Being Jamie Baker

by Kelly Oram

  I whipped my head his direction so fast it may have actually been superfast. I would have been concerned that his mom noticed, except I was too busy willing myself to develop Superman’s nifty heat vision so I could blow up Ryan’s big fat head. When it didn’t work I turned back to Mrs. Rosenthal and as calmly as possible said, “I’m not his girlfriend.”

  “It was her idea,” Ryan argued. “She’s just having a bad day and taking it out on me.”

  “You’re going to be the one having a bad day in a minute!” I snapped. I didn’t care that his mother was standing right there.

  She didn’t seem to mind though. “You poor thing,” she said, scooting me gently over to a barstool. “Why don’t you sit down and relax? I’ll make you something to help you feel better, and you can tell me all about yourself.”

  I recognized the concoction she pulled from the cupboard and was actually looking forward to some of her magic tea, but Ryan pulled me up just as soon as I sat down. “We’ll be in my room,” he said, and then tugged me down the hall.

  “What is the matter with you?” I hissed before he even had the door shut. “Are you trying to cause a power outage?”

  I was surprised to see the smile gone from his face. He looked almost sad as he apologized. “I’m sorry, Jamie,” he said. He meant it too. “It’s just that you seemed really upset about this Carter guy, and my mom can smell stress like a dog smells fear. I had to distract you. If she knew you were really upset she never would have left us alone until she knew everything.” He shook his head and added, “If you think that reporter is nosy…”

  You ever notice how Ryan always makes it impossible to stay mad at him? I hate that.

  I stood there so completely chagrined that Ryan finally cracked a smile. He pulled me against his chest, which of course I couldn’t resist at that point, and whispered, “Forgive me?” against the side of my head.

  “No,” I replied in the most pathetic pout ever, even as I was wrapping my arms around his waist.

  “Thanks,” Ryan said, relieved. Then he kissed the top of my head and pulled his now trembling arms away from me. He shook off a shiver, smoothed down the strands of hair that were starting to stick up, and then clapped his hands together. “Okay,” he said, clearly getting back to the problem at hand. “So, did you call this guy?”

  “Oh, yeah, I keep his number in my speed dial, Ryan.”

  Ryan was not deterred by my sarcasm. He sat down at his computer and clicked on the Internet. “Well, did you look it up?” he asked. “You know where he works in Illinois, right? Did you call to see if he’s back there now?”

  “No,” I answered grudgingly. “He works for the Chicago Reporter.”

  Ryan typed the name into the search engine and asked me, “Have you done anything to try to find him yet?”

  “I haven’t had time,” I said, exasperated. “As soon as I remembered, I came straight here.”

  Ryan turned to face me before clicking on the results. I didn’t like the way he was suddenly looking very suspiciously at me. “You were really upset…” he prompted, but I didn’t know what he wanted me to say.

  “Your point?”

  “My point is, when you freaked out you came straight to me for help. That is the most girlfriendy thing ever. I don’t know why you won’t just accept what you are.”

  “Would you just find me a phone number already!”

  Ryan found me a number, and I called the rag Carter writes for in Chicago. I mean, Ryan did have a point. If Carter’s been there, busily writing stories and ruining other people’s lives this whole time, then he couldn’t be here stalking me. Right?

  “Yes, hi. I need to speak with one of your staff journalists, Dave Carter.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” a female voice said. “Dave Carter’s no longer here.”

  My heart sputtered in my chest, and I quickly told myself that it was Sunday evening in Chicago and he’d just gone home for the day. “Well, it’s very important. Do you know what time he’ll be in, in the morning?”

  “No, you misunderstood me. Dave Carter no longer works here. He left weeks ago.”

  Weeks ago. As in right after I tried to play superhero and got beat up by my school’s marquee. “Oh.” I took a deep breath. It wouldn’t help any to panic. “Um, well, do you know where he’s working now?”

  “I’m sorry. He didn’t leave any forwarding contact info. It was quite sudden.”

  “Please!” The hysteria was starting to break through my voice. “You have to know something.”

  “Miss, is everything all right? Are you in some kind of trouble? Can I put you in touch with someone else here? Another journalist?”

  “No! I just… I have to find him.”

  I heard the woman on the other end of the line sigh, and then she said, “The last time I saw him he was saying something about a company called Visticorp. I assume he got the job since he quit so suddenly.”

  “Visticorp?” That just didn’t make sense. “What kind of a job? That doesn’t sound like a newspaper.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know anything more than that. If you want to leave your name and number, I can call you if he ever contacts us again.”

  “No! No, that’s okay. Thank you.”

  I hung up before she could ask any more questions. She’d given me enough information anyway. “Carter isn’t in Chicago anymore—he quit,” I told Ryan. “I told you I’m not paranoid. He’s still here. He’s probably been watching me ever since I blew him off at school that day. I just don’t know why he hasn’t gone to the papers about me already. We’ve been practicing for weeks.”

  “Well, obviously he doesn’t have any proof. If he did, he’d have released it already, wouldn’t he?”

  I thought for a minute, and even though I knew Carter would never sit on information that could make him rich and famous, I found myself disagreeing. “I don’t know. He was so weird that day at school. Pretending like he wasn’t there for a story? Warning me not to be sloppy? I can’t figure out what his angle is.”

  I thought for a minute and then pointed at Ryan’s computer. “May I?”

  “How do you know he’s got an angle?” Ryan asked as he moved.

  “Because he’s Carter,” I said, typing in the name the woman on the phone had given me. “He’s essentially the devil. He comes under the guise of concern and then profits from your misery.”

  According to Google, the company called Visticorp had its own website. I clicked the link, and up popped a picture of a bunch of guys in lab coats. I choked on a gasp, and the special low-wattage light bulb in Ryan’s lamp couldn’t handle the surge of energy that hit it.

  “What is it?” Ryan asked, startled by the sudden pop and shattered glass.

  I was already skimming the “About Us” section by the time Ryan looked over my shoulder.

  “It’s not about a story,” I breathed.

  Things began to spin out of control around me. I nearly fell out of the chair as I tried to rise to my feet.

  “Jamie, breathe!” Ryan was warning me.

  But I couldn’t. I was way too freaked out. I mean an article in the tabloids would suck for sure, but scientists are way worse. They don’t just expose. They experiment. And according to my dad, you’re never seen or heard from again.

  “It’s a genetics research company in Las Vegas,” I mumbled as the heat started burning through my body. “He’s going to sell me out to a bunch of scientists.”

  “Jamie, focus! Your eyes are doing the glowing thing again. You have to calm down. You can’t be shooting off any lightning here.”

  My body started to tremble, and Ryan backed as far away from me as he could. “Jamie,” he said again. It was the fear in his voice that caught my attention. “You could really hurt yourself. You could hurt me. You don’t want me to get hurt, do you?”

  No. Not again. I really didn’t want to hurt him again. Once was bad enough.

  Ryan seemed to notice when I started thinking coherently
again because he started encouraging me. “Focus, Jamie. Deep breaths.”

  I could do that much. I pinched my eyes shut and sucked in a huge breath, thinking that maybe if I could hold my breath inside, then I could hold the electricity in the same way.

  I tried to focus on the power itself. Everything felt so much clearer to me now because when I’d kissed Ryan the power had been stronger than ever before, and as distracted as I was by the anxiety, I could still feel the power separate from the emotion. They were definitely separate. I just had to figure out how to do one without the other.

  Keeping my eyes shut tight, I held my hand out in front of me. I tried to push all the energy inside me to my hand, hoping to manipulate the direction of it. As I concentrated on the flow, I was suddenly very aware of my body and the strange electrical force inside it. I couldn’t seem to tell it where to go, but I could feel it everywhere it flowed.

  In that moment of extreme concentration I felt something I’d never noticed before. I suppose it had always been there, because it didn’t really feel different, but I’d just never paid this much attention before. I could feel the electricity in the atmosphere around me. It was stronger near the lamp, and Ryan’s computer, and strongest near the electrical outlets in the wall.

  The tingling sensation felt natural to me, and my body seemed to gravitate to it. So, keeping my eyes shut and my breathing slow, I held out my hand to the place where the power felt the strongest and tried to pull the warmth to me. At first nothing happened, but after a moment I felt energy flowing into me. I was sucking it right out of the wall socket like I was plugged in or something. It was just like earlier when I’d pulled it from the power lines while kissing Ryan, except not nearly as strong.

  I was doing it. I was really doing it. I was controlling the energy. But when Ryan broke the silence and asked how I was doing, I lost my concentration. The moment I lost control, the flow of energy seemed to reverse, and it shot out from me. Not in lightning form, like before, but like when I lose my temper and power surges through the house—which it did right then.

  I opened my eyes and realized that the power in the whole house was out. “Oops,” I whispered as I met Ryan’s worried gaze. “Sorry about that.”

  “Are you kidding? That was great!”

  “Great? I knocked out the electricity.”

  “But you didn’t blow up my room.”

  This was true and, I admit, highly encouraging. But not really enough to make me feel any better. “Ryan, what am I going to do?”

  “What can you do? I mean unless Carter comes back, there’s really no way to find him. And we don’t know how much he knows or what he has proof of—if anything. We don’t even know if he’s really working with these science guys. We don’t want to go poking around prematurely. The best we can do is keep quiet for a while and wait it out.”

  Ryan felt it safe enough now to cross the room to me and hold out his hand. I placed mine in it without even thinking. He squeezed my hand gently and then said, “We’ll just stop practicing your powers for now and work on our relationship instead. I haven’t been in one in so long, I probably need lots of boyfriend practice.”

  Man, Ryan’s smile is hypnotic. I was calm again despite myself. Ryan smirked when he saw me trying not to crack a smile, so I ripped my hand from his. “I am not your girlfriend!”

  Ryan, though he clearly thought otherwise, just smiled again as if to say, “suit yourself,” and then led me back to the kitchen and his very confused mother.

  “Sorry, guys, it’s the whole house,” she said, referring to power. “I can’t figure out what’s wrong, but the oven’s electric, and the lasagna’s not anywhere close to being done. It looks like we’ll be dining out tonight.”

  “Oh, actually, it’s probably just the—”

  Ryan was going to say circuit breakers, but cut himself off when I crushed his hand.

  “Just the what?” his mother asked curiously.

  Ryan glanced at me and then shrugged. “Chinese sounds good.”

  Superpowers—one. Tofu lasagna—zero. Sometimes life’s not all bad.

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER 17

  The next day the tension at school was thick. It was the first day that Ryan and Mike were back from their suspensions, and the entire student body, myself included, was anxious to see what would happen.

  While I sat in my car, trying to pick out Ryan’s voice among the chaotic chatter of the school, his truck slid into the empty parking spot next to me. I was listening so hard that I didn’t realize he was there until he tapped on my window. The sound echoed in my ears and sufficiently startled me to stop my heart for a single beat.

  “You going to stay in there all day?” Ryan asked through the glass.

  I actually had been contemplating skipping school, but Ryan would have just followed me and gotten in trouble. With a sigh, I heaved myself out of the car. “What do you want?” I asked as I began heading toward the school.

  Ryan flashed me a killer smile. “I want to walk my girlfriend to class. Is that a crime?”

  “Considering I’m not your girlfriend, so what you’re doing could be considered stalking? Yes. As a matter of fact, it is a crime.”

  Ryan smiled, ignoring my jibe completely, and fell into step at my side. We walked in silence for a minute. Then, as we headed up the front steps, I began to hear the whispers of the students on campus. I stopped walking, stunned by what I was hearing. What people were saying. Not just people, but Mike. I stood there unable to do anything but listen in shock until Ryan broke me from my trance. “Jamie? What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Mike.” My voice was a faint whisper, and I wasn’t able to get the full story out.

  “Don’t worry about Mike. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

  “No, you don’t understand.”

  “Jamie, I don’t care about Mike,” Ryan interrupted firmly, and suddenly slipped his hand into mine, lacing our fingers together. If it didn’t feel so good to have it there, I would have zapped him.

  I made a pathetic attempt to pull my hand free, but Ryan defiantly tightened his grip. “You’re going to have to fry me if you want me to let go.”

  I looked down at my hand in his, and really, I didn’t want to let go any more than I wanted to hurt him, but I didn’t have much of a choice. “Ryan, this”—I pulled our interlocked hands up to nearly eye level—“really isn’t a good idea. Not today. Not now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The gossip since you and Mike were suspended has been out of control.”

  “Oh yeah?” Ryan tried to keep his tone joking, but it was impossible to hide the strain entirely. “Everyone think I went crazy or something?”

  “Don’t worry. They aren’t blaming you.”

  “They’re blaming Mike?”

  I wish. “Oh, no. Most people are siding with Mike. They’re just not blaming you.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Sure it does. I mean, it’s not your fault that the ice queen has brainwashed you.”

  It made perfect sense to me, but Ryan was stunned by the news. He stopped walking and gazed at me with a tortured expression. “People are blaming you for my fight with Mike?”

  “Not to my face.” I shrugged with a hint of a smile, but Ryan didn’t think it was funny. I sighed again. I didn’t want him to feel guilty on my behalf. “It’s fine. Really. I honestly don’t care if people hate me.”

  “People don’t hate you. They’re just surprised. They’ll come around. Even Mike, you’ll see. He’s my best friend. I’m sure he got it all out of his system when he punched me.”

  “You think so?”

  “Of course.”

  I hated to be the bearer of bad news, but he was going to find out soon enough. Better he heard it from me. “Ryan, Mike found out about my accident. He told the whole school about it.”

  “What?” It came out in a half gasp, half growl. “How did he find out?”

  “The
whole story is just a Google search away. I guess Carter showing up made him curious. He seems to be going with the leading tabloid theory—that I caused the accident on purpose because Derek dumped me. Paige is practically staging an intervention to get you away from me. She said she was going to petition to have me kicked out of school.”

  Ryan’s face looked a little green, and it took him probably a good thirty seconds before he was even able to speak. “Jamie, I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I said, but that didn’t make him feel any better. “Look, it doesn’t matter, okay? You don’t care about my past, and that’s all that matters to me. I don’t care about the rest of them. But the problem is you do, and I don’t want you losing your friends because of me.”

  Ryan opened his mouth to say something, but the warning bell went off before he could. I squeezed his hand and then pulled my fingers from his. “Let’s just get through today before you go ruffling any more feathers with this whole girlfriend nonsense.”

  “But—”

  “Go to class, Ryan.”

  “I’ll see you at lunch,” he promised stubbornly, but then walked away from me.

  I hurried to my first class, and even the teacher fell into an awkward hush when I walked in. I kept my eyes on my desk, but I could feel the stares of everyone in the room. I tried to not let them bother me, but I couldn’t manage it. Thanks to Ryan, I wasn’t the ice queen anymore. I was just Jamie Baker again, and Jamie Baker had feelings. Jamie Baker was vulnerable. She was scared and weak. Broken. And everyone could tell.

  That was the worst day I’d had since I came to Rocklin High. It rivaled the days at my old school after Derek died. The comments made were a little harsher, and the glares burned a little hotter. Maybe it was because of my extreme sensitivity to the topic being discussed, or maybe it was due to my guilt because this time they were right. I really was dangerous for Ryan, and I really did kill my last boyfriend. They had a right to be worried about Ryan.

  I felt sick by the time lunch rolled around. I sat in my usual spot and picked at my food. I had no intention of eating it, but it gave me something to focus on other than the friction in the room. Everyone seemed a little on edge, but when Ryan found his way into the cafeteria it went silent. You could hear a pin drop even if you didn’t have my hearing.