlights is the only illumination.

  Getting as comfortable as I can in the driver’s seat, I close my eyes and regulate my breathing, just like I did yesterday with Cody. It takes me a while to calm down enough to start the visualizations. Gradually, though, I can feel my heart rate slow from its angry gallop.

  I start to relax into that increasingly familiar feeling of unreality. It makes me think of stepping off a cliff and having to believe that I can walk on air.

  My thoughts want to tumble in freefall, but I strain to keep my attention focused. In my mind’s eye, I envision one particular place. I’m floating along the street toward that huge, echoing house, the house I used to think was a palace. I pass through the concrete columns on either side of the porch that Shiri and I used to draw on with colored chalk. In through the door. I can picture it clearly, and then I feel the thoughts I’m looking for. His thoughts.

  —have to find someone to replace her at work—

  how can I?—I don’t need this, can’t believe she’d—she knows how it is—

  —how could she do this to me—

  —not my fault not me not me NOT ME—

  There’s a smell, too, a tang like something toxic melting, like plastic on fire or burning rubber or acrid metal. Not a physical smell; I guess it’s like those people who say they can taste colors or see sounds—but it feels real nonetheless. I’m choking on it; on the feelings of anger and blame and loss like bile rising in my throat. I can’t take it anymore. And then I’m hurtling through space, my head spinning as I sit with my face in my hands, leaning against the steering wheel.

  Shreds of emotion drift through me like wafting smoke, making me tense up again, and then they’re gone. My palms throb where I was digging my nails into them, and my eyes sting.

  I don’t know why I thought this could help. It’s just a burden of useless knowledge, of feelings that threaten to overwhelm me. To bury me.

  And, I realize with growing despair, it’s not like anybody in my family would believe me anyway.

  The next morning I wake up early, feeling like I’ve been sleeping under a ton of bricks. My limbs are sore and achy, and my head feels fuzzy. I gingerly climb out of bed, testing my legs, and decide to go for a run before showering for school.

  The midwinter air is chilly and the sky is full of low gray clouds. As I slowly warm up, lengthening my stride, I wonder if it’s not just lack of exercise that made me so tired this morning. I wonder if it was the underhearing.

  The more I think about it, the more I’m sure of it. Especially now—now that I can actually make it happen—it seems to take something out of me.

  It makes sense. When I swim extra hard, I get tired. When I study too late, I get headaches. And when I underhear too intensely, when I pour everything I have into trying to use this power … I suffer for it. It happened to Shiri, too; I saw it in one of her journal entries. But I don’t think she made the connection.

  I quicken my stride, breathing hard. The cool air blows past me, whipping stray strands of hair into my face. Not for the first time, not even for the fiftieth time, I wonder why this happened to me. Why it happened to Shiri. Auntie Mina’s never shown any signs of being a mind reader. And my dad doesn’t seem like he’s got any special talents.

  I think about Auntie Mina again. If she’s even just a little more sensitive to people’s feelings, maybe something happened with Shiri, some … mutation that made it more powerful somehow? And if that’s true, how did it happen to me? I think about Shiri’s note. Maybe one day you’ll figure it out. I never could. How could she know about me? Was she just guessing? What if she gave it to me, like an infection?

  I’m running flat-out through the neighborhood, and I force myself to slow down. I don’t need to hurt myself by running too hard. But when I get to school, my mind is still spinning with theories. Maybe it’s something that only affects the women in the family. Maybe it was something in the water when Shir
i and I were growing up. Antonia would probably say it was a blessing from the Goddess. At this point, it’s no weirder a theory than anything else.

  I space out through most of the morning, thinking about it. Mrs. Lam pauses next to my chair during French class and pointedly says, “Bonjour, Mademoiselle Soleil,” tapping a perfectly manicured fingernail on my desk. Still, I manage to concentrate long enough to get a B on the pop quiz. By the time I get to lunch, though, my brain is fried.

  “You’ve got the burnout look going. Very hipster,” Mi-kaela says when I drop my brown bag on the table and collapse onto the bench.

  “You’re just jealous.” I elbow her lightly and start picking at my carrot sticks.

  “Ha ha.” She takes a bite of cafeteria pizza, then says casually, “So how was your practice session?”

  “It went well,” I say. I glance around. Cody’s still not here yet, and Becca’s trapped David and Andy with an excited monologue about the latest in her string of girlfriends. I lower my voice a little. “I think I’m starting to get the hang of it. Doing it on purpose, I mean.”

  Mikaela is quiet for a minute. “That’s good,” she finally says. “Right?”

  I look up at her. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “You guess?”

  “It’s just that … ” I lean toward her. “It’s exhausting.” And scary, and confusing. “I just have to get used to it, probably, but … ” I’m not sure what else to tell her. I cut my eyes in the direction of the rest of the group.

  “Gotcha,” she says, following my gaze. “Later. But I ex-pect a full report on the amazing and mind-bending talents of Cody the Wanna-Be Warlock.” She says this last part in a fake-spooky voice, grabbing a stick from the ground and swirling it around like a magic wand.

  “Wanna-Be Warlock?”

  “Yeah, get this.” Mikaela puts down her stick-wand and turns to face me, straddling the picnic bench. “Saturday night after he left your house, he’s driving around with that stupid coven chick from the Wiccan thing, and I guess he’s trying to impress her with his dad’s Lexus, and he rear-ends this guy who’s stopped at a red light.”