The Collide

by Kimberly McCreight

  Gideon and I drive on for another twenty minutes, exchanging harmless chitchat between long pockets of silence. How was your cellmate? Very nice. What’s the food like? Very bad. Did anyone try to beat you up? No. Every time I open my mouth and don’t tell him our mom is alive, I feel even more like a liar.

  I’m relieved when we’re finally pulling into downtown Newton. It looks exactly as it did when I left but feels weirdly unfamiliar. It isn’t until we’ve made the next right that I realize we’ve turned down Cassie’s street. And, up ahead, there it is: Cassie’s house, with its gingerbread peaked roof and ivy-covered facade, picture-perfect as ever. I feel the moment Gideon realizes his mistake. He may not be an Outlier, but he’s not an idiot.

  “Oh, um, I— Crap.” He slams on the brakes so hard, I brace myself against the dashboard to avoid bashing my face. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I can just turn around if you—”

  “No.” And even I’m surprised by how forcefully it comes out. I don’t really know why. “I haven’t, um, been here since her funeral. I don’t know . . . I kind of want to see her house.”

  Want is the wrong word. Need would be more accurate. Like obsessively must. It feels as though some kind of essential truth is buried in the past—Cassie’s past, our past. Like we will only break free of this terrible loop of heartbreak and loss after we force ourselves back to the start.

  “Pull over there, just for a minute?” I point toward a nearby curb.

  “Seriously?” Gideon asks, gripping the steering wheel even tighter, hunched over it now like an old man. He feels way out of his depth with the driving, not to mention managing me. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” I lie. Luckily, Gideon has no way of knowing that. “Please, just for a minute.”

  Finally, Gideon lurches to a stop at the side of the road. The house looks exactly the same. It’s only been two months since Cassie’s funeral; still I expected more decomposition. Maybe this is why I needed to stop here: to be reminded that the world rages on no matter how many of us are cut down by its wake.

  No, it’s not that. That sounds good, but that’s not why I’m here. It’s something else. Something more specific. Cassie’s house. Cassie’s house. Why?

  Cassie’s journal, maybe? It could be. Jasper and I never did figure out who mailed him those pages.

  “WHO CARES WHO sent them?” Jasper asked.

  We were sitting across the table from each other in the detention facility visiting room. Day thirteen of my incarceration, day thirteen of Jasper faithfully coming to see me. He sat, as he always did, with his hands tucked under his legs against the hard plastic chair. So he’d remember not to try to hold my hand. He’d forgotten once and had almost been permanently banned. No touching. No exchanging of objects. Shirt and shoes required. There weren’t many rules. But they were enforced like nobody’s business.

  “I care who sent them,” I said. “It makes me nervous not to know. It should make you nervous, too.”

  “Nervous?” Jasper asked. I looked for an edge in his voice. Everything always makes you nervous. But he didn’t mean it that way. Jasper wasn’t about subtext. It was one of the things I loved about him.

  Yeah, loved. I hadn’t said it to him yet. It was more like an idea I was trying on for size. But so far it fit. Much better than I would have thought. And I kept waiting for that to make me feel stupid, like I’d been tricked into something. But instead it felt like I’d trusted my way there.

  “We should at least investigate,” I said.

  “It was Maia. We already decided that.”

  “You decided,” I said. “I want confirmation.”

  “Wait, you’re not jealous, are you?” Jasper teased. I shot him a look, and he held up his hands. “Sorry, bad joke.”

  And then he blushed, like actual red cheeks, which was kind of old-fashioned. But then our whole two-week-long detention facility courtship had been all chaste conversation and hands to ourselves, in twenty-six-minute, guard-supervised increments. The truth was—despite what we’d been through—Jasper and I didn’t know each other that well. But as we unfolded slowly in front of each other, we slid more tightly into place.

  Turned out, Jasper was goofy. Much more so than I realized. And so brutally, heartbreakingly sensitive underneath. He talked about his dad a lot, what it meant to be afraid you were going to become something you hated. He used that fear to explain how he kind of understood my anxiety. In a way, sort of. And I didn’t get the connection. But I loved Jasper for trying to make one.

  “I’m going to need to hear Maia say it was her who sent the journal pages before I’ll believe it,” I said. “Otherwise, it’s going to nag at me.”

  Jasper’s face softened. “You want me to go ask Maia?” It was a token offer.

  I nodded anyway. “Yes, please.”

  Jasper took a breath and closed his eyes. “Okay,” he said, drawing out the word. “But only because I . . .” The color rushed back into his cheeks. He waited a beat before looking up at me. “For you, I will. But only for you.”

  BUT SITTING HERE now, staring up at Cassie’s house, it occurs to me that it’s stupid to bother asking Maia. She’ll just deny it. And so maybe that’s why I wanted to stop here, to ask Cassie’s mom, Karen. She can tell us whether Maia has ever been in Cassie’s room alone with the diary. She might even know something more.

  “I need to ask Karen one quick thing,” I say, unbuckling my seat belt and opening the door. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Seriously?” Gideon asks, but I’m already halfway out the door. “Ugh, then I’m coming with you.”

  It isn’t until I’m on the front walk that I notice the weeds poking up between the stones. The house is disintegrating more than I realized. Karen probably is, too.

  “Can I help you?” a woman calls from the neighboring yard before we’re even at the door. Her voice is sharp, unwelcoming.

  When I turn, there’s Mrs. Dominic, Cassie’s grumpy, gray-haired neighbor, wearing a lime-green sweat suit, a grocery bag gripped against her right side, even though it seems awfully early to be getting back from shopping. Cassie never liked Mrs. Dominic. And I am pretty sure I’m about to find out why.

  “We’re here for Karen,” Gideon says when I stay silent.

  Mrs. Dominic peers closer, looks us up and down. We are up to no good. It’s been decided. She takes two steps closer so that she’s almost on Cassie’s lawn. But not quite.

  “Why?” she asks.

  My stomach churns icily—my own anxiety this time. But it’s followed then by that now-familiar prickly, Outlier heat. That’s all about Mrs. Dominic. She’s too aggravated by us, too interested. All wrong. I don’t want to tell her anything. And really, what business are we of hers?

  I force a smile. “Thank you,” I say firmly. “But we’re fine.”

  As though she had offered her help, not her suspicion.

  “Well, Karen’s not in there anyway. No one is,” Mrs. Dominic says, happy to disappoint us. “She went away.”

  “Went away where?” I ask, feeling far too devastated, I know.

  Mrs. Dominic rocks back on her heels. “I’m afraid I can’t say.” Can’t clearly means won’t. “After what that poor woman went through, it’s no surprise she couldn’t stay here. Why don’t you give me your information? I’ll pass it on when she gets back.”

  This is an excuse to get our names. She has no intention of passing on anything. To her credit, she is pretty convincing. Or she would be for someone who isn’t me.

  “That’s okay.” I tug Gideon by the arm. “We were just going.”

  EndOfDays Blog

  November 5

  It is critical that we all stand ready when called upon to do what is right. Whatever it might cost each of us personally. Love of the Lord requires sacrifice. That is how we show that we are loyal servants to a higher power.

  If we expect to see the benefits of being devout in our own lives, we must be willing to sacrifice so that we c
an show we are deserving of all that has been sacrificed for us. And one thing we cannot allow is a world intent on racing to the next scientific discovery at the cost of innocent lives.

  We must be willing to stand up to such forces. We must be willing to fight righteously for the innocent and the weak. Whatever the cost.

  Go in peace, everyone. To the light.

  RIEL

  RIEL LIES IN LEO’S NARROW BED. EYES WIDE OPEN IN THE DARK. WITH INSOMNIAC Leo’s super-shades down, it’s pitch-black in his room, even though it’s nearly eight a.m. As Leo breathes heavily in his sleep, Riel tries to imagine a night sky above filled with stars. Purple-blue blackness and pinpricks of light. Like glitter. Her sister, Kelsey, loved to do shit like that. To look up at the stars. Pretend they were there, even when they weren’t. But all Riel sees is blackness. That’s all she’s ever seen.

  Riel shifts in bed, curls up closer to Leo. Hopes his steady breathing will put her back to sleep. It won’t, though. It never does.

  Once, after their parents died, Kelsey slept outside in the freezing cold just so she could feel “close to them.” To the stars? To their parents? Riel didn’t ask. Kelsey’s explanations always made things worse.

  Kelsey was an old soul, though, a sensitive spirit. An artist, born short a layer of skin. Not just because she was an Outlier, either. Riel’s an Outlier, but she’s always been hard as nails. She’d survive a goddamn nuclear winter, even when she was trying to die.

  Riel had been eighteen and a freshman at Harvard, Kelsey only sixteen, when their parents died last November. Swept away in a flash flood while building temporary housing in Arkansas. Because that was the kind of people they were. Good people. People who died doing the right thing.

  Doing good was what Riel had intended with Level99. And maybe that even was what she was doing before Quentin came along in April, only weeks after Kelsey died. Riel was still shredded by her grief, and Quentin made it sound like Kelsey could still be alive if it wasn’t for one ambitious asshole: Dr. Ben Lang. Dr. Lang cared only about his new discovery—these Outliers—making him rich. And so, Riel had decided the only thing that mattered was making him pay. She could tell Quentin was an ass from the start, of course. An untrustworthy narcissist. But that had mattered less than seeing to it that Dr. Lang got what was coming to him.

  Deep down, she’d also probably known that Kelsey had been doomed from the start, regardless of Dr. Ben Lang. That finding out she was an Outlier wouldn’t have changed a damn thing. Maybe being an Outlier didn’t make things easier, but it wasn’t her whole problem either. Kelsey had started drinking way before their parents died. Riel had heard them talking about getting Kelsey help. But then they were dead. The drugs didn’t start until after their funeral. Pot, then pills. Kelsey flew downhill like she was on a damn toboggan.

  Riel had reached out to grab her, but she was already gone.

  “WAIT, WHO ARE you going with?” Riel asked that last night, as Kelsey raced around her still girlish bedroom—pink walls, boy band posters—getting dressed. It was March, six months since their parents’ deaths. For the first time, Kelsey seemed happy, and not because she was high out of her mind.

  “My friend,” Kelsey said, fussing with her amazing head of dark curls. She was beautiful, but in a soft, graceful way. Riel was beautiful, too, but not that way.

  “What friend?”

  “You know, the one I met at the museum. Grace-Ann.”

  “Grace-Ann. Right. Are you sure that’s even her name?”

  “Why wouldn’t that be her name?” Kelsey asked with a laugh.

  “I don’t know. It sounds made up. Like from Little House on the Prairie or something. Anyway, this Grace-Ann’s party is out in the middle of nowhere?” Riel had a bad feeling about this party. A really bad one. She’d had a bad feeling about this Grace-Ann girl, too, from the first time Kelsey mentioned her. “You live ten minutes from the middle of Boston. Go out there.”

  “It’s her party and that’s where she lives. In a group home, by the way. Because she lost her parents, too. They took off, they didn’t die, but same idea.” Kelsey stopped fussing and turned to Riel. Sadness welled up in her, Riel could feel it. “She and I have that in common, and it makes me feel better. Okay? Besides, it sounds fun. The party’s in some old research place. Nothing illegal. Just fun. Nothing sounds fun anymore.”

  Grace-Ann was the same girl Kelsey had spent much of the winter with, trolling the nearby university campuses, looking for boys. One time, they’d ended up stumbling into some psych test and using the twenty-buck stipend to buy beer. Riel was glad it hadn’t been Harvard. There was no chance she knew the boys they’d shared those beers with. Still, so many risks. Too many.

  “No,” Riel said. “You’re not going.”

  “No?” Kelsey laughed.

  “No,” Riel repeated, crossing her arms. “I have a bad feeling. You can’t go.”

  Kelsey just laughed harder. “Listen, I love you, Rie-Rie,” she said. “But seriously, what are you going to do to stop me?” She came over to hug Riel. “Don’t worry, I’ll be careful. I promise.”

  Because that was the truth: Riel was in charge without being in charge. All she could do was stand there at the edge of the road, silently screaming Watch out! as her sister hurtled headlong into oncoming traffic.

  THE NEXT MORNING, Kelsey’s bed was empty and unslept in. It wasn’t until Riel had searched the entire house and thought over and over, I could have stopped her, I should have stopped her, I could have stopped her, that she finally looked out the window. And spotted something. On the driveway.

  Riel raced out the front door. Heart thumping. Body shaking. Already dialing 911 on the cell phone gripped in her hand. But when she finally reached Kelsey splayed out there, she could see it was far too late for help. Her sister was stiff and blue. Hours dead. Dumped, by Grace-Ann, no doubt, some girl without parents or a face and maybe a made-up name. Some girl Riel couldn’t find to blame.

  And so, in the end, Dr. Ben Lang had to do.

  ACCORDING TO WYLIE, somebody had written about that psych test in her and Kelsey’s copy of 1984. But that someone hadn’t been Kelsey. She’d had no way of knowing at the time that that test she’d taken had anything to do with the Outliers. It had just been about the boys and the twenty bucks and the beer and that terrible bullshit friend. It must have been that “fake Kelsey” Wylie had met.

  Leo stirs finally. Without realizing it, Riel has been squeezing him too hard.

  “Close your eyes,” he whispers. Though she is behind him, he knows. “Try to go back to sleep.”

  Leo doesn’t ask what’s wrong. He never does. He doesn’t ask questions. Doesn’t expect answers. It’s why Riel stays. That, and because she loves Leo. Someday, she might even tell him. But then, she has an unfair advantage. She can already feel Leo loves her.

  She stares at Leo’s back. “I’ve already been up for too long.”

  “I could make you tea.”

  Her dad would have liked Leo and his random cups of tea. Her mom would have approved of his loyalty. I can’t stop thinking about Kelsey. That’s the truth, but Riel doesn’t say that. If she does, she might cry. And once she starts, she’ll never fucking stop. As it is, her grip is slipping.

  “There are people following me,” Riel says finally. This isn’t what she was thinking about. But maybe it should be. It’s definitely a good distraction from Kelsey.

  “What?” Leo asks, sounding more alarmed than she was prepared for. He pushes himself up in bed and turns to look at her. Riel wishes she hadn’t said anything. “Who’s following you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Though she has her suspicions. The agents who had showed up at her grandfather’s house, namely.

  “IT’S IMPERATIVE THAT we find Wylie Lang,” Agent Klute declared once Riel had finally returned to the front door of her grandfather’s Cape house. By then, Wylie and Jasper had stroked safely into the darkness.

  Klute was super piss
ed, too. Riel could feel how bad he wanted to slap the smug look off her face. And so she invited him in real sweetly. Just to get under his skin.

  “Oh, do come in and look for her yourself,” she said, waving a gracious hand. “She’s not here. And I’ve got nothing to hide.”

  Klute didn’t move, though—nothing like someone getting what they want to throw them off.

  “Um,” Riel said. “Are you coming in or not?”

  “Yeah, we’re coming in,” Klute said finally, waving her to the side and stepping in the door.

  “Like I said, Wylie’s not here,” Riel said when Klute and his partner had finally pounded around the upstairs and downstairs. “Her dad, Dr. Lang, went missing in DC. She probably went there to look for him. Maybe she’ll even run into Granddad while she’s there?”

  Agent Klute didn’t look Riel’s way, but she felt the split-second tremor when she mentioned Dr. Lang. It was unmistakable. There was a connection between Dr. Lang and her grandfather, no doubt. They might have followed Jasper’s phone, but that wasn’t the only reason these agents were at her grandfather’s house. Not by a long shot.

  Hours later, after the agents had thoroughly searched the house and the grounds, once and then again, and they’d asked every possible question in at least three different ways, they finally let Riel and Leo go. Or to be more precise, they kicked them out of Riel’s grandfather’s house.

  Agent Klute got into Riel’s face on her way out. “And stay away from Wylie Lang,” he growled. “Stay away from this entire situation.”

  “What situation?” Riel asked snidely. Violence. A wave of it from Agent Klute. So strong, it almost took Riel’s breath away. “Maybe if you explain—”