The Infinite Noise

by Lauren Shippen

  “Really?” she asks as she walks toward me. “I’m the only one here right now.”

  “Yeah.” I rub the back of my neck as my eyes track her movement around the room, picking up paints and cloths and brushes and going through what is clearly a nightly routine. “It’s … I don’t know, your feelings aren’t as loud as some other people’s, I guess. At least, not always.”

  “Hm.” Her face scrunches up in a way that tells me she’s reaching out for my thoughts. There’s a bubble of uncertainty within her, shaking with fear.

  “No, I don’t want you to think—” I rush to explain. “It’s not like you don’t feel things. You feel, like, a lot of things,” I tell her truthfully. “But I think sometimes…”

  “Sometimes I’m too in my head to make the feelings big?” she finishes.

  “Yeah.” I nod. “Something like that.”

  We smile tentatively at each other and the bubble stops shaking, settling warm and happy in my chest.

  “I’m really glad I met you, Caleb,” she says. “It’s so nice having someone to talk to about this.”

  “Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing.”

  “I know.” She smirks.

  It is nice to talk to Chloe. To know that she understands, at least to a point, what it’s like to have your mind and body not be your own. I don’t have to censor myself around her—don’t have to worry about sounding dumb or saying the wrong thing—because she knows everything I’m thinking anyway.

  “So…” I start, my face warming at the idea of Chloe listening in on my sappy thoughts—I still have some dignity left. “You needed help moving some stuff?”

  “Yes!” She claps her hands, and a zing of golden excitement races through my veins. “I want to clear away some of my sculpture stuff to make room for Frank’s paintings and, well—”

  “You’re built like a scarecrow?” I tease. She laughs, big and bright, and my whole body feels bathed in sunlight.

  I’m about to ask who Frank is when a cloud comes in, smothering the sunlight. My shoulders tense as something big and foreign climbs on top of them. This isn’t like one of Adam’s storms. This is a tornado, an electrical storm, a fire, and a flood all at once.

  “Frank! Hi!” I hear Chloe say over the slide of the metal door. I turn around and feel a spark of familiarity—both in the face and the feelings. Chloe is smiling warmly at the man—Frank—gesturing him into the studio. He’s older—maybe thirty—ratty clothes hanging off his tall frame, the dark skin of his cheeks sunken into his face. I’ve seen him before.

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he says, gentler than I could have thought possible from someone with feelings as big as his. They’re spinning me around—fear, sadness, anxiety—and I can’t find stillness long enough to grab on to any one of them. I’ve not only seen him before—I’ve felt this before.

  “You’re the homeless man who sits outside the bank,” I blurt. Chloe visibly winces but I barely notice because there’s raw, cold fear clutching my heart.

  “No, shit, sorry—” I apologize frantically. “I didn’t mean—I’ve just seen you around, that’s all.”

  “Frank is a friend,” Chloe says in a way that makes me feel like a child who just broke a fancy vase. “I’m helping him work on his paintings.”

  “Oh, right.” I nod. Frank is still standing in the doorway, staring at me with big, frightened eyes.

  “Frank, this is Caleb.” Chloe’s sugary compassion is pushing me to move my feet in Frank’s direction. “Caleb, Frank.”

  “Nice to meet you, man.” I stick out my hand like I didn’t just make an awkward spectacle of myself moments ago. He pauses before taking his hand off the door and reaching for mine. The moment our palms touch, the tornado starts again, making me sway. The fear is enormous—bigger than I’ve ever felt from anyone before—but it doesn’t spur a fight-or-flight response. I’m frozen in place, feeling like maybe I should just give in to the fear. Maybe I deserve it.

  “Hey, Caleb, you okay?” A soft hand touches on my shoulder and I let go of Frank’s hand to look into Chloe’s concerned face.

  “Yeah, I’m—” I clear my throat. “I’m okay.”

  “Are you…?” Frank starts quietly. It sounds like his voice has hardly ever been used. His eyes are still wide, his gut-churning fear still ruling every cell in my body, but there’s a tiny burn of curiosity cutting through it.

  “Never mind.” He shakes his head like he’s clearing the cobwebs.

  “I think I’m gonna sit down for a second,” I say, moving away from the blast zone of Frank’s feelings. It doesn’t help.

  “Yeah, of course,” Chloe says, and I try to grab on to her worry, with no success. She’s not Adam.

  “You just sit there and get your breath back,” she continues, like nothing is out of the ordinary, “and I’ll tell you about what Frank and I are working on!”

  She’s started to move around the studio again, like a butterfly flitting around flowers, and Frank and I eye each other warily from across the room. His feelings are still a confusing swirl inside of me but I don’t feel like I’m in danger. Instead, I feel like I am the danger.

  46

  ADAM

  “You can say no, but—”

  “Oh god, is there another football party?” I groan dramatically. We’re sitting on Caleb’s bedroom floor as always and I’m painting his nails with polish we stole from his sister who, incidentally, completely terrifies me with her no-nonsense intensity. I’d never admit that to Caleb, but of course he already knows.

  “No, no party,” he laughs. A few weeks ago he dragged me along to a team gathering and, while not as terrible as I feared (thankfully both Bryce-and Henry-less), it was definitely not my first choice for how to spend an evening. One upside to Caleb’s ability is that he can’t stand group situations either, so we bailed early.

  “It’s just a stupid scrimmage thing,” Caleb says, his breath puffing over my forehead as I lean over to paint his right hand with precision. “JV and varsity playing on teams for spirit week.”

  “Oh yeah, you guys do that every year, right?” I vaguely remember weeks where every hallway and every athlete were draped in the school colors and full of school pride. Obviously, I’ve never participated myself.

  “Yeah,” he says, “once in the fall and once in the spring. I’m always on the Red Team.”

  I look up to see a big grin on his face and can’t help smiling in return.

  “Is that the good team?” I tease.

  “It is because I’m on it.” He smirks and I lean forward to kiss the smug look off his face.

  “So … will you come?” Caleb asks again a few minutes later.

  “Yeah, of course.” I smile. “Now I get to openly ogle you in your uniform.” I waggle my eyebrows and Caleb blushes up a storm. I still get a nervous thrill every time I flirt with him—like there’s always the chance that it’s going to go wrong—but watching the red rise up his neck into his cheeks is worth the risk.

  “I knew you didn’t actually think we looked like giant candy canes.” He laughs and it’s my turn to blush. I want to shove at him but fear messing up the nail polish, so I just smile and shake my head.

  “Oh my god,” he says suddenly, a surprised look coming over his face.

  “… what?”

  “You were jealous,” he breathes, like he’s just had an epiphany.

  “Um, when?” I ask, knowing there could be lots of times to choose from.

  “About Caitlin and the dance,” he says. “When she asked me, that’s what that was. That dripping, oozing stuff in my chest.”

  “Ew, what?” I laugh. “Is that what jealousy feels like?” I love hearing Caleb describe emotions. He’s gotten more and more comfortable explaining his ability to me, and I could listen to him talk about it for hours.

  “That’s what it felt like then,” he says. “It’s different now, when you get jealous. Like with Damien—when you were confused about why I wan
ted him to like me.”

  “To be fair, I was confused for a lot of reasons,” I say. But I want to hear more. “Why was it different?”

  “I think because we’re together now?” Caleb tilts his head like he’s tuning in to the radio of my emotions. “Like, it’s less pointed than it was with Caitlin. God”—he shakes his head and smiles—“there were so many things about you that I just didn’t get for the longest time.”

  “But you get them now?” I ask.

  “Yeah, I’m starting to.” He smiles.

  “You know,” I say, “you can always ask me what I’m feeling. I’ll tell you.” I do my best to really believe this, knowing that there are still things I haven’t told him, and that Caleb can feel that desire to hide.

  Wanting to mean it must be enough, because Caleb says, “I know,” and we grin dopily at each other before I ask him to tell me more about the scrimmage. Caleb grows animated, and I keep having to pull his hand back down as he gestures, causing both of us to laugh. It’s been twenty minutes and I’ve barely painted one hand.

  “I think Chloe might come to the scrimmage too,” Caleb says.

  “Chloe the mind reader?” I ask.

  “That’s the one.”

  I put down the bottle of polish and lean back on my hands to look at Caleb. He’s giving me the puppy-dog look, like I’m going to have a problem with the fact that he’s been hanging out with Chloe. Which I don’t. Even if I got a little freaked out by the whole encounter with her and Damien, spying on his therapist’s patients was my idea in the first place.

  “That’ll be cool,” I say, careful to keep my voice neutral.

  “She’s really chill,” Caleb says earnestly. “I went to her art studio a few days ago and she’s really good.”

  “What kind of art does she do?” I ask, sensing that Caleb wants to talk more about it.

  “She says she’s mostly done ceramics until now, but she’s starting to do a lot of painting,” he starts to explain, before continuing with a hesitance I haven’t seen from Caleb in a while. “She met this guy—Frank—who used to be an artist too. He’s a Marine and, well, he’s been having a hard go of it. Homeless and stuff.”

  “Man, that’s hard,” I say.

  “Yeah.” He nods, looking down at his nails. “And I guess he really loved to paint before he joined up so Chloe’s helping him get back into it. She’s reading his mind and then painting what he can’t. I think he’s got an injury in his hands or something.”

  “Wait, what?” I struggle to keep up. Our little stakeouts in front of Dr. Bright’s office had been a fun, silly game. But then it opened Pandora’s box and a whole new, complicated, unreal world sprang out of it. “She’s reading his mind and painting what she sees?”

  “Yeah! So, like, he’s thinking about what he wants his paintings to look like,” Caleb explains, “and then Chloe reads his mind and does the painting for him. Isn’t that cool?”

  “Does he know that’s what she’s doing?” I ask, thinking that yes, it is cool, but also completely freaky.

  “Oh, yeah, totally.” Caleb nods seriously. “They’re working on it together.”

  “So she just up and told this guy that she’s a mind reader?”

  “Well, no, not really,” he says. “It’s not like he’s just some guy. They’re friends. And … well…” There’s that hesitancy again and it still makes me grind my teeth. “I think he’s special too. Not like me and Chloe are—he’s not an Atypical. But he … it’s weird. When I met him, I realized I’d actually felt his feelings before.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I’m doing my best to focus on what Caleb is saying as he explains a huge block of desperate emotions that would hit him sometimes when he takes the bus. Caleb is animated as he talks, and my heart swells that he feels comfortable enough to talk to me about this kind of stuff, even if it has messed me up a bit to have my entire worldview completely shifted.

  “And his feelings were really different, you know?” Caleb says. “Like, way more intense and louder than other people’s. I couldn’t feel anyone else the couple times I passed him around town.”

  “What, like how it is with me?” I ask, trying not to sound jealous. The first time Caleb told me how much more he liked my feelings over anyone else’s, I practically passed out from happiness.

  “No, not really.” He shakes his head. “It’s not comfortable in the same way. His feelings are pretty extreme. And they, like, grate on me in a way that yours definitely don’t.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “I don’t know … Chloe seems to think that something happened to him when he was in the military.”

  “Hm.” I think through the various psychology books I’ve read. “That makes sense. I mean, if he has PTSD—which it sounds like he probably does, I mean it’s so common in vets and if he actually saw combat … well, maybe that makes the emotions more intense?”

  “Oh.” Caleb blinks. “Yeah, maybe. I didn’t even think about that.”

  “Maybe talk to Dr. Bright about it?” I suggest.

  “Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good idea.” He nods.

  “Well, wait, if Chloe wasn’t talking about PTSD, what does she think happened to him?” I ask.

  “Oh, she thinks … she thinks he may have been part of some experiment or something,” Caleb says. “Like, I guess some of the stuff she’s seen in his thoughts is sort of … sketchy.”

  “What?” I laugh. “That’s crazy.”

  “Is it?” Caleb raises his eyebrows at me and I have to concede. Caleb went to a telepath’s art studio this week, I guess anything’s possible. I swallow in fear, thinking about my dad looking at the floor as he tried to convince me his work was in hypotheticals alone, before Caleb distracts me.

  “Anyway,” he continues, “he’s a nice guy, even if it is a little hard to be around him. He came by right as I was leaving Chloe’s studio, and it was like being thrown on an emotional merry-go-round. Like, he’s just got so much fear and sadness.”

  “Yikes.” I grimace sympathetically. “Maybe it’s best to stay away, then?”

  “Yeah, maybe.” He shrugs. “I don’t know, it got better when he started focusing on the art. And I really feel for the guy. He’s trying to get better, which I totally get. He and Chloe have started going to this art therapy thing and it sounds kinda cool.”

  “Have you thought about joining them?” Caleb gets a bit cagey anytime I ask him about therapy but I can tell that it’s important to him. He’s so terrified of repeating the mistakes he made with Tyler and Henry.

  “I don’t know.” He shrugs again.

  “Sure you do.” I smile. “You’ve talked about using your ability to help people before. Maybe volunteering in a group thing could be a way to get into that.”

  “Yeah.” He smiles back. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

  I want to tell him how group therapy helped me. About how music is one of those things that makes me want to hurt myself less. But then I’d have to tell him about the cutting and the rehab and the open doors and I don’t think I’m ready for that.

  But guilt hangs heavy in my stomach. Caleb has opened up about everything. He’s told me his biggest secret, takes the time to describe it to me; he shares what he’s learning about Atypicals, and he’s the one who was brave enough to make the first move. I haven’t even mustered up the courage to have a real conversation about my depression. Here he is, telling me about mind readers and experiments and I can’t tell him I’ve been diagnosed with a fairly common mental illness. Instead, I try to act like I’m the normal one in this relationship—ask him more questions about Chloe and Frank and using his ability for something good and hope that’s enough.

  * * *

  “So I hear you had an interesting talk with your father the other day,” my mom says, coming up behind me as I wash the dishes. I really should just avoid the kitchen entirely. Then maybe I wouldn’t keep finding myself in these situations.

 
“Uh, yeah, we did.” I aim for casual and fall somewhere along the lines of “No, Mom, I didn’t drink at the party, smell my breath” levels of suspicious.

  “And how was that?” she leads, crossing her arms and leaning against the counter to face me. I turn off the sink and tilt my head to look at her. She’s smiling warmly at me, but there’s the steely flint in her eye that I usually only see directed toward her sister.

  “It was … frustrating,” I say honestly, knowing the direct approach can be the most effective. “I just wish you and Dad would talk to me about what you do.”

  “Why the sudden interest?” she asks. “You never seemed to care before. What’s changed?”

  All right, Adam. If you’re going to do the direct approach, do the direct approach.

  “Caleb,” I say. “He’s … different.”

  “I know, sweetie.” She smiles and my face heats. “He seems like a really special boy.”

  “Yeah,” I say, staring into the sink, “he is. And I just—I want to be a good boyfriend to him, you know?”

  Oh shit. Did I just tell my mom that Caleb is my boyfriend? We haven’t actually had that conversation yet. I sneak a look at her to see her smile taking up her entire face. I haven’t seen that expression in years.

  “I think that’s very sweet, Adam.” She smirks and I barely suppress the eye roll. “But what does this have to do with the work your dad and I do?”

  The steely flint is back and my heartbeat picks up a couple paces.

  “You just … you’re always talking about how different brains are, and Caleb’s brain is, you know, different. Like the way my brain is different,” I add, the admission like a blade against my skin.

  “Oh, sweetie, I didn’t realize—” The steel in my mother softens and dissolves, but for the wrong reasons.

  “No, he’s not—Caleb isn’t like me. I mean, as far as I know. It’s not the same kind of different,” I say nonsensically. “He’s got other stuff going on.”

  “What kind of other stuff?”

  Direct approach, Adam. That’s the best thing. The direct approach.