One (8 page)

“You’re doing it again,” he says, his voice lower than it was a minute ago. “Um, we are.” I look down and sure enough, we’re a good four feet off the ground. Terror rushes through me. Not because I’m floating — he already knows all about that now.

It’s because now that he’s gone and kissed me, I might need him for more than flying.

We sink down, down, down, and by the time, my feet touch solid ground again, I’m torn between tackling him in the cornfield and getting away from him as soon as possible.

He looks down at me, smiling a gentle smile that tells me he’d appreciate the tackle. I look at him for one second, two, five. I open my mouth and stammer something that doesn’t make sense.

And then I do the only thing that
does
make sense — I turn around and run home.

NINE

I
know that most girls would cry at this point. Most girls would sprint down the dirt road, running so fast they kicked up a cloud of dust around them, stopping when they were out of the boy’s sight. Most girls would crouch down and weep in the middle of corn fields under a canopy of painted sky, feeling sorry for themselves.

But I speed down the path as fast as my legs will carry me, desperate to feel the wind whip against my face again, willing to do anything to relive the dream of soaring through the air. I am fast for a Normal. The air breezes against my face, through the tunnels made on either side of my body between my arms and torso, but it’s not fast enough, not by a longshot.

Eventually, the dust I’m kicking up rises past my waist. I hate it so much. Not because it’s making me cough, which it is, but because it breaks the fantasy that I’m flying.

You can only kick up dust if you’re on the ground.

My lungs start to really burn about a quarter mile from home, and that’s when I drop to the ground, pull my knees against my chest, bury my face in my hands, and weep with everything in me.

I want Elias — kissing him was enough to tell me that, and I’m not stupid enough to deny it.

I want to fly more than I want him. Way more.

As unbelievable as it was, it wasn’t — could never be — it’s
not
flying on my own. If I fly with Elias, I can’t fling my arms out to the side and feel the nothingness speeding between the earth and me. Not unless he carries me.

And no matter how good it felt to kiss Elias, to be so close to him that I felt his heart beating in my chest and the vibration of his speech against my skin, I don’t want to let him carry me until I know I can carry myself.

I pound up the driveway, where my brothers are playing basketball even though it’s almost too dark to reasonably see the ball. Max nails a free-throw and does a victory dance. Michael has always been a little slower, less agile. That’s why they link arms when they speed across the water. They go so much faster together.

I bend at the waist, digging my elbows into my knees, trying to hide that I’m gasping for breath. I stare at the dull gray coating of dust on my legs. I could drag a white line through it with my finger.

Michael’s voice interrupts my panting. “Merrin, you okay?”

Max is next to me in seconds, probably glad to abandon the game. “What happened to you? Was it a guy?”

Their baby faces are so serious, staring down at me. I grimace when I feel a cramp start to form in my calf, and that just makes Michael look more outraged.

“We’ll kick his ass, Mer. Just tell us who.” He’s still a little boy, spouting threats in his high-pitched, just-starting-to-crack-sometimes voice. I want to laugh — for his incorrect assumptions and for how sweet his concern for me is.

Then a clear thought pierces my mind. Did the boys hear about what happened at SHS last year?

“No, guys. No, uh…but thanks,” I say, trying to keep my face as serious as possible. “Long night. I’m going to bed.”

The cerulean-and-magenta flashing of the TV from the living room lets me know that Mom and Dad are still up, but I don’t want them to see the dirt on my legs and the redness in my eyes. Don’t want them to think the wrong thing, not after what happened to that girl at Super. Not after what they knew, without asking, that I was afraid of.

I yell into the living room, “Home, guys!” Then I hurry up the stairs, duck into the bathroom, and turn the shower on so they know not to bug me. I toss my clothes just inside my door, adding to the pile of dirty socks and wet washcloths, and glance at the hall clock on my way into the bathroom. Eight o’clock already.

The shower has steamed up the bathroom, and I step in, inhaling the hot fog and blowing it out in a deep breath. I close my eyes, tip my head back just enough for the stream of water to tug my hair back, and feel the steam caress my face, my arms, my neck. This is what it’s like to be inside a cloud. It must be.

I step backward and let the hot water pour over my face. It’s scalding hot, just the way I love it, but as much as I do, it’s still too hot for the skin on my eyelids and lips. I drop my head forward, and the water pounds my muscles until it turns from scalding to hot to tepid, and the change sends goosebumps rippling across my skin.

When I get out, I look down at my body, at my ghostly white skin striped with red on either side of my neck and down to my belly and thighs from where the steaming water ran its course. Exhaustion hits me, envelops my body seemingly from nowhere, and I feel my legs tremble slightly.

I reach for my white waffle-weave bathrobe and wrap it tight around my body. I head toward my room, but when I’m just about there, Dad calls up the stairs, “Mer Bear? Sweetie?”

“Right here, Dad,” I say. His head cranes around the banister, and I swear I see his shoulders relax significantly when he sees me. Then he basically sprints up the stairs to stand beside me.

“Everything okay, honey? Where’s the car?”

Oh my God. I am even more out of it than I thought I was.

“I, um. I walked home. I guess I left it…” I give myself over to the trembling in my legs and sit on the top step, look at him, and shrug. I can’t say anything because I know I’ll burst into tears.

Now my lip trembles, too, and I must looked wrecked because Dad sits down beside me, looks at me sadly, and wraps his arm around me.

“Is it…a boy?” He actually sounds hopeful. Maybe that I have enough of a social life to even be upset by a boy at all.

“Yes…no…I don’t know, Dad.” I turn my head into his shoulder and really let loose, soaking his shirt with my tears. I’m so overwhelmed with emotions — excitement and confusion and frustration and exhilaration all knocking together in my head — that I can’t even figure out how I feel. Maybe letting the tears loose will free up some room in there so I can think. Dad rests his chin on my head and just sits there for a few minutes, squeezing my arm occasionally, letting me cry.

“Did he hurt you?” Dad asks after a moment.

“No… Elias? No. Not at all.”

“Elias.” Dad turns his head into mine, kissing the top of it.

A bright blue-white light pans through the front windows of the house, and I hear the hint of a car door slamming. Five seconds later, a light knock on the door.

He is too perfect.

Dad runs down the stairs, and I listen to his gruff voice exchanging with Elias’s younger, velvet one.

“Good evening, sir. I just wanted to get this back before the morning.”

I hear the clink of keys changing hands. How could I have been so stupid as to leave the keys in the car? Or did I leave them in the dirt next to the house? This boy takes my head away from me.

“Thank you…uh… I didn’t catch your name, son.”

“Elias VanDyne, sir. I have the same calculus teacher as Merrin.” There’s a pause, half a second too long to be normal. Then, “I won’t keep you any later, sir, and my curfew is almost up. But please tell Mrs. Grey I say hello.”

“Can I drive you back?”

“No, thank you, sir. It’s not too dark for an evening run. No one out there but the crickets and owls anyway.”

Great. He runs, too. Of course he does.

“Thank you, Elias. Be careful.”

“Thank you. And good night, sir.”

Dad closes the door softly and walks with measured steps to the bottom of the stairs, and looks at me for a quiet moment. I’m not crying loudly anymore, but tears still roll down my cheeks.

After a few moments, Dad says, “Well, he’s hardly a monster. Right?”

I respond with a hiccuped laugh, covering my mouth with the back of my hand and shaking my head. “No,” I manage. “No, he’s not.”

“I’m going to let you go to bed,” Dad says. “If you want to talk more in the morning, you know where to find me.”

I use the banister to pull myself up and collapse into bed — wet hair, bathrobe and all.

TEN

T
he next morning, when I try to turn into my golden-sunshine-bed-bath, I can’t.

My whole body is heavy and thick, like lead runs through my veins. There’s a vague ache, but it sort of courses around the heaviest layer of my body, the one stuck to the bed.

I feel the glow of the sunlight at the edge of my bed, can glimpse it out of the corner of my eye, but there is no way I can move my body to reach it.

It must be 7:15 already. I’ve slept way too late. I should be getting in the car right now. I let my eyes close as the dull ache turns into pain and bleeds in a wave up from the small of my back to my shoulder blades, and for a few minutes, it’s all I can think about.

There’s a knock on the door, and I manage to croak, “Come in.”

Mom sticks her head in, says, “Honey? You feeling okay?” Her voice sounds like it would if I were underwater, like I’m in the bathtub instead of in bed.

I move my head a bit, trying to shake it, but I’m not sure if it’s a “yes” or a “no.” Mom’s eyebrows furrow, and she steps in gingerly and sits on the very edge of my bed, her body not touching mine. She presses the back of her hand to my forehead, looks puzzled, then bends in to kiss it.

“That’s quite a fever,” she murmurs. Then she puts her hands on either side of my face and says, “What’s going on?”

“My back hurts,” I say, “and I’m so…exhausted.”

Mom sits up straight, and her eyes widen. She clears her throat, stares at me for another second. Her eyes dart to the box of tampons on my desk. Then she swallows hard and speaks again, her voice weaker. “Does this happen every month?”

Oh. She thinks it’s that.

“Um. Not usually this bad.”

I turn my head to the side, closing my eyes, indicating that I want to rest. She pats my arm. “Well, if you have the flu, too, I guess… You’ll feel better in a day or so.”

Great. Mom’s bonding with me over girl stuff. Or thinks she is, at least.

Later that morning, I manage to sit up, even though my body still feels heavy against the pillow. By eleven o’clock, I really, really have to go to the bathroom, and I walk so slowly it feels like it takes me a week to get there, even though it’s only a door away.

When I get back in bed, I feel like I’ve just run a marathon. I stay there the rest of the day, drifting in correspondence with the waves of pain, in and out of sleep.

I dream of the air rushing all around me, of punching Merrin-shaped holes through the white cumulus clouds against a brilliant blue sky. Every dream ends with me plummeting, suddenly, through the sky, but I don’t hit the ground. Elias is always there to catch me.

I want to read, but I can’t open my eyes or concentrate long enough to make any sense of the words on my reader. I manage to get my ear buds into my ears and listen to some hard, pounding tracks. I imagine they’re beating the pain out of my body. Maybe it works or maybe the pain actually leaves, but I feel better by the time Mom gets home.

I realize now that I’m sweating, soaking the sheets. Gross.

Mom does the concerned face again, and I guess this doesn’t fit with her normal experience of monthly pain. I hear her and Dad talking about something in the hall outside my room, but I don’t pick up much — just the verdict: “Tylenol. Check on her a couple times tonight.”

Mom comes in and asks me if I want to eat. My stomach feels empty. It doesn’t growl, but I don’t feel sick either, so I say, “yes.” She brings back chicken noodle soup, and I eat all the noodles, one by one — my jaw feels like it’s been wired shut — but leave the broth, weird cubed chicken, and carrots.

Her voice is much clearer than it was this morning — almost too clear now, her words rattling around in my brain long after she’s let them out of her mouth. She asks, “Feeling better, honey?”

I nod my head and realize that the range of motion is much better than what I had this morning. I’m not sweating nearly as much either.

“Is there anything I can get you?”

There are two things I want: to talk to Elias and to feel better. In that order. Maybe he has a clue as to why I have a freaking full-body flying hangover.

My heart sinks when I realize that I don’t have Elias’s number. I don’t have anyone’s number, actually, besides Mom’s and Dad’s.

I click open my reader instead, but before I can look at what’s on the screen, my eyelids push themselves down and I am caught in a swirling, black sleep.

The next day, I shake and tremble whenever I move, but at least I can move without too much extra effort. At least that heaviness is gone. Progress is good, especially if it means that flying won’t kill me. Mom’s left a note on my bedside table.

Didn’t want to wake you. Your fever seems to have broken. Water, Tylenol, snacks on your nightstand. Call if you need anything. Love, Mom.

I roll my eyes at Mom’s assumption that I wouldn’t realize my own fever had broken but smile when I see what she left me. Cupcakes and brownies and some licorice. She must be worried if she’s leaving me all the stuff she normally bristles at me eating. I see that she left some protein bars for good measure. My cheeks feel like they’ll crack when I grin at that.

I manage to scoot my body out of bed and get to the bathroom. Then I come back and lie down right in the middle of my bed, where the sun shines so brightly that it warms my whole body, and sleep more.

Sometime in the late afternoon of the third day, Mom comes and sits on the edge of my bed again. I manage a small smile and say, “Hey.” I’m surprised that my voice sounds clear and strong, and from the look on Mom’s face, she is, too.

“I got an email from Professor Fitzsimmons just now,” Mom says.

“Who?”

“Your science class coordinator. Honestly, Merrin, you could bother to learn her name.”

Oh. That must be the freaking holo-teacher in my sorry excuse for a science class. “Why? With a thousand students, there’s no way she knows mine.”

Mom sighs. “Well, she’s very interested in her Nebraska students today. It’s going to be an exceptionally clear night, and the National Weather Service is predicting a…geomagnetic storm, I think? Which means…”

“The aurora,” I gasp.

“That’s what she said.” Mom grins. “The whole school’s meeting out near Blakely Creek tonight to see it.”

An anxious energy vibrates through my chest and arms. “I’ve gotta get ready.” My hand flies up to my hair, which is a greasy mess after two days of lying around without a shower. I swing my legs out of bed, but they wobble beneath me and Mom has to catch me by the forearm. I shake her off after a couple seconds, give her an obligatory smile, and say, “Thanks,” on my way out of my room.

“Dad’ll drive you,” she calls after me.

“Yeah, okay!” I say as I wave her off. I’m seeing the Northern Lights — in freaking Nebraska, which never happens —
and
Elias tonight. I really don’t care how I get there.

I still feel weak the whole car ride out to the clearing in the next township where all the science classes are meeting to gather around radio telescopes and watch the aurora borealis. Dad keeps glancing at me but doesn’t say a word. The car glides soundlessly down the country road. I lean my head against the window, pretending to watch the horizon as usual. Instead, I close my eyes and try to steady myself.

When we pull up to the clearing, Dad unclicks his seatbelt. I roll my eyes. “Dad, you can stay in the car.” I open the door and find the ground with my feet — still unsteady.

“Do you even know where your class is?”

Looks like Dad’s more than making up for his lack of overprotective parenting skills from the other day. Weird. But okay.

“Really, Dad, it’s fine. In fact,” I pull back my sleeve and tap my cuff, “I’ll call you when we’re done. Okay?” He raises an eyebrow at me. “There are chaperones, Mom said. We’re fine.”

Dad nods and re-clicks his seatbelt but still scans the crowd through the car window. I put a hand on either side of the door frame and take one deep breath before a gentle touch brushes the inside of my arm and a strong grip closes around my hand so quickly it startles me. My head pounds again, and I stand upright to see Elias smiling down at me.

He cranes his neck down to look at Dad. “I can bring Merrin home, sir, if you’d like.”

I haven’t seen Dad look so pleased in a very long time. “If that’s okay with you, Merrin,” Dad says as he turns the key in the ignition.

“Um…” I check Elias’s expression, and he gives me the slightest nod and smile. I’m short of breath for a moment. “Yeah, okay. See you at home, Dad. We might be here for a while — we don’t know when the lights’ll start, and they can last for hours.”

Dad drives away, and Elias and I are once again standing together under the sunset. Leni and Daniel are with the rest of the students about 50 feet away, talking to a lady with mocha skin and a shock of short, kinky hair.

“Is that some teacher I haven’t met?”

Elias laughs. “No, that’s Leni’s mom.” I raise my eyebrows and look at pale-skinned, bright-haired Leni. “Stepmom, I guess. Her mom died when she was little — five, I think. Her dad remarried a couple years later — she’s been mom to Leni as long as I can remember.”

Leni grins and waves at us, and Elias raises a hand in greeting but doesn’t move toward them. Neither do I. He looks back at me, and my mouth feels like cotton.

I want to ask if he noticed I was gone the last few days. Want to tell him that I hate how I ran away that night. Want to tell him how he makes my heart pound, even now when we’re not alone.

Most of all, I want to ask him to fly with me again.

Instead, I say, “Hey,” and stand there staring up at him like an idiot while my stomach flips and twists. “Um…thanks for waiting for me. I mean…were you waiting for me? I mean… Wow, I sound stupid.”

The corner of his mouth teases upward. “Hi.”

I grin, unable to break my gaze from his. “Hi.”

My heart races again, begging me to move, to join the rest of the students. But instead of propelling me away, like my head wants it to, it pulls me closer to him, so close that the buzz between us raises the hairs on my arms.

And then he is kissing me, lacing his fingers through my hair, and oh my God, it is so nice and warm and sweet and totally not what I wanted at all.

Suddenly, it hits me: why there was ever a minute I didn’t want him. I wanted to blend in, wanted to be all alone in my Oneness forever, because that’s what I was used to. There’s no way I can blend in if I’m with Elias because he is so handsome my heart breaks when I look at him.

My Oneness has always been the only thing I’ve thought about, stressed about, fought against, and now — when I’m standing here with his arms around me — it’s the last thing on my mind.

His fingers loop around my wrist lightly. This touch is tender and somehow so much more intimate than holding my hand, and I want his fingers to run up my arm and down my back and…

There are a few low wolf whistles from the crowd of students, and some guy shouts, “Hey, E, who’s your girl?” but they all sound like they’re worlds away because Elias is so close to me, resting his forehead against mine and grinning, even though I’m just a pale, plain girl whose only real superpower is playing the drums louder than anyone can stand.

Finally, he pulls away.

“Why did you do that?” I’m trying really hard to look away from him and not let him see my face because I’m pretty sure I look like an idiot, twitchy and half-smiling.

“It was the only way to get you to stop.”

“Yeah. Well, next time you kiss me, make sure no one else is watching,” I say.

As soon as the words come out of my mouth, I regret them. I look at him, expecting him to look hurt. But instead, a slow smile creeps across his face, his shoulders begin to shake, and then he’s laughing.

“What are you laughing about?” I ask, indignant.

“You said
next time
I kiss you.”

This is not the time to hold anything back, I realize. “Look, I’m just pissed off because you wouldn’t…if we were…”

“You mean I wouldn’t have kissed you if we were both Normals?”

I flush when he says “kissed.” A lot. “Yeah,” I say to the ground.

“That’s ridiculous,” he says.

“You’re ridiculous,” I huff, even though I can’t hide the smile that has touched my cheeks along with the blush. He touches my arm, and the buzz stops me dead in my tracks, pulls my gaze back up to his.

“I would be nice to you if we were Normals, yeah… I’m nice to all the new kids ‘cause I’m a nice guy. Especially the transfers because…I know what it’s like. To be an outsider. But I’d never kiss you, Normal or One, unless…”

I look up at him, and his smile is gentle, and he’s looking at me like I’m a rainbow after a thunderstorm, a breath of fresh air, a promise of hope. Like I’m the best thing ever. And I think he’s probably the best thing ever, too. I try to look him square in the eye, but he’s so tall and so freaking beautiful, and there goes my stupid palpitating heart again. I want to say something, but all I can do is smile.

He grins and reaches down to weave his fingers with mine. I let him.

And I know, right then, that he would do anything for me, and that I can trust him. And that right there is my breath of fresh air. If being attached to him is the price of being able to fly —
if
it is — I may be willing to pay it.

“I missed seeing you the last couple days,” he says.

I really can’t get my head around how boldly he says it, like he either knows what my response is going to be or it doesn’t affect him in the least what I say.

But I know from the way he kissed me three days ago, floating above the cornfields, that he must care what I say. At least a little. I want to stand on my tiptoes and touch his jaw, stare at his eyes some more, check them for reassurance that this is real.

“I would have called,” he says, “but I don’t have your number. Besides, the first day I could barely get my head off the pillow.”

“Wait. You were sick, too?”

“Too? What happened to you?”