The Infinite Noise

by Lauren Shippen

  “As a scientist?”

  “As a person.”

  And here it is. The crux of it all. I don’t know how to be a boyfriend to Caleb. I wouldn’t know how to be a boyfriend to Caleb even if he was just the incredibly handsome football-playing Golden Boy. I especially don’t know how to be a boyfriend to someone with a supernatural ability.

  “Why do you ask?” The head tilt is back.

  “I’m just … speculating,” I echo, hoping that will be enough.

  “How are things going with Caleb?” He pivots and the question is like a shot of adrenaline to the heart. Is he trying to change the subject or is he connecting the dots?

  “Things are fine.” I nod nervously. “They’re good.” I let him lead the conversation away from science and into the equally uncharted territory of talking about my relationship with Caleb with my father, keeping an eye out for land mines all the while.

  42

  CALEB

  Dr. Bright’s emotions are a swirl of worry, surprise, and anger, all wrapped up in a black tar of self-loathing. Nothing in her body language or face has changed in the last ten minutes as I’ve described our encounter with Damien and Chloe, but her emotions are telling me that she wants to bury her face in her hands and tear her hair out. I know how she feels.

  “Caleb,” she says, an entire sentence on its own. “I am so sorry that this happened. Damien never should have confronted you—it was completely inappropriate and I will most certainly be having a conversation with him about it. Though, as much as I like to keep my patients separate, I am glad that Chloe intervened.”

  I’m glad too, to be honest. I have no idea what would have happened if Chloe hadn’t stepped in. I’ve never felt like that before—I’ve spent almost this whole year with other people invading my space, my feelings, my brain, but I’ve never felt like I’ve been body-snatched. Being around Damien was like freezing to death. I was getting warm and sleepy and compliant, and if things had kept going I would have eventually lost all of my own brain functioning. It reminded me of Henry at the dance—that cold, slimy determination—except, this time, the feeling slithered its way into me and none of my defenses could keep it out.

  “I’m sorry we were spying on you,” I say sheepishly, and I feel some of Dr. Bright’s anger fizzle out. “We shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Adam was just curious about the whole thing. And I guess … I guess I was too. I mean, even though it was a little scary, it’s kind of nice knowing that there are other people out there like me.”

  Dr. Bright exhales and the black tar strengthens, squeezing my rib cage so hard that I worry it might crack. How does she live like this?

  “I should have been more forthcoming with information about Atypicals.” She sighs. “It’s natural for you to be curious and I should have been more open to answering your questions. I was just…”

  She trails off, rubbing her hands nervously, two things she never does, and my stomach clenches in fear. Suddenly the possibility of having more information seems like a terrible, terrifying prospect.

  “I was trying to protect you,” she finishes, and the weight inside of me lightens a fraction.

  “Protect me from what?” I demand. “You sound just like my parents. I know you guys had a conversation about all this when I first started seeing you and that they’re worried about people out there who might want to hurt me, but what has you all so freaked out? I can feel feelings, how much danger could I really be in?”

  I’m working hard to make my voice sound casual, scoffing at the idea of some looming, villainous force, but I’m cold all over, heart pounding rapidly in an attempt to warm my blood. Dr. Bright looks at me, and I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a diving board. Wobbling and jelly-legged, unable to jump and unable to walk back. It fits awkwardly in my body and I know it belongs to Dr. Bright. She’s uncertain. She’s never uncertain.

  “There’s an organization,” she says finally, “called The Atypical Monitors.”

  It’s like having six shots of espresso—fear races through my veins like simply saying the name has caused Dr. Bright to summon demons from hell. She’s afraid. She’s terrified. My body is full of emotions that I’ve never felt from her before, and I’m starting to shut down.

  “Caleb?” she asks from above the mud I’m sinking into, “are you all right?”

  “It’s—” I’m having a hard time speaking around the molasses. “It’s too much, I’m sorry. I can’t—can we talk about something else?”

  I desperately want to know more about these Monitor guys but I’m overloaded, the hard drive in my brain fritzing from a soda spill of foreign feelings. I can’t take any more information in or I’ll completely lose it. My world is dark and upside down and that’s when I realize I’ve closed my eyes, bending over to put my head between my legs.

  Meltdown complete.

  * * *

  I blink and I’m back in my bedroom, the rest of my therapy and the drive home a blur. My mom is standing in the doorway, talking to me, but she’s far away. I find my ears again, tune them into her frequency, finding the static of her worry and holding on to it until the waves turn into sound.

  “—nothing to worry about,” she says, contradicting her own emotions. “Dr. Bright shouldn’t have scared you like that.”

  “She didn’t scare me, Mom,” I groan, irritated. Sometimes I think life would be easier if everyone could do what I do. “I just got overwhelmed. You know that happens sometimes.”

  She nods and I can feel that she wants to step into my room, sit down on my bed, put her arm around me. But she won’t because she knows she’s already too close. If she touches me, I’ll just start drowning in someone else’s worry.

  “I never wanted life to be this hard for you,” she whispers, and my vision comes into focus enough to see that there are tears in her eyes. Something in me unwinds. This is one of the things I love about my mom. She’s learned that trying to hide her feelings from me just makes it harder for me to process. So she’s honest with me about what she’s thinking, even if it makes both of us feel worse. I appreciate it more than I’ve ever been able to express to her, but I think she knows in that way that moms know.

  “I know, Mom.” I sigh and we look at each other helplessly, a half-length of room between us. I scoot over on my bed, highlighting the space that was already there. An invitation. She jerks her head in an awkward nod and walks into my room, sitting heavily next to me. I’m already on her wavelength so the proximity doesn’t change anything. Doesn’t make it worse.

  “You’re a very special boy, Caleb.” She pats my arm and I roll my eyes.

  “Yeah, I know.” Just like that, I’m annoyed again. “That’s what everyone keeps saying.”

  “Well, that’s because it’s true,” she says earnestly. “Even before we found out about your ability, you were always so sensitive. So caring.”

  “God, Mom, you make me sound like such a loser,” I deflect, her calm, loving presence unable to cover up my own discomfort at having what is shaping up to be a pretty embarrassing conversation.

  “You’re not a loser, Caleb,” she assures me. “You have a beautiful gift. I wouldn’t change anything about you.”

  “But…” I lead, wobbling on the diving board again.

  “But, when you’re a parent, you hope your child is…”

  “Normal?” I finish for her, feeling like a failure. The genuine love she has for me is in every cell of my body, but that doesn’t stop my own body from producing disappointment like that’s the only thing it knows how to make.

  “Yes,” she agrees sadly. “We love that you’re you, that you have this ability. But it might make things harder for you. Just like—” She stops herself mid-sentence and I fully understand how frustrating it must have been for Adam all those months. I badly want to know what she was about to say. And then, thinking of Adam helps me put the pieces together.

  “Just like dating a guy might make things harder for me?”
I grimace and I feel the cloying toffee of pity drip into my stomach.

  We haven’t exactly had the Conversation yet, because I’m not sure how to have it. Or if we even need to. My parents haven’t asked and I haven’t told them, but we all know. Or at least, I think they know. If not, I may have just dropped a bomb on my poor mother. But I don’t feel any surprise from her, so I doubt it.

  “We love Adam,” she says, squeezing my arm, and then that rickety uncertainty crops up again. “That is who you’re talking about, right? There’s not some other boy that we haven’t met that you’ve been secretly dating?”

  I can feel that she’s teasing me a little—calling me out for not being up-front with her—but there’s also a genuine question in there.

  “No, Mom,” I say, rolling my eyes, “there’s no other secret guy. It’s Adam. Just Adam.”

  “Well”—she pats my arm again, extremely awkwardly this time—“that’s good. He is a very nice young man.”

  “He is…” I start, trying to edge back to the point despite the fact that, now that I’m here, I really don’t want to have this conversation. Better to get it over with, though, I guess.

  “He is a nice young man,” I echo, trying to find my words. “He is very nice. And … a man.”

  I look up from my lap to see my mom’s bemused expression. She’s trying not to laugh at me and close to completely failing. I’m not worried anymore about this conversation going sideways but I really, really want to run from the room.

  “A young man,” I correct for no good reason and because she hasn’t said anything yet. My own mortification is heating my insides up, burning out any other emotions I might feel from her.

  “Hon, it’s okay.” She smiles. “Relax. This doesn’t have to be a big conversation if you don’t want it to be. But I’m also happy to do the loud and proud coming-out thing if that’s what you want—”

  “Jeez, Mom, that’s not what I’m doing. I’m not—” I stop, realizing that what I was about to say isn’t true. “Well, I mean, I guess I know what I’m not. I’m not straight. I guess. I mean, I like Adam. And that’s good. So. Yeah.”

  I wince at my rambling, relieved that she doesn’t need me to explain and yet trying to explain anyway.

  “We don’t need to do the loud and proud thing,” I rush out, before backpedaling. “Not that I’m not proud. It’s not like I’m trying to hide it or anything. It’s just that…”

  “You have bigger things to worry about,” she finishes. A weight lifts from my shoulders. If I didn’t know better, there are times when I’d think my mom was an empath too.

  “Right.” I nod. “And Adam is cool with all that stuff, by the way. We’re—we’re good.”

  43

  CALEB

  I want so badly for that to stay true. For Adam and me to stay good. But, because I apparently can’t catch a fucking break, telling him about me and becoming his boyfriend did not make everything easy. The honeymoon phase or whatever is over and we’re not the perfect couple that I’d been fantasizing we’d be.

  I constantly have to remind myself that he knows about my ability. That I don’t have to hide. I’m training myself out of holding things back and it feels scary and unnatural at first. Like I jumped out of the plane and just kept falling, falling, falling.

  He’s been there to catch me. Most of the time. But sometimes …

  That huge, powerful ocean is still there. I thought I could banish it. I thought that not keeping secrets anymore, that giving in to our butterflies, would wipe the black days away. And it did at first. Those first few weeks—spent in my backyard just as spring had fully sprung—were perfect. I walked through my life in a warm, green haze. Adam was my anchor, keeping me from spinning out, and I was a boat for him on the vast, deep ocean that is his emotions, and things were so good that I started thinking about us in cheesy-ass metaphors, apparently.

  I’ve gotten better at telling what’s him and what’s me—what’s yellow and what’s blue—but a lot of the time, things are green. And when things are green, I feel right in my own body in a way I never have before.

  But then: the sky darkens and the waves roll in and where I was standing at the shore before, looking at the storm swirling over the water, now I’m dragged under. His tide is too strong and I’m too close to the undertow to do anything about it. Adam has learned how to weather this. He’s been living with it his whole life. But I don’t know how to swim, not in these waters. I drown instantly and sink to the bottom until we separate and the light starts to stream through, slowly leaching the water from my lungs and bringing color back into my cheeks.

  Today is one of those days.

  “You should just go home,” he mutters from under his sweatshirt. We’re lying side by side on his bed—his parents aren’t home but, even if they were, they would have no reason to be scandalized. We’re above the covers, I still have my shoes on, and we’re not even touching. Adam is faced toward the wall, swallowed in a hoodie he stole from me (not that I gave much of a fight; he looks pretty cute in it) and even though there are inches between us, it feels like miles of stormy sea.

  “I don’t want to leave you like this,” I say to his back, desperate to reach out and touch but not knowing if it will make it worse or better.

  “Caleb, I’m fine,” he insists, though there’s not much fire behind it.

  “You know that doesn’t work on me,” I tell him. “I’m the one person you can’t lie to about being fine.”

  He sighs and rolls over to look at me. Shadows from his hoodie play over his brown skin turning him back into the black-and-white-movie version of himself.

  “There’s no reason for both of us to feel this way,” he says. “It would make me feel better if you went home and got somebody else’s emotions in you.” He grimaces at his own phrasing. “You know what I mean. Or, even better, go somewhere you can just feel yourself.”

  “You need to find a better way to talk about my ability,” I joke weakly, and he gives me a pity smile. I hate those smiles. They’re placating and fake and only make me feel more helpless. I try to make him smile for real when he’s like this—try to make him laugh—but it always feels impossible. Sometimes, it makes it worse.

  “Caleb,” he sighs, “please. You don’t need to be here when I’m like this. I know I’m not exactly the best company right now.”

  “You’re always the best company,” I mumble, shimmying closer to him. One blade of grass bursts through the concrete. A single beam of sunlight starts to stream through the clouds.

  In the next moment it’s gone.

  44

  ADAM

  I wish I could control this. Caleb has the ability to feel the emotions of any human on the planet, and he’s getting better and better at controlling that ability all the time. I can’t control even one of my emotions. I want to eradicate this feeling forever. I never want to see how it infects Caleb, how it makes him slow and dull and takes away the light in his eyes. I feel like a parasite, a leech that’s sucking all the goodness out of him.

  And yet, he stays. He stays and is a life raft for me. And we do our best to float until the dark cloud passes and then I try everything in my power to take advantage of the sunny days.

  Today is one of those days. I showed up at Caleb’s house after the last—and only—meeting for Latin club this semester. The club is only me and one other student, so it’s not exactly a big time commitment.

  I pull Caleb out into his backyard the moment he invites me in and grab one of the various footballs that’s always lying around. Caleb’s face lights up in a surprised smile and we toss the football back and forth until the sun goes down. Caleb does his best to explain some plays to me and I do my best to be interested. Football isn’t so boring when it’s Caleb explaining it.

  It eventually turns into a messy touch football game between the two of us that doesn’t have any coherent rules or boundaries but which does involve a good deal of tackling, which I am more than oka
y with.

  At one point, I have possession of the ball, running around in the setting sun with no idea what I’m supposed to be doing. Caleb guns for me, grabbing me around the legs and tossing me over his shoulder. He runs to whatever section of the yard he had determined was the end zone and claims a touchdown, despite the fact that I’m still holding the football.

  “Well, I’m holding you,” he says, victorious, spinning around as I hold on for dear life, still slung over his broad shoulders, “so by the transitive property…”

  “Ooh, look at … you,” I wheeze out, getting dizzy, “Mr.… Smart … Guy.”

  I should be completely humiliated by this ridiculous display of machismo but I’m, of course, charmed. Caleb gives another full belly laugh at my attempt to tease him and reaches up to grab my torso, bringing me back to my feet like I’m a sack of potatoes.

  I’ve dropped the football at some point and wind my arms around his neck as he wraps his arms tighter around me. My feet are barely on the ground, but I don’t care. I let him hold me up and we kiss until it’s darkness all around us.

  45

  CALEB

  “Um … hello?”

  The large, garage-like metal door slides shut behind me, echoing through the musty space. It smells like paint and turpentine and a swirl of frustration-inspiration. Like all the people who have made art here—tried to make art—have left some of their feelings behind, just waiting to be soaked up by someone like me.

  “Caleb!”

  I whip around at the sudden, sharp sound of Chloe’s voice to see her smiling at me from another doorway hidden in the far corner of the room. As always, her overalls are covered in paint, her hair a mess, and her feelings distant and strange.

  “Sorry.” She winces. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “It’s all right,” I breathe. “I just didn’t feel you come in.”