“I think I’m dreaming,” he says.
“Good dream or nightmare?”
“I haven’t decided yet.” He studies my face as though he can find the answers written there. “How?”
“There are a lot of theories. Some say the psychologically advanced have just always been a percentage of the population. Others think that we are descendants of demigods (that’s the only theory Laila chooses to acknowledge). And then there’s the idea that we are the next step in evolution. Whatever the case, it’s definitely genetic—something we’re born with.”
The phone in my pocket vibrates, and I check the screen. It’s a message from my mom: Call me. We need to talk. My heart flips, and I write back, Is this about Laila? Is she okay? My mom responds, Laila? No, this is about us. I sigh and set my phone on the coffee table. Trevor follows my every action, and I can’t tell if it’s from shock or if he thinks I’m about to evaporate him with my mind powers. I point at the phone. “Sorry, it was my mom.” As another chill goes through me, I realize I forgot to turn on the heater when I came home. It’s so cold in here.
Trevor crosses his arms in front of his chest, and I want to run over and tug them down, tell him not to close up on me. To give me a chance. My eyes blur with tears, and I look up at the light to keep them at bay. “Will you just …” My shoulders shake with a sob that I’m trying my hardest to hold in. “Will you just please sit down? I’m not going to zap you or anything.”
He drops his arms to his sides before running one hand through his hair. “I know. It’s just …” He walks to the couch and sits back down. “It’s just a lot to take in.”
I slowly sit down as well, again on the farthest cushion from his. My phone vibrates, and from where it sits on the coffee table I can see that it’s my mom. I sigh. “While you’re deciding if you’re horrified or not, can I ask for some advice?”
“Sure.”
I tell him about the argument I had with Laila over Bobby.
“So this Bobby guy hurt you?”
“Was going to hurt me.”
“So you can change the future?”
“No. I can only take the opposite path. For all I know, Bobby ended up doing the same thing to a different girl.”
“So Bobby is one of the villains in the story, right? The guy who’s purposefully injuring …” He trails off, as if finally connecting the story to real life. “He did this to my shoulder?”
“I don’t know … maybe, or someone like him. He has the ability to manipulate mass. I think he could probably separate muscle from bone even from a distance.…” I cringe. “I’m sorry that sounds horrible.”
Trevor doesn’t say anything, but his expression has softened considerably.
“He sounds like a prick.” It’s the harshest thing I’ve ever heard Trevor say, and it makes me smile a little because I can think of so much worse.
“He is.”
“And Laila is hanging out with this guy despite all this?”
I nod my head.
“She’s either a horrible friend or has no common sense.”
“She’s an amazing friend. It’s not like her. I mean it’s like her, but it’s not. What should I do?”
“Just give her some time, Addison. She’s probably feeling defensive because she knows she shouldn’t be hanging around a guy who did what he did to you.”
I remember Laila’s words and repeat them out loud. “He didn’t do anything to me.”
“But he would’ve.”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“To you it is, right?” He presses his palm against one eye, then turns toward me. “Am I understanding that right? To you, it feels exactly the same as if it had happened.”
It’s hard for me to admit it out loud. For some reason I’m embarrassed, because I think what Bobby did to me was partially my fault. If I hadn’t followed him into the house, if I hadn’t sat so close, maybe I led him on … “Yes, it feels exactly the same.”
“Why didn’t you have Laila Erase that memory? She is the Mind Eraser, Lola, from the comic, right?”
I nod. “Some memories I don’t want to forget. A lot of times because they’re so good, but sometimes, like in Bobby’s case, because I need to remember.”
“That makes sense,” he says. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”
I look at my hands, suddenly very interested in my fingernails. “It’s not your fault.”
He turns again, sliding his feet to the ground, and lifts his arm. The action is most likely a result of pity, but I’ll take it. I crawl forward, across the cushion separating us. Wrapping my arms around his chest, I sink against his side, determined to never let go.
He runs a hand down my hair and then softly pulls on the ends. “It’s not your fault either,” he says quietly. “You know that, right?”
I nod and squeeze my eyes closed as hot tears fill them. It takes a few shaky breaths before I get myself back in control. I play with the zipper on his jacket as we sit in silence, moving it up and down a few inches. He’s wearing a black V-neck shirt beneath it. On his collarbone is a single freckle. I run my finger over it. “You’re warm.”
He rests his cheek on the top of my head.
“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have lied to you. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
His deep, even breaths and the steady beat of his heart lull me. My breath has warmed the little cocoon I’ve created against him. He smells spicy, like cologne and salt. The skin on his neck is soft on my nose and I push it farther into him until my lips rest against him. My finger traces back and forth over his collarbone, and my mouth brushes along his neck until it finds the skin right behind his earlobe, which is even softer.
I realize Trevor has gone perfectly still. Even his breathing has stopped. I sit back and look at him, gauging his reaction. “I don’t want to lose you over this,” I say. “I didn’t—”
He presses his lips to mine, stopping not only my sentence but my breath in my throat. He takes my face in his hands and moves his mouth slowly across mine. Every nerve ending in my body is electrified.
He pulls away and searches my eyes. “You haven’t lost me,” he says, before bringing me back to him. Just when I decide that I could kiss him all day long, he says, “Addison?”
“Yeah?”
“What if this is a Search?”
I stiffen. “What?”
“Have you ever thought about that before? What if now, this very moment, isn’t set in stone. What if you’re just seeing a vision of what could be?”
“I think about that all the time.” I run my hand over his chest. He feels so real.
“What if you don’t choose this? What if you decide your other future is better?”
I hug him, resting my cheek against his. “Do you know what’s weird, Trevor?”
“What?”
“In the six years I’ve had this ability, nobody has ever asked me that question. Nobody has ever thought they were negotiable.”
He takes a deep breath. “I want you to choose me, Addie,” he whispers. “I want this to be real.”
“Don’t worry. It is. I always know when I’m in a Search.”
“How?”
“Because I can’t Search within a Search.”
“So you’ve Searched since you met me then?”
“Yes …” I trail off, thinking back. Thinking to all the times I thought about Searching. Just today I was going to do a Search for my dad. But I never actually did. “I … no. But I can. I will. Right now.”
“No.” He stops me just as I’m formulating a simple Search. “Don’t. Not while I’m here. Just promise me something. If this is a Search and you don’t pick me, don’t pick this path, for whatever reason, promise me you won’t Erase me.”
That’s a very serious promise, one I can’t make lightly. Because even though right now, if this was a Search, I can’t imagine not picking him, if for some reason something major happens and I can’t be with him, remembering him and this would be sheer torture.
His eyes seem dark again, which makes his stare more intense.
“I promise.”
He breathes me in and then closes the space between us.
CHAPTER 33
PA-RAl-y-sis: n. unable to move
A numbness starts at the crown of my head and seeps slowly down my body. I want to cry, but every feeling inside me has been nullified and replaced by an overwhelming sense of emptiness. My phone rings, and a glimmer of hope flutters in my chest. Maybe it’s Laila, calling to explain what’s going on. To tell me why she just walked into my boyfriend’s house as though they have been doing this on a nightly basis. I raise the phone. Across the bottom of the lit screen it says, Mom calling…
I pick up. “Hello?”
“Addie, where are you?”
“I’m out … studying.” For the first time, I don’t feel bad lying to her. I don’t feel much of anything.
“Why are you lying to me?”
Obviously I’m still not very good at it. “Don’t worry, I’m coming home.”
“Yes. You are. This is ridiculous. I don’t know what has gotten into you lately. You know you’re still grounded, right? The Addie I used to know would have respected that rule.”
The Addie she used to know did a lot of things differently. Saw a lot of things differently. Or maybe I just didn’t see things that were obviously right in front of me. It’s possible I said goodbye, but I don’t remember saying it. Either way, I had hung up the phone. So when it starts ringing again, I’m not surprised and prepare myself for a lecture about how rude it is to hang up on people. But when I pick up the phone, glowing across the bottom of the screen are the words: Freakshow calling…
The air in my lungs leaks out. The phone stops ringing and becomes eerily silent. How did Poison get my phone number? I look around, weighing my options.
The phone rings again. I answer. “Hello.”
“Addie, just the girl I was looking for. I need a favor.”
I reach my thumb forward to start the car, and my hand comes to an abrupt stop, a foot away from its goal.
“No,” Poison says. “You can’t leave. I need you here.”
I throw my phone onto the seat beside me and use my now free hand to try to move the other one. It doesn’t budge but instead reaches for the door handle. I try to fight against it, to tell my fingers to turn on the car and drive away. They don’t listen. They are following someone else’s orders.
I step out of the car, and that’s when I see Poison standing like a dark shadow under a streetlight, twenty feet away. Screaming is my best bet, but as I open my mouth to do so, my throat constricts.
Not a good idea, he says inside my mind.
I claw at the invisible hand squeezing my neck. Then I walk again on mind-controlled legs. My lungs burn, and the street sways.