Fusion (11 page)

“What are you going to do? Just lie to her about who you are and your life here?”

His mouth dropped. “I know how it looks, but I really just want a chance to give
A
the life she deserves. Unlike your life, hers has been kind of difficult. She pretty much has had to look after herself with her mother having moved to Hollywood with Ella, and her father a gambling addict.”

I took a moment to think about what he’d just said. My mother had brought us through the Portal to escape a bad family life, which it now seemed
A
was living through. She was basically living the life I would have if we hadn’t moved. What struck me even more, though, was that David said Mom had moved to Hollywood.

“What do you mean about Mom and Hollywood? She’s never lived there.”

“I’m not talking about your mom but
A
’s mom.”

“Huh? I don’t understand. Mom came through the Portal.” I stopped as it suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks. I looked at David, who nodded. “OMG, there are two of all of us.”

“Yes, and they are living that messed up life your mother was trying to avoid. All I want to do is take care of
A
, make sure that she gets to live the kind of life she wants. I don’t want her involved with anything either supernatural or in any way complicated that will interfere with that.”

I heard him, but
A
was me. Sort of. I had to see her for myself.

T
he raindrops beat so loudly on my bedroom window that I was barely able to hear Ariele, who whispered into the phone.

I had left David reading in the family room, once I’d figured that I wasn’t going to get anywhere with him. He was annoyingly determined to protect
A
, so much so that I was almost jealous of her, of my own doppelganger. If he wasn’t going to help me, I’d have to figure out how to do it on my own. Or with the help of Ariele, who seemed as determined as I was to find
A
.

“Hey, can you speak up? I can’t hear. The rain’s wild.”

“I’ll try, but I don’t want my mom to hear me,” she said, her voice still hushed. “What’s up? It’s late, and I was just about to nod off.”

“Sorry.” I glanced over at my clock. It was late, after midnight. “Do you want me to call you back tomorrow instead?”

“It’s okay. I am wide awake now. Go ahead.”

“I’ve been thinking about this whole
A
thing, and I want to see her even more now.”

“Me, too, but I can’t think how. Did you talk to David?”

“Yeah, and there is no way he’ll wander us over. Total PITA. It would have been the easiest, and maybe the only, option.”

“So, he’s seeing her?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s pretty awesome,” she said with obvious satisfaction. “You know, I can’t get over that there are two of you. I really thought you were the real deal last year. You were so like her.”

“Well, we are actually the same person,” I snapped, hating the feeling that I was somehow the lesser version.

“Of course,” Ariele murmured. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” She fell silent.

“I’m okay,” I said after a few seconds of awkward silence. “Any thoughts on how we’re going to do this?”

When there was no response from the other end, I wondered if she’d fallen asleep. It was pretty late after all. “Ariele?” I asked a little louder. “Are you there?”

“Yes,” she finally whispered, her tone shaky, like she was crying.

“What happened? Did I say something to upset you?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s all this talk about doppelgangers. What if there is another
me
?”

It was my turn to go mute. What if there was? She’d just have to pull up her big girl panties and deal with it, the way I had. I hoped that my complete lack of empathy wouldn’t travel through the cell phone. I was glad that we weren’t on FaceTime. At least I didn’t have to wear my pretend-to-care face. “I could ask David,” I offered. “He should know. If
A
and Ariele were best buddies, surely
A
would have told him about you. Heck, maybe they even hung out together with your doppelganger!”

“Could you? I’ll hang on.”

“Not now, Ariele. He’s probably gone to bed. Besides he wasn’t in a sharing mood after I finished prodding him. I’ll ask him before breakfast.”

“Okay.” She sounded a million miles away.

“Still with me?”

“Yeah, I’m just thinking that another me would change everything. I thought I would just knock at
A
’s door, and it would be like before. Maybe I’d even try to convince Mom and Dad to come with us and then we could move back there.”

“You’re right. We need to know what we’re walking into. I’ll talk to David. In the meantime, we have to figure out how to get there. Since Wanderer transport seems to be out, the Portal is our only other hope. We’re going to have to get either Mom or Kellan’s dad to help us. But how?”

“You need to think of something soon. The Portal is only functional this month. Only a few more days.”

She was right. We had no time to waste. Mom wasn’t back yet. I’d stay up and catch her when she came home. I had to find a way to get her to help us. If she’d brought us through to escape what she thought was an awful life, she wasn’t going to take me back to it. That was for sure. I had to figure out a way for her to help us without giving away the real reason behind me wanting to go over. The one way I could think of was to play on her total nosiness. “Still there, Arizona?”

“Yeah, but I’m going to get off the phone now. I’ll call you tomorrow after I talk to David and Mom.” Even though I didn’t feel I knew Ariele at all, we shared a strong bond in this endeavor, and it was really nice to have someone who was as invested as I was in making it work.

I leaned back on my pillow, closed my eyes, and waited for mom to come home.

~

“Wake up!” Ella shouted. I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand and sat up.

“You forgot to take off your makeup before you went to bed,” Ella observed. “Do you want me to get you the makeup remover?”

“Ugh. I must have fallen asleep. I’ll jump in the shower.”

“Okay, but you better hurry, or we’ll be late for school. You’re driving me, right?”

“Am I? Where’s Mom?”

“Having a cup of coffee, but she said that her head hurts, so she’s going back to bed once we leave for school.”

“All right. Head on down, I’ll hurry.”

Breakfast would have been a somber affair had it not been for Ella entertaining us with her stories. Mom kept massaging her temples and looked ready to collapse. David silently ate his breakfast, carefully avoiding engaging me in conversation, probably scared that I would start pumping him for information again. I listened to Ella and Alexa chit-chat.

“Mom, where’s Bruno?” I asked, suddenly noticing that he was absent.

“Still sleeping. We got in late last night.”

“You don’t look well—what’s wrong?”

“Migraine. Bad one. Very inconvenient. I need to get back to work. If you’re okay dropping off Ella and Alexa, I’ll go lay down for a couple of hours.”

“Yeah, no problem. What’s Alexa going to do while Ella’s in class?”

“Rupert arranged for her to be Ella’s classroom assistant. Don’t ask me how. For all I know, the teacher is a Wanderer as well.”

I nodded. “Mom, I need to talk to you. Will you be home after school?”

“No, but you can come to my office.”

“Great.” I turned to Ella. “Ready?”

“Yup, let’s go.” She grabbed Alexa’s hand and pulled her toward the front door. I followed them with David at my heels.

“Are you coming with?” I still needed to have a chat with David.

“Yes. I go where you go.” He smiled.

It was so nice to see him let down his guard for a moment. Instinctively, I hugged him.

He squeezed me back, but then he flinched, taking a step backward, while still holding on to me.

Crap. I had totally forgotten that he could read my thoughts when he touched me. I wondered what I had inadvertently shared.

“Let’s talk once we’ve driven Ella and Alexa to school,” he said.

Once again, my sister’s talent for maintaining a conversation all on her own saved us from an uncomfortably silent ride. As soon as we’d dropped off the girls, David asked me to pull my car over.

“I’m gonna be late for school if I do that.”

“It’ll be fine. You obviously have some questions and some very stupid plans, so let’s talk.”

“Stupid? What do you know about them?” I fumed.

“Just what I saw when I touched you. Don’t try to deny it.”

I wanted to smack him one but resisted. Instead, I smiled. “Why don’t you tell me about Ariele first? Is there another one?”

“Why would you think that?”

“For obvious reasons. If there is more than one of me, same could be true for her. She came through the Portal as well. So?”

“To be honest, I don’t know exactly.”

“Exactly? If Ariele was
A
’s best buddy, how would you not know? Don’t they hang out?”

“Turn the Jeep around, and drive to my place. I want to show you something.”

I did what he asked. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“
A
told me that Ariele moved to California, to Mountain View. That’s pretty much what Ariele has told us before—that her mother was offered a job in California and that they moved. Obviously,
A
has no idea that Ariele and her family were then taken through the Portal.”

“She doesn’t actually live in New Jersey now? But surely she kept in touch with
A
?”

He pointed to his driveway, which I’d almost driven past. We pulled up to his house, and he waved at me to come inside. When we stepped into the empty house, he led me to his study. He walked over to a tall metal filing cabinet and unlocked it, pulling out the top drawer. After digging for a while, he pulled out what looked like a folded newspaper and handed it to me.

It was an old issue—from over a year ago—of the San Francisco
Examiner
. David pointed to a story at the top of the page. Before reading the headline, I studied the picture of Ariele and her parents.
Princeton Family Missing
. I skimmed the article. It seemed that Ariele’s uncle had reported them missing a few weeks after they’d allegedly moved to Mountain View. An investigation had been launched, but no conclusions were ever reached. It was suspected that they had boarded a private plane, but it had never been found. It seemed like Ariele and her parents had simply dropped off the radar. No foul play was suspected, but the investigation continued.

I looked up at David. “Any updates?”

“They were never found. Extensive searches were undertaken, but neither the plane nor the bodies have ever been found.”

“What does that mean?”

“For
A,
it means that her friend is probably dead, but we know that’s not the case. She’s here. What I don’t know is what happened at the other end. Did she just disappear? I don’t know.”

“Wow.” I sat down on top of the desk and read the article again. “Do you have anything more recent? Anything about them trying to find her?”

He nodded and pulled out another dozen newspaper clippings from the filing cabinet. I started going through them, taking notes as I read. Plenty of conspiracy theories, even suggestions that they were abducted by aliens. David sat down and watched me.

I finally climbed down from the desk and sat back in my seat, feeling defeated. “They didn’t find anything concrete? Not even a piece of metal from the plane? Maybe she did just disappear from that dimension, and there is only one of her. I think it’s safe to assume so anyway, and it’s not like Ariele is likely to bump into another one of herself in New Jersey anyway.”

“No, but can you imagine the ruckus if she suddenly showed up there? This was huge news. The media had a field day dreaming up explanations, as did the conspiracy theorists. If anyone spots her there, they’ll be all over her. Another reason for you guys to drop the madness and just leave that dimension be. Some things are better not to mess with.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Are you going to tell Ariele?”

“Yes, she has to know.”

“Look, I know you don’t agree with me, but think this through before you do anything. And will you keep me in the loop?”

“I’ll try,” I said noncommittally. “We’re late for school. Better go.”

As we drove toward school, tight knots of worry formed in my stomach. I had missed a whole year. Well, not missed exactly, but I hadn’t
been
there. I didn’t even know what classes I was supposed to have. Mom told me to go to the office and that the principal would help me figure it out.

However, once in the school hallways, instead of passing the art studio on the way to the office, I lingered and then stepped inside. Everyone looked up at me.

“Arizona! Good of you to join us,” Mrs. Kelly said. “Please take your seat.”

I had no problem finding it, walking right to it, and sitting down next to Maria.

“Hey!” she whispered. “I was wondering where you were. Did you get held up in the office?”

“No, haven’t even been there yet,” I picked up my brush and dipped it into the gray paint. I started working on the painting without really giving it any thought. My mind was miles away. In another dimension. That was all I could think about at the moment.