Untethered (3 page)

Don’t panic.
They can’t hurt you.

I know what to do. I have to ignore them and concentrate on being heavy. On getting back into my body. On leaving them behind.

I’m an anchor. I’m a two-ton weight.

I’m made of molten metal.

Wham! Back in my body, my breath leaves me in one loud whoosh. I feel as flattened as a Capri Sun sucked dry.

It takes all my energy to sit up. I search blindly for the switch on my lamp and try to scrape the bad taste off my tongue with my teeth.
Ugh. I hate it when that happens.

The shadows don’t come every time. Thank God. If they did I’d go crazy (if I’m not already). The shadows are like leeches. I don’t know what they drain me of, but I feel half-empty after they’ve come.

And then there’s the aftertaste. Sharp and metallic. It coats my mouth for hours.

The only solution to keeping the shadows away forever is to think happy thoughts. Which is pretty hard to manage all the time.

            But I try it anyways. So I go to sleep thinking:
Happy, happy, joy, joy ...

October 28
^th

Get out.

I stumble to the door, fumble with the lock and pull it open. The hallway is dark and silent. Sleep blankets the whole house.

Feeling the textured wallpaper in the hall, I let my touch lead me to the top of the stairs. I hover, unsure how to go down with such big feet. I cling to the railing and move down each step foot-together-foot-together like a toddler learning to walk. Sweat drips down the sides of my face, this face, when I think for a second about what’s really happening. So I don’t think about it. I can’t.

Finally, I make it down the stairs and to the front door. I heave it open. The October air is so cold it’s prickly. My new legs are awkward, but their stride is long. It only takes a moment of right, left, right, left before I’m sprinting down the street in full force. I take the shortcut through the park and stop at the back of it. The grade school gate is closed. And locked.

I should have known.

Tears sting my eyes and the back of my throat. The fence is too high. I’m too small. I’ve never been able to climb that thing. Going around will take forever. Too long. And I don’t have enough time. Because I’ve got to get home before ...

I’ve just got to get home.

I look down at this body. Then back at the fence. And when I reach up towards the smooth planks of wood, I realize I’m tall enough that my fingers are able to grasp the top.

I wrap both hands around the edge and hold on tight. My feet slide and push against the fence, and my shoulders, his shoulders, strain against the weight, but they don’t even hurt. And then I’m up and over. Just like that.

Get home.

I run until my lungs are burning raw and I still run some more. When I make it to my street, red lights are flashing in front of my house. Oh God. An ambulance is leaving, its siren loud and urgent.

“No!” I scream. But it speeds on.

Four

August: St. Anthony’s (Patron saint of lost things – like the four years of your life spent at this school)

“Eat. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” Mom slides a box of All-Bran across the table in front of me and Sam. We’re probably the only people in the nation under the age of 50 who actually eat it. Not that we want to, but Mom forces us to keep our digestive systems healthy.

At Cassie’s, they eat Pop Tarts.

Breakfast is eerily silent without Dad swearing over the newspaper. It’s so quiet I can hear the crunching as Sam eats his cereal.

Mom sits down and pulls a Kleenex out of a pocket of her polka-dotted bathrobe. She wipes her nose. “Your father forgot the coffee machine. I’ll bet he’s having a tough morning.”

All of us glance at Dad’s empty chair.

“He said he’d come see you two off. But I don’t know where he is. You’d think he could have stomached another night in this house, but —” Mom makes a mewing sound from behind her Kleenex. People say she’s attractive, and she is. She’s willowy and graceful with deep gray eyes and high cheekbones. Except sometimes I don’t get it, because people also say we look alike. And what I see when I look in the mirror is far from pretty: putty brown hair, a pointed chin, a too skinny frame. Plus, both Mom and I get allergic reactions to all sorts of things as well as bouts of eczema — all potential for serious hideousness. Well, at least on my end. Mom’s learned to manage it. Mostly.

“You two better get going,” she says, shoving the Kleenex back into her pocket and suddenly clapping her hands in fake enthusiasm. “Your first day of high school, Sam! Aren’t you excited?”

Of course Sam is thrilled. Not.

She gives us our lunch money and sends us outside.

I push open the back gate and stand looking at the red-brick house next door. Cassie’s window is open, so I call out, “Cass!”

Her face appears behind the screen. “One minute.”

That means ten.

Sam and I walk to the front and hang out on the sidewalk. I scratch a patch of dry skin and check my watch. That’s when Dad pulls up and parks in the driveway like he still has the right. He gets out and comes toward us. He looks like hell — his dark hair is mussed up, there are dark circles under his hazel eyes and his cleft chin is all stubbly. He did miss his coffee; he’s usually good-looking. Really good-looking. So much so that if I didn’t have his mouth and his weird overlapping second toe (I know, so gross, and Sam’s got it too), I’d suggest a paternity test.

“Want a ride to school?” He’s all breezy, half-smiling.

Neither Sam nor I say anything.

“I can take you,” he insists. When I shake my head no, he coughs and nods. “I just wanted to wish you both luck on your first day.”

“Jeez, strange,” I say. “I don’t feel so lucky right now, do you Sam?”

Sam looks down at the sidewalk and chews on his thumb.

“Fine, I get it.” Dad runs his hands down his face then rubs them roughly against his cheeks. “And I love you two.”

He walks up the driveway and goes to the back of the house. Sam and I look at each other, and something in my chest widens. Sam looks pale and scared. I want to hug him, tell him it’ll be okay. But I don’t know that it will. And hugging is something we just ... don’t do. I muss up his hair instead.

Cassie comes through the door, wearing a purple dress that shows off how much she’s changed over the summer. I hear Sam suck in his breath.

“Your dad’s here?” Cassie nods to Dad’s car as we start walking.

“To wish us luck,” Sam says.

I roll my eyes. “Yeah. Lots of luck.”

Sam pulls his iPod out of his pocket, and falls behind, keeping out of the girl-talk.

“Well, your parents aren’t the only losers,” Cassie says. “God, I hate mine. I had to shake them awake for work. Again. I wouldn’t mind so much if they just woke up. But they’re always pulling the covers over their heads and whining. I’m always playing babysitter.”

I wrap my arm around her waist and squeeze. “They’re adults, Cass. They shouldn’t need a babysitter. They’re just lucky they’ve got you around. ”

Her parents have a habit of downing martini after martini practically every night. Which means Cassie ends up having to wake them in the morning, because apparently their alarm clock can wake the dead but not the hung-over.

We shuffle on without saying anything for a while. It’s only 7:00 in the morning, but it’s already hot and way too humid. A trickle of sweat shimmies its way between my shoulder blades and for a second it soothes my eczema. It’s just wrong, starting school before the end of summer. Wisconsin gives you only so many decent days in the year as it is. Nobody wants to spend them in St. Anthony’s High School.

Sam drags behind us. I wonder if he’s thinking about Dad. No, I’m sure he is.

“How’s he taking it?” Cassie whispers.

I shrug. Sam’s the sensitive one in the family. But he hasn’t broken down. Neither of us have. Not yet. Mom’s the only one who’s falling apart.

We turn down the lake road and Lake Michigan stretches before us, a perfect aquamarine. That fake-looking blue. Like the pictures you see in vacation brochures for places on the ocean. I should adore Lake Michigan, so like an ocean — so big, so blue. And I guess I do, for the way it looks. But don’t force me into water. I panic around anything wet. No baths for me. I’m a shower girl, all the way — and even then, I scrub up fast.

The last time I swam was when I was twelve. Cassie and I were down at North Beach on a really windy summer day. The kind that makes high, white-capped waves perfect for surfing or sailing. Or drowning. We’d been jumping them most of the afternoon when suddenly we found ourselves in too deep and too tired to swim back. The undertow kept yanking us out further and further. We’d try to make a break for shore but the water just sucked us back.

“Sylvie!” Cassie’s pale face was gray with fear. She clawed at me. She grasped my swimsuit straps, my neck, her nails digging into my skin, pulling me under with her. Water filled my nose. I sputtered around, any toehold in the sand lost with the next whitecap. We were in over our heads. I was sure the lifeguard couldn’t even see us. If we were going to make it out, one of us had to be able to call for help. “Get on my shoulders,” I screamed to Cass when I was able to get my head above water for a second. “And yell.”

Cassie climbed onto me, her feet grinding into my hips, her hand gripping my hair. Her whole body was shaking.

I can still feel the weight of her thighs pushing against my neck, can still taste the panic every time a wave hit and I swallowed lake water instead of air. And I can still remember losing grip on my body, just as the undertow got the best of me. I watched from above as we started to drown.

I was yanked back to my body as the lifeguard dropped us down onto the sand.

“Summer in Racine can fool you into thinking you actually live someplace worth being, can’t it?” Cassie asks now, looking out at the lake. Obviously, she’s not as scarred by our near-drowning incident as I am. She took swimming in Phys Ed our freshman year no problem. I had my mom write a note claiming “psychological trauma” to get out of it. That was a vile year. Tori Thompson saw the note and it got around school. Everyone called me “Psycho Skinny Sylvie Sydell.” Then, of course, came the bits where I went cataplexic and my muscles melted while I accidentally left my body in class.

Let’s just say the “Psycho” nickname has stuck.

“Racine sucks any time of year, Cass. And so does St. Anthony’s,” I mumble. “I’d better not have any classes with Tori Thompson.”

“Ugh. Or Ashley Green.”

“Tori’s worse,” I say. “But maybe I’ll have a class with Kevin this year.”

We make our way onto school grounds, then Cassie stops short. “Speak of the devil.”

Snaking between cars in the parking lot are Kevin, Bryce Hensley, Ashley Green, and Kevin’s appendage, Samantha Bauer. Kevin and Bryce are together, while the girls follow behind.

“Oh, no.” Both Ashley and Samantha are wearing mini-skirts and push-up bras. I look down at my covered legs and navy tank-top with the built-in padding. Luckily, I notice just in time that the foam insert where my left boob should be is pushed in, creating some sort of crater instead of cleavage. I shove my hand inside my top and poke it out, trying to look as casual as I can under the circumstances.

They’re two feet in front of us now and that same giddy, nauseous feeling I get every time I see Kevin pulses through me. He’s gorgeous. His hair has turned coppery-gold from the summer sun and his calf muscles flex as he walks.

Because Kevin went to grade school with me and Cassie, he never ignores us. But he never really says much more than, “Hey,” either. Yet this time he says, “Hey,” then does a double take and stops.

The rest of his group kind of stumbles and says, “What the—?” Then they spot us. Ashley and Samantha roll their eyes and mutter but Bryce and Kevin stand still, looking only at Cassie.

“Cassie Sanders?” Kevin pushes his sunglasses up into his hair. His eyes are darker than my dad’s espresso. “Wow. Hi. You look ...you’ve changed.”

Cassie stops, arms crossed, hip out, posed like a model. She narrows her green eyes at him and pushes out her glossed lips. When she speaks, her voice is clipped and angry. “Really? Changed enough for you to speak to me now?” She tromps up St. Anthony’s front steps and doesn’t look back. Kevin and his clan look as shocked as I feel.

“Uh ... well, ’bye,” I say. They grunt some response and I hurry to catch up to Cassie.

“What was that about?” I grab Cassie’s arm once we’re inside the building.

“He’s an ass, Sylvie. Did you see that? ‘Cassie Sanders, you’ve changed.’ What was I, a toad before?” She’s practically yelling.

“Shhh. Of course not, you know that. But if you think he’s such a jerk, why are you always pushing me to ask him out?”

“Because you like him.”

“But why are you so mad?” I know the answer. I know it. I feel my voice go all squeaky. “You like him, too, don’t you?”

“No!” Cassie shakes her head. “Maybe I overreacted, okay?”

I decide to let it drop for the moment. My stomach is wrenched into a knot. Kevin’s noticed Cassie. And if she likes him, I’ll never have a chance. Never.

Sam comes up and pokes me in the shoulder just as Cassie and I reach our locker. “Hey, uh, about lunch—” he begins but all of a sudden from behind me a voice, thick and gooey as taffy, drawls out, “Oh, look! It’s Psycho Sydell! With a boyfriend? A little young for you, don’t you think, Psycho? With glasses that thick you’d think he could see who he’s hooking up with.”

Tori Thompson and two of her friends stand a few feet away, teeth bared and claws sharpened.

Clueless, Sam shakes his head and says, “I’m her brother.”

“Hmmm ... I should have seen the resemblance,” Tori coos. “Ugly runs in the family.”