by Melinda Metz
“So you broke up with Max?” Adam asked. It had taken him all the way through one-and-a-half daytime talk shows to get up the guts to say it.
“Yeah,” Liz answered. It wasn’t a happy yeah, a now-I’m-free-to-spend-all-day-making-out-with-you-Adam yeah. It was just kind of tired and sad.
Adam was worried about her. Her eyes were all puffy, her lips turned down a tiny bit at the corners, and her aura hadn’t cleared up any.
“Is that why you decided not to go to school? Too hard to be around him right now?” Adam hated the thought that Liz could care so much about Max, even in a twisted, negative way.
But basically, that was what drew him to Liz. She was so intense about everything. He wanted to make up for every moment he’d lost in the compound, and Liz was a person who did things full out.
“No. Well, I guess it’s a side benefit,” Liz answered. “I was afraid my father would show up at school, and I don’t want to see him.” Her aura’s deep purple web darkened until it was almost black.
He wanted to do something to make her feel better. But what? Almost as soon as he asked himself the question, an idea popped into his head.
Adam turned his attention to a large section of the floor almost in the middle of the living room. There was no furniture in it. He and Michael were supposed to get some eventually.
“Do you like to trampoline?” he asked Liz.
“Huh?” She looked over at him with a distracted expression.
“Never mind. Just wait,” Adam said, smiling to himself. He concentrated on the molecules of wood in the section of the floor and used his power to push them farther apart. “Okay, now watch.” Adam stood up and walked over to the section of floor he’d modified. His feet sank into it up to his ankles. He shot a look at Liz, then he started to bounce, going so high, his head brushed against the ceiling. Maybe I should temporarily make us a hole up there so we can go even higher, he thought.
But when he looked at Liz again, he knew that wouldn’t be necessary. She had this very polite smile on her face. All he’d done was give her the extra burden of trying not to hurt his feelings.
The mole boy again proves that he has failed to grasp the basics of normal social interaction, Adam thought.
He pushed the molecules of the floor back into place, then went over and sat down next to Liz. Not too close. He knew enough to know that touching wouldn’t be welcome right now.
“I wish I knew what you were feeling,” Adam said. “I never had a fight with my dad. I mean, I never had a dad, just Sheriff Valenti. So it’s not like I can give you some great advice.”
“That’s okay,” Liz answered. She started twisting her hair into a knot. He’d noticed that she did that almost every time she felt uncomfortable.
“I never told anyone this, but after I killed the Sheriff—” Adam began.
“You didn’t kill him,” Liz interrupted. “You can’t think that way. Elsevan DuPris had control over you.”
“Yeah, well, after my body killed the sheriff and I found out what I—it—had done, I totally broke down crying the first time I was alone,” he admitted.
He glanced at Liz. She had her serious, intent look going. He wasn’t sure if this was helping her or not, but it was the only father experience he could share with her.
“I should have hated him, right?” Adam asked. “And I did hate him, too—when I found out the truth. When I found out that there was a whole world he’d locked me away from while he had me do his little experiments. But …” Adam paused, not sure how to explain the rest, even to himself.
“But what?” Liz prompted.
“But he used to read me storybooks. And he … he was nice to me. And as far as I knew, he was my dad. I felt like I belonged to him. Even when I found out how evil he really was, I guess I didn’t want him dead. It’s almost like he was part of me, you know? So how could I want him dead?” Adam answered. “Maybe locked away in the compound himself, but not dead.”
“I never thought about the sheriff dying as you losing a father,” Liz said. “But of course it felt that way to you.”
She reached over and took his hand. “Do you have these times where you totally forget he’s dead? When my sister died, there would be days where I’d get halfway home from school before I’d remember, especially right after it happened. Like I’d have a story I was planning to tell her, and then—bam!” She made a little explosion with her hands. “It would hit me.”
“That’s happened to me, too.” Adam felt a loosening in his chest. He hadn’t realized that he’d really been needing to talk to someone about this. “So when does it stop?”
Liz shrugged. “When it happens, I’ll let you know,” she answered. Then she turned her head and met his gaze. “It doesn’t happen nearly as much anymore. And the realizations are more like, I don’t know, like oh-rights than bams.”
“I thought everyone would just think I was being a moron if I actually said I felt sad about Valenti,” Adam confessed.
“Of course you were sad. He was your papa,” Liz reassured him.
But he wondered if she’d switched over to talking more about herself and her own father. If Adam could feel so much for Valenti, how much more must Liz feel for Mr. Ortecho?
“You should talk to him. Your papa,” Adam said. He wasn’t sure she’d want him butting in, but he thought she needed to hear it.
“You don’t get it,” Liz burst out. “He pretty much proved he doesn’t even know me. He probably thinks he loves me and everything, but how can you love what you don’t know?”
“So you’re just going to run away?” he demanded. “That’s not you, Liz. You fight for things. You want him to know you—make it happen.”
“Make it happen,” Liz repeated. She snorted.
“Yeah, make it happen,” Adam insisted. “You helped break Michael out of the Clean Slate compound. You faked out Elsevan DuPris’s bounty hunters. You practically even brought Max back from the dead, the way he tells it. You make things happen all the time. Impossible things.”
Liz didn’t say anything. She took her hand away and pulled her hair free from its knot, then immediately started twisting her hair back up again.
“You know what’s going to happen if you don’t, right?” Adam asked. He knew what he was about to say would probably hurt her, but he had to do it, anyway.
Liz shook her head.
“If you don’t, someday you’re going to be coming home from school—or the job you get after college, or whatever—and you’ll be all excited about telling your father some great thing that happened to you. Or even some awful thing,” Adam explained. “And then—bam!—it will hit you. You don’t talk to your papa anymore.”
Max’s eyes went right to the group’s usual table as soon as he entered the cafeteria. He felt a little of the tension flow out of his body when he spotted Michael sitting there. He hurried over.
“You’re alive,” he said.
Michael shot him an angry look, and Max belatedly realized this wasn’t exactly the time for humor, not that it had exactly been humor.
“I stopped by your place this morning, but you weren’t there,” he continued. “We need to talk.” He saw Isabel and Alex heading toward them. Maria would probably show up any second. “Alone, okay?”
“Whatever.” Michael didn’t sound too happy about it, but he shoved himself up from the table and followed Max to the bio lab. Max knew nobody would be hanging around in there at lunch. At least since Liz wasn’t at school today.
He clamped down hard on the pain that shot through him when he thought about her. He couldn’t deal with the Liz thing and the Michael thing at the same time. Even separately felt almost impossible.
“You wanted to talk, so talk,” Michael said, leaning against one of the lab station counters.
“I wondered what you were able to find out from Trevor last night,” Max told him.
“I wasn’t trying to find out anything,” Michael shot back. He picked up one of the Bunsen burner strikers
and flicked it, producing a few sparks. “I wasn’t with him to do some kind of undercover work for you.”
“I didn’t mean it that way.” Max slumped down on one of the tall stools across from Michael. “Look, according to the consciousness, Trevor could be a threat to all of us. You should have felt the fury coming off the beings when I sent out an image of him.”
Max saw Michael stiffen, and he rushed on before Michael could interrupt him. “I didn’t get any sense that Trevor is a killer, but that’s what Alex felt from him in the wormhole. I just want to know if there’s anything you and Trevor talked about that will help me get all this straight.”
Michael flicked the striker a few more times, then tossed it behind him. “Have you ever considered the possibility that the consciousness could be lying to you?”
It was as if Michael had sucker punched him. Max actually felt a little dizzy, a little wobbly perched on the stool. He stuck one foot down to steady himself.
Max had linked himself to the consciousness for life. He was a part of it. It was a part of him. If it could lie … if it could have some kind of evil intent …
No. Impossible. His parents were part of the consciousness. Ray was part of the consciousness.
“The consciousness isn’t a single entity,” Max explained, talking to himself as much as Michael. “It’s an immense collection of beings—the number of them is practically unfathomable. I don’t get how something of that size and structure could lie.”
“Well, how do you explain the fact that Trevor went through his akino and lived?” Michael asked. “I mean, according to the consciousness, you don’t join, you die.”
Wait, did that mean Max hadn’t had to join? Did that mean—
Max shook his head. He realized there was a very obvious answer to Michael’s question. But it didn’t seem that Michael had given it a thought.
“Have you ever considered the possibility that Trevor could be lying to you?” Max asked, trying very hard to keep his tone nonconfrontational.
“He’s my brother,” Michael answered, as if that said it all.
Max stood up so fast, he knocked the stool over. “So am I,” he insisted. “In every way that matters, I’m your brother, too.”
Didn’t Michael get it? Didn’t he understand that the bond between them was deeper than the one created by being born of the same parents? He and Michael had shared every important experience of their lives. Michael and Trevor were practically strangers.
“If that’s true, if you’re my brother, then why don’t you trust me?” Michael exploded. He shoved himself away from the counter. “I’m out of here.”
Max watched him leave. He wanted to call Michael back, but what was the point? Michael had made his choice.
Max stood up and turned on the faucet next to him. He stuck his face under and let the water pour over him until his skin turned numb with cold. Then he snapped off the faucet and dried himself off with one of the rough brown paper towels.
Then he heard a little squeaking behind him.
“You’re not going to give me grief, too, are you, Fred?” he asked. He walked over to the cage of white mice and pulled out the skinniest one. He stared into its little red eyes. “Remember, you owe me. I saved your life once. I saved Michael and Liz’s lives too, not that they’re bothering to be grateful.”
Fred squeaked again. Max pretended he could understand him. “Yeah, I know.” Max sighed. “They’ve saved my life at least once each. So I should go try and work things out with them before someone wanders by and sees me going all Doctor Doolittle.”
He put Fred back in the cage, then felt a tingle of curiosity from the consciousness. No. No way. There are some things I won’t do, he thought.
The tingle grew to an insistent electric sizzle.
“Okay, fine,” Max muttered. He picked up one of the food pellets from the mice’s dish and popped it into his mouth.
The blend of flavors was more complex than he’d expected. He closed his eyes and chewed slowly, sharing the experience with the other beings.
Liz pulled out her key and then stood there on the porch, staring at her front door. Adam is right, she told herself. You have to do this. You have to at least try.
She slid her key into the lock, but before she could turn it, the door flew open and she was in her mother’s arms.
“Mija, we were so worried. Where were you?” She pulled away and gave Liz’s shoulders a little shake, then hugged her again.
“I stayed with friends,” Liz said when her mama finally let her go. “I couldn’t be in the same house with Papa. I just couldn’t.”
Her mother was wearing the same overalls she’d had on last night. She looked as if she hadn’t slept at all. “Liz, your father loves you more than life. You know that, don’t you?”
“He doesn’t even know me. I know that you don’t think I’m like … I shouldn’t have said that to you. But Papa does,” Liz said softly. “He thinks I’m this person who needs to be under a twenty-four/seven drug overdose prevention watch.” Liz felt tears sting her eyes, and she blinked them away.
“He just wants you to be safe,” her mother answered. She turned Liz around and gave her a gentle push down the hall. “He’s in the backyard. Go talk to him.”
Liz hesitated. Isn’t this what you came here for? she asked herself. Then she strode directly to the big glass door, slid it open, and stepped outside. Her father was lying on the grass with his eyes shut.
Automatically she listened for the music that would give her a clue to how her papa was feeling. But the backyard was silent. It was so weird. Her father even had one of those waterproof radios. He couldn’t stand to be without his tunes long enough to take a shower.
Liz took a step forward, then glanced back toward the house. Maybe she should go get her mother. Maybe it would be better to do this as a three-way talk. Maybe—
“Did she call yet?” Liz’s papa asked, without opening his eyes.
“Aren’t you cold?” Liz said. He wasn’t even wearing a jacket.
Her father sat up slowly and shoved himself around to face her. She waited for him to start yelling or to at least say something, but he didn’t. What was he thinking? Was he waiting for her to apologize, or—
Just say what you’ve got to say, she told herself. “I have a question,” she announced. “Do you think it’s possible for someone to be—at least very likely be—valedictorian while getting high on a regular basis?” she asked. “Do you think someone doing tons of drugs would remember to call every time she wasn’t going to come home straight after school? Or—”
Liz had almost half a lifetime of examples, but her throat had gotten too tight for any more words of her logical argument to squeak through. I’m going to cry, she thought, horrified. She never cried in front of her parents. Never. It was part of being the daughter who made up for the daughter who died.
And suddenly she was sobbing, sobbing as hard as she had in the museum. But now no one’s arms were around her. Now she was standing all alone, with her father miles and miles away, just looking at her.
“I tried … everything perfect,” she choked out. “Grades … at the Crashdown … room clean. God, everything.” Liz swiped her arm across her eyes, but the tears kept coming. She rushed on. “Can’t do anything to make Mama and Papa worry. Can’t do anything that might scare them … and make them think that I … that I was going to turn out like Rosa. Have to be perfect, perfect, perfect.”
“Well, you’re not perfect,” her father said. He pushed himself to his feet with a little grunt but didn’t move toward her. “You always hog all your abuela’s green sauce.”
A surprised laugh escaped Liz. She wiped away her tears again, and this time they stayed gone.
Her papa smiled at her. “See, I know you. Rosa liked red sauce, Liz likes green sauce. Rosa liked to color, and Liz played Roller Derby in the driveway. Rosa always said, ‘Papa, tell me a story.’ And Liz always said, ‘Papa, I have a question.’” He
shook his head. “You used to ask me the most amazing things. ‘Papa, I have a question—do butterflies remember that they used to be caterpillars, or do they look at caterpillars and just think, eww, gross?’”
“I don’t remember that,” Liz admitted.
“I do. I remember everything about you,” her father answered. He walked over and took her hand, the way he used to when she was a little girl. It almost made Liz start to cry again.
“I know you’re not Rosa,” he said, meeting her gaze squarely and directly. “You have never given me any reason to think that you were getting yourself into the kind of danger she was.” He squeezed her hand. “But I didn’t see it in Rosa. I was her papa, and I didn’t see it. I have to live with that. But I don’t … I can’t …”
“I know, I know,” Liz answered. She squeezed his hand back. “You won’t have to. I promise.”
They started toward the house, then Liz’s father paused and pointed up to the flying pig weather vane on the top of their house. “Remember how Rosa used to say that I bought that just so she’d be too embarrassed to have any of her friends come over?”
Liz smiled. It was like now that he’d finally started talking about Rosa, he couldn’t stop.
“Yeah, she even had a name for it. What was it?” Liz asked.
“It kept changing. Mr. Sausagestuff was one of the less raunchy ones,” he answered. He led her to the sliding door, and he didn’t drop her hand when they stepped inside.
“Papa, I have a question,” Liz said. Then she stopped herself. In the last few minutes they’d talked more about Rosa than they had since she died. But maybe her question would be pushing things too far.
“What? Ask it,” her father urged, sensing her hesitation.
“I was wondering what happened to all the pictures of Rosa,” Liz said. “There’s not even one in the whole house, and I—I miss them.”
Her father’s grip on her hand tightened painfully. Liz shot a worried glance at his face. There were tears in his eyes. Liz didn’t think she’d ever seen her papa even this close to crying.
“It’s not important,” Liz said quickly. She’d hurt him, maybe more than he could bear. Why did she—
