CHAPTER Two
Something strange happens during English class.
One minute, Mrs. Winger is at the board, scribbling the definition of motif onto the whiteboard, and the next . . . she isn’t.
There’s just nothing. It’s not like I fell asleep. I can still feel myself there, but somehow I’m not anymore. I’m floating in a big sea of black. There are muffled noises, and every now and then I can make out a word or two. Time seems to speed up or slow down. Minutes pass, or an hour. I don’t know. And then I’m back again, in the same chair, my notebook with a half-finished definition of motif written down in purple ink.
I look around me, wondering if anyone noticed anything odd. Across the room, Samantha is staring at me. Out of everyone, she would know if I was acting strangely. Before the Homecoming Debacle of Sophomore Year, we did everything together, from painting each other’s toenails with zebra stripes to dancing to Lady Gaga on my bed.
She hasn’t spoken to me since the fire during a party at her house last fall. Not even to thank me for trying to pull her out before she was consumed by the flames. Unable to drag her by myself, I fainted. Rollins was the one to save us both.
Now Samantha sits there staring at me, like she knows something weird happened but she can’t quite put her finger on it. She takes a lock of her red hair and wraps it around her index finger again and again. Finally, she shrugs and goes back to her notes.
I look down at my hands.
They’re shaking uncontrollably.
Attributing the whole incident to a lack of caffeine, I pick up my pen and finish copying down the notes on the board.
By third-period study hall, I am feeling positively drained. Caffeine withdrawal is no joke. My head is pounding, and I want a cup of coffee so badly I feel like every vein in my body is crying out.
I tuck myself into the back of the library and lay my head on the desk, shutting my eyes. I’m even able to get a few seconds of sweet rest before the librarian rudely awakens me, tapping her garish red fingernails on the desk.
“The library is not your bedroom,” she says. “You need to keep your head up. If you don’t have any work to do, find something to read.”
I bite my tongue before saying something that would probably land me in detention, and watch her walk back to the front desk. Sighing, I stand, wander over to the magazine rack, and grab a Sports Illustrated. I paint a fake smile on my face for the librarian’s benefit and head back to my desk.
For a few minutes, I turn the pages, not really seeing the pictures. The tiny black type swims in front of me. Before long, I feel my head bowing again. But this time I’m not falling asleep. This is different. I can feel something on the pages of the magazine, a force compelling me to give in. I am about to slide.
The walls of the gymnasium pop up around me. I’m slowly jogging beside Randall Fritz, a junior on the football team. Air pumps steadily in and out of my lungs. The person I’ve slid into opens his mouth: “Tonight is going to be insane.”
Scotch again.
Ugh, only he would leave an emotional imprint on a tattered copy of a sports magazine. I briefly wonder what I did to piss off the universe so much that I’m forced to encounter this Neanderthal twice in one day. Though when I’m inside him, it’s hard to smell his stink breath, so that’s something.
I’m guessing Scotch is talking to Randall about the bonfire I overheard him mention this morning, the one he asked Samantha to attend with him. It’s all anyone’s been discussing this week. Not that I’m going.
“I know, dude. I’m stoked.”
Before I can hear any more of their conversation, I am swiftly transported back into my own mind, which is kind of a relief. I don’t need to hear Scotch and Randall talking about how wasted they’re going to get tonight.
At lunchtime, I lie on the ground underneath the bleachers, waiting for Rollins. This is our private space, among the trash and the leaves that have blown under here since fall. It’s not much, but it’s better than sitting in the cafeteria that mysteriously always smells like cabbage, watching the jocks compete to see who can eat the most slices of greasy pepperoni pizza.
I hear footsteps and open one eye.
“I brought you something,” Rollins says. He holds out a Mountain Dew.
“You’re so evil,” I say.
After a long internal debate, I rationalize that Mountain Dew isn’t as bad as coffee, and I might just need the drink to get through the day. I unscrew the cap and take a long swig.
Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I say, “Thanks.”
He shrugs. “Thought you might need it, the way you looked this morning.”
“You know me too well. I actually slid into Scotch Becker during third period. Today has been made of suck.”
Rollins looks at me with concern. He is the only person who knows that I can slide. When he found out, he was definitely freaked, especially when he learned that I’d slid into him while he was giving his wheelchair-bound mother a bath, but since he got over that he’s been amazingly supportive. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I just overheard him talking to Randall Fritz. They were making plans for that bonfire tonight.”
“How fascinating,” Rollins says.
“Exactly,” I reply. “So are you nervous for tonight?”
Rollins chews on his lip ring. “No.”
“Bullshit,” I say.
He sighs. “It’s not that I’m nervous, per se. It’s more that I’m apprehensive. What if no one calls in? What if I spend the whole night just talking to myself? What if I suck?”
I offer him a drink from my Mountain Dew. His fingers brush against mine as he takes it from me, and a shiver goes up my spine, as cliché as that may sound. It really, actually does. I pull my hand back, hoping he didn’t notice.
“You know me too well,” he says, handing the bottle back to me.
“It’s true.”
Dinner is my favorite—homemade pizza with green peppers on top.
I watch my father and Mattie bow their heads to pray. My sister’s cross necklace, the one that used to be my mother’s, reflects light from the old chandelier hanging above the table. My mother picked out the chandelier, along with most of our other furnishings, at a flea market.
I search for the comforting feeling of the picture of my mother that I stashed in my pocket this morning, but it’s not there. I reach deeper. Nothing. After checking the other pocket with no luck, I start to worry. Did I drop it somewhere?
“So how was the operation?” Mattie asks when they’re finished praying.
To my relief, my father doesn’t go into detail, as he sometimes does when discussing a particularly interesting case. He takes his oath seriously and never tells us the names of his patients, but he usually can’t resist raving about how well a surgery went or ranting about how a nurse nearly botched the whole thing.
“As well as could be expected,” he says. “I just hope the parents made the right decision.” I think about the baby recovering from the surgery. My heart clenches for her.
“How was school?” he asks.
Mattie cuts in before I can even say a word.
“I got terrible cramps during first period,” Mattie moans dramatically. “I had to go to the nurse, and she gave me an Advil and let me lie down for a little bit.”
My father looks a bit like he regrets asking. He turns to me. “How about you, Vee? Did you have a good day?”
I nod, taking a big bite of pizza. Hell if I’m going to tell them about the weird experience I had during English class today. Or about sliding into Scotch. I’m attributing both of those occurrences to caffeine withdrawal. Neither my father nor Mattie knows that, up until a few weeks ago, I was swallowing twenty to thirty caffeine pills a day, trying desperately to stay awake so I wouldn’t slide.
“I learned what motif is,” I offer.
My father bobs his head, looking almost like he’d rather hear about Mattie’s period than about the literary terms I’m studying. “Good, good.” He lifts his slice of pizza and takes a big bite.
“Hey, have either of you guys seen that old picture of Mom, the one where she’s wearing a sombrero?”
Both of them shake their heads.
After that, we eat in silence.
Long after the dishes have been rinsed and loaded into the dishwasher, I’m sprawled on my bed. My alarm clock says it’s three minutes past ten. Earlier this afternoon I found a dusty old radio in my father’s study, and now I’m twisting the dial, looking for KRNK. All I hear is static. Spinning it the other way, I finally locate the right channel—and hear a familiar voice.
Rollins.
He’s talking about the ridiculousness of prom—how dumb it is for guys to spend weeks of paychecks to fork out sixty bucks a ticket, not to mention a hundred on a tux and another twenty on a corsage. Some idiots even rent a limo for the occasion. It’s a rant I’ve heard a million times. The corners of my mouth turn up into a smile. I close my eyes and sink into the familiarity of his voice, his words.
“My colleague Anna disagrees with me on this point,” he says.
My eyes fly open. Who is Anna?
Rollins continues. “I mean, I get where she’s coming from. There’s the whole romance aspect of it. You’re supposed to make the girl feel like a princess and sh—crap. But the thing is, if you’re really into someone, you shouldn’t have to spend a ton of money to prove it. Why not just rent a couple of scary movies and make some popcorn?”
I grin. That’s what we do every Friday night—watch horror movies and eat junk food. We call it Friday Night Fright. I can’t help but wonder if there’s some deeper meaning to his words. Is he trying to tell me something, hint that he still has feelings for me? Or is this all hypothetical? Just banter for his radio show?
I grab my pillow and hold it to my chest.
“Anyway, I’m sure you’re all tired of listening to me go on and on. Instead, I’ll play a song that, to me, screams true romance.” I hear him clacking through CD cases, looking for the right one. “Here it is. ‘Everlong’ by Foo Fighters. Okay, all you naughty kids, staying up late on a school night. This is what a rock song should sound like.”
As the opening chords rattle the old radio, I close my eyes. Is this song meant for me? This song about waiting and wishing and wanting someone for so long? Could Rollins still feel the same way about me that he did that night in October? Or has he met someone else, someone who is ready to love him back?
The music rolls over me, and a silly image pops into my head. Rollins, in a vintage tux, and me in a glittery black dress. We sway together to the music, moving too slowly for the fast song.
This dream is not like the others.
Instead of the passenger, I’m the driver. The steering wheel is hard and unwieldy beneath my grasp, and there’s the distinct scent of vanilla in the air—the smell of the air freshener my sister put in my father’s car when he started taking her for practice drives.
I’m not on the interstate like I usually am in my dreams. I’m on some strange country road I don’t recognize. The gravel crunches beneath the tires. Cornfields race by, a blur of shadows in the night. For some reason, the car is going faster and faster. It takes me a minute to realize my foot is pressing hard on the accelerator.
The moonlight shining down, the detail on the wooden fence that pops up on the left, the sweet smell in the air—everything is too real. I try an experiment and yank the wheel to the right.
The car veers, and I feel my stomach lurch as inertia claims me. The car rolls into the ditch, but it doesn’t stop there. I see a telephone pole in my peripheral vision, and when it slams into the side of the car, pain shoots through my arm and chest where the seat belt tightens. My head slams against the window, and everything goes black.
When I wake up, I search for the comfort of my room, my telescope, the old rocking chair that used to belong to my mother. Instead, all I see is the vanilla air freshener, dangling inches away from my face, spattered with blood.
I sit up, wincing at the pain that sears through my head. Shaking, I reach for the rearview mirror and adjust it so I can see myself. My face is pale in the moonlight, with rivulets of black-red blood snaking down.
It wasn’t a dream.
This is really happening.
How the hell did I end up here? The last thing I remember is falling asleep, listening to Rollins’s voice on the radio. How could I possibly have risen, unaware, snuck down the stairs and out the door, and climbed into my father’s car?
It just doesn’t make any sense.
Scrambling, I look around for my phone. If I was able to somehow get into the car and drive myself into the middle of nowhere, maybe I had the sense to grab it. But there’s nothing in the center console or on the floor. I open the glove compartment and shuffle through my father’s registration and insurance papers. Nothing.
I push open the door and stumble out into the chill that is Iowa on an April evening. The wind slices through my thin T-shirt. I duck my head into the car and grab a University of Iowa sweatshirt that my father tossed in the backseat at some point. It does little to warm me up, but it’s better than nothing.
Where am I?
The gravel road seems to stretch on forever in both directions. In the sky, Ursa Minor shines brightly. The mama bear constellation. It makes me feel a little less alone. I turn around and see the glow of the city. I start walking down the road, heading toward the light. My mind races as I try to make sense of it all.
Strange occurrences certainly aren’t new to me. I’m used to sliding into people unexpectedly and having to figure out who the hell I am and what I’m doing. But this is something else. This isn’t sliding. I’m not in someone else’s body. I’m in my own. It’s almost like . . . someone else took over my body and forced me to steal my father’s car and drive out into the country.
It’s like someone else slid into me.