The Infinite Noise

by Lauren Shippen

“You’re an athlete, isn’t that right?” prompts Mr. Hayes, cutting through whatever battle of the wills was about to start between his wife and son.

  “Um, yeah,” I answer. “I play football. Running back.”

  “Oh, very good.” Mr. Hayes nods sagely. “That’s very impressive. Very good position.”

  “Dad,” Adam deadpans. He and his mom are both looking at Mr. Hayes now, fond amusement dancing around them.

  “Elijah, you have no idea what you’re talking about,” Mrs. Hayes teases, her laugh ringing loud and clear, hinting at looseness that I didn’t think was possible in Adam’s mom.

  “I thought I was pulling it off.” Mr. Hayes shrugs good-naturedly, joining his wife in laughter. It brings a burst of yellow-sparked joy into Adam’s chest and he holds back a laugh, not wanting to give his parents the satisfaction of thinking they’re funny.

  That’s not something I know because of the empath power. Adam doesn’t feel withholding from his parents. But I know that’s what he’s doing. I know because I can see him trying not to smile, wanting to roll his eyes and call his parents dorks, because that’s what he does. I know him. All empath stuff aside, I know who Adam is. And that makes me feel like more of a superhero than anything.

  “You’ll have to excuse my husband,” Mrs. Hayes says, smiling at me. “He likes to pretend he knows everything about everything, but we’re not exactly a sports family.”

  “Yeah, I sort of got that,” I admit, and Mrs. Hayes laughs again.

  “He’s not the only one who thinks he knows everything about everything,” Adam singsongs, side-eyeing his mom. It might seem like he’s annoyed or embarrassed, but he’s got a mischievous light-footedness to his feelings. He’s having fun. Mrs. Hayes is ready to play along, opening her mouth in mock-offense to say something, but I beat her to it.

  “Oh, you mean you?” I quip. I feel a thrill of satisfaction from the surprise that darts through Adam as his eyes snap to me.

  “Oh-ho!” Mr. Hayes slaps the table like I’ve scored a point. “He’s got your number, doesn’t he, boychik? You should keep this one around.” He shakes his finger knowingly at Adam before tapping his nose.

  “Oh my god, Dad,” Adam groans, the blush on his cheeks like a glowing sun setting over a desert. He looks at me and laughs and I feel my face grow hot too. But it’s not embarrassment—Adam is pleased. Proud that I’m fitting into his family, impressing his parents. And I feel a smaller-scale warmth from them too—they’re glad that I know how to joke with them.

  The approval makes me self-conscious again. I really want to impress his parents. I want them to like me. I want to know Adam even better than I do. I want him to take his dad’s advice and keep me around. Just like that, telling him about what I can do feels unnecessarily risky.

  I don’t have time to dwell on it, as the conversation moves back to college and schoolwork, Adam and his parents debating the schools they should go see on spring break.

  “Adam, you can’t just tour Yale over and over,” Mr. Hayes says. “It’s good to look at other schools. You never know, you might find one you like just as much.”

  “I doubt it,” Adam grumbles.

  “Still,” Mrs. Hayes says, “you don’t want to put all of your eggs in one basket.”

  “Yale, huh?” I ask, a little hurt. This is the first I’m hearing about it, and it sounds like something Adam’s been dreaming about for a little while.

  “Yeah,” he says. “I know it’s a hard school to get into but they have one of the best English programs and, I don’t know, it’s worth applying.” Cold air sweeps into me and I brace for the wave that’s about to wash over the table. But it doesn’t come. Instead, it’s the sludge. Pitch black, oozing, burning cold like dry ice.

  He doesn’t think he can get in. That’s why he’s never mentioned it to me.

  “You’ll get in,” I say confidently—maybe too confidently, because three pairs of eyes snap toward me. Mrs. Hayes’s eyebrow is lifted in a perfect, curious arch over her carefully blank expression and I feel the need to explain. “I just mean, I know you’re worried about that, but you’ll get in. Everyone thinks so.”

  “What do you mean ‘everyone thinks so’?” Adam asks. Shit. I shouldn’t have said that.

  “Um…” My forehead is breaking into a sweat under the triple-Hayes gaze. “I mean, you’re really smart. And we all believe in you. Like, the people at this table. We all think you can do it.” I’ve lost all control over what I’m saying but it’s okay because the sludge is starting to crack, like grass growing through concrete.

  “Yes, we do,” Mrs. Hayes agrees, giving me an inscrutable look. That’s a word that Adam loves: inscrutable. He says I’m inscrutable but I don’t think I hold a candle to Mrs. Hayes’s face right now.

  “Absolutely.” Mr. Hayes nods strongly, beaming at his son, the sun ray of pride overlapping onto me. But Mrs. Hayes is still staring at me, head tilted like she’s trying to solve a puzzle. I’ve gotten used to a Hayes trying to figure me out all the time, but it feels sharper coming from her. More dangerous.

  “Um, yeah.” I rub my hands on my legs, trying to distract myself from the ants under my skin. “So don’t be worried or anything. Because it’ll be fine.” I’m nodding too much, conscious of my beet-red, sweaty face. Thankfully Adam is feeling too contented to notice.

  “Well, okay”—he blushes—“thanks, everyone. I guess.”

  “Cake!” Mr. Hayes shouts suddenly, rising from his chair. Adam and I both jump a bit in our seats at the outburst but Mrs. Hayes just laughs again, breaking her focus on me to put her grinning face in her hands.

  “You have to get that man under control,” Adam deadpans to his mom. Mr. Hayes has moved into the kitchen, where he is humming something unrecognizable but almost definitely out of tune.

  “I gave up on that a decade or two ago, sweetie pie,” Mrs. Hayes chuckles, moving to clear the dishes away. Adam makes a gagging face—I’m assuming at the nickname—and Mrs. Hayes just ruffles his hair as she follows her husband into the kitchen.

  “So…” I lean forward to look at Adam, drawn in by the balmy blue-green tide of his happiness. “What kind of cake did you make?” This prompts a head tilt, smirk, and bubbly playfulness that tells me he’s about to tease me.

  “How many minutes a day do you spend thinking about food?” He grins, sparks in his eyes creating electricity between us.

  “It’s an important subject,” I toss back. “It is, you know, necessary for survival.”

  “Oh yes.” Adam’s eyes go dramatically big. “Of course, the ever-important nutrient that is chocolate cake. How could human beings have evolved this far without it?”

  “So you made chocolate, then?” I wiggle my eyebrows and he laughs, biting his bottom lip in an attempt to keep the higher ground. My heart squeezes and I twist my hands together under the table so I don’t reach out and touch him.

  “Fine,” he says loftily, “you win. It’s chocolate on chocolate. With raspberries.”

  “Oh man, I could have guessed that.” I lean back in my chair and cross my arms, feeling restless, stuck in this stiff chair, forced to look at Adam’s smiling face with an entire table between us.

  “Oh really?” He leans back also—a challenge—and the sparks turn into butterflies. I’m standing in the doorway of the plane again.

  “When Becca M. brought in those fancy-ass cupcakes for her birthday you got a raspberry chocolate one and you were happier than I’d ever felt from—” Adam’s smile deflates slightly and I tense, sucking the rest of my sentence down and rerouting. “I mean, you seemed to really like it. I should have guessed it was your favorite.”

  Adam’s not buying it. I’m being reckless and either Adam is going to figure it out (how could he?) or decide I’m way too weird to keep hanging out with. Maybe I should just do it now—rip off the Band-Aid, tell him right here at the table. I lean forward again to say something—god knows what—just as Adam inhales, eyes narrowing, ready to
interrogate me no doubt, when the lights suddenly go out.

  “Happy birthday to you…” Adam’s parents re-enter the dining room singing, Mr. Hayes’s hand still on the light switch. Mrs. Hayes is carrying a fire hazard of a cake and making up the on-key half of the singing. I join in, somewhere between Mr. and Mrs. Hayes’s abilities, and my heart surges at the way Adam looks at me.

  The cake is as delicious as I would have expected from the boy who seems to be perfect at everything he tries. I mumble something along those lines and nearly vaporize in my seat at the pleased warmth that rushes through Adam. Mr. and Mrs. Hayes decide to have another glass of wine each, letting Adam have a few birthday sips, and between that and the sugar, the whole atmosphere loosens. We’re joking and laughing and I’m basking in the glow of the Hayes family relaxed and teasing each other when I start to feel … weird.

  My head feels full of loosely packed cotton and there’s a slight buzzing in my ears. I’m weightless and sleepy. The conversation around me moves in and out of my understanding and I’m seeing everything through a slight golden haze.

  Oh god, I’m getting drunk.

  This has happened a few times before at football parties. When I’m around people who are drinking, I start to feel drunk too. It doesn’t matter if I haven’t had a drop of alcohol (I did once and, let me tell you, what a disaster), I can’t be around drunk people or things start to get fuzzy. Usually it’s a combination of feeling frantic and also relaxed—like I could punch through a wall and not feel anything, or say exactly what I want to. This isn’t like that. This is softer, more passive, and that’s all I’ve got because things are getting swirlier and swirlier.

  Oh Jesus, I’m getting adult drunk.

  “Caleb,” someone says, “are you all right?”

  I blink slowly to see that three-pronged stare again. You can do this, dude. Just make up an excuse and leave.

  “Um, yeah.” I’m speaking slowly, taking care to not slur. “Just a sugar crash, I think. I should—uh, I should go.” I stand carefully, getting an instant head rush. I grip the back of my chair, praying to whoever will listen that I don’t fall over.

  “Oh,” Adam says, his disappointment cutting through the haze and sobering me slightly. “Okay. I’ll walk you out.”

  Good-byes happen and all I can hope is that I don’t make a complete and total ass of myself. Somehow I make it outside okay, holding on to Adam’s mix of confusion, contentment, and worry like a terrible life raft. The clear air and distance from the Hayeses does wonders for my head, and I breathe deep before checking in on Adam.

  He’s looking up at me, eyebrows creased, mouth slightly downturned. His emotions are a swirl of blue and warm gold and I’m trying to sort through them when he speaks.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m fine.” I shrug. Adam’s mouth tightens and I want to correct it. “I’m good,” I pivot. “Really. Tonight was really nice, thanks. I mean, happy birthday.” I’m floundering, still sobering up and wincing at the confusion coming in waves from Adam.

  “I’m sorry I’m so weird all the time,” I finish lamely. Adam shakes his head at me like I’m being an idiot. Which … fair.

  “You just had dinner with my parents,” he says. “I don’t think we can judge about being weird.”

  “Your parents aren’t weird,” I say honestly, but Adam looks at me skeptically. “They’re … intense.”

  “That’s one word for it,” he scoffs.

  “But they love you a lot,” I blurt, missing his smile. “They think you’re so great. And I’m sorry that I made such a bad impression, I know it was important to you. That I not fuck up in front of them. But they don’t hate me or anything, so you don’t have to worry. I think your mom is maybe a little … I don’t know, suspicious of me? I don’t know, she’s hard to get a read on—”

  “Caleb, what are you talking about?” Adam interrupts, his eyes bugging out of his head.

  Fuck, I really went on a ramble there. I guess I’m not as sober as I thought.

  “Nothing.” I shake my head, panicking. “Sorry, I’m just—I’m really tired. I should go.”

  “Caleb…” Adam starts, twisting vines of worry-confusion-curiosity wrapping around me. And something else too. Fear. He’s scared of me. I have to get out of here.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow in school,” I call out, already halfway down his front walk. “Happy birthday!” I give an awkward wave, avoiding Adam’s crestfallen face, and walk quickly down the sidewalk before realizing that I need to call my mom to pick me up. I dial quickly and tell her to meet me three blocks down from Adam’s house. For once, I can’t bear to be anywhere near his feelings.

  35

  ADAM

  Well, that was fucking weird.

  I watch Caleb speed down the street before I turn to go back into the house. Spending time with Caleb means getting emotional whiplash all the time. One moment things are great, the next, he’s skittering away like a scared mouse.

  As I shut the front door behind me, I think back on the moment before my parents brought out the cake. Caleb leaning toward me, smirking. It felt like … flirting. I have to stop myself from thinking that word too loudly in my own head. It’s ridiculous. It’s not the first time I’ve felt that Caleb might be flirting, but that doesn’t make it any less ridiculous.

  “You all right, sweetie pie?” I look up to see my mom holding chocolate-covered plates in the doorway to the dining room.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I say, forcing a smile. “I’m good.”

  “Want to come help with dishes?” She jerks her head toward the kitchen.

  “Don’t I get a break because it’s my birthday?” I rebut, with a real smile this time.

  “Want another piece of cake?” she offers instead, eyes glittering. A small laugh escapes me and I follow her into the kitchen, where my dad seems to be making more of a mess than should be possible when washing the dishes.

  “That Caleb is a real mensch,” my dad shouts over his shoulder, the sound of the faucet nearly drowning him out. I roll my eyes, even though he can’t see me.

  “Your father’s right.” My mom places the dishes in the sink as I cut myself another slice of cake. “He’s a very nice boy.”

  “Yeah,” I say, not looking at them, “he’s cool.”

  “Was he okay at the end there?” she asks. “He rushed off pretty quickly.” She leans against the counter, taking dishes from my dad and drying them, and it looks like I’m getting the double interrogation tonight.

  “Hope we didn’t scare him off.” My dad winks over his shoulder, pausing to kiss my mom on the cheek before turning back to the sink.

  “You might scare me off.” I gag and my mom lazily swats me with the dish towel. She looks questioningly at me and I sigh before continuing. “I think he was fine. He just does that sometimes.”

  “He’s very … perceptive,” my mom says carefully, and my dad’s shoulders tighten slightly.

  “Um, yeah,” I say, confused. “I guess.”

  “And he’s always like that?” my mom probes.

  “Like what?” I ask.

  “Rebecca,” my dad warns under his breath, and that freaks me out more than anything.

  “I’m just asking a question.” She turns to him, shrugging innocently.

  “And … what question is that, exactly?” I put my cake on the counter and take a step toward her, feeling like I’m missing something.

  “I just think he’s a very unique boy, that’s all,” she finishes, like that explains anything. My dad turns back to the sink but the tension doesn’t leave his body. I pick my cake back up, chewing on it thoughtfully, wondering what tactic I can take to figure out what she’s talking about, when my mom speaks again.

  “So, are you two dating?”

  I nearly choke on my cake.

  “Mom!”

  “Rebecca—”

  “What?” my mom exclaims. “It’s just a question!”

  “Leave
the poor boy alone.” My dad shakes his head, laughing, hands covered in suds. My face is burning and I’m still trying to swallow down thick chocolate cake.

  “So?” she prompts, and my dad laughs again.

  “No, we’re not dating,” I mumble into my nearly empty plate. “He’s not—we’re just friends.”

  “Well, I think you’d make a very sweet couple,” she says casually, like this isn’t the most mortifying moment of my life.

  “You’re incorrigible,” my dad chuckles, handing her a plate.

  “Don’t pretend you don’t feel the same.” She wags her finger at him with her free hand and he shrugs and nods, making an agreeing “you’ve got me there” sound, and I’d very much like to slink away into nothingness now.

  “Okay, wow, well, this has been fun,” I say, putting my plate back on the counter and edging toward the hall. “But I’m gonna go crawl into a hole now.”

  “Sweetie.” My mom laughs, putting the plate down and walking toward me. She grips my shoulders, turning me to face her. “We’re just trying to say that we’re happy for you. Friend or whatever else, Caleb seems great. And we’re really happy that you have someone.”

  “Whatever,” I groan, wanting to squirm away, but my mother has a vise grip.

  “Happy birthday, my love.” She smiles, loosening her hold on me to touch my hairline softly.

  “Thanks, Mom,” I say. My dad turns off the sink and joins the love fest, and the more I try to get away from them, the more they hold on until we’re in a truly horrifying group hug situation. When I finally get free, I give them both icy stares.

  “I am so going to over to Caleb’s next weekend,” I threaten. “He’s never coming here again.”

  36

  CALEB

  Something is wrong.

  I’m sitting in math, trying as hard as I can to block out Tyler’s self-loathing and Moses’s self-pitying and focus on the board, but suddenly there’s a siren in my head. Something is wrong and it’s wrong with Adam.

  “Ms. Ramirez?” I put up my hand. “Can I have the bathroom pass?”