Cody gives me a crooked smile. For a second, I almost believe him.
Then I come crashing down to earth again. He’s still trying to flatter me, still trying to convince me that he cares. Trying to downplay the fact that he’s using me.
But he doesn’t understand what it’s like to be able to do this. He doesn’t understand how much just the smallest amount of knowledge can hurt people.
“I mean it,” Cody says, still looking right at me. “You’re one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met.”
I look down, running one hand over the velvety, cream-colored surface of the couch cushion. I want to believe him. But his words make me feel sick.
“Sunny, just take a compliment, why don’t you?” Mikaela throws a pretzel at me.
“You know, you could really help people,” Cody says.
I remember the first time I ever told Mikaela about my underhearing, how she said it could be a real gift.
“I know,” I whisper. And I do. But.
“You could help me again.” His voice is low and urgent, his eyes intense. For a moment, it’s like Mikaela’s not even in the room, like it’s just the two of us.
There’s a twinge in my chest.
“It’s my parents, of course,” he says, answering a question I didn’t ask. “After what you found out, I asked them what was up. They said if I don’t do everything right this time … ” He trails off, picks up the remote control and turns it over and over in his hands. His face is set and angry. Suddenly, he draws his arm back and flings the remote across the room. It ricochets off the immaculate beige wall, chipping the paint, and falls to the floor. My whole body tenses up.
Mikaela just leans her head back against the couch and stares at the ceiling. “I can’t believe them,” she says. “They cannot send you to boarding school. That’s freakin’ ridiculous. What is this, the nineteenth century?”
Cody slumps back on the couch. Despite everything, I feel sorry for him.
“I hate asking this,” he says. “But you—I think you can do this.”
“Do what?” I look up at him from under my hair, suddenly nervous.
He pauses, glances at Mikaela, then looks back at me. “I was thinking that if your—uh, power—if it goes in one direction, maybe it goes in the other direction, right?”
I frown. “Like … what? Other people reading my thoughts?” I’m not sure what Cody is getting at. “They’re already reading my thoughts. You just published them on a web page for all the world to see.”
“Well,” he says, “I guess I mean—what I—I need you, Sunny.” His voice is pleading now. “I need you to … do something to my parents. Make them stop. I don’t want to get sent off. If I went to military school—fuck.” He swears some more, takes a long swig of his drink. “I can’t go to military school.”
“You would so get your cute little ass kicked,” Mikaela says, laughing.
“Whatever.” Cody slams the laptop shut and puts it on the floor. He looks back up at me. “You have to help. I don’t know what else to do. You could … push back. I don’t know.”
Push back? I feel like I’m made of lead, like I’m sinking into the couch, into the floor.
“It doesn’t work like that,” I say finally. “I want to help, but … it just won’t work.” I wouldn’t want to do it, wouldn’t want to force my thoughts on other people, even if I could.
“You haven’t tried it, though,” Mikaela says.
“I don’t have to try it.” My voice is taut and angry. They don’t understand. Every time my underhearing happens, I feel like I’m on the edge of a precipice, like I’m on the edge of losing myself.
I already lost Shiri. I won’t lose myself. I can’t.
“Why are you being so resistant?” Mikaela sits forward, leans around Cody to stare at me. “Don’t you at least want to find out if it’s possible? To influence someone?”
“No, I don’t,” I say. “Because it isn’t.” I start to get up.
“You of all people should know that anything is possible at this point,” Cody says, his eyes glinting. “I think you can do it. You learned to control it in the first place.”
It takes every ounce of self-control I have not to scream. I stand, stepping away from the pristine beige couch and the junk-food-covered coffee table.
“I can barely control it in one direction,” I say through clenched teeth. “What makes you think it even works any other way?” I fumble in my jeans pocket for my car keys.
“Wait,” Cody says. “You’re not even going to try? You could show me how to do it, if that makes you feel better.”
“It doesn’t matter. It isn’t right. You can’t just make people do what you want.” It’s absurd that he’s even considering it. And he’s using me to do it. He’s manipulating everyone.
“Oh, come on, Sunny,” Mikaela says, slumping against Cody and smirking at me.
I turn my back and walk out.
I sit in the car for a few minutes with the engine off. My forehead rests against the top of the steering wheel and I breathe deeply, the bridge of my nose throbbing with an impending headache.
My mind keeps circling the same set of thoughts, over and over. Elisa crying. The web page full of stupid gossip I was responsible for. Cody needing help; help that it’s not in my power to give. Anger at him, but also guilt at walking out when maybe I should have stayed and helped somehow. I should have at least stuck around long enough to commiserate, like Mikaela.
But even if I could have helped, it didn’t feel right. I don’t even know his parents. Unfair or not, whether they send him away to school is still their choice. It’s Cody’s responsibility to talk to them, not mine.
The headache pinches a little more. I take deep, slow breaths, picturing the flickering of the flame on my black-cherry candle, ocean waves creeping back and forth along the sand, the meditative feeling of swimming endless laps in the pool.
I’m only trying to relax enough to drive home. But without consciously meaning to do it, my mind is inexorably pulled back toward the house, back toward Cody. Suddenly I want to know, more than anything, what his issue really is. What can make a person so oblivious about everyone around him. Determined, I push harder.
I get vertigo, like I’m being tipped upside down. Then it gets weird.
At first, all I find is a maelstrom of swirling darkness. It surrounds me, buffeting me like a windstorm. Suddenly I’m in the center, floating, slowly tumbling in the eye of the storm, my ears ringing in the silence. That’s where I start to get a sensation of hiddenness, of the real Cody veiled beneath the chaos, protected by an ice-brittle surface layer. But there are cracks and melted spots in that icy surface, and I slip through.
Paradoxically, I smell heat. I smell smoke, like a burning tire, and
—it’s not fair, nobody ever cares what I want,
what about me—
—me, I deserve better than this and they’ll realize
I’m smarter than them one day and they’ll be
begging me to come back—
—I won’t be the one begging, not like this—
—not fair—NOT FAIR
The burning feeling becomes so strong that I cough, jolting myself back to reality as I spaz into the steering wheel, bumping my collarbone.
I grip the wheel, steadying myself. And I understand everything with perfect clarity. Yes, Cody’s been using me. I was stupid not to realize it sooner. But I still feel sorry for him. Sorry because he’s just a selfish, immature little boy who thinks everything revolves around him. Sorry because there’s obviously something really wrong in his family, in his life, if the way he views relationships is in terms of what’s in it for him.
Sorry because I thought he cared about something, anything, besides himself.
Tears are streaming down my face, but at the same time a part of me feels lighter.
I turn the keys in the ignition and drive home.
From Shiri Langford’s journal, September 3
rd
Pain is not my friend.
The pain pills they gave me are nothing more than glorified aspirin. My ankle is still swollen like a purple balloon and I’m benched for the next month at least, maybe two. Maybe more. The ligament is torn, they said. Don’t put weight on it, they said. Wear this air cast, they said. I’ll need crutches until I can put weight on it.
I was having such a good practice, too, until I landed wrong on the court and went down, my right ankle bending the wrong way with a tearing, burning twist.
I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I think the only reason I’ve kept my scholarship is because I’ve been playing so well and coach made an exception for me. My grades just aren’t high enough, and thanks to last semester I’m on probation. I have this semester to get my GPA back up. That’s all. My dad would kill me if he found out.
I’ve been giving Brendan some space. He still hasn’t called me.
twenty-five
By the time I get home, I’ve stopped crying, but my face is damp and sore and my throat is raw. I really thought I knew Cody. How stupid I was. I only saw one side of him. I only wanted to see one side of him. I wanted him to be the Cody who encouraged me to accept my underhearing, the Cody who helped me get control over it, who held me when I was scared and shaking. I didn’t want to see the rest of it.
I have no idea where I stand with Mikaela now, either. She’s got to be thinking I’m cold and heartless for not trying to help him. Then again, maybe she’s glad to have Cody all to herself. I dash away a few more angry tears. Either way, I don’t belong in the picture. I don’t even know if I want to be in the picture. For all I know, she was aware of the blog as soon as he wrote it and just didn’t bother to tell me about it. The thought makes me furious all over again.
When I walk inside, the house is quiet. My parents aren’t home yet. I go into the kitchen, splash my face in the sink, and pat it dry with a dish towel. There’s a small mess of breakfast dishes in the sink and the compost bowl smells like banana peel, but I think of Cody’s sterile house and I’m profoundly relieved to be home.
On my way upstairs, I almost crash into Auntie Mina.
She looks at me with a startled half-smile. Then she gets a good look at my face and the smile falls away.
Maybe I should have taken the time to put cucumber slices on my eyes, make it a little less obvious that I’ve been weepy. But Auntie Mina doesn’t ask questions. She just gathers me close into a warm, tight hug and holds me there for a minute.
At first I resist. I’m tired of my problems and I’m sick of everybody else’s issues, too. And I don’t want to cry anymore.
But for a second, I do.
“Sit with me for a minute, okay?” Auntie Mina says gently. “I’ll make you a cup of hot tea with honey, and then you can escape.”
I swallow, my throat dry and swollen. Tea and honey might not be a bad idea. Just for a minute.
I sit at the kitchen table, leaning my chin in my left hand as Auntie Mina fills the electric teakettle with water. I know she wants to talk, or she would have just put a cup of water in the microwave.
Correction: she wants me to talk.
But there’s too much to say.
We sit in silence for a while, me clenching my teeth, Auntie Mina grading a stack of quizzes from the computer science class she’s now teaching at the college extension. Every so often she looks up at me with a sympathetic smile, pushing one graying lock of dark hair back behind her ear.
Eventually, sitting and waiting for the kettle to whistle, I do say something. It sounds like a question. But it really isn’t, because I think I already know the answer.
“What do you do if you’re disappointed by somebody you really thought you cared about? Like maybe they’re not the person you thought they were. And the person they are … isn’t someone you want to be around.” It sounds stupid, childish, when I say it out loud. But it’s true.
Auntie Mina is quiet for a minute, thinking, but looking at me seriously. Then I’m horrified, because I wonder if she thinks I’m talking about her and Uncle Randall.
“I mean—” I start to try to backpedal.
“It’s okay,” she says with a small smile. “I know. It’s hard at your age, when everybody’s figuring out who they are and who they really want to be. Trying one thing out or another. Even new friends.” She looks at me intently. “It can happen at any age.”
“It’s not just them who’s different, though,” I say. I look down, stare at a faint stain on the surface of the table. “It’s me.”
She gets up, pours the hot water into two mugs, and brings them to the table with a basket of tea bags. For a moment she just sits there pensively, dunking a tea bag in and out of her mug.
“It’s always like that, I suppose,” she finally says, sighing. “Yes, sometimes the person you thought you knew turns out to be very different after all. But sometimes—sometimes you figure something out about your own needs, too, your own goals and dreams, and those might not be the same as everybody else’s. They shouldn’t be, because you’re your own person.”
She puts one hand over mine. I look down at her neatly trimmed fingernails, the wiry strength in her slender fingers that I never seemed to notice before.
My own person. I think about Cody, about how I’d always thought he was so individualistic and determined. I thought he really wanted more out of his life than he was getting, like maybe he’d graduate and go on to be some kind of artistic mastermind or form his own startup company or something else that misunderstood geniuses do.
Oh, he wants things to be different. He wants everything to revolve around him.
And then I think about Uncle Randall, and how Auntie Mina must have felt over the years, slowly finding out with every argument that he wasn’t the fairy-tale prince she thought he was. I feel like crying again, but instead I just let out a long, shaky breath.
“You have to be strong,” Auntie Mina says, her voice thick with emotion, squeezing my hand once more before releasing it. I’m not quite sure whether she’s talking to me or to both of us.
Later that night, lying in bed, I’m thinking again about what she said. About being strong. I assumed Cody was strong. Then I realized how easily cracked that icy shell really was. That isn’t real strength. Clinging to your own petty little wants at any cost, even when they’re impossible or hurtful.
Letting go, maybe, is what takes real strength.
Sometimes, though, you can’t just let go. Sometimes you have to learn to live with things.
I wonder if I can be strong enough to learn to live with my underhearing, to really figure out how to use it, and how not to. I don’t know if I’m capable of it. But I have more control over it now than I ever did. Nobody else can do it for me. I have to try.
I pull my knees in to my chest and huddle under the sheets. It seems so difficult. There are so many things I can’t do. I can’t go back in time and make Shiri not want to die. I can’t force Uncle Randall to be the person Auntie Mina wants him to be. I can’t help Cody, not the way he wants me to, because I’m not that kind of person.
It’s hard enough to live with my ability to underhear. If I did help Cody, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.
During my library period the next day, I check my school email. Click on the link that takes me to Voice of the Underground. I read it all again, this time in its entirety. I check for references to me, to my underhearing. I have to know for sure if Cody said anything about me. Not because I can do anything about it. I just need to know what kind of person he really is; no illusions. I scour it twice; three times.
All I find are vague references to the Psychic Friends Network. To “mysterious sources” and “secret information.” And that stupid JV swim hottie thing. My name isn’t anywhere. Not even my initials.
I’m surprised, and a little relieved. But I don’t really feel better. All it does is drive home the point that I never really mattered to him; didn’t really exist as a per
son in his eyes. Just a tool to be used.
At lunchtime, I go to my car to eat, sitting on the driver’s side with my food on the seat next to me. I put my earbuds in and blast the Beatles’ “Nowhere Man.” For the first time in a long time, I think about Shiri and don’t feel like I’m being stabbed in the gut. But I’m not happy.
The rest of the day passes uneventfully, and by some miracle, I pull a B+ on a history pop quiz despite being a chapter behind on reading. After school, I sit on my bed dangling a toy mouse in front of Pixie. Should I call Mikaela? I don’t know what I would say, but I want to make sure we’re okay at least. Maybe she’s not even mad at me. I should have called earlier. Yesterday, maybe.
I’m just digging my cell phone out of my backpack when the home phone rings. Auntie Mina comes out of the guest room and shouts down the stairs, “I’ll get it. Don’t pick it up! I’m on my way down.” Her muffled footsteps recede.
How could I have forgotten? It’s Uncle Randall. Right on schedule, and brought to you by the home phone. The only difference this time is that they’ve had their first marriage counseling appointment, but Auntie Mina refused to tell us how it went. All she told us was that they’re supposed to talk more about the trial separation.
The ringing stops abruptly as Auntie Mina picks up. My stomach flip-flops and I decide to head downstairs. When I get there, I notice that the study door is closed. I can’t hear anything. Mom’s not home from work but Dad is sitting stiffly at the kitchen table, so I sink into one of the empty chairs and nervously start fiddling with the salt shaker. My hands are trembling and I drop it, scattering grains of salt.
“Sorry.”
My dad glances up from the Sudoku puzzle he’s pretending to do. He’s sitting there with his pencil poised, but he’s not actually filling in numbers. The pencil is shaking ever so slightly. My heart twists.
I sweep the grains of spilled salt into my hand, get up, and dump them into the sink. On the way back to the table, I stop behind my dad’s chair and give him a hug, squeezing his neck the way I used to when I was little. His hair smells like tea-tree shampoo. “Love you, Dad.”
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