A World Without You (23 page)

My eyes open,
but I can't see anything. My vision is blurry, and my head feels fuzzy. I'm in my room at the Berk, the painted walls covered with scraps of art I drew or posters from home, my closet an odd mirror to the one I have at home—everything that wasn't there is here. I shift in the bed. I'm not wearing my clothes; I'm wearing an odd sort of medical robe. There's a bandage around my elbow and a Band-Aid on the top of my hand.

“Wake up, asshole.”

My attention focuses on the doorway. “Ryan,” I mutter.

“Man, you are
really
messed up.”

“Huh?” I strain against the fatigue, trying to focus on Ryan's face.

But when I look again, he's not there.

I struggle to sit up, but it's like I've been buried under sand. There's movement by the door again, but this time I see Dr. Rivers and Mr. Minh. I thought they had gone. They cluck their tongues as they walk by, almost comically, their movements
long and swinging. I rub my eyes, not sure if I really even saw them. I'm left, however, with a rising sense of dread filling my stomach. Real or not, I know I can't trust those people.

Wait. What am I saying? It does matter if they're real. It matters if I'm just . . .

Hallucinating.

Had I even been home at all? My shift to my parents' world was sudden—maybe the timestream threw me back here violently, far more violently than it ever has before.

I try to call up the timestream. Maybe it has answers. But I cannot control my power—I can barely focus enough to stay awake.

And then I can't even do that anymore.

• • •

I wake up to the sensation of someone sitting at the foot of my bed. I keep my eyes shut. I'm tired. But then I smell lemons and lavender, the same scent as Sofía's shampoo, and I shoot up in bed.

She's here.

“How . . . ?” I start, shocked.

Sofía smiles. “You came here in your sleep,” she says. And then she frowns. “If you're randomly showing up places while you're asleep . . . You're losing control, aren't you?”

I run my fingers through my hair. “I don't know anymore.”

“You're losing control,” she says firmly, “and you need to wake up.”

“Bo?”

I open my eyes. The fuzziness is gone, but the grogginess remains. The Doctor sits in a stiff-backed chair by my bed.

“What happened?” I ask.

“You were briefly treated at a local facility, and then your parents sent you back here.”

That doesn't really answer my question at all.

“Bo,” Dr. Franklin says in a kind voice. “I want to be honest with you, and I want you to be honest with me.”

I nod as I peel the bandage off the back of my hand. There's a puncture mark over my vein.

“Can you tell me why you're at Berkshire Academy?”

Because I can control time. And you can heal. And we have powers, powers normal people wouldn't understand.

“Because I'm not normal,” I say.

“You
are
normal,” Dr. Franklin says immediately. “But can you be more specific about your reason for being at Berkshire?”

I can tell him what he wants to hear. “I'm crazy.”

Dr. Franklin shakes his head. “You're not. But you do have some needs that have to be addressed. We've changed your medication again. Are you feeling any negative side effects?”

“I don't know,” I say. My eyes slide over to the window, to the sunlight slicing through the iron bars in front of the glass. “Where are Dr. Rivers and Mr. Minh?”

“They're gone,” Dr. Franklin says, sighing. He sounds frustrated, angry, but I'm not sure if it's at me or at the situation. “Bo, we're going to increase the frequency of your therapy sessions,” he continues after a moment. “Your lessons are on hold until we can get you the right balance of medication and therapy.”

He reaches over and puts his hand over mine. “I'm concerned about you, Bo. And I'm concerned that you're not processing what happened to Sofía.”

Sofía was just here
, I think. She was here, and I saw her. I felt her. She was real.

As real as he is.

Before I can think about it, I yank my hand away from the bed and rake my fingernails over the back of his, clawing him and scraping his skin away. I watch the red welts rise up on his wrist.

“That hurt, Bo,” Dr. Franklin says, jerking away and staring down at his hand. “Why would you do that?”

“To see if you can heal.”

“Of course I can heal,” Dr. Franklin says, exasperated. “But we've talked about this before, in group, remember? You can't just break something to see if it can be fixed. Destruction for destruction's sake is not an appropriate release of your feelings.”

That's not what I meant, and he should know that, at least on some level. The welts should be gone now, not pricking red with blood. Even if his mind has forgotten his powers, his body should still be able to fix the damage done.

Unless . . .

Unless it's true. We don't have powers. We never did.

And maybe I don't need powers. I could live with that.

But I can't live without Sofía, and no powers means no Sofía.

Over Dr. Franklin's shoulder, I catch a glimpse of someone in the shadows. As I stare, the figure moves into the light, standing in the center of my doorway.

Carlos Estrada stares at me silently, water streaming down his body and soaking the carpet.

And my heart leaps with joy, even if this means that time
is still leaking around me. Because if I can see Carlos, it means that my powers are real, and if my powers are real, I can still save Sofía.

When I look up again, though, it's not Carlos in the doorway.

It's Ryan.

He's watching me with narrowed eyes and a grim smile. The Doctor, noticing where my gaze is, turns around. “Go to your own room, Ryan,” he says. “Or the common room. Bo and I are having a private conversation.”

“Yeah, okay,” Ryan drawls. He steps backward, but he keeps his eyes on me for as long as possible.

The Doctor gave me drugs
to help me sleep but nothing to help me stay awake after. And even though it's dark and I actually want to sleep now, I can't.

Especially with that music playing.

It's haunting and melodic, and I know immediately that it's a cello; my sister practiced enough when we were growing up that I can recognize a cello anywhere. But who has a cello at the Berk?

I creep down the hallway, following the sound of the music. At first I think it's coming from the common room, but it's deserted.

There's a light in Sofía's room.

My heart thuds in my chest. I must be traveling in my sleep again. Sofía's door is cracked, and when I push it all the way open, I'm greeted by the sight of her. Her room is exactly as I remember it, covered in various shades of pink with a plushy rug over the floor and posters on the wall—a boy-band group,
an art print by Frida Kahlo, and a calligraphic rendition of a Shakespearean quote: “To thine own self be true.”

“Sofía?”

She's sitting on the edge of the bed, a cello between her legs. Her whole body moves as she glides the bow over the strings, the rich, deep notes filling her tiny room.

“I didn't know you could play the cello,” I say. I didn't know she
had
a cello. It's kind of a big instrument to hide in here.

“This is a fugue,” she says, her voice melding in and out of the music.

“A fugue,” I repeat.

“A repetition of a short melody,” she says. I listen for a moment, and I can pick out the strain of music repeating over and over, the sounds as intricately woven together as the strings of the timestream. “In a good fugue,” Sofía continues, “there are layers. You play one melody”—a short burst of music erupts from the cello—“and that melody is not only repeated, but developed. It evolves. It changes. It's the same melody, but different.” She continues playing, and I hear the subtle changes. I can still recognize the original melody, but it's bigger now, deeper.

“Sofía,” I say. “How did I get here?”

“The key to a fugue is not in the way things are the same,” she says, “but in how they become different.”

“Why do you have a cello?” I ask. Panic is rising in my voice. Something's not right. “When did you become an expert on fugues?”

“This is a fugue,” Sofía says, her voice soft. “A repetition of a short melody. In a good fugue, there are layers. You play one
melody, and that melody is not only repeated, but developed. It evolves. It changes. It's the same melody, but different.”

“You just said that.” My hands are clammy.

“The key to a fugue is not in the way things are the same,” she says, “but in how they become different.”

“Sofía?”

She continues to play, her whole body bent over the cello, her eyes closed. “This is a fugue. A repetition of a short melody. In a good fugue, there are layers. You play one melody, and that melody is not only repeated, but developed. It evolves. It changes. It's the same, Bo, but different.”

I back away slowly, my hand reaching for her door.

“The key to a fugue is not in the way things are the same,” she says, “but in how they become different.”

“Sofía, please, please, say something else.” My voice betrays my fear. “Anything.”

The music stops.

Sofía looks up at me, her neck twisting uncannily.

“You shouldn't be here,” she says in a growl. She stands abruptly, and the cello drops to the floor. The strings make weak, broken sounds, muffled by the pink rug.

“Sofía?”

She grips the bow like it's a sword. “This is a fugue,” she says in a horrible monotone. Her eyes are dead and empty as she advances toward me. My back's pressed against the wall.

She pulls her arm out, her soulless eyes locked on mine, and drives the cello bow into my chest.

Everything goes black.

I don't mean I passed out. I mean, one moment I'm there,
with a cello bow sticking out of my chest, the wood splintering but still powerful enough to pierce my skin, and the next moment I am floating in nothing. There's no more cello bow.

There's no more Sofía either.

There's no more world.

There's only . . . nothing.

“Hello?” I say into the void.

Silence.

For a long time, I exist in the nothing. And then light starts to glow around the edges. I start to feel pressure on my back; I'm lying down. My room comes into focus, and I sit up in bed.

On the nightstand beside me, my clock ticks.

When Dr. Franklin comes
to my room the next day, I keep my guard up. I pretend everything is fine. Dr. Franklin talks about banal things, like paranoia and trust, and I nod along. Soon enough, I'm allowed out of my room and back with my unit.

“Where have you been, spaz?” Ryan asks me quietly as I make my way to the library. I've been given permission to skip all my classes and do silent study, as long as I have private sessions with the Doc.

I don't answer, so Ryan follows me down the hallway.

“You're going to get in trouble for skipping class,” I say.

He shrugs. “I bet they won't care. This place is all going to shit anyway.”

“The Doctor will care.”

“If he's even the Doctor for much longer.”

I stop short in front of the library, my hand on the door. “What do you mean?”

“I overheard the officials talking to the Doc the day before
spring break. They completed their investigation. They're contesting the, uh . . . the accreditation of the school. I didn't know what that meant, but I looked it up, and it's bad.”

“So what does it mean?” I ask in a low voice.

“My dad said the school would lose funding, and there's no way it'll stay open if that happens.” Ryan looks back at Dr. Franklin's closed office door. “Dude, it was brutal. Those officials tore Dr. Franklin a new one. They said the school wasn't safe and Sofía was proof of that—and so were you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, they brought you up. I told you not to be such a freak in front of them. They said Dr. Franklin let you get away with too much and that he wasn't ‘providing you with all the resources you need.' They mentioned Harold too. That he should be put in a home or something.”

Poor Harold. He'll be locked away in a padded cell if Berkshire shuts down.

The sound of hammering fills my ears, and rattling shakes my bones. I look down, and the floor is gone. I am balancing on wooden beams, high above the unfinished construction of the academy, as carpenters and electricians and plumbers work to create the building.

I blink, and the floor is back, the hardwood nicked with age and dust gathering along the baseboards.

“I'm going to be pissed if the school closes,” Ryan continues, oblivious to time cracking up around him. “I think I know what I need to do, but . . .”

What will my parents do with me?

I think about how much I frightened Phoebe, on both the
night before I left for Berkshire and the other night when we sat outside, before time snapped me back here.

Maybe
I
should be locked up.

“I wish Sofía were here,” I say softly.

“Me too, man,” Ryan says, his voice bitter. “If she were, those officials never would have come.” His fingers are curled into a fist, and he punches the wall beside the library door. Hard. “Damn it!” he says, seething. “I will
not
let those damn officials mess this place up! They're ruining all my plans!”

There's something about that last sentence, something about Ryan's
plans
that rings in the air like a struck bell. But I'm too distracted to really focus on it. All I can see is the way the wall ripples and moves like water where Ryan struck it.

I blink, and the wall is normal again.

“I've got to go,” I say, pushing the library door open.

Ryan follows me inside. I wish I knew how to get rid of him.

I go to the ancient computers in the back of the room. Ryan talks at me while the hard drive boots up. He's bragging about all the stuff he has in his home in LA, how he spent all break swimming and surfing and doing all kinds of cool things he doesn't get to do here. I want to call him on his bull—Ryan doesn't look like the kind of guy to go swimming without a T-shirt on, let alone be a surf expert—but I just don't care enough to push it. He exhausts me, honestly. And I don't think he even likes me. He just wants an audience.

“Look, I've got work to do,” I say. “You may not give a shit about your classes, but I do.”

Ryan flips me off, but at least he leaves me alone for a bit, wandering up and down the book aisles.

I turn back to the computer and quickly type in
Sofía Muniz
. Several links pop up—mostly social media profiles for other girls named Sofía Muniz—but when I add
Berkshire Academy
and
Pear Island
to the search, the top hits are all newspaper articles, as well as an official statement from the academy's board.

I click on the news first.

S
TUDENT
D
ISAPPEARS
AT
L
OCAL
A
CADEMY
FOR
E
LITE
T
EENS
.
My breath catches at the picture of Sofía taking up a column of the article. It's an old picture, probably from her high school before she came here, but it's her. I reach out and touch the image on the screen with two fingers. The article is straight facts: Sofía went missing on this date, Berkshire Academy has issued no comment, state and federal officials are investigating. It ends with a list of numbers for people to call if they have any more information about her disappearance.

“What are you doing?” Ryan asks, looking over at me. He starts heading my way. The closer he gets, the blurrier the screen becomes. Before my eyes, the headline shifts.

S
TUDENT
D
IES
AT
L
OCAL
A
CADEMY
FOR
T
R
OUBLED
T
EENS

Sofía Muniz, 17, was found dead last night on the grounds of the Berkshire Academy for Children with Exceptional Needs, located on Pear Island. Her death has been ruled a suicide by local authorities. The academy, which serves a small group of students aged 15 to 21, specializes in treating severe cases of emotionally and behaviorally disturbed children who need greater guidance than a traditional school setting can offer.

Muniz was discovered by her psychiatrist, Dr. Demitrious
Franklin, and another student. Preliminary reports indicate that Muniz overdosed on prescription medication, and an investigation is ongoing. “Her access to the medication poses a serious breach in policy,” Dr. Alexander Hartford, chairman of the board of the academy, said in a press release. “We are working with local and state authorities to determine how best to redesign our practices.” Hartford added that the school is willingly hosting officials from the state board of education to help determine the future of Berkshire Academy.

“Sofía was beloved to all who knew her,” Dr. Franklin said prior to the private memorial service held on the grounds of the school. “She will be sorely missed.” One of her fellow students, Gwendoline Benson, added, “She was my best friend. I never thought she'd just be gone one day.”

Muniz is predeceased by her mother and two sisters, victims of a car accident in her hometown of Austin, TX. Her father was unavailable for comment.

The article concludes with numbers for suicide-prevention hotlines.

“Finally decided to enter reality, huh?” Ryan asks, bending over the computer and looking at the screen.

The closer he gets, the clearer the image becomes, until there's no hint of the real article I saw before Ryan came over. The picture of Sofía sharpens too, but in a twisted way, obscuring her features just enough so that she no longer looks the way she did before, when I knew her. She looks like a stranger.

“Go away, you dick,” I growl, staring at the picture.

Ryan rolls his eyes. “Whatever. But listen, tonight I want your help.”

“With what?” I don't bother hiding my anger; my eyes are on the twisted picture of the girl I love and the lies surrounding her face.

“I want to look at what Dr. Franklin has in his office,” Ryan says. “The video feeds of our sessions are gone, and that's good, but there are paper records too, records that might lead to me getting the shaft.”

“Go away,” I say. I don't care what Ryan wants.

“Fine. But Sofía's records are in there too.”

My eyes flash to his. He's always trying to manipulate me. “I said, go away.”

“Yours too. Don't you want to know what the Doctor is saying about you? What's going on your permanent record? What if he recommends that you go to the loony bin like Harold?”

“If I agree to help you, will you leave me alone?”

“Tonight, an hour after lights-out.”

“Fine.”

Ryan pushes himself off the desk he was leaning against and saunters away.

The farther he goes, the more the screen flickers and fades, the damning headline replaced by the original. I watch as the words
Sofía Muniz, 17, was found dead last night
change into
Sofía Muniz, 17, has been reported missing
.

I turn around in my seat, glaring at Ryan as he disappears into the shelves.

He did this
.