Into the Deep (4 page)

F
or some reason I never got a call home about my missed classes that day. Maybe, because it was the first time in my life that I’d ever skipped a class, someone had decided to let my punishment slide. It was only study hall and gym that I missed anyway. Those shouldn’t really count as classes. It was possible my absence had simply gone unnoticed. For whatever reason, I was just glad that no one had informed my Mom and that by the time she got home from work, she was over my lying to her about swimming the week before.
     Mom worked part-time as a real estate agent so she had somewhat irregular hours. She didn’t work every day, but she tried to always be home by 5:00 when she did. When she got home that day, I watched her set her brief case down on the kitchen counter. She said hi and asked her usual questions about how my day at school had been. I was sitting at the island, eating a blueberry muffin, and told her it’d been fine. I didn’t tell her that I’d skipped classes, didn’t tell her that I’d been hearing voices. I wanted to forget everything that had happened earlier and pretend that it had all just been a dream. I still hoped then that I could escape it.
     “What should we have for dinner?” Mom asked me as she opened the fridge. “Your father’s going to be home early tonight.”
Maybe I should pick up some steaks,
I then heard her say in my mind
.
     I shook my head and squeezed my eyes shut. I worried schizophrenia was starting to take hold of me, that soon I wouldn’t know what was reality or a delusion. Or something impossible had happened and what I was hearing was really other people’s thoughts. I didn’t want that either. I didn’t want any of it, but I decided that I did need to know what was happening to me. Seeing as I wasn’t just tired and imagining things and that I was unable to will away the voices I kept hearing, I needed to know what they were. Was I crazy, or was it something more?
     It was then that I first started to try and hear the voices, my first attempt at controlling what I would later come to consider an ability. I needed to know if I was really hearing something or if this was some psychological disorder setting in. The one thing that kept me feeling that it wasn’t schizophrenia was what I was hearing. Maybe I was being stereotypical and naïve on this thought, but I had expected the voices that I heard to be malevolent if I were suffering from some disease. Honestly, I would have expected them to tell me to kill someone. And maybe that’s only what happens in the movies, but the fact that I was hearing things that sounded like the voices of people I knew. I was hearing things that sounded like
thoughts
, that kept me thinking that this was something… else.
     Ironically, however, after a day of trying to keep the voices from entering my head again, it was when I tried to listen for them that they vanished completely. I didn’t hear my mother’s voice as we talked about dinner; didn’t hear Sadie or Dad when we all sat down to eat. I didn’t hear another sound. That night, not hearing them had been almost as maddening as hearing them in the first place and I went to bed exhausted with frustration.

4

The Cards You’re Dealt

F
riday classes alternated every other week. The week prior I had had my Monday/Wednesday classes which meant I had my Tuesday/Thursday classes to look forward to that day, and I did look forward to them. After a long deep sleep, I woke ready to try and test my ability to hear the voices that the day before were invading my mind. I wasn’t sure exactly how I was going to do it at the time, but I knew I had to start hearing them again.
     My first class that day was Spanish. Christy was in my class and being around her quickly proved useful. It would be my first insight into how vain her mind really was. I was already seated at my desk when she entered and I heard her the moment she walked through the door.
    
Why learn Spanish? We live in America.
It was most definitely Christy’s voice and I looked over my shoulder to see her walk in. She took her seat beside me and said hi.
     “You know, I was thinking, why do we need to learn this anyway? I mean, what? ‘Cause there’s so many illegal immigrants now that we need to all know how to talk to them? This is America, they should learn English.”
     I laughed and nodded even though I didn’t agree with what she was saying. Spanish was a hard class, but I took it because I liked the idea of being bilingual. Christy took it because it was required for the college she wanted to apply to. Christy and I may have both been honor roll students, but I don’t think she enjoyed learning the way I did.
     “I think they’re trying to force us to be well-rounded or something,” I replied.
     “Well-rounded is overrated.”
I should have taken French,
I heard her think. “I should have taken French,” she then said aloud.
     The weird dèjà vu moment was almost enough in itself to convince me that what I was hearing was really her thoughts. Moments later, however, our teacher arrived and I didn’t hear another voice until lunch.

G
od, look at her tits in that shirt
, I heard someone think as I walked down the hallway, passing a group of guys on my way to the common. It startled me and made my head jerk back to look at them. One of them winked at me and I picked up my pace pulling my jacked tighter around me. I pushed past the glass door that led outside and was calmed by the smell of fresh air and the feel of a cool breeze on my face.
     Christy and Tiana were already sitting in our usual spot near the fountain, the sound of the cascading water drowning out the conversations of the tables around them.  As usual, Eliza and Damon were getting lunch off campus. Today they’d be at
Toppers
as Damon had wrestling practice later. He always got
Toppers Stix
before wrestling.
     Only seniors were allowed to leave for lunch, but they didn’t keep close tabs on anyone. It was easy for a junior like Eliza to get away with eating lunch with her senior boyfriend. Sometimes they would stay and eat with us, but not often. Getting away from school and fast food were hard to pass up, and I think Eliza enjoyed getting away with breaking the rules.
     “Hey, Ivy,” Tiana called.
     “You ready to hang with Steve and Alex again this weekend?” Christy asked.
     I looked at her oddly for a moment. I had thought she’d forgotten about Alex after seeming to be so into Chase only a week or so ago.
     “Um, yeah,” I responded trying to sound excited. Christy didn’t notice the fakeness of my interest, but I saw Tiana roll her eyes beside her.
     “Great, I’ll call you later with details.”
That color green really looks terrible on her; I hope she doesn’t wear that on Saturday.
     I tried not to narrow my eyes on her after I heard her bitchy afterthought.
     “So what are you going to wear tomorrow?”
     I bit my tongue. “Not sure,” I said, “maybe that dark blue dress I have.” She nodded.
    
Well, that doesn’t look great on her but it’s a step in the right direction
.
     “Hey, Ivy, do you have that Math homework that we got on Wednesday figured out?” Tiana asked me.
     “Yeah, mine’s all done.”
     “You mind helping me out with some of it one day this weekend? I’m stuck on number seven.”
     “Yeah, no problem.”
     She smiled grateful, but then I saw her look off into the distance. She suddenly had a distracted expression on her face, her mouth falling into a slight frown, her eyes deep and sad. Christy didn’t notice, but I followed her gaze to the other side of the courtyard. At first I wasn’t sure what she was looking at. Then I heard her.
    
Smug asshole
, she thought, and I saw him.
     Brant was leaning up against a tree.
    
Damn him for being so sexy.
     An arrogant smile graced his face and there was a thin brunette standing beside him. The girl, most likely a sophomore, swooned over him as he brushed a stray hair out of her face. I looked back to Ti and she glanced away.
     “Well, I’m outta here,” Christy said, “Student council meeting. I’ll see you guys later.” Both Tiana and I said goodbye and then she was off.
     I turned back to Ti and caught her glancing at Brant across the yard again.
     “You alright?” I asked her and watched her eyes jerk to meet mine.
     She blushed as if she’d been caught watching some racy movie and not just innocently staring at a boy across the yard. She looked at me then glanced back at Brant once more.
     “Yeah, I just… It’s not like I expected anything with us to turn into a relationship. I guess I’m just thrown by how… nice he was that night. He was a real talker, you know. And then after Nicolette’s party it’s like I don’t even exist.”
     “He’s just a player Ti, just forget about him.”
     She sighed. “Yeah, you’re right.”

E
ven though I could see through to the fact that I was truly hearing voices, doubt still remained like a thin fog clouding my conclusion. I wasn’t completely convinced yet that I wasn’t losing my mind. I had heard enough that I wanted to believe that what was happening to me really was some kind of mindreading or telepathy, but it was what happened in Psychology that day that persuaded me.
     Mrs. Rochester had already written notes on the board when I walked in. Parapsychology was scrawled in blue marker; below it were instructions for an activity. I sat down in my seat and noticed that for the second day in a row Brant was in class and on time. I thought about Tiana’s face at lunch and the disdain that she held for him. I didn’t even really know him, but thinking about how he’d hurt her feelings made me want to hate him.
     “Alright everybody,” Mrs. Rochester said gaining our attention, “Since it’s Friday, I thought we’d do something a little more fun. Now next week we’re going to be diving back into Freud so study up this weekend. For right now, though, I want everyone to partner up with the person next to them. We’re going to look at a particular experiment often seen in Parapsychology and I think once we’re done you’ll all understand why this is a pseudoscience.”
     I looked to both sides of me to pick my partner. On my left was Timothy Nelson. He was currently sniffling. He looked like he had a cold and was cleaning his glasses with the end of his shirt; not an ideal choice. On the other side of me sat Brant Everett. I turned my desk toward Timothy. He seemed surprised, but said nothing. The rest of the room partnered up and then Mrs. Rochester was handing out what looked like playing cards, but she was only giving maybe four or five to each group.
     “I wonder what we’re doing,” Timothy said when she handed him our cards. He held them up and we both looked at them. There were five of them. They were black on one side and on the other there was a shape.
     “These are called Zener cards,” Mrs. Rochester explained. “They were used to test psychic ability, specifically for telepathic communication.”
     My ears perked up and I looked more closely at the cards. They each displayed a different shape. One was a star; another was a circle, a square, a plus sign and then squiggly lines.
     “The idea was if a person could guess with any amount of accuracy what was on the card being held up that they contained some kind of psychic ability. We’re all going to test one another today. With your partner, randomly hold up a card so they can’t see what it is and have them guess the shape on the back. Do this twenty times each and I expect all of you to record your results. We’ll discuss them at the end of the class.”
     This was it, I thought. This was how I could test what had been happening to me. For a moment I felt myself freeze up, my eyes focused on the cards and I bit my lip. It was scary to think that my thoughts about what had been happening to me could be confirmed. It was also equally scary to think that they wouldn’t be. I quickly snatched the cards from Timothy.
     “You first,” I said and proceeded to test him.
     I would hold up a card and he’d guess. It was all very simple. I kept a tally of how many he got right and how many he got wrong. He answered incorrectly much more then did correctly, but still he’d get excited whenever he’d get one right. By the time we did this twenty times, he had only gotten excited over his answer maybe three or four times.
Then we switched. I handed him the cards and felt my whole body stiffen with anxiety. I took a deep breath trying to undo the knots that were starting to form in my muscles as he shuffled them. He held a card out to me. I stared at the black back of the card and sighed. I heard nothing. For a moment I felt the frustration start to set in, and then something came to me.
     I wonder why they picked squiggly lines. They coulda used like a triangle or something.
     “Squiggly lines,” I said and his eyes lit up.
     “You’re right.” He marked it down on the sheet and picked another card.
Alright a square, let’s see if she gets this one.
    
“Square,” I said and he flipped the card around to show me I was right.
     “Two in a row.”
No way she’ll get three
, he thought and picked another card,
star.
    
I continued to guess right and I could tell that Timothy was starting to get a little freaked out. I didn’t stop though. This was my proof, I needed this. If I couldn’t guess right then the only other answer was that I was crazy. So I kept listening to his thoughts and I kept guessing correctly. I didn’t realize that we’d gone through more than twenty cards. I didn’t realize that I’d attracted an audience. I was focused. I was listening.
     “Dude, she’s totally got ESP,” I heard someone say then and I stopped.
     I looked around. The groups nearest us were all looking at me. The two girls behind us had their eyes glued to me, as did the two jocks in the row in front of us. I looked behind me and saw that even Brant had noticed and was looking at me like I was some kind of sideshow freak. I felt my cheeks flush with embarrassment and my mind rushed to find an excuse to explain why I could do what I did. All I knew was that I couldn’t tell them the truth. I couldn’t tell anyone the truth. I may have convinced myself that I wasn’t completely nuts, but I wouldn’t be able to convince anyone else of it.
     “How’d you do that?” the girl behind me asked.
     My jaw dropped open and I felt my voice wedge in my throat as if I were choking on my words. I raced for something to say. I looked to Timothy, who was cleaning his glasses again, and it hit me.
     I laughed nervously, “I um… I could see the reflection of the cards in his glasses.”
     “Oh!” the girl said and laughed. So did Tim. “I knew it had to be something. Geez, you had us all going.”
     “Yeah,” I said and looked around. Everyone appeared to buy my lie. The guys in front of us turned back around and so did Brant on the other side of me. Before he did, though, he gave me an odd look and I couldn’t help but think that he seemed skeptical of what I’d said. It was then that I noticed his partner, Jenny Richter, had glasses as well.
     We discussed our results for the rest of class. No one mentioned mine. Instead Mrs. Rochester pointed out that we all had on average a twenty percent success rating and thus none of us were clairvoyant. My success rating, of course, had been one hundred percent. We talked about different types of extra-sensory perception including telepathy, and Mrs. Rochester was quick to point out that she didn’t think any of these abilities were real. I, however, knew differently, having finally been convinced.
     The rest of that night I continued to hear people’s thoughts here and there. I began to realize that I couldn’t control it. It was easy to listen for the voices, but impossible to block them out. I didn’t know how, but it hadn’t started to bother me yet. Mostly what I heard were random snippets, like the pieces of conversation or lyrics you hear when flipping through radio stations. A girl complaining in her mind about having to run in gym class, a boy having an inner monologue about the way some girl’s boobs bounced as she ran. Most of it was trivial, some of it annoying. In study hall, I listened as someone kept repeating the chorus to
Another One Bites the Dust
.  Even in their head they sang off key and with terrible rhythm. At home I heard Mom listing off bills she had to pay in her mind and Sadie wondering if Dad would take her to the park that weekend. After dinner, I spent the rest of my night in my room. Sitting in there alone I heard no one and welcomed the quiet. I’d heard enough thoughts for one day.