“How was school?”
“Fine. How was work?”
“Not bad. Did you enjoy the chick-un sandwich?”
“It was okay.”
Mom pushes the play button on her CD player to resume listening to her daily inspirations. Dr. Wayne Dyer’s voice comes out of the speakers, telling her how to change her life.
If only I could change mine.
Finally we arrive at Dr. Tylyn’s office for my much-needed appointment, and Mom pushes the pause button. “How do you like this Tylyn woman? Do you feel like she’s helping you?”
“I feel like she can help me,” I say, hoping it’s the truth.
“That’s good,” she says, relaxing in her seat, failing to ask me anything else, even when I wait a full five seconds. It’s as if she’s finally resigned to letting go—to letting someone else ask all the tough questions. But not even Kimmie is asking them anymore.
“I’ll be back in two hours,” she says.
Two hours: the length of time that Dr. Tylyn recommended we’d meet.
I hurry inside the main campus building and up the stairs, two at a time. Dr. Tylyn is already in her office when I arrive.
“How are you doing today?” she asks, turning away from her computer. The voodoo doll has graduated from her chair to the top of her desk. Without waiting for my answer, she gets up to light a stick of incense, then joins me on the sofa with her tea. “I’d like to start this session by talking about the real reason you’ve come to see me.”
The real reason? “I’m here because Ms. Beady said I needed a therapist.”
“Well, I think there’s more to it,” she says, staring straight at me.
I wriggle in my seat, unsure of how to respond.
“I’m a firm believer that people create their own reality,” she continues. “You wanted to come see me. It was a conscious choice that you made.”
“Meaning I made all of this happen?” I ask. “The hallucinations? The voices? The instances when I’ve felt like I’m literally coming apart at the seams?”
“No, but I do believe that some part of you—subconsciously—chose to bring those voices to a head at a specifically opportune time, so that you’d require some sort of intervention.”
“Except I wouldn’t exactly call freaking out in the middle of art class an opportune time,”
I tell her.
“Why not? It got you here, didn’t it?” she says. “Let’s face it; our brain protects us in so many ways. Perhaps yours was leading you to help.”
“Maybe.” I shrug, wondering if she might be right.
“So, what’s the real reason you’re here?” she asks again.
I sit on my hands to keep from fidgeting, surprised at how good she is at getting to the truth. We spend the next several minutes talking about my aunt—how I found her diary, how she’s been in and out of mental hospitals, and how I know she has the power of psychometry.
“Is that what you think you have, too?” she asks, not showing even a hint of alarm.
I nod and tell her about Ben, about how he used his power to save my life, and about how I’ve been able to predict the future, too. “But through my pottery,” I explain. “Through sculpting, or even just dreaming about sculpting…sort of like how my aunt is able to predict stuff with her paintings.”
“But unlike you, Ben has never questioned his own sanity,” she points out. “Why do you think that is?”
“Maybe because he doesn’t hear voices? Because he doesn’t have an aunt who’s tried to kill herself a bunch of times?”
“Your aunt isn’t you,” she says.
“Yes, but sometimes history repeats itself.”
“It doesn’t always have to—at least, not in your case. Sometimes history repeats itself because people follow patterns that they didn’t create.”
“I didn’t choose to hear these voices,” I assure her.
“No, you didn’t,” she agrees. “But how you deal with the voices is your choice—at least, it is for now.”
“Meaning…?”
“Meaning, you need to create your own patterns. You need to give yourself a chance.”
“Isn’t that why I’m here?”
“I hope so,” she says, leaning forward over her notes. “You chose to find me, after all…and that’s a big step in the right direction.”
I take a deep breath, focusing on the idea of choice. I know that it was Ben’s choice to stop punishing himself for his past, to try and start anew, which is why he moved to Freetown.
“What will you choose?” Dr. Tylyn asks me.
If only I had the answer.
BY THE TIME I LEAVE Dr. Tylyn’s office, my head is absolutely spinning. I start down the hallway toward the exit, noticing that Hayden’s night classes are already in full swing; most of the classrooms are packed with students. I’m just about to head down the stairs when I hear a male voice call out my name.
I turn to look, thinking it’s Ben, feeling my heart start to beat at quadruple its normal speed.
But it’s Adam.
“What are you doing here?” I ask him.
He’s sitting on a chair outside the dean’s office, partly blocked by a cleaning cart. “Well, last I checked, I was kind of a student here.” He smiles, standing up to greet me.
“Are you taking night classes?” I look toward the chair for a bag or some books, but it appears he’s empty-handed. “You’re posing tonight?” I guess.
He shakes his head, suddenly appearing nervous. He tucks the tips of his fingers into the pockets of his jeans, but then ends up folding his arms. “I was actually waiting for you,” he explains.
“You were?” I ask, completely confused. I gaze back toward Dr. Tylyn’s office, wondering how he could possibly have known that I had an appointment.
“I was picking up my check from Dwayne when I saw you go in,” he explains.
“Two hours ago.” I look at my watch.
“I didn’t know how long you were going to be, so I decided to wait. After about an hour or so, I told myself to leave, but then I’d already been waiting so long it would’ve been stupid to give up. Anyway, here I am.” He smiles again. “But, fear not, I had company.” He pulls his cell phone from his pocket and shows me the screen, where he’s got a game of solitaire in progress.
“I also raided the candy machine a couple of times.” He reaches into his jacket for a box of Jujyfruits. “Your favorite, right?” He hands me the box.
“How did you know?” I ask, dumbfounded that he would’ve waited so long, that he did wait so long.
Just for me.
“I’m cool that way.” He winks. “So, what do you say? Can I give you a ride home? Can I buy you a late-night dinner? A walk to your car? A coffee to fulfill your all-night cramming needs? An ice cream at the nearest dairy establishment?”
“That’s quite a list of choices.”
“I’ll take whatever I can get.”
“Well, in that case,” I say, reaching for my phone to dial my mom, “I’ll see what I can do.”
Unfortunately, Mom doesn’t pick up; she probably still has her cell phone set to silent mode because of yoga class (a fairly regular occurrence). Adam and I exit Hayden’s main campus building, and I spot her, already parked and waiting by the curb.
She rolls the passenger-side window down when she sees Adam and me approach. “It’s good to see you,” she tells him.
Adam returns the sentiment, saying that he’s missed chatting about soccer with my dad, and that he was recently telling someone about my mom’s Elvis-inspired rawkin’ raw-sagna.
But, before they can continue to bond, I interrupt this program to mention that Adam’s offered to take me out for a quick bite.
“Now?” Mom asks.
“If it wouldn’t be a problem,” Adam says. “And I’d be happy to bring Camelia home afterward.”
“It’ll only be an hour or so,” I assure them both.
Mom doesn’t argue, perhaps glad to see
me doing something “normal.” Instead, she reminds me that it’s a school night, and that I need to be home by ten. I hop into Adam’s Bronco, and he takes us to a 1950s-type diner. There’s nothing rawkin’ about this place. It’s my mother’s worst nightmare come true, complete with cheddar fries, strawberry milkshakes, and old-fashioned burgers—all of which is served right to your car window by a server on roller skates.
I take a sip of my shake. “You’re just like my dad, you know that?”
“Just what every guy wants to hear.”
“I mean that you always know the best places to eat. It’s a compliment.” I smile.
“Are you sure?” He smiles back. “Because I kind of thought that telling a guy he has a really nice butt, or saying how jacked his arms are, was far more complimentary…especially after seeing him naked.”
“Fishing for compliments, are we?”
“More like begging for them.”
“Well, in that case, you never fail to make me laugh.”
“The kiss of death.” He lets out an exaggerated sigh. “And now for the burning question.”
“I’m almost afraid to know.”
“What’s with you and a two-hour meeting with Tylyn?”
“Oh, that,” I say, chewing the question down with a fry.
“I hope it’s not because of me,” he continues, “because of all the torment I put you through.”
“It’s actually because of me,” I confess. “I’m going through some pretty tough stuff right now.”
“Anything I can help you with?”
I shake my head, at first assuming that I shouldn’t tell him. But on second thought, I change my mind, because Adam and I have been through a lot together these past few months.
He might actually be able to understand.
“I have reason to believe that a girl in my school is in danger,” I say.
“You have reason to believe?”
“I’m sure of it.” I take a nervous bite of my burger.
“Sort of like the way you knew that I was in danger?”
I hurry to finish what’s left in my mouth, ready to object—to make up yet another excuse as to why I suspected something was going wrong with him two months ago—but instead I decide to be honest. “Can you keep a secret?” I ask him.
“Sure.” He sets his milkshake down, sensing how serious this is.
“Okay, well, this is going to sound a little nuts,” I begin. “But I’ve been having premonitions.”
“Premonitions…as in, crystal-ball, tarot-card, scrying-mirror stuff?” he asks, surprisingly up on his New Age lingo.
“Right, but without the cards, the ball, or the mirror.”
“Commando,” he says, once again getting me to laugh.
“Not exactly,” I say, still feeling a smile on my face. “Images about the future come to me when I’m doing my art…when I’m sculpting, I mean.”
“And have those images ever included a certain tall, dark, and incredibly good-looking college guy whose name just happens to rhyme with madam, being victimized by a fellow classmate who is sending him creepy crossword puzzles that spell out clues?”
“How come you don’t sound so surprised?” I ask.
“Because I’m not,” he confesses, looking down at his shake. “I always knew there was something very different about you.”
“Definitely different,” I say, feeling like a virtual alien.
I spend the next several minutes giving him the CliffsNotes version of what happens whenever I sculpt something—minus the voices, the instances of zoning out, and any info about Ben or my aunt.
“Seriously?” he asks, looking at me like maybe I am from out of this world.
“I know,” I say, feeling completely self-conscious. “Which is why I’ve become a Tylyn Project. Hence the two-hour appointment. I’ve been working on a sculpture of a figure skater, and all this stuff’s been happening ever since.”
“That must be pretty intense,” he says. “I mean, to be able to know what’s going to happen before it actually does.…That’s obviously why you contacted me after everything I’d put you through,” he says.
I nod, unable to deny the fact that I had an ulterior motive when I first called him this past winter, and that it wasn’t of the love-stricken kind.
Adam sits back in his seat looking off into the night. The light from the moon illuminates the tension in his jaw. “And all along I thought it was because you were missing me.”
“I did miss you.”
“But you were scared for me. You were doing the right thing. That’s the real reason you reached out to me.”
“Does it even matter?” I ask, wondering if maybe I should’ve kept my secret.
But Adam finally turns to me again and tells me that it doesn’t at all. “What matters is that you cared enough to want to help me despite what an absolute tool I’d been.”
“Well, you’ve come a long way since then.”
“I’m glad you think so,” he says, glancing at my salty lips. “But now I want to help you.”
“What do you mean?”
“How can I help you with this girl who’s in trouble?”
“Danica.”
“Is she a friend of yours?”
“Not really.”
“Then why are you having premonitions about her? You realize how sci-fi that sounds, don’t you?” He smirks.
“I guess I’m a sci-fi kind of girl.”
“You’re a magical kind of girl,” he says; his face gets serious again. “At the risk of sounding cheesy, that is.”
“I like cheese,” I say, feeling my cheeks go pink. I look down at the mound of cheddar fries, trying to find a distraction.
Adam reaches out to take my hand, clearly sensing the heat between us. His fingers weave through mine, which makes me think of Ben.
I do my best to block out my Ben-thoughts by focusing on how thoughtful Adam is, and how he’s always so willing to tell me how he feels.
“Do you want to talk about Danica?” he asks me.
I shake my head, but not because I want to keep anything from him. “I’m just feeling really exhausted,” I say. “Another time?”
“Definitely.”
We spend several minutes just holding hands, snuggled together in his Bronco, not quite ready for the moment to be over. I gaze out of the fog-covered window, reminding myself of what Ben said the other day—that there’s no reason I shouldn’t be seeing Adam.
“I’d better get you home,” Adam says, checking the dashboard clock. It’s quarter to ten, and he promised to have me home by the hour. “I want to keep on your parents’ good side. I have a feeling that we’ll be seeing each other a whole lot more often. Can I call you tomorrow?”
I nod, wishing that we had more time. Still, Adam hurries to clean up our snacks and then puts the car in drive, leaving me hungry for more.
Dear Jill,
You were so nervous-even more than I was used to-and it was making me nervous, too.
You may not believe this, but after only about five minutes on the bench with you, I actually considered calling the whole thing off. But then I asked if you’d told your boss about us meeting, and you shook your head and mumbled that he thought a friend was picking you up.
There it was: already you were lying for the sake of our relationship. And so who was I to cave under pressure?
I needed to fight for our relationship too.
I tried to boost your confidence with compliments. I even bumped my knee against yours as a way to soften you up. But you kept fidgeting in your seat, looking over your shoulder, and clenching your jaw.
Do you remember how concerned I was, how I kept asking you what was wrong? I wondered if part of your anxiety might’ve had something to do with the girl who’d been scoping you out. I’d spotted her a couple times: at your house and at your work. I hadn’t liked the looks of her, and I suspected the feeling was mutual.
“Well?” I asked.
You may not want to hear this, but my distaste for your parents was growing stronger by the moment. I blamed them for your inability to see what was truly best for you. And I vowed to make them pay.
…
Dear Jack:
You looked so nice, sitting on the bench in front of Muster’s Bakery. The streetlamp shined right over you, making you look like one of those artful ads for designer jeans or musk cologne.
“I’m so glad you came,” you said, standing as I approached. You saw that I was shivering, and took off your sweatshirt, wrapped it around my shoulders, and motioned for me to sit. The sweatshirt smelled sickly sweet, like rotted fruit, making my stomach churn. But still I didn’t want to take it off.
You sat beside me, and your leg bumped against mine. “Sorry,” you said. A smile crept across your lips, like maybe you weren’t that sorry at all.
You looked older up close—at least 25, with wrinkles in the corners of your eyes, and a bit of stubble on your chin. I wondered if you knew I was only in high school and that being with me probably violated at least ten different laws. It was exciting to imagine that you did indeed know, but that you still didn’t care, as if your desire to be with me trumped any risk.
“You’re so pretty, you know that?” you said, catching me off guard. “I’m sorry, did I just say that out loud?”
I clenched my jaw, suddenly fearing the worst: that someone would jump out from behind a bush, put an end to the moment by exposing the joke that it was.
“What’s wrong?” you asked.
It was so much easier to talk to you on the computer, to fantasize about you at my leisure, and to watch you doing homework at the back of the coffee shop.
“Well?” you asked, still waiting for me to speak.
“It’s just that no one’s ever talked to me the way you do,” I said. Before my mother had left, and before my sister had turned into a virtual stranger in our home, we’d had a running joke in my family that I’d been abandoned on my parents’ doorstep at birth, because I was nothing like them—not half as confident and nowhere near as talented.
“Nobody ever talks to you like what?” You reached out to stroke the side of my face.
Your fingers were warm but rough.