Me and Me
Page 16
Dad knocks at my door. I mumble for him to leave me alone. So he does. I fall back asleep.
In my dream, I am back at the lake. With no time and a choice to make. I’m in the water between Alec and Annabelle. Suzanne is screaming at me. One second goes by, two seconds, three. But I cannot move. I cannot decide what to do. Four seconds, five, six.
Seven—
I sit bolt upright.
I yank on a sweater and slip down the stairs. Dad is on his phone in the kitchen, his back to me, talking softly, his voice not sounding like his own. He doesn’t turn around, doesn’t hear me as I leave. Night has already fallen. The day has gone.
But it’s not too late. It can’t be. There has to be a way to fix this. And I am done with doing nothing.
I longboard to the hospital. Outside Alec’s room, a gathering of his family is quietly chatting, some weeping. I see his mom talking with a woman who looks like her—her sister, maybe? Farther down the hallway, an older couple hold hands. They don’t speak at all.
I wonder—what if I should have saved him instead? How could I put these people through this? What if he is the love of my life? But what about Annabelle? She’s a little girl.
But maybe my other life is better. What have I got in this one? Everyone’s angry with me for stealing. And I’m not even going to be in the show that I’ve dedicated my heart and soul to since the drowning.
Alec’s mother looks up. She catches my eye. “Lark. Hello.” She clicks toward me in her heels.
“Sorry. I just . . .”
“It’s okay. I should have called you. I know you wanted to see him. To say goodbye—” Her voice catches.
“I . . . It’s tomorrow, right?”
She nods.
In my mind, I hear Suzanne. Lark! DO SOMETHING!
But I can’t. I can’t urge Alec’s mom not to turn off his life support. I can’t talk about parallel lives.
So. I am still paralyzed, after all.
“Come,” she says. “Come and see him.”
Alec lies slightly to one side of the bed. My footsteps make quiet taps as I pass the window to sit beside him. The room smells warm and musty. A monitor beeps, its thin wires connected to Alec’s chest, which is half exposed by the turned-down sheet. The top three buttons on his pyjamas are open.
“Please, not too long,” Alec’s mom says. “I’ll be out here—I have to talk to my parents. We’re all saying our goodbyes today.”
I nod, my throat tight. What a choice she’s making. I think of the other Lark begging me to ask for Alec to stay alive. I think about how our lives are so much made of the choices we make. How just a few seconds of indecision in the lake has impacted everything since then.
Alec’s mom closes the door lightly. I touch the grey blanket. Alec’s hair is clean, his face too. His lip piercing is the only thing that mars his features—otherwise he’d look like a young boy.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m sorry I didn’t . . .” He can’t hear me. That’s why his mom is making this choice. He’s already gone. This isn’t the Alec I went to the lake with, not the one who pulled off his shirt and dived in to save a little girl. This is just a shell.
And maybe a portal. The word comes to me from the conversation I had with Lucy, and from the other Lark telling me that Annabelle was the portal in her life. But how? God, this is all crazy. I reach for Alec’s hand to calm my jittery brain.
The windowpane shatters, and water gushes toward me, fills the room, filling me with terror. I’m choking. I am drowning, dying. I thrash and flail, an unthinking creature, fighting only to survive. But then I see a shimmering window. A window to another life. I swim toward it.
There she is. She is walking through the darkness, running now. Just as quickly as I was under water, I’m through and breathing cool, fresh air. She keeps running. Frantically I call her name, but no sound comes out. This is too hard. I am being pulled back.
No. I won’t let go. I won’t until I catch her. I drag myself through the window, fighting the undertow. I feel like I’m tearing through a thin layer of cellophane, something, because suddenly I am standing on the dark street, the air cool around me.
I orient myself. We’re three blocks from the river. Lark runs along a narrow alleyway, away from the river, toward a busier street.
“Lark,” I yell. This time my voice works. But she’s too far ahead to hear me.
Suddenly I understand. Home. She’s going home. I catch my breath as I watch her run inside the house. I’m shaking with exertion—this is so hard.
CHAPTER NINE
I run away from the bridge, away from Alec and the pain he caused me. I run through the city and back to my room. I think I hear someone call my name. I feel a shimmering, but I don’t pause. I can’t stop now.
I find the video that Mom left me, and even though I don’t have much time, I know I need to watch it; it’s short, only three minutes. I need her now; I need her more than ever. In it, she’s close to the camera, and her expression is full of her love for me. I have watched it many times, but this time I see myself in her in a way I never have before—my face is like her face; my eyes are like her eyes.
“I’m always there,” she finishes. “I love you, Lark.”
Mom was wrong. She isn’t always there. She’s always here, in the choices I make, in the songs I write, in me.
I glance at my Tak where it hangs on the wall. She has given me the strength to do this.
I take it down.
With my guitar in my hands, I walk out of my room.
I follow the other Lark into our bedroom. She doesn’t see me—I guess my connection isn’t as powerful as the one she had. I watch her as she watches the video Mom left us. I watch her reach for our Tak.
“ALEC!” someone yells. There’s water around my ankles, surging up, engulfing me.
I am washed back to the hospital room. Alec’s mom is in the room. I am surrounded by nurses.
“He opened his eyes. He opened his eyes,” I say.
“Oh, my baby boy,” his mom cries.
For a moment, I am shaking too much to move. Then I’m ushered out of the room.
But then I don’t waste any more time. I have to stitch myself back together. I have to make myself whole. And I think I know how.
I race to my house to pick up my Tak. Holding it, everything feels like it’s starting to make sense. I hurry to Lydia’s, where I find the rest of the band sitting together at a booth. I’m a shattered mirror, glass shards all over the place. My hands are trembling. My dad sits with them. A woman with long red hair perches next to him, holding his hand. No way. She’s smiling at him in a doe-eyed, happy way.
Reid sees me and pushes through the people between us. He leans over me and says, “You made it.”
I smile at him. “Hey,” I say to everyone at the table. “Look, guys, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’ve been stealing stuff. I will get help for that. But I need you to believe me. Believe that we don’t know everything. Okay? Just for tonight?”
Iona rolls her eyes. But my dad surprises me. He takes my hand and says, “I believe you.”
My throat tightens.
“Your mother would have been happy to hear me say that.” Dad lets out a long sigh.
“Why didn’t you?”
“I can’t undo it now, Lark. And you know what? It doesn’t matter now. It never did. If she got a choice or she didn’t, if she had two lives . . . I still only have one. And I have to live it without her.”
I hug him and straighten up. “So, can I play?”
Nifty gets up and kisses me on the cheek. “Yay! We all still love you, Lark. Onward, soldiers!”
“Since you’ve got your good guitar, you’d better get on and play,” Dad says. He gestures at the woman next to him. “This is Alyssa, by the way.”
I smile at her. “Nice to meet you.”
Reid grabs my hand. Sparks run from his skin to mine, and I glance over at him. Maybe, maybe, he and I have a future. In one
life. In some life.
“Come on,” he says. “Time for us to go on.”
Iona winks a panda-painted eye. “Rock chick, you’d better be good.”
I walk into Lydia’s, and my hands are trembling. The rest of the band are sitting together at a booth. And my dad is with them.
“Hey,” I say. “Look, guys, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’ve been so caught up with Alec. Please let me play the next set with you.”
Iona winks a panda-painted eye. “Rock chick, you’d better be good.”
Her words surround me like buzzing flies. I stumble onto the stage, and I don’t know what to sing. Standing here is awkward and clunky. I’m awkward and clunky. I look at the others—they must regret having me on. But they meet my panicked stare with smiles and eyebrow raises. Go, Lark, go, they seem to be saying. You can do this.
We start with silence, letting the anticipation build. I close my eyes briefly and feel the music rise in me. I’m holding my Tak, and I send a message to my mother in my mind: I hope you enjoy this.
First I sing one of the songs I’ve been working on—“Colony”—and then I do the one about choices and freedom and being split in two:
“I’m shattered glass
Shatter me, me, me
A moment in pieces
Take a shard of me
Look deeply inside for remnants
Of how we used to be
Part the water, slide in a ripple
Find yourself in time
Find me.”
As we progress from song to song, I fill myself with the feeling, let it rise through me.
I do it. I sing old songs until we have time for one more song. I don’t know for certain where the impulse comes from—but suddenly I’m sure what I want to sing next. The words come to me as fluid as water. I turn to the band.
“Guys, will you do something with me?”
Iona nods, flashing me a smile. Nifty frowns, Reid too.
I let my fingers play the opening notes. My Tak feels alive in my hands. Nifty—after a pause—gets into it and backs me up. Iona hits the drums. Reid joins us on the keyboard, a fast, repetitive melody.
Someone sings. Is it me?
“A second world, another life
I could have lived, I could have loved
Parallel you
Parallel me . . .”
We’re about to finish, when I turn to the band. “Guys, will you do something with me?”
Iona grins. Nifty frowns, and Reid too.
But I know the right song to finish this.
I let my fingers play the opening notes. The Tak feels electric in my hands. Nifty gets into it and backs me up. Iona hits the drums. Reid joins us on the keyboard, a fast, repetitive melody.
Someone sings. Is it me?
“A second world, another life
I could have lived, I could have loved
Parallel you
Parallel me
No matter how I want it
Or wish it differently
I can only be me
Only me
Let go of the other life
No need to do this differently
Be me
Be free.”
My mother. It’s her voice. Her song is beautiful. But there’s more to it than that. Suddenly the words of the song unravel—I am songwriting as I sing:
“A second world, another life
I could have lived, I could have loved
Parallel you
Parallel me.”
The band takes up the whole room with sound, the words vibrate from my mouth, and the crowd moves a little, then more.
“This is the song
That tells my story
I am only me
I am free
Let go of the other life
No need to do this differently
Be me
Be free.”
Cracks appear along the walls. Water trickles and then pours.
I don’t stop singing.
“I am free
I am only me.
This is the song
That tells my story.”
Water is filling the room now. Swirling around me.
I don’t stop singing.
“I am free
I am only me
This is the song
That tells my story.”
And in that moment, I feel her, the other Lark. We aren’t fighting anymore. We’ve come together. Through it all, we have come to this place, this moment.
With a whoosh, water sweeps me off my feet.
The Day Before: infinity point
I’m holding Reid’s hand, I’m kissing Alec, I’m stealing from a store, I’m standing on top of the world, I’m with Dad in the hospital ICU, I’m feeling Alec’s vicelike grip, oh, everything . . . Gasp. Splash. The shock of cold water. Heart clenching.
I am back here.
Annabelle is face down. Alec, blood on his face, is sinking.
Here is what I hope for: to see Alec’s eyes open, to know he’ll live; to see Annabelle spluttering up water, to know she’ll live.
Lark! DO SOMETHING!
Without hesitation, I swim.
Acknowledgements
There are always so many people to thank. Firstly, Jackie Kaiser, patient, wise and thoughtful as ever. Thank you, Hadley Dyer, Jane Warren and Suzanne Sutherland, each of you for valuable and extraordinary insights. Maria Golikova and Allyson Latta (my favourite copy editor ever), thank you for spotting every tiny detail, and for making this book so much better. Thank you, Stephanie Nuñez, for your patience and amazing eye. Thank you so much, Melissa Zilberberg and Susan Busse, too! And a huge thank you to everyone at HCC for your hard work and support.
Thank you, Logan, and the others who love parkour. Thank you, Shatille.
Thank you to Brenda Baker for her words and her thoughts. Thanks to my other early readers—you know who you are.
Thank you, Reena Welder; without you I actually wouldn’t be able to do any of this. Thanks also to my friends and family for being so much help and so much fun as I work.
Thank you, Alison Wood. For being there when the world turned upside-down. For rewriting the songs. For being you.
My four children are an endless distraction and delight—thanks, all of you, for keeping so cheerful when I have to work.
Above all, thank you, Yann. Always and forever, I am grateful and full of love. It is toward you that I swim.
About the Author
ALICE KUIPERS, the award-winning author of four youngadult novels including 40 Things I Want to Tell You and Life on the Refrigerator Door, is an expert chronicler of the teenage mind. A riveting, high-concept novel with heart, Me and Me is about what it feels like to be torn in pieces, and about finally finding out who you really are.
Web: AliceKuipers.com
Facebook: @AliceKuipersWriter
Twitter: @AliceKuipers
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Credits
Cover photo: chrisliu/Getty Images
Cover design: Amy Frueh
Copyright
Me and Me
Copyright © 2017 by Alice Kuipers.
All rights reserved under all applicable International Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
Published by HarperTrophyCanada, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
First edition
EPub Edition April 2017 EPub ISBN: 9781443448833
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