Future Imperfect

by K Ryer Breese

  Slapping me on the back, Clyde says, “Concussions. Can’t be good, dude.”

  We go to Watson’s, this ice-cream parlor/soda fountain place that’s supposed to be like something in the 1950s. Vauxhall shares a float with me. The two of us like the dogs in that Disney cartoon drinking from the same frosty mug. She laughs so loudly that it startles me when she does. We laugh so much that by the time we say bye to Clyde and Ambrosia, my sides are aching and my throat is dry.

  I drive to Wash Park and we walk around the lake. There are other people out even though the moon has vanished. Near the playground we sit on a bench and Vauxhall asks me about why she was in my vision. She says, “Tell me why you think it was me?”

  “Destiny? Fate?”

  “You believe in those things?”

  Ducks spin lazily in the lake. Bats dart above us. Cars backfire.

  “Not really. You?”

  Vaux mumbles something. Her face smooth like it’s under filigree.

  She asks me if I’m disappointed.

  “With?”

  “Me. Two years you’ve been waiting and here I am. Me, not your dream girl.”

  “You’re even more amazing than I imagined.”

  “And?”

  I shrug. “What else?”

  She reads my sincerity, smiles. “Nothing. Give me a hug.”

  And what’s crazy is that all we do is hug.

  It’s brief, but just having Vauxhall’s body that close to mine is exhilarating. Feeling the warmth of her, the shape of her, pressed against most of me, I never want the moment to end.

  Vauxhall says, “It’s so private. The most private thing.”

  I realize she’s talking about the other guys. All the other guys.

  “You love any of them?” I ask.

  Vauxhall shakes her head. “In some way. That bad?”

  “No. I don’t-”

  “It’s the stories inside them. Each and every one has something hidden, something like a tumor inside them that’s eating them alive only they don’t know it. Me, I find that tumor, I bring it to light. I change their lives. And these guys, most of them just melt into nothing. They become children again.”

  “And the Buzz. The high.”

  “Right.” Vauxhall smiles and closes her eyes briefly. “The high.”

  “If you didn’t have the high. Would you…?”

  “-”

  I clear my throat. “I don’t want to end up eighty by the time I’m thirty-five. I don’t want someone to be changing my diaper. I want to remember all this.”

  Vauxhall looks at me, her bottom lip trembles slightly like she’s going to say something heavy but then she swallows that back down and says, instead, “Are you asking me to stop?”

  I shrug. “I’m just telling you what I’m doing.”

  “I’m happy for you, Ade. Really happy.”

  “But you’re not going to…?”

  Vauxhall looks like she’s holding back tears. Her face is all scrunched the way a dam scrunches into a valley to hold back a river. She shakes her head. Says, “I’m not sure I’m ready. I want to be. Really want to be. But-”

  “Vaux, those guys, you ever think that maybe what you tell them they don’t really want to know? You ever think that stuff’s hidden for a reason?”

  Vaux shakes her head. “Not at all.”

  “And how about the fact that maybe they don’t care about what you tell them? Maybe they’re just happy to get laid? Maybe they just want to grab your tits and… I know it’s harsh, but maybe they-”

  “You haven’t seen their eyes,” Vaux interrupts.

  “Okay. You’re right.”

  Vaux, “Ade, it’s beautiful. Not about the sex. Or the high.”

  I say, “I believe you.”

  But I don’t believe her. I know her too well already.

  Vaux hugs me. Holds me tight to her, so tight I can almost feel her heart beating through the cacophony of mine. And then I go in to kiss her and she turns away biting her lip and shaking her head. She says, “I want things to be different with you, Ade. I don’t want the same thing.”

  FIVE

  We sit in silence.

  Far away a car backfires or someone is shot.

  I turn to Vaux and put a hand on her knee. It’s gutsy but it feels right.

  She doesn’t pull away.

  I say, “I know that I love you.”

  Vaux’s eyes don’t widen. Her lips don’t quiver. Her cheeks do flush, though. She says, “I don’t know what I can say to that, Ade.”

  “You don’t have to say anything. I just want to say it.”

  “Two years, huh?”

  “Two.”

  “And you’re sure I’m the girl. I mean you’ve never been mistaken before.”

  “I’m sure.”

  A tear forms in the crease of Vauxhall’s left eye. Just a bubble at first, but it spills over and down her cheek quickly. Just glides down. And I want to reach up and wipe it off with the softest part of my hand, but I don’t.

  She lets the tear go. Says, “You don’t know how hard it is for me. To be me.”

  “-”

  Vaux clears her throat. More tears fall. “Do you want to know why I transferred here? Why I came to Mantlo?”

  I ask, “Not for film?”

  “Not just for film.”

  Vaux stops there and cries. Openly. Tears pour down her face and spot her shirt and I sit watching, starting into her eyes. My hand still on her knee, I squeeze it. Vaux turns away. Wipes her face with the back of her hand and laughs.

  Vaux says, “You won’t believe it, but I came here to quit.”

  “Quit?”

  “Like you did. Cold turkey. Abstinence. Hasn’t really worked, though.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me the-”

  “You saw me at the party,” Vauxhall says. “I’m weak.”

  “You’re not. Not at all.”

  Vaux smiles, tears bending around her cheeks. “That’s sweet, but I am. I thought when I came to Mantlo that things would be different. Different people. Different scene. The pressure wouldn’t be there, you know? But it’s already started. I can just feel myself slipping back…”

  “-”

  “My last school, I was kind of run out,” Vaux says, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “Not like you see in movies or anything. No pitchforks. No torches. It was psychological. Over time. Really, it was a small group of girls, just five bitches, but the principal wouldn’t take it seriously. Not the teachers either. Not the parents. No one tried to stop the name-calling. The torment. They called me ‘easy’ at first. Like that’s genteel. Didn’t last long because then it was ‘slut’ and ‘whore.’ Even my friends, people I went to school with since kindergarten, were saying horrible things about me. This is out loud. This is in the hallways they’re saying it. Shouting it. At a party, once, a group of guys tried to rape me. I’d avoid lines because inevitably some guy would try and grope me. They all acted pissed when I’d shout them off. They’d say, ‘Why so suddenly stuck-up?’ and ‘What sort of tease are you?’ I was going home crying every day. Not wanting anything to do with school. Sobbing on the bus to-”

  Vaux closes her eyes. Takes a deep breath in.

  I don’t know what to say. My heart lurches around. It’s vulgar the way it’s moving. “The world is full of bastards. It seems like every third person I ever meet is revolting. Stupid. Bitter. There are these families of these people. Generations of them. I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to really get away.”

  I squeeze Vaux’s knee again.

  I say, “No one could hate you. You’re amazing.”

  Vaux laughs. She says, “It’s my body. It was made for my ability. For me to do what I do. You can’t even imagine what it’s like living with this body. Before the high, it was only torment. Being a guy, I’m sure you don’t get it. I’ve been whistled at since I was twelve. Stared at. Spat at by girls. These…” Vaux puts her hands on her breasts and squeezes.
>
  Part of me faints dead away.

  She says, “When my boobs started to develop, my mom sat me down and told me how it was with her. All the same stuff, only it was in the sixties and men didn’t have the social pressure to behave themselves like they do now. Battle of the sexes couldn’t be more true.”

  I lift my hand from Vaux’s leg.

  She puts it back. Says, “I got the nastiest looks from girls. From the jealous ones who still wore training bras. There were other girls like me, though. Girls betrayed too early by their bodies. A clique of us, all these girls in big sweatshirts and coats. Scarves and frumpy dresses. My friend, Carla, she was the first the boys really noticed. They moved in like jackals. She was too aware of the attention it got her. Just the year before not a single boy would talk to her, but then, boom! And she took advantage of it. Let them touch her so long as they took her out. So long as they stayed friends. Not me. I didn’t let my body cheat me that way. It pushed out and I pushed back. Back then, and this will sound crazy, but the boys, they all called me stuck-up. They said mean, wicked things but the opposite. I didn’t cave. Then I met a boy I liked and we kissed and I felt something. This was freshman year and we dated for about two months. He was a senior. Things got…” Vaux pauses, asks, “Is it okay for me to talk to you about this?”

  Already I can feel the muscles at the back of my neck straining. I just clench my jaw and nod.

  Vaux gives me a smile.

  Sitting there, my hand on her knee, she talks to me about the first time she got together with her first real boyfriend. How afterward she felt this rush, just barreling up her body and slamming into her brain, and how she saw, with this ex-guy in her arms, she saw him in this plane crash as an infant. How even though his brain was barely developed enough to process the memories, they were still there almost as fresh as if it had happened yesterday. The high, Vauxhall explains, afterward, it was like spiraling up into the sky and then over the sun and crashing down into cotton candy. Everything of her was vibrating. Everything felt alive.

  Vaux says, “We broke up a week later. And then, I just needed to be in that place again. To have that feeling again. Parties. I’m embarrassed by some of the things I’ve done. That I still do. But I…” And she shakes her head.

  “I know,” I say. “I know.”

  Vauxhall asks, “Want to know why I sang to you?”

  “Of course.”

  “When I first walked into the lunchroom I saw you sitting with your friend and the first thing I thought was that you were incredibly cute. Only all jacked up with bruises in a prizefighter sort of way. I saw you sitting there, with Paige, and I got jealous. It sounds silly, but I wanted you all for myself the moment I saw you. I wanted you-”

  “You saw me and thought, Hmmm, wonder what’s in that dude’s past that he doesn’t know about?”

  “No.”

  “What, then?”

  Vaux’s face relaxes, the tears stop. “I don’t know what it was, this feeling, this flutter, but when I saw you, I knew you’d understand me. I knew you’d help me. Maybe you’d even love me.”

  “I do.”

  “I know. At first, it scared the hell out of me.”

  I get closer. So close I can feel the warmth radiating off her skin. “And now?”

  And now we kiss.

  Finally.

  Vaux’s lips are softer than anything I’d ever imagined. Moist too. They are perfect and as my lips sink into hers, it’s like I’m swimming. I’m pushing through the crystal water around the Great Barrier Reef. I’m slipping into a shallow sea.

  Looking deep into me, Vaux says, “Were you scared to stop?”

  “Yes but not for long.”

  Vaux whispers, “I’m scared.”

  “I know-”

  “And really anxious.”

  “I’m here for you. I love you.”

  And we kiss again. Hard.

  What happens in my chest is hard to describe. It’s something I imagine only happens in the deepest parts of space. It’s when a star collapses. Or is born. A supernova flowering into existence. What happens in my body is nothing short of miraculous. Every fiber connecting to every muscle and every tendon and every bone. All of it comes alive. All of it hums with a beautiful energy. A song.

  This is magic greater than any concussive high.

  My head clearer than it’s ever been, like it’s floating up into the sky, gliding over the treetops and scuffing roofs.

  And then we leave.

  On the doorstep to Vaux’s house, I don’t try to kiss her. I just hold her hand and look her in the eyes and tell her I’ll see her soon. I tell her to sleep tight. I say, “I’ll never leave you.”

  An hour later, at home, lying awake in bed, I’m trying to will every cell in my body to remember the feel of her, the weight of her, against me.

  My pillow is a terrible stand-in.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ONE

  Dark Lord von Ravengate,

  Cool spell. Thanks for sending it over. Not sure exactly what it’s supposed to do, but if I am ever threatened by anything spooky while I’m out, it’s good to know I’ve got backup. Supernatural or not.

  You know, you raised some good questions. Here I’ve been asking all these experts to help explain this thing to me, why I can do what I can, and all the answers I get are vague. You’re the only one so far who’s given me any “definitive” answer, even if it’s not what I was expecting to hear. I suppose you’re right: It doesn’t really matter how I got the ability or if anyone believes me. I need to just accept that.

  What if it really is a parallel dimension? That’s a new suggestion. Not even the physics prof came up with that one. It’s a good idea, but I don’t like it. Not because it doesn’t make sense but because, in the long run, it means that I will just end up a vegetable. If what I see is just another me in another, parallel place, then that’s jacked. I’m jacked. Let’s hope that’s not true.

  I wish I could help you more, Heinz. But my schedule, what with school (I know, I know) and my mom and this whole new blossoming romance, I just don’t think I could man the booth at the mall with you. Thanks for asking, though.

  And if I ever do see crimson, enflamed sigils, you’ll be the first person I call. Seriously.

  Rock on,

  Ade

  TWO

  Not even Garrett can disrupt my good vibes.

  Swim practice is like bathing in energy. The pool is warmer than it’s been in years. Decades maybe. I ignore Garrett’s stares. He even has the gall to point at me and then make that finger across the throat slashing gesture like he’ll really do it. The guy’s a shell of his former stud self. I’ve knocked him back to grade school.

  Coach Ellis has pretty much given up on me.

  Already. But still he lets me practice with the team because it gives him someone to hate. Someone to compare and contrast his best swimmers with. Me, I’m his foil. I’m his example of how not to be.

  For me, swimming’s just a super-nice workout.

  I get home and want to take a nap, my body aching from the tension of the past few weeks, but Mom’s beaming and tossing her car keys up in the air and catching them. Something I don’t think I’ve ever once seen her do.

  “Want to go out to dinner?”

  “I’d love to.”

  On our way out, we pass four people walking up to our front door. They’ve got folding chairs and a cooler. These freaks are going to wait it out, it seems.

  Mom, she sees them but says nothing.

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “I’m fine with anything.”

  Mom shrugs. “A friend at church recommended a place on Colfax.”

  We have dinner at Good Friends. I just talk. Words stumble out. Mom listens intently, bits of her salad falling off her fork as she leaves it shivering just below her chin.

  At one point she’s nodding to herself not talking to me.

  Not listening.

  Eyes glos
sy and her head nodding rhythmically. It’s like she’s had a stroke. I ask her if she’s okay and she says, “Ade, I really do think it will happen soon. Can’t you just feel the energy in the air?”

  “Yeah. No. What will happen soon?”

  “The rising up. The end of our earthly bonds. I am so looking forward to seeing your grandmother again. I’m sure she’s excited as all get out to see you too.”

  “Sure, Mom. It’ll be swell.”

  By the end of the meal Mom’s eaten maybe a third of her salad. Most of the time she’s just spent mumbling to herself, pointing at my plate, telling me to eat up, and laughing at awkward moments in response to something funny only she can hear.

  I haven’t seen my mom like this before.

  I imagine Mom before the divorce, when Dad still loved her. When she still loved him. I remember her laughing and having fun, her not concerned about eternal salvation but about how I was doing in school and what movie I wanted to see on the weekend. This mom, the one rambling and lost in front of me, it’s clear why Dad vanished.

  The ride home we’re going slow because I’m tired.

  It’s raining hard. The road is a river and I can barely see.

  But I’m so tired on top of it.

  I want to pull over. I want just take a break.

  I think about asking Mom to drive, but figure we’re close. We must be only a few blocks from home. That’s when it happens, my eyes close down. We’re somewhere just past Eighth Avenue and I stop seeing.

  I hear the crash before I wake up.

  This, me crashing the car on accident, is completely new.

  The sound is like a wave and I imagine it rampaging down Monaco and sweeping over cars and ripping hedges loose. The night sky sparking as the streetlamps topple over and split. Next comes the crunch. My head meets the wheel despite the seat belt, despite the fact I’m only going thirty. I can’t see her but I know Mom’s hands are clasped in prayer, her face as content as when she’s fast asleep. For her, this wreck could be a one-way ticket to salvation.

  The tunnel.

  The lights.

  The swirl.