Rewrite Redemption (14 page)

“I concur,” said Ipod, mimicking Einstein. He touched my arm and gave me his “serious” look. “A.J., you sensed him. If Lex is right, and he’s like you, he probably sensed you too. Who knows what his story is. Maybe he’s just as much in the dark as you are. From how he acted with Lex, it seems like he wants to meet you. I think
you
need to meet him.”

“I don’t know about this,” I said. I was suddenly really apprehensive. I mean, he was a guy…a cute guy. Ipod was the only boy I talked to other than the occasional geek he hung with or one that was being nice to me to get to Lex. After so long in hiding, it was stressful to think of being seen. “Talking to guys is not my thing. You know that, Lex. I want to know about him, but I don’t know if I want to do it in person.”

“This could be the chance of a lifetime,” she said. “What if he has answers? Jeez,
I
want answers.”

I did want answers. And suddenly, I knew. I
had
to do it. I had to meet him…no matter how hard it was. If there was even the remotest chance he might have answers, I had to go for it. “Okay, I’m in,” I said, with determination.

“That’s my girl,” Lex said. “So you know I have your back, right?” She had that devious face on, where she kinda arched her eyebrows and bit her bottom lip. She was up to something.

After a moment of hesitation, I answered, “Yeah...”

“In having your back, there’s no way I’m going to let you meet a guy—who, I might add, could end up being important—looking like
this
.”

I glanced at my hoodie where I’d tossed it over the porch rail. “I guess this hoodie’s a little ratty, huh?”

Lex snorted. “
Finally
, Captain Obvious! Yes, this thing is horrible.” She picked the hoodie up for a moment and then dropped it as if it had fleas. “Sweetie, the time has come.”

“She’s right,” said Ipod, giving Lex a thumbs up. “We’ve discussed this. That get-up even scares the geeks away.”

“That’s the point,” I said, kicking his butt where it hung down in the hammock. My disguise had a purpose. It made me into an “ugly.” That helped me fade into the woodwork with everyone except for Sloane Cheney. I didn’t know if I was ready to give that up.

“No offense,” said Lex quickly, giving me the “sorry” look. “You’re beautiful, A.J. You could be the mousey librarian who takes off her glasses, shakes out her hair, and then…instant hot chick.”

“Yeah,” agreed Ipod, “you hide all the good stuff, even your hair. The rumor in the geek world is that you’re in the witness protection program.”

“Seriously?” I asked.

“Okay, that might be my bad,” Lex said, with a laugh. She shrugged and rolled her eyes at me. “What? I have to say
something
when people ask me what the deal is with you. Give me a break. I do have a life outside this tree house, you know.”

“I know,” I said, slumping in my chair. “I’m sorry my strangeness is hard on you guys.”

“It’s not your strangeness,” Lex said, picking up the hoodie again. “It’s how you handle it. I understand about the code—I do. And in the beginning, I agreed with it. God, there was that period in middle school where you kept getting yanked to Oz so often it was insane. If that had happened to me, I would have hidden in a hoodie too. We never knew what was going to happen. It made sense to lay low.”

“Well, that’s—”

 “I’m not finished. Just let me get this out.” She sat down on the arm of my deck chair and looked down at me. “Shrink Three said you’d lose the hoodie when you got over the death of your mother. But she never knew the real reason you wore it—obviously. Shrink Four said that you’d give it up once you discovered boys. They were both wrong. I’ve tried to be patient about it, but I’ve finally realized that if I don’t intervene, you’d wear this ratty thing to the grave. This whole “ugly” thing has run its course. It’s time for a new strategy.”

“I barely exist at Boulder High,” I said, rubbing my key. “If I ever have to go into hiding, I don’t want anyone to be able to recognize me. And if I were to—”

“Yes, yes, I know,” she interrupted. “If you were to ever disappear at school…has that
ever
happened?”

“Not so far,” I said, defensively.

“Well then, I think it’s safe to assume—Ipod, back me up on this—it won’t happen in the next week or month.”

“She’s right, A.J.,” he said, nodding his head. “Logic dictates that—”

“Let me finish,” Lex said. “Not once have you ever disappeared at school. It doesn’t make sense anymore. You’re just in a rut. You can still keep a low profile and just blend in with the masses.”

Maybe she was right. I’d gotten so used to my disguise; I didn’t want to let go. I knew it was a crutch, and to tell the truth, I’d been giving it some thought myself lately. “Are you done?” I asked. I knew she was winning this time.

“No.” She put her hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eyes. “It’s really starting to piss me off when Bratz doll is so condescending. You’ve worn that same outfit since sixth grade when you were flat as a board and had a mouth full of braces. She has no clue what you have under that hoodie. You even wear baggy clothes and glasses in P.E. You could use a little help in the cleavage department, but in a year or two...”

“Not everyone can be a Bratz doll,” I said, sarcastically. I huffed and hunched over, folding my arms across my chest.

“I’ve seen you naked,” said Lex grinning.

“I haven’t,” said Ipod, “but I’d be willing to take a look—for the sake of science, of course.” He raised his eyebrows suggestively.

We looked at him, then at each other, and rolled our eyes.     

“In your dreams.” I flicked my Popsicle stick at him. “Okay, I’ll think about it,” I said to Lex. “But remember, I still have to deal with the energy and the static. I still need the code.”

“That’s all I ask,” she said, giving me a hug. “You can adhere to the code without that stupid hoodie.”

Ipod’s comment reminded me of the conversation I’d had that morning with Sam. I gave them the highlights. They agreed with me that the Chihuahua would space it within the day. Lex was pissed that her mom might have had her P.I. spying on us. She said she’d handle it. And they were both psyched we’d moved past the subject with Sam and were safe for a little while longer. Ipod went inside to do homework, and Lex dragged me to the bathroom for a makeover.

“You’ll love it,” she said.

“And if I don’t?”

“Anything’s better than this,” she said, flinging out her arm. “If you don’t look amazing when I’m done, I’ll…I’ll walk up to the Chihuahua and give her a hug.”

“Shut up!” I said. I couldn’t pass up a bet like that. But as for the me-looking-amazing part, I wasn’t holding my breath. Lex was psyched that she’d finally broken me down. I had no choice but to go along with it…at least for now.

Besides, I had a back-up hoodie in my locker.

I waited as long as I could before heading home. But by dark, the guilt-meter had rocketed into the red zone. I could hear Devon’s game almost two houses down—great. I bet the neighbors
so
psyched we’d moved next door. Devon liked the war games best; the more violent, the better, and he played them loud. I snuck in the back way so that I didn’t have to step directly into the insanity. Any hope of a reprieve vanished the moment I cracked the door.

BAM!

Machine guns firing, voices screaming, bombs blasting! The game shrieked through the house at full roar. It echoed off the walls. It bounced off the hardwood floors. It sounded like the frickin end of the world. The war had come to my house, that’s for sure. I was home and Life was waiting with my nightly, morbid martini.

Yea, crappy hour
.

I walked through the kitchen and peered out the door. The first thing I saw was my mom, leaning against the wall outside the family room. She had her arms wrapped around herself and her eyes were closed. It looked like she was working up the courage to go talk to Devon. She had her bizarre, Joker smile frozen in place, and she twitched each time Devon scored a kill shot. It was seriously scary.

Through the family-room door, I saw my brother, strapped to his wheelchair. He was slamming wildly into the controller as though his life depended on it. It was all he did the whole frickin day. The home health worker said Devon had to go through the stages of grief about being paralyzed. But Devon seemed determined to stay in the angry stage. He revved up his anger by slaughtering stuff on the screen. He took his anger out on anyone in range.

I crept down the hall to my dad’s office. He was hunched over his desk with headphones, trying to escape into his computer. He looked a decade older than he had six months ago. He hadn’t shaved, his clothes were wrinkled, and I could swear he was getting grayer every day. I decided not to bother him and returned to the family room. Maybe I could get my brother to turn the game down.

But before I could do anything, my mom was trying, once again, to talk to him. “Devon, Honey, how about a little dinner?” she asked with her hand on his shoulder.

He ignored her.

“There’s food on the stove, Devon, if you’re hungry.” She tried again.

He shrugged her hand away. Then he lurched abruptly forward and slashed the head off something. The head rolled, and blood splattered across the screen about twice as loud as it had been just seconds ago. My mom jumped.

I was in hell.

Devon had to have turned it up just to freak her out, the little jerk. My mom’s Joker smile collapsed into defeat. Tears streaming down her face, she fled to her bedroom. It wasn’t pretty. I wanted to punch my brother. I knew things sucked for him, but he didn’t have to take it out on my mother. But as pissed as I was at him, I didn’t want to make things worse.

I knew the best thing I could do for my mom was to get the sound turned down. So I sucked it up and tried to talk to him. I tapped him on the shoulder. “Dev, lower the volume, Dude. Come on, it’s way too loud. I can hear it two houses down. Mom and Dad are losing it.”

Nothing.

“Dude, come on, be reasonable. The neighbors are going to complain again. You’re freaking mom out. You need to let up on that.”

“Blow it out your ass, Jerkwad.” He glared at me for a second and then turned back to the screen. But after a couple of minutes, he lowered the sound a little.

There was mac and cheese on the stove in the kitchen. I scooped out a bowl full and took it out back to the deck. I dropped into a lawn chair, trying to figure out how I could get my brother to mellow out a bit. Devon was angry. I knew that. A chunk of that anger was focused on me—his big brother, the track star—his big brother, the musician. I think that at that point in his recovery, he hated me, the brother still walking around. I didn’t know how to handle it.

I have a natural affinity for music. From the time I was really young, I could hear the music in the energy waves around me. It just floated there in the background of my awareness. I understood harmony and I understood it well. I spoke the language.

I started piano at six. By the time I was nine, I’d moved on to the guitar. I have big hands and long fingers that move fast and fluidly over the strings. I play a pretty mean guitar. I like the bass best. I love how it holds all the other sounds together. And even though I was still in high school, before I left Seattle, I was in a band that landed professional gigs regularly.

Devon had always been jealous about that. He played, but he didn’t seem to have music in his soul, like say, my best friend, Daniel. Devon struggled on even simple songs. He resented that it came easily for me. He resented me for doing better in school. He resented my wins at track. But once he hit middle school and found football, everything changed.

Suddenly
he
was the star. He was better than I was at something which changed everything between us. He was a brick wall that no one could get past, and it made him feel ten feet tall. When he made the team, he wore the stupid jacket 24/7. My parents, who didn’t know football from hacky sack, went to the games and loaded on the praise. I did too. And Devon, with his cheerleader girlfriend, was so high he was living on the moon.

Cue Constantine, the Destroyer, with his awesome idea.

Idiot!

I told him not to do it alone. I told him to wear shoes that would grip the roof. I told him to watch out for the extension cords. But I should have known he wouldn’t listen. He never listened to me. I was just trying to share something with him, trying to be a big brother, trying to have a moment.