Untethered (28 page)

You don’t know the half of it.
“You think that’s strange, try peeing standing up.”

That gets a giggle out of her. Then she looks down at her feet. “I worry about Kevin, you know?”

“Yeah,” I say, a knot in my throat, thinking of his bet.

She looks up. “But you were right. I let a boy get between us.”

“Yeah, well, I did, too. And I was so jealous I would have done anything to be you.”
Hell, I did. I freakin’ did. And now look what happened.

“I should never have gone out with him. Not with how you liked him.” Cassie starts sobbing again.

I shake my head and look off into the dark shadows of the bushes outlining Cassie’s backyard. They’re scraggly and menacing. “Boy, was I deluded,” I say, rubbing my hands on my jeans. “You know, I should have listened to you about Nelson. I guess sometimes it’s hard to see what’s right in front of your face.”

We’re quiet for a few minutes and I know it’s time to tell her the truth. But how can I tell her without it sounding completely evil?
Oh, by the way, I tried stealing your body the other day ….

Before I can start, she says, “I managed to talk to Sam.”

My eyes snap to her face. “What do you mean?”

“I’m trying to convince him you’re ... you. I think I’ve got him. Almost, anyways.”

An aching pain starts worming its way into me. “You’re convincing Sam?”

She shrugs like the whole thing is no big deal, but she looks down to the patio floor and says, “If I were totally alone like you are right now, I’d want a couple people by my side, that’s all.”

I practically topple her over, I hug her so hard.

“Ow! Watch it! You’re stronger now than you were before!” But her voice is amused.

My sobs sound like laughter. “You’re the best, Cassie. The best.” I swallow a soreness in my throat.

She gently pushes me from her and holds out her index finger, a small smile lengthening her lips. “Blood sisters forever, right?”

I look down at my hands. They’re big, with copper hairs curling under each knuckle. There’s no minuscule scar on this index finger, but when I hold it up, I mean the words that follow more than I ever have: “Forever and ever.”

We lock our fingers together and stare at each other in the dim light. Tears glisten in Cassie’s eyes, and I know the same is true for me. And I know I can’t tell her the truth. Not tonight.

On the way home, I hear a word come out of the blackness : “Coward.”

Thirty-Three

Just Psychotic

Kevin’s face is almost touching mine. His coffee-colored eyes are ebony with rage, his breath hot. “You’re judging
me
? You think you’re better than I am? You’re no better, Sylvie.”

I try to step back, move away from him, but something tightens around my neck, forcing a gag. The silver cord. My fingers tear at it, but the cord’s like vapor and they go right through.

“Get out!” Kevin snarls.

“Please!” I wheeze as the silver cord tightens even further.

“Who do you want to be, Sylvie? Who? ”

I can’t breathe now. I gasp and claw at my neck.

Suddenly, Kevin’s eyes lose their fierceness and his face melts into a soft frown. There is such sadness in his features. “But ... maybe ... I’m not ...”

I wake up with my own hands around my throat and every little hair on my body standing at attention. I’m slick with sweat. I squeeze my eyes shut and massage my neck with my damp hands over and over.

When I open my eyes again, I can see Kevin, illuminated by moonlight, right in front of me.

I scream and knock over the bedside lamp in my hurry to turn it on. Baby David wails. Kevin’s dad opens the bedroom door with a
wham
and switches on the overhead light. His voice booms at me, “What’s going on?”

“It’s, it’s ...” But Kevin’s gone.

Thirty-Four

Who I Want to Be

The next day is Halloween. The whole school is decorated in black and orange and everyone’s gone all out on costumes. I don’t bother. I figure I’m already wearing one.

Among the sea of monsters and vampires and playboy bunnies, I see Nelson’s blue head down at the end of the hall. He’s talking to his friend, Mohawk Man.

Suddenly, my stomach’s feeling squiggly and it’s almost like I’m floating. I push through the crowd of kids to get to him.

“Hey!” I say, tugging on his leather jacket.

He turns to look at me. His face is like something out of a horror film. An open zipper runs from his chin to his forehead, passing through his eye. Where it’s open, his skin looks, well, not like skin, but like blood and tissue and rot. It’s disgusting. And completely awesome.

“Whoa,” I breathe.

Nelson cringes, which doesn’t exactly fit in with the disguise. “Kevin.”

“That looks ... wow.”

“Like it?” He points to his face, then his friend’s. Mohawk Man has what looks like several bullet hole wounds oozing blood all over him. “Me and Roman help out at the haunted house downtown every year. We’ve become experts in gore.”

“Ah. So that’s where Melissa’s gonna meet up with you, huh?”

He exchanges a look with Roman and says, “No. Actually not. So go for it, Kevin.” He starts to walk away, then turns back. “With Melissa, I mean.”

All morning Bryce texts me seriously skanky messages about Cassie. When I don’t answer, he sends more, along with instructions for handing over the Camaro and what he plans to do in it. It makes my stomach turn. Just like Kevin, Bryce has an angelic look. You’d never expect he’s such a creep. His blond hair is always clean and shiny. And he opens doors for girls.

Unbelievable.

So needless to say, I don’t sit with Bryce and Kevin’s usual crowd at lunchtime. Cassie is dressed as Cleopatra and she and I find a table in the back corner of the cafeteria. Sarah and Michelle (emo hookers) stand bewildered halfway between Bryce’s table and our current one. I make a point to turn my back to them. Just like they turned their backs on me only a few weeks ago. They skitter back to Bryce’s table.

Bryce, on the other hand, looks amused. As he walks past from getting a soda, he leans down and unzips the outside pocket of my backpack. He rifles through, then takes out Kevin’s keys to the Camaro. He winks and whispers in my ear, his words slurred by his plastic vampire teeth, “The bet’s over, dude. Give it up. Don’t think you can win now.”

And a scene flashes in my brain. So vivid I can smell the smoke from Bryce’s joint, can see the blackheads on his nose, can feel the carpet in Bryce’s room underneath me. Bryce’s voice, hard as cement, says, “So you want to wimp out? There’s no wimping out of this. No way in hell.” He tilts his head to one side and gives me, Kevin, a malicious grin. There’s a challenge in his eyes. “I know why I have a dick, Phillips. Seems you don’t.”

The scene disappears and I’m back in the cafeteria, watching Bryce walk away. I shake my head clear and whip up out of my chair to follow him.

Bryce is almost to his table, but I catch up to him by the recycling station. It’s not Bryce’s fault. I know it isn’t, but he’s the only target I can reach. Besides, I can almost feel the testosterone rushing through me. All those aggressive hormones chanting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

“I happen to be sitting with Cassie because I like her. She’s a decent person. Unlike you,” I say.

Bryce crosses his arms and leans against the huge barrel marked,
Aluminum Only.
“Did you fall on your head or something? ‘Cuz you’ve been acting insane lately.” His words are a hard line. “And it’s getting old.”

“I just want to know ... was everything a bet? Sam, too, was he your little practical joke?”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about, dude.”

“Yes. You do. You’re a piece of work, you know that?”

“Here,” Bryce says, shoving the Camaro keys into my chest, pushing me back a little at the same time. By now we’ve gotten the whole cafeteria’s attention. The incessant buzz of conversation all around us has stopped. “If you’re that sore of a loser go ahead and take them.” He calls across the cafeteria to Cassie, “So what’s it like, Cassie? Dating
Mr. Nice Guy
.” There’s a definite sneer in those last words. Then he looks directly into my eyes and growls, “Fuck you, Phillips.”

My whole body’s pumped, ready to take him down. Break his jaw. But I take a breath, two breaths, to calm down and watch him walk away instead. I scan the cafeteria as he sits down. Pretty much everyone looks stunned.

I go back to sit by Cassie again and let my adrenaline level taper off. I feel people’s stares on me, hear the whispers. We don’t say anything until the noise level in the cafeteria reaches normal decibels.

“What’s going on, Sylvie? Something’s up with Bryce and Kevin. Something to do with me.” Cassie’s eyes are hard. She keeps glancing over at Bryce. “Tell me what it is.”

I hesitate. I don’t want to hurt her more than I have to. But she has a right to know, I guess. I’m about to tell her when Cassie says, “Look.” I follow her gaze and turn around to see Sam approaching us, orange plastic tray in hand. He’s not in costume, but looks scary anyways from the way his skin is pale from what’s probably lack of sleep. He creeps around the table like we’re going to bite him before finally sliding into the chair next to Cassie. He glances at me, then stares down at his mashed potatoes. “If you’re who you say you are, what’s the worst thing I’ve ever done?” he asks, not looking up from the grey mass on his plate.

At the sight of him, I feel lighter, more alive. More me. I answer automatically, like I would if all were normal. “You mean besides your being born?”

He stays still.

I get serious. “The celery. Getting me to rub it on my skin before going to the beach. I still have scars. That was a vicious practical joke, you know.”

He lifts his head and looks at me. “Sylvie’s never forgiven me for it.”

I grin Kevin’s killer grin. “But I will now, if you believe it’s me stuck inside” —I sweep my hands over Kevin’s body—“this.”

Sam looks back at Bryce, probably going over in his head the likelihood of the real Kevin fighting with his best friend. “But how? Cassie told me you were leaving your body, but I don’t get it.” He looks ready to cry.

I glance at Cassie. She gives me a little smile, which makes something leap in my chest and tingle down below.
Not again. Mind over matter.
I turn away from Cassie and explain the night the switch happened to Sam. Well, not everything. I skip the evil-girl-wanting-to-snatch-her-best-friend’s-body part. Just thinking of it makes me feel like I’ve swallowed a bowling ball.

“I can’t believe it. I mean, I believe it, but ...” He brings his thumb up to his mouth, but doesn’t chew on it. “You mean this whole time you’ve been flying around the universe? Where’d you go? South America? Antarctica?”

I feel heat rise under my mound of stubble and I don’t meet Sam or Cassie’s eye. “Actually, I mostly went to Kevin’s.”

“To do what?”

I mumble, “Get to know him I guess.”

From the way he stares me down, I know what Sam thinks of this. “You mean you didn’t even check out the rain forest? That’s the first place I’d go.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not you, am I?”

He shakes his head in disgust, then changes the topic. Sort of. “But how could you have pushed Kevin out of his body?”

“I didn’t. He was projecting, too. So he wasn’t in his body at the time.”

“You didn’t tell me that,” Cassie says, startled.

I push a bread crumb around on my plate. I think of the bet and I don’t feel particularly sympathetic towards Kevin right now. “I didn’t tell you because when he projected he spied on you. He took notes.”

“What!”

I shrug. “He’s not the person I thought he was.”

Cassie practically spits fire.

Sam asks, “So you what,
fell
in?”

“Look, Sam, I don’t know exactly. I guess that was the flaw in the plan.”

“Uh, yeah. You go around invisible, sneaking peeks at some guy like the ultimate stalker from hell and
that’s
the flaw?”

I glare at him. Because he’s so right. And he doesn’t even know the half of it.

“Where is Kevin?” Sam changes the subject.

“We don’t know,” Cassie says, her voice a pool of venom.

I nod my head, but the back of my neck prickles in memory of the moment after my dream, of actually seeing him.

“What does it feel like? To be him?” Sam draws lines in his mashed potatoes with a fork.

Tiring. Confusing. Infuriating. Terrifying.
I run my hands along the solid planes of Kevin’s forearms. “Wrong,” I say.

We sit in silence a moment, Cassie still fuming, Sam trying to digest it all. I lean closer to Sam. “Can you take me to the hospital with you? When Mom’s not there? I’m thinking maybe if I get close to my body ... I don’t know. I’m ready to try anything.”
Anything but the truth
. I don’t look at Cassie. Guilt, like sludge, seeps into my gut and settles at the bottom. If Cassie didn’t like spying, she won’t like body snatching, that’s for sure.

Sam sighs. “Mom’s at the hospital all the time. Dad, too, pretty much.” He looks at me. “Sylvie ... you ... or ... ” he flails around trying to figure out what to call my body. “Sylvie’s got pneumonia. It’s pretty serious. ” Now he chews on his thumbnail.

Yeah. Serious. I suddenly feel so heavy, it’s like someone replaced my blood with liquid lead.

Desperation clutches me. “But isn’t there
any
time when Mom and Dad are gone?”

Then Sam’s eyes light up. “Today. Mom and Dad have a meeting with their lawyers. They’re postponing the whole divorce with, uh, you in the hospital.”

Something electric zips through me. A positive amid all the negative. No divorce! “They’re not going through with it?”

“Not with what’s going on. Not right now, anyways.” I know he sees the excitement in my eyes because he says, “But don’t get your hopes up too much.”

“You sound like me.”

“I’ll stop, then.” He glances at his watch and looks uneasy. “If we do this, we’ll have to skip class.”