“Besides,” I add, “I don’t think I’m going to keep playing once I get to college.” I only signed up for orchestra because I wanted to look well-rounded for colleges, and marching band required too much extra work. They play at every game; we play two concerts a year.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. Rosemarie and Jenny are planning to grab ice cream after my orchestra practice is over and want me to hurry up.
“You should keep playing; you’re really good!” Kasey says. She lugs her cello over her shoulder.
I shrug. “It’s not like I’m going to major in music,” I say.
“What are you going to major in?”
I readjust my own cello’s strap. I wish people would quit asking me that. I’m not like Kasey. I don’t have a talent. I don’t have this burning passion to dedicate myself to one thing. Kasey’s going to be the next Yo-Yo Ma and spend her whole life in music, and I doubt she has ever even stopped to think about how lucky she is—not just because she has talent, but because she knows exactly what she wants to do with it.
I mean, I guess I have some talents. But I don’t have passion, not the way she does.
Kasey stays behind to tell Mr. Ramirez how she did at her summer program audition, and I head to my locker. I know my brother thinks I’m weird for liking school, but I do. High school is simple. I know the way things work. Just like playing the notes to Bach on the cello, I can play the teachers and the classes. It’s easy to see just how to act, how to be, how to get by in high school. I understand the patterns.
I had talked to Jenny and Rosemarie at the beginning of the school year about how Bo was going to be attending a different school than me, but they didn’t ask any follow-up questions, and I didn’t supply any additional information. Part of me wanted to confess everything to them, to tell them that things are a mess and I can’t make them right and please, please, please just listen.
But a larger part of me prefers to escape here every day. I go to school, and I pretend like everything’s okay, like I’m an only child, like I live in a world without Bo. People joke with me, and I do my schoolwork, and during those hours, from eight to three, nothing’s wrong. If I tell anyone about Bo, they’ll treat me different. I don’t want sympathy. I want to pretend that I’m just Phoebe. Just Phoebe. Not Phoebe, sister of Bo. Not Phoebe who can do nothing more than watch as everything falls apart around her. Just Phoebe, the junior orchestra geek who participates in too many clubs and doesn’t take her eye off the prize: Graduation. College. Escape. I like that Phoebe.
But that Phoebe always goes home.
CHAPTER 13
The next morning, I’m summoned to Dr. Franklin’s office before breakfast is over. I snatch an apple before I leave the common room, where the breakfast buffet is spread out. The others watch me go, no doubt wondering why the Doctor couldn’t wait the fifteen minutes until the start of our group session.
“Bo,” he says warmly, standing up as I enter his office.
“What’s going on?” I ask. The hairs on my arms and the back of my neck prickle. I remember the dull, metallic noise of my doorknob being rattled last night by the unit leader who was waiting for me.
He sighs. “Friday was a rough day for all of us. I wanted to see how you were doing now that you’ve had some time to process and sort out your feelings.”
I shrug. That day had been rough because he made it rough. I was forced to spend the entire day “mourning” Sofía when I could have been figuring out how to save her. I know we had to make it feel real for the staff who aren’t in on the academy’s true purpose, but it was still a waste. A pointless day that made everyone sad for no reason at all.
And it made me feel like a failure. Like Dr. Franklin and everyone else had already given up on me. On Sofía.
“I just wish I could have stopped it,” I say. It would be so simple if I could just go back in time and stop myself from losing her. But time’s not simple.
“It’s not your fault, you know,” Dr. Franklin says.
I shoot him an exasperated look. We both know it’s entirely my fault. If I hadn’t taken her back, she wouldn’t be stuck in the past. But all I say is, “It’s okay.”
The Doctor frowns. “Sometimes we redirect our emotions because we’re scared of them,” he says slowly. “In times like these, it’s important to remember that it’s natural to grieve.”
“Grieve?” I ask. “I’m not going to grieve. I’m going to save her.”
The Doctor stands up and moves closer to me, his hand trailing across the wooden surface of his desk. His fingers tap on the edge of his desk, his face impassive but his eyes gleaming. I glance down at where he’s tapping and see a small video camera on a tabletop tripod. The camera’s not new; Dr. Franklin has recorded our sessions before. But this time, the light is blinking. It’s recording. In the past, he’d tape us so that we could watch ourselves using our powers and learn from our mistakes. But I’m not using my power right now . . .