by Lauryn April
I felt heartbroken, and it was a strange feeling to wrap my head around. I had no reason to be upset that Christy and Chase were seeing one another. I had seen it coming and, furthermore, I hadn’t ever had any kind of relationship with Chase. I wasn’t even close with him. But I had built up this idea about him in my mind, built up an idea of who he was and that I had a chance to be with him. I had been perfectly fine living with the fantasy that something would come about between us so long as he was single. Now that I saw him there with Christy, my reality came collapsing down upon me.
What is she staring at?
My head spun around, my hair whipping in the air, and I saw Brant walk up behind me.
“Nothing,” I said a bit too quickly and turned away from him.
He continued to look in toward where moments ago my eyes had been locked. I couldn’t look back at them.
“You staring at Christy and Chase?”
I didn’t answer.
“Hey, look at me, I can tell something’s bugging you.”
I turned around, but still I kept quiet.
“They’re dating, you know.” It was as if he said it to judge my reaction. “Heard about it from Skyler, guess Chase made some big show of asking her out at that pizzeria over on Fifth.”
My lips thinned and my muscles tensed. I felt uncomfortable and Brant could tell.
“That is it, isn’t it?”
“Brant, just leave it.” I started to walk away, but he stayed right by my side.
“What’ve you got some crush on the football player?”
My eyes glared at him. They were angry and yet begging him to stop at the same time.
“That is it; you’ve got a thing for Chase Bryant.”
“Brant, lay off.”
He wouldn’t. “I just… what do you see in him anyway?”
“Can we not?”
He looked at me, his stare harsh and serious. I could tell he knew I was upset, and the fact that he could see through me so easily only made me more upset.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine… just forget it.” The bell rang and I glanced over at the school as people started to shuffle off to class. “I can’t miss any more classes or my parents are going to kill me so…”
“Right, yeah, I’ll see you at lunch then, alright?”
“Yeah.”
With that I left, throwing Brant one last glance over my shoulder. In the periphery of my vision, I saw Chase throw his arm around Christy and I winced. I rushed off to class, trying to ignore the irrational sense of heartbreak that had come over me.
Brant was by my side immediately after Bio. Like a magnet attracted to my polarity, he found me through the crowd within minutes after I stepped out of the Science lab. He said hey and I returned the greeting with a smile. Then we made our way out to the common. This was the first time we were ever together during lunch and actually going to lunch. It was strange. Not the being around him part, I was used to that. But he was usually helping me interrogate someone or annoying the hell out of me, or comforting me as I cried my eyes out. I shook the last thought away. What we hadn’t really been yet was casual with one another. As I thought about that, I felt an awkward weight in the air between us as we stepped out onto the common.
Skyler and Jason waved to Brant from across the way. They motioned in a way to suggest that they wanted him to follow after them. Brant waved them off and they disappeared, walking toward the parking lot. Then he followed me to a table. We sat in the shade of a palm tree near the building and a good distance from my friends, a good distance from Christy and Chase who, at the moment, seemed to be tasting more of each other than their food.
I had made myself a lunch that day, feeling like I’d want more than a bagel to eat. Brant had nothing. He just sat down before me and folded his hands atop the table. I pulled the salami and cream cheese sandwich out of my brown paper lunch bag as well as an apple and a can of soda.
She’s so much better than that meathead jock, Brant thought and I saw his eyes flicker over to Chase. What does she see in him?
If I didn’t know better, I would have thought he was jealous. “So, what’s our next move?” I asked and his face snapped to me.
Next move? He looked confused.
“With neither Eric nor Craig looking like our guy, we need a new suspect.”
“Right, right… except…”
“Except you don’t have anyone in mind?”
His lips thinned.
“Yep, and neither do I… so now what?”
He thought for a moment. “We need to go about this differently. Need to think out of the box.”
I bit into my sandwich and looked at him expectantly. I had no ideas, nothing. I’d been kind of banking on him coming up with something.
“We’ve just got to narrow it down somehow.”
“I was thinking that too… I just don’t know how. That was when I talked to Charlie and…”
“Charlie?”
“Charlotte, the girl in the library… I just asked her if she remembered who had all been in the library that day, the only person that stuck out to her was Craig though. We could talk to her again maybe.”
Brant’s eyes lit up. “Actually yeah, we should, but I don’t want to ask her about her memory.”
My brow creased and I looked at him confused. “What are you thinking?”
“Like you have to ask.”
“Actually yeah, I wasn’t listening in.”
He flashed me a cocky grin. “Guess it’ll be a surprise then.” He stood up. “Come on, let’s go.”
I took another big bite of my sandwich and grabbed my soda as I got up and followed after him. So much for eating a decent meal, I thought as we walked into the building.
The library was stuffy and as we entered I wished that I was still outside breathing in the fresh air. Charlotte, or Charlie as she had asked me to call her, was sitting behind the desk in the library eating what appeared to be a peanut butter and banana sandwich. I wondered if she ate in here during her shift every day, wondered if she always had lunch alone. It sounded lonely, but then again I’d been doing much the same lately.
Brant and I approached the desk. Her large brown eyes looked at us with a hint of embarrassment as she swallowed a bite of her sandwich and wiped the corner of her mouth with the sleeve of her red zip-up.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
Brant leaned against the counter, smiling down at her. He looked at her with a flirty gaze. I had to restrain myself from rolling my eyes.
“Just have a few questions… when I check out a book, that computer keeps a record of it yeah?”
“Yep.” Charlie nodded.
Instantly I understood where Brant was going with this. It was so stupidly obvious. I was surprised neither of us had thought of it sooner.
“So if I wanted to, I could look back and see when I checked out a book, or maybe look and see who all checked out the same book as me. Maybe get a list of everyone who’s checked out books on, say, bomb building?”
“Um… I can’t give out other people’s information.”
“But you do have access to it yeah?”
“Sure, but… why are you asking me this?” Bomb building, what is this about?
“Look, Charlie, I know this all sounds weird but it’s really important,” I said, my eyes pleading with her.
“I don’t know what you want me to say, giving out that kind of info is against the rules.”
“Look,” Brant started, “Charlotte, this is life or death here. Someone’s going to try and blow up the school.” He was being as serious as he could, but Charlie looked at him like he was about to tell her that she was on a hidden camera show.
Yeah right, “So why don’t you talk to, I don’t know, the principal or the police about it?”
“Well… we don’t know who it is. That’s why we need to look at your computer there, narrow things down.”
“Right… and how do you know this?”
“I know this sounds crazy,” I said then took a deep breath knowing that what I was about to say would have Charlie thinking I deserved to be in a mental institution, “but… I heard someone thinking about it… I can read minds.”
Crazy? Try crazier than a June bug in May. Charlotte stared at me with a blank expression, and her eyes were screaming ‘do I look stupid?’
“Crazier than a June bug in May,” I repeated what I’d heard her think and watched as her eyes bugged out turning into deep wide pools of chocolate brown. Her brow creased and her jaw dropped open. She didn’t believe me yet, but it was something.
“How…” it was at that moment that the bell rang and our conversation came to an abrupt end.
“Meet us after school,” Brant said, “out the west door.”
When I walked out the west door at the end of the day, Brant was already waiting for me. There was a cool breeze that drifted the smoky smell of barbecue past my nostrils and in the distance I could hear a dog barking and children playing. Brant threw the butt of the cigarette he’d been smoking at the ground and stubbed it out with the toe of his boot. In that moment I wished that I could be at some family picnic instead of searching for an unbalanced teen. Then Brant looked up at me. The bright afternoon sun shone on his face and lit up his features. Not for the first time, I felt myself being pulled deep into his eyes as the sun made them shimmer. Just then the nearby picnic and are wannabe bomber were both forgotten.
Ivy… His thoughts faded as if he were trying to keep them from me. He seemed to be trying to keep them private a lot lately. I didn’t think too much of it then. My mind wandered back to the situation at hand and I remembered that we were waiting to meet Charlie.
“Think I made a mistake telling another person about what I can do?” I asked.
He shrugged. “We need her help. If we could see who’s been looking into the fabulous art of bomb building, that right there narrows down our search. She might even be able to look at the searches on the computers and see if any one username pops up with the most Google hits for the Anarchist Cookbook.”
I nodded, and it was then that the door opened. Both Brant and I turned to see Charlie step outside. She eyed us warily, shifting the weight of her bag from one shoulder to the other.
“Okay, so you think you can read minds?” she asked. Not that that’s possible or anything.
“It’s freaky, I know, but we need your help,” I said hoping that we could cut through her skepticism.
“So I’m just supposed to believe you and give out confidential information?”
“Oh come on now,” Brant cut in. “These aren’t medical records we’re talking about, just a list of who checked out what book and when. ‘Sides, why do you think we want them? What use would they be to us if we weren’t telling the truth?”
She pondered his words, worrying a lip between her teeth. I don’t know what you’d really do with any of that information I guess. This can’t be real though, can it? Could she really read minds?
“Look, if you need some proof, I understand. I had to prove it to myself even. Just, um… think of a number, any number.”
“And you’re gonna guess it?”
“I’m going to tell you it, yeah.”
Okay fine, guess this. Purple. I’m thinking of purple.
That time I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “Purple,” I said.
Brant turned to look at me with a confused expression. “Purple isn’t a number, Ivy.”
I shrugged, “It’s what she was thinking.”
“Holy shit,” Charlie said and we both turned back to face her. There’s no way she could have gotten that right. She can really read minds. “This is really real.”
I nodded, “Yup.”
“Alright great, now that we’re all on the same page, you can help us out yeah?”
Charlie seemed as though she hadn’t even heard Brant speak. She was staring off into the distance and her mind was a jumbled mess of thoughts questioning everything she ever thought was impossible. I watched her twist a strand of hair around her fingers. Then I took a step toward her and placed my hands on her shoulders. Her distracted eyes focused on me.
“Look, I know this is really bizarre and you probably want some time to wrap your head around it, but we kind of need to know if you can help us.”
Charlie nodded. “Yeah, well wait… you heard someone say… or think that they want to blow the school up? Why?” God, this is crazy.
“I don’t know why, all I know is that we have less than three weeks to figure out who wants us all dead and to stop them.”
Brant let out a frustrated sigh. “Exactly, so can we go back inside and have you look up those book records up for us?”
Charlie frowned and twisted the hem of her red sweater between her fingers. “Oh I can’t right now. I will, but I have to do it on my shift. Mrs. Emmeric is working tonight and it’s against the rules to do something like that.”
“Okay, fine,” I said. I wished she could help us sooner, but I was glad that she was helping us at all. “So tomorrow?”
Charlie smiled. “Tomorrow, no problem, meet me in the library at lunch and I’ll do whatever I can to help you find this guy… just don’t tell anyone I’m doing this for you.”
“Yeah, no problem. Oh and if you could not tell anyone about… well, me, you know.”
“Oh, yeah no worries.”
We parted ways after that and as I left the parking lot headed home I felt good. It felt good to be back on track, felt good to know what we were doing next. I started to think that we would actually be able to find this person that wanted us all dead and maybe even be able to stop him. But it also felt good to have another person know about my gift.
I hadn’t realized how alone I’d been feeling until that moment. I recognized then why I’d gone to Brant’s house the night before when things with my parents started to weigh too heavily on my shoulders. He was all I had. I started to wonder if that was the only reason I’d subconsciously driven myself to his house. Memories of butterflies fluttering in my belly and the feel of his hot breath against my cheek rushed through my mind. I pushed those memories aside.
16
Down and Out
That night, I only saw my father for a few hours before I went up to bed. He still wasn’t speaking to me, but I also still hadn’t apologized. It was hard to do when I felt like he was being more immature about things than I was. For a short while, I started to wonder if maybe he was giving me the silent treatment because he felt guilty. Maybe the things I’d said to him had hurt. I was too afraid to listen in on his thoughts though, too afraid to hear that that wasn’t the case.
Mom seemed to have softened up some. She was glad to see me when I got home and eager to hear about my day. She wanted to go shopping that weekend and was quite happy when I’d told her I was up for it. Spending more time with her, as it seemed, made her more eager to forgive me for skipping school.
The next morning, I slept through my alarm and ended up getting to school just as the first hour bell rang. I looked around for Brant as I hustled into the building but I didn’t see him. Knowing I had some catching up to do from my missed day of classes on Tuesday, I was wide eyed and ready to absorb everything my teachers had to say. I didn’t regret skipping class, but I wasn’t about to let it affect my grades either.
By lunch I felt like I had caught up on all my morning classes and that I could tackle my afternoon ones with ease. I was ready to get back to doing what I really cared about, and I felt like I could actually handle keeping up my grades along with searching for the bomber. For the first time, I felt like I had everything under control. At noon, I didn’t even bother walking toward the common. I went straight to the library. On my way there, I met up with Brant in the hallway.
“Hey,” he said and I grinned. “Where were you this morning? Playing hooky without me?”
“No, I just got here late… and I don’t play hooky, I excuse myself from clas
ses to attend to far more important things.”
He laughed. “Keep telling yourself that.”
His response made me smile. We walked into the library and saw Charlie’s gaze fall on us, her eyebrows lifted in eagerness as she spotted us from behind the counter. She had a sympathetic smile on her face, and it was then that I noticed the other person behind the front desk. He was wearing a blue shirt and khakis and was doing something with her computer.
Sorry guys, I heard her think and wondered what had happened. We made our way over to her and I watched as she bit her lip as we got close. She seemed almost nervous.
“What’s up?” I asked glancing at the older man in khakis who was currently running some kind of program on the computer screen.
“Not much,” she said. Can I talk to you like this? She thought.
“Yeah.”
Almost all our servers went down this morning. This guy’s been here apparently fixing them, but I don’t think he has any idea what he’s doing.
“Can I still check out a book?” I asked but the tone of my voice alluded to the alternate meaning of my words. I wanted to know if she could still look up the book records on the computer.
“Yeah, you can check out a book no problem… I just have to do it manually.” She held up a stamp. “Stamp the book, write it down.” I can’t use the computer at all, can’t search for books, look up records, nothing.
“That sucks,” my voice held an incalculable amount of disappointment.
“Yeah, you’re telling me.” Working here is crazy boring without the internet.
“How long will it be down for?” Brant asked.
“We should have ‘er back up real soon, kids,” the service man cut in, glancing back at us with a smile.
Not today, Charlie thought, maybe not for a couple days. I’m just hoping that nothing crashed and that when they get it back up, the records are still there.
