As I Wake (5 page)
Authors: Elizabeth Scott
Tags: #Fantasy, #Fiction, #General, #Juvenile Fiction, #Fantasy & Magic, #Psychology, #Love & Romance, #Cognitive Psychology, #Law & Crime
“I don’t know who Olivia is,” I say, and meet the eyes of the girl with the straight hair. The one who is watching me intently. She doesn’t bite her nails at all, and she doesn’t blink when I look at her.
She should be the leader of this little group, but she isn’t.
“Told you, Greer,” the girl with heart-shaped face says, and gives me a blinding, silly happy smile that she turns on the leader. “Now you owe me.”
“No way, Olivia,” Greer says, smoothing her black hair back behind her ears. “She said our names. That counts.” She grins at me, open and sunny, but with a hint of warning.
It doesn’t bother me. I know her warning is something I can handle easily, that it is nothing but surface show—and wonder again who the Ava I’m supposed to be is.
“So, how did you know it was us?” the tallest one, the watchful one, Sophy, says, her voice quieter than I think she wants it to be.
“The clothes,” I say, watching her face. “We all look . . .”
“Totally unique, I know,” Greer says, and smiles at me for real. “We aren’t slaves to the stupid mall like some people.”
“Totally unique,” Olivia echoes. Her clothes are a match for Greer’s but catch on her curves. Of all the people who walk by and stare—and most of them do, sigh-sneering at the clothes, and then eyes widening at me—the guys always watch Olivia.
She’s looking at Greer, though, and doesn’t seem to notice.
A bell rings, loud and jarring, and a universal groan seems to echo out. I see a few instructors, standing in their classroom doorways, but they don’t look angered by the noise, just resigned.
“Do you remember your schedule?” Greer asks, tapping my arm when I don’t look at her right away. “What are you staring at?”
“No one’s in trouble for not wanting to go to class?”
Greer laughs. “If we got in trouble for that, there’d be maybe three students here. You have forgotten everything, haven’t you?”
She shakes her head at me, then says, “Don’t worry, I still love you,” and strides off into the crowd. Olivia plunges after her, but not before pressing a piece of paper into my hand and saying, “Here. I wrote down all your classes for you. My mom read this book on brain injuries last year and talked about it forever, so I figured that you might, you know, need help and—” She breaks off as Greer comes back.
“Are you coming?” she says to Olivia, and then looks at me and Sophy and says, “Ditch third, okay?”
“Oh, I forgot to tell you about that,” Olivia says, but Greer says, “Olivia, are we going now or what?” and Olivia gives me another quick smile and follows Greer, the two of them vanishing into the sea of people moving around us.
“So, see you later,” Sophy says. “You sure you’re going to be able to find your classes and stuff?” She doesn’t say what ditching third is, and I know she won’t.
“I’m fine,” I say, and when Sophy smiles at my answer, my lie, her smile doesn’t reach her eyes.
I feel a chill crawl through me because Sophy’s smile that isn’t one?
I know it.
16.
I’M EXHAUSTED
by the time I’m in what I think is fourth period, confused by the hallways, by the way everyone I pass is so vibrant, so alive with their endless parade of clothes that look the same but have individual touches. Even if I wore the clothes everyone else has, I wouldn’t be able to make them my own like they can.
by the time I’m in what I think is fourth period, confused by the hallways, by the way everyone I pass is so vibrant, so alive with their endless parade of clothes that look the same but have individual touches. Even if I wore the clothes everyone else has, I wouldn’t be able to make them my own like they can.
There’s nothing in me—no me—to draw on.
The teacher talks about government, and how it’s structured. I don’t understand any of it, and the notebooks I found in Ava’s locker (combination on the paper Olivia gave me) are empty except for tiny, simple drawings, boxes and squiggles, and the name Ethan, tucked into the corner of most pages. I write my own Ethan next to one of Ava’s.
They look exactly alike.
It’s warm in the classroom, so warm I feel my tense—very tense—body, relax a little, and the teacher is talking and talking. I rest my head on one hand and yawn.
17.
MY JAW CRACKS
and I sit up straighter, ashamed of myself for almost falling asleep.
and I sit up straighter, ashamed of myself for almost falling asleep.
At least I’m not in school anymore. I forget that sometimes; so much of my life was get up, eat, go to school, go to SAT youth league meetings, eat, homework, sleep. But I finished, the one lone crèche student who made it through, all those youth group projects and sessions I led about what could be done to help keep everyone safe paying off. Bringing me here, to a job. To being a listener. It’s an important job. Almost everyone keeps an eye on everyone they know for SAT, but being a listener is good. Much better than opening mail and then closing it up or spending days walking around stores trying to hear what other people say.
I look at the report. 56-412 was last reading and now—oh no. Over an hour has passed.
I did fall asleep. I check the receiver. It’s still on.
It’s still on, it’s still recording, the sounds from 56-412’s apartment being sent to the local security station and if he went out while I was asleep, if I missed something like that, I’ll be sent back to the crèche and I swore I wouldn’t go back, not ever, the only promise I’ve ever let myself believe, I was done with school I was working I was going to get an apartment, just a tiny one, and maybe, if I was lucky, get put on the list for a car, and now—
Now the attic door opens and I freeze, terrified security will have come, that something will have happened and that I’ve lost it all, this job, the life I’ve made. Any duties. All rights.
“Hi,” someone says, but it isn’t Security. They don’t greet you, they take you away with the crook of a finger.
“I found a wire in the kitchen wall,” the voice continues, and I turn, shocked because I know this voice, I’ve heard it once, twice, a dozen times or more now, muttering to himself while he reads. “So I thought I’d just come up and tell you what I’m
doing
today. Save you the trouble of trying to figure it out from the sounds of me putting on my shoes and things.”
doing
today. Save you the trouble of trying to figure it out from the sounds of me putting on my shoes and things.”
It is 56-412. He is here, right here, and he is looking at me.
He is looking at me and I feel the strangest, sharpest kick inside me, a race of fire rolling up my spine and clench-clutching my heart.
I look at him and I feel like I know him. Like I truly know him, like I have always known him.
But I’ve never seen him before.
18.
“YOU SHOULDN’T BE HERE,”
I say, and the teacher sighs.
I say, and the teacher sighs.
“I think that’s supposed to be my line,” she says, and then gives me a little smile. “I could lecture you about sleeping in class but lunch is about to start and I’m sure you don’t want to miss it.”
“Lunch?” I say, confused because I was just awake and scared, worried because I wasn’t hearing anything and then—
And then—
I don’t know.
56-412
swims lazily through my mind, and I start to think of something, remember something—know something—and then my head begins to throb, tight pulsing pain.
swims lazily through my mind, and I start to think of something, remember something—know something—and then my head begins to throb, tight pulsing pain.
“Yes, you have a split fourth period,” she says. “Class, then lunch, then back here again. You really—you don’t remember anything, do you?” She puts one hand on my desk. “I’m so sorry, Ava. Would you like me to walk you to the counselor?”
I know what a counselor is.
They look at files and then talk to you, soothing questions that build into something you can’t get away from, and I can’t see one, I can’t, it’ll be like being in that room again, back not knowing where 56-412 is, not knowing where he’s gone.
He. It was a guy—56-412 was—is—a guy—and I saw him but I can’t remember his face, try to picture it and get a stabbing pain in my head for my troubles, a bolt that lances from behind my eyes and down to my jaw.
“Are you sure?”
I nod and head into the hallway, moving as fast as my pain-filled head will allow. The teacher doesn’t follow and I lean against the first solid surface I come to, closing my eyes against the pressure in my head. Against what I saw but can’t quite remember.
Maybe it was a dream.
The pressure in my head eases then.
“Ava, there you are,” a girl’s voice says, and I open my eyes, see Olivia looking at me, anxiety making her flush hectic red along her forehead and cheeks. “Greer’s waiting. Come on!”
I follow her, focusing on her, on everything I see, on keeping my mind still so the pain will keep fading, will turn into a dull ache. We walk into a huge, open room filled with tables. One area, on the far right, holds students waiting with trays of food, popping in and out of lines, colorful cartons and bottles and boxes on display, waiting to be taken.
“You’d think they could serve us real food,” Greer says as Olivia leads me over to a table. She pokes at a red box filled with french fries. “I mean, for the money we pay, they could hire at least one cook. One real cook. Sophy, please tell me you are not going to eat that.”
“No, it was just there and I was in a hurry,” Sophy says, and pushes away a sandwich, meat and bread and cheese wrapped in foil. The foil bumps into my hand as Olivia and I sit down. It’s still warm.
Greer picks it up and tosses it in a nearby trash can, then starts picking at her fries. “Where were you during third?” she says.
It takes me a second to realize she’s talking to me, because she’s still looking at Sophy, as if she’s waiting for something.
Sophy doesn’t do anything though, just looks down at the table as if she’s never seen anything like it before.
“Third?” I say, and then remember her asking me about it before. “I forgot.”
“Forgot?” Greer says, and shakes her head. “I mean, I know you’re no memory girl but, Ava, come on. Ethan was there. And he even asked about you.”
“Ethan?” I say, thinking of the name in Ava’s notebooks, written over and over again like it means something, everything, and Greer grins.
“I knew he’d be the one thing you wouldn’t forget.” She grins at Olivia, who opens a little brown paper bag and takes out a sandwich almost like Sophy’s, only neatly wrapped in plastic. I wait for Greer to bat it away too, but she doesn’t, just says, “Olivia, take these fries. I think Brandon is looking at me and I don’t want him to think I’m a pig.”
“Please, you’re gorgeous,” Olivia says, and grabs a few fries, turning the container toward me and Sophy. “You guys want some?”
I take a handful. Sophy shakes her head, finally looking up from the table to give Olivia a blindingly bright smile. “So, Brandon? What happened to Chuck? It’s almost like no guy is good enough for you.”
“Whatever. Chuck was boring,” Greer says, looking off into the distance, at someone behind me. “Brandon’s way better-looking, too.”
Olivia picks at the crust of her sandwich, shredding bits of it off.
“Right, Olivia?” Greer says, glancing back at us, at her, and Olivia smiles and nods.
“He
is
gorgeous, Greer,” Sophy says, her voice animated, happy, and when I glance at her, wondering why she isn’t eating the fries when she clearly wanted the sandwich, I see her looking at Olivia, a knowing smile curling her mouth.
is
gorgeous, Greer,” Sophy says, her voice animated, happy, and when I glance at her, wondering why she isn’t eating the fries when she clearly wanted the sandwich, I see her looking at Olivia, a knowing smile curling her mouth.
What am I not seeing? I know it’s something.
Olivia blinks, and then takes a bite of her sandwich.
“Sooooooooooooo,” Greer says, looking at me again. “Don’t you want to know what Ethan said?”
I’d rather know who he is, and what exactly is going on with Ava’s so-called friends, but I settle for smiling and nodding. It seems to be what you do around Greer.
Greer tilts her head to one side, and gives me a long, measuring look. It doesn’t have the power of Sophy’s, but there’s a depth to it, a strange sort of understanding. Of actual feeling.
“You don’t remember him at all, do you?” she says, grinning, and then gets up. “Come with me.”
I do, and she takes me out of the cafeteria, saying, “Female emergency!” to the male teacher sitting by the door, who frowns but sighs and motions for us to walk through an open door.
She leads me down one hall, and then another. “So you really don’t remember anything? For real, I mean?”
I shake my head, and she stops. “What’s it like? I mean, what do you see when you see me?”
I think: Someone who is very, very lucky. Someone who should watch out for Sophy because she’s all quiet but gets grudgey, and clearly, usually against you.
But I just say, “I see someone who knows what ditching third is.”
She stares at me, and then grins. “You don’t even know what that is? For real?” She shakes her head. “Okay. During third period—which is study hall—we all meet outside in the back garden and hang out. You and me and Sophy and Olivia. We’ve been doing it since forever. But this year, you’ve been all distracted by—” She grabs my hand, and leads me down the hall a little more, stopping in front of a window.
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