47
CALEB
I swear to God, the moment this semester is over, I’m not going to think about math for the entire summer. Trying to do trigonometry while surrounded by people who also really hate math is the worst kind of torture. And with Adam off in super-advanced-special-person math, I’m completely on my own.
Moses has been a good emotional touchstone—he’s better at math than most people in the class, so he doesn’t get caught up in the tangle of frustration in the same way as everyone else. And when that doesn’t work, Tyler, weirdly, has been a refuge. I hate his feelings—hate him, hate what I did to him, his now-slightly-bumpy nose a constant reminder—but he spends so much of the class period bored or completely checked out that hooking onto his feelings is usually a complete wash.
Together, though, they’re toxic. And today I’m in a radioactive wasteland the moment I step out of the classroom.
“God, just leave me alone, Tyler,” Moses spits, louder than I’ve ever heard him. And here’s the swarm: fear, anger, self-hate … the complete cocktail I’ve come to expect from this particular combination of people. I don’t even know what they’re fighting about today and I really don’t care. I just want to get out.
“What are you gonna do, little Moses?” Tyler mocks. “Michaels isn’t gonna come and save you. He’s too chickenshit after I beat his ass last semester.”
I feel the challenge in Tyler’s emotions almost before I hear the words. He’s full up on bravado, reckless, wanting to get punched. I can’t give him the satisfaction.
“Shut the fuck up, Tyler,” I spit before I can stop myself.
“Oh, you really wanna go again, Michaels?” Tyler steps toward me, Moses’s feelings fading in the background, giving way to the burst of satisfaction in my chest. Tyler wanted this. Tyler wanted to goad me, get into another fight. I’m done caring about the why—I’m so soaked in anger and frustration and fear. He wants a fight? He’ll get a fight.
“No, he doesn’t,” someone says, grabbing my hand and steering me away from Tyler. The hot rage is being cooled by gentle waves of water.
“This isn’t any of your business, Hayes,” Tyler snarls, and I feel Adam squeeze my hand. I haven’t looked at him yet—I’m scared of him seeing too much of me like that—but knowing that he’s there is already bringing my blood pressure down.
“What the fuck business is it of yours anyway, Tyler?” Adam says lightly. “Don’t you have better things to do than picking on Moses and trying to get your face bashed in by my boyfriend? Again?”
Adam’s full of bravado too—not sure this is going to work—but I’m starting to float on his ocean, the sweep of his thumb over mine like the rocking of a boat.
“Whatever.” Tyler rolls his eyes and starts to saunter down the hallway. Moses mumbles something to us—maybe a thank-you—and I want to comfort him somehow but I’m so focused on the rhythm of Adam’s emotions I can’t form words.
“I’m sorry he’s such a dick to you, Moses,” I hear Adam say. “You should really tell someone about it.”
“Yeah, because ratting out dirtbags has historically worked out so well for the snitches,” Moses mutters, and Adam’s laugh lights up all the happy spots in my brain.
“Yeah, okay, fair point.”
“Well, thanks,” Moses’s light voice finds its way to my ears. I think I nod at him before he scurries away.
“Hey there,” Adam says, thumb still rubbing mine soothingly. I finally turn my eyes to him. His face is carefully blank, like he’s trying to control his emotions so I don’t get overwhelmed. I want to tell him that getting overwhelmed isn’t so bad when it’s with him. I want to tell him that sometimes the ocean of his emotions is terrifying in its scope, but other times, like now, I want nothing more than to drown in it. I want to tell him I love him.
“Hey” is what I say instead.
48
ADAM
The sounds of bodies hitting each other and cleats digging into the field mix into the noise of the crowd and it overwhelms me. It’s been a long time since I came to a school event. Everyone is dressed in red and white, even me—I pull Caleb’s letterman jacket closer around me and try not to look too smug that I’m wearing it.
“Wow, never thought I’d see you at one of these.”
I look to my right to see Caitlin shuffling into the bleachers to stand next to me, her arms laden with concessions. She grins around the straw of her soda and I grin back.
“Yeah, well, part of the job description now, I guess.” I shrug.
“He’s got you wrapped around his finger, does he?” she snorts, and I laugh. It’s been a couple weeks since Caitlin and I have said more than two words to each other—after the debate competition (which we won), we stopped having a reason to hang out and I got too caught up in Caleb and Atypicals and everything else to make the effort.
Not that I would have necessarily made the effort anyway. Without the built-in time of debate prep, I would have had no idea how to be Caitlin’s friend. I feel like she’s Technicolor and I’m black-and-white and that the two can’t mix together in the real world.
“Adam!”
A girl’s voice is calling to me but Caitlin is stuffing a pretzel into her mouth so I look around until I spot Chloe waving from one of the aisles. She makes her way through the crowd to me, wrapping me in a hug that makes it seem like we’ve been friends for ages. I tentatively hug her back and fumble through introductions to Caitlin.
As they shake hands, I start to have a total out-of-body experience. I’m standing in the school bleachers watching football, wearing my boyfriend’s letterman jacket, with a friend on either side of me. When did this become my life?
“Did Caitlin and Caleb used to date?” Chloe whispers into my ear as Caitlin cheers the Red Team on. The two other times I’ve been around Chloe were like this too—she just jumps into the middle of a conversation. If I’m two steps behind with Caleb, I’m twenty steps behind Chloe.
“Um, no, not really,” I whisper back. “Why?”
“She was just thinking about him and I wasn’t sure…” She cocks her head like she’s actually listening to something—like mind reading is just trying to hear a stereo in the next room—before nodding and jumping right back in.
“Ohhhh, gotcha,” she replies to no one. “Don’t worry, she’s not jealous of you. She’s happy for you guys.”
Chloe pats me on the shoulder like she’s comforting me for fears I never expressed and turns to watch the game. Guess we’re done with that conversation. Whatever it was.
The rest of the game is like that. Caitlin cheers and eats so many pretzels I start to worry about her sodium levels and Chloe has a number of conversations with me in which I don’t say a word out loud. She keeps her voice low the entire time—telling me things about our classmates, about her art, responding to my thoughts—having seven conversations at once, all by herself.
The entire time I’m focused on the field. It’s surprisingly relaxing having Chloe chatter into my ear. I don’t have to worry about saying the right thing or being interesting, because she hears everything. I don’t have to hide because I can’t hide. The lack of choice is a strange relief.
So when she tells me she doesn’t mind that I’m paying more attention to Caleb than to her, I believe it. I’ve never seen Caleb like this. He’s tense and aggressive, speeding across the field, pushing other players out of the way when he needs to. In moments when he takes off his helmet to listen to the coach or get a drink of water, his face is serious and angry.
I know this is normal for him. One of the reasons he likes football is because it lets him get out all the rage in a healthy way. I don’t get it and I’m not totally sure I approve, but I’m glad it works for him. Even if seeing him like this makes my skin prickle—like being in love with Jekyll and getting a glimpse at Hyde.
“Have you told him yet?” Chloe whispers, and I think back on my own thoughts to find what she’s asking about.
“Told him what?” I ask.
“That you love him.” She smiles.
“Oh.” My face burns. God, while the lack of pressure in conversation in refreshing, knowing a mind reader is also sort of mortifying. And now I’ve thought that and the last thing I want to do is hurt Chloe’s feelings so I just focus on answering the question. “No, no, I haven’t.”
“You should.” She smiles like she knows a secret and I want to ask her what she’s heard in Caleb’s thoughts. But before I can she grimaces, squeezing her eyes shut before sighing and opening them to give me an apologetic look.
“All right”—she winces—“I think I’m officially tapped out.”
“Too many people?” I guess.
“Yep.” She nods slowly. “Dr. Bright wants me to ease back into group settings, but this may have been a little too much too fast.”
She leans around me to say good-bye to Caitlin and then asks me to make her apologies to Caleb. I tell her I will and I wave as she makes her way down the bleachers. Any time I think I’m living the high school cliché, I’m reminded that so many of the people in my life are not normal. At least they’re not normal in a way that’s interesting and cool, instead of being not normal in the way that means they lie in bed for days at a time.
As I watch Caleb move around the field with a fierce intensity I’ve never seen from him, it dawns on me just how differently he operates. He’s feeling the emotions of the entire team, the entire stadium, and he carries it all on his shoulders like a pro. Not to mention, dealing with me when I get bad. Every part of my being wants to return the favor—wants to know how to comfort Caleb when he gets overwhelmed, how to talk him down when he gets furious. But I have no idea where to start.
Talking to my mom had been a mixed bag. I didn’t tell her about the empath stuff but instead borrowed Caleb’s mirror-touch synesthesia example. She knows the processes a brain like that goes through, but she’s not a psychologist. She couldn’t tell me how to be there for someone like Caleb. And where I would normally turn to research, there’s not exactly a handbook on this.
I push any thought of my own problems out of my head and refocus on the game. I’m determined to be here for Caleb. To be “green” as he calls it. To be normal.
49
CALEB
As the school year starts to wind down, I settle into a rhythm for the first time since the beginning of junior year. I start to get back on track with schoolwork—though my grades are never going to recover from first semester—go to art therapy with Chloe and Frank, and spend all my free time with Adam. There are still the days where the tide pulls me under, but we start to learn how to balance those days. Sometimes Adam hides from me—only talking to me over Skype or the phone so I don’t have to feel his emotions—and sometimes he tries to squash his feelings down. But, when I ask, he lets me sit on the ocean floor with him. It’s not exactly pleasant, but I always leave it feeling like I know Adam even better. And I’m grateful for that.
Even when things are green with Adam, my life becomes increasingly not-normal. Hanging out with Chloe opens up the world of Atypicals to me. I try not to ask Dr. Bright too much about the organization she mentioned, and I definitely don’t talk about it with my parents, but little by little, I start to realize there’s this whole other world out there that I’m a part of. A world of telepaths and mind manipulators and other empaths and who the hell knows what else.
It’s all exciting and new until Chloe calls me one day, frantic and worried, and tells me to come meet her. After one minute hearing her talk, I wish I hadn’t agreed.
“What do you mean Adam’s parents did something to Frank?” I ask, trying to wrap my head around what she’s telling me.
“So,” she starts, fiddling with the colorful bangles wrapped around her wrist, “I ran into Adam and his parents this morning—”
“Yeah, so you said,” I say, to try to hurry her along. I like Chloe but she’s easily distracted. I don’t know if it’s because she’s always listening in on people’s thoughts or if it’s just the way her personality is.
“Right,” she says, “and they were really nice, they seem like good people. But I mentioned Frank and … they knew who I was talking about. They’ve met him.”
“Okay…” I prompt.
“They experimented on him,” she finishes, eyes wide.
“What?”
* * *
“What, exactly, did Chloe see?” Dr. Bright asks a few hours later after agreeing to do an emergency session with me. She’s got her walls up—her perfect therapist exterior—but there’s an electric undercurrent of fear running between us like a train track.
“She wasn’t totally sure,” I say, jittery, “but I guess mentioning the Marines made the Hayes think about their work—I guess they work with the military? I didn’t know that. I just always assumed they worked at a hospital.”
“It isn’t unusual for the military to hire scientists,” she says calmly. Calm, calm, calm—I can practically hear the thought running around her head. It’s such a lie.
“No, I know that, but Adam’s never mentioned it. I feel like that’s a pretty big thing to leave out. Especially since Adam has a lot of opinions about the military.”
“Is that what’s causing you concern?” she asks. “That Adam’s parents work in an area he doesn’t approve of?”
“No, it’s—” I shake my head. “It’s the kind of work they’re doing. Chloe, she only got glimpses so she can’t be sure, but she said she saw a lot of not-good stuff. They were thinking about Marines they’d worked with—or no, they worked on. They were experimenting with them—on them—ugh, I don’t know. But she saw Frank. In the Hayeses’ heads. They were doing something to him. She said it was a different Frank too—like, younger, healthier. And the Hayeses and some other scientists were doing something to him and a bunch of other soldiers but the soldiers knew about it. So, I don’t fucking know what that means.”
I may not be able to read people’s heads like Chloe can, but just feeling her sick with worry as she relayed what she saw to me gave my imagination plenty to work with.
“Chloe got all this from their thoughts by mentioning Frank?” Dr. Bright asks, like the exact wording of the conversation is what’s important here.
“Well, no. After she saw the first bit of something,” I explain, “she started talking about Frank more and asking some questions. She’s gotten really good at making people think of certain things.”
“I didn’t know that.” A sliver of sharp disappointment cuts through the practiced calm.
“Yeah, it’s actually—it’s pretty cool,” I say. “And apparently when she started talking about other organizations that she’s looked into to help Frank—like the art therapy place and the VA and the vet center and all that—that’s when she saw this symbol in the Hayeses’ thoughts. The one for that organization you told me about, the—the monitoring one—”
“The AM?” Dr. Bright’s eyes widen and it’s like being shocked by the third rail. “Chloe saw The AM’s logo in the Hayeses’ thoughts?”
“I guess.” I nod.
“Is she certain?” The electrical current grows and sparks.
“She seemed pretty certain.”
“She should have called me.” Dr. Bright still sounds calm but she’s given up on trying to hide her fear from me. It makes my whole body static. “If your boyfriend’s parents work for the AM, then—”
“No, no, they don’t work for them,” I say, my instinct telling me that clarity on this is important. “They just—they work with them.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Chloe was pretty sure about that,” I explain. “They don’t work for the AM or whatever it’s called but they’ve been working with them on the soldier experiments that they’re doing. And Chloe is worried it might have something to do with us.”
“What?” Dr. Bright’s worry gets caught up in the tangle of confusion and pressure grows behind my eyes.
; “Well, she said that she saw the organization logo thing and then a bunch of stuff about Class A. And she says that’s what we are. In the categorization of Atypicals or something, that I’m a Class A, we’re Class As.”
“Yes.” She nods. “Yes, that’s true. So Adam’s parents are working with the military and the AM to experiment with Class A Atypicals who are also soldiers? I’m sorry, that’s a bit of a hard story to swallow. I don’t think there are enough known Class A Atypicals to populate the military.”
“No, the soldiers aren’t special like us,” I say, trying to work through the confusion knotting my head—pushing aside the whole “Class A” conversation that clearly needs to happen so that we can get to the bottom of this. “Chloe thinks they were using Atypicals to experiment on the Marines. She thinks they did something to Frank.”
“That’s a pretty serious accusation.” Dr. Bright raises her eyebrows at me and a real, genuine calm starts to loosen the knot.
“I know,” I breathe. “But, look, I trust her. She knows that she can’t be one hundred percent sure without talking to them more, but Chloe thinks that’s why I have such a strong reaction to Frank. Because they, like, did something with his empathy.”
“That’s what she saw in the Hayeses’ thoughts?” she asks. “That they were experimenting on Frank’s empathy?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” I shrug.
“Have you talked to Adam?” There’s another shock but it’s not Dr. Bright this time. It’s my own fear.
“I texted him earlier,” I say. “But he and his parents were on their way to have lunch with his aunt and apparently that’s usually a pretty drawn-out thing so I don’t—I don’t think he’s checking his phone.”
“What did you text him?” she asks, and I want to roll my eyes at the fact that I spend a lot of time talking about my texts in therapy.
“Just that I’m really freaked out,” I mumble. “That I’m worried his parents are dangerous. I don’t know, it didn’t feel like this before, it—” I swallow, worry clawing its way up my throat. “But now that I know Chloe and I know there are other people out there like me, it feels like a them-and-us situation, you know? Like, what if his parents are against people like me?”
The Infinite Noise Page 27
