“Why do you care?” I hiss. “I’m not mad at you!”
“No, but it’s…I don’t like feeling that way. Just calm down.”
Everyone here is insane. I am the insanest of the insane. I’m going to run away tonight. I’m sick of the way the staff stares at me like they’re seeing straight into my head, and I’m sick of the bizarre classes they’ve “designed” specially for me that have me picking stocks instead of learning math, and practicing self-defense instead of gym. And I am so sick of feeling sick all the time.
But Annie is happy. She loves her staff mentor, Clarice, and the loads of braille texts and the pamphlets of information from the doctor I have to read out loud to her over and over again. She’s bonded with Eden and they hang out constantly; you’d think they were sisters. She’ll be happier here without me dragging her down. Maybe Eden is right—maybe I am so angry that other people can actually feel it.
I’m going to leave. I have no money. Whatever. I’ll figure it out. Just planning to leave tonight I feel better already, lighter, not as jittery in my own head. There’s a camera and an alarm and a security guard at the main entrance to the huge school building. But a window on the second floor has a balcony under it. Ten-foot drop. I can do a ten-foot drop. Then I’ll climb the rest of the way down. The brick is old and uneven. I can do it.
I know I can.
I’m going to get out of here tonight, and I’ll never come back. I’ll walk back to my aunt’s house if I have to. I’ll live there by myself. I’ll send Annie stupid postcards, and maybe they’ll fix her eyes and she’ll even be able to read them by herself. I don’t want to be without her—that idea makes it even harder to breathe—but I can’t stay here.
I look up to see Ms. Robertson smiling at me, and this time the smile isn’t a lie. It’s a challenge. Like she knows what I’m planning.
But she can’t know.
She knows. It’s a physical reaction in me, a certain quivering, empty feeling in my stomach, that tug of my gut. I know she knows. How does she know? I have to go now. NOW. I stand, knocking my chair over with a clatter into the table behind me. “I feel sick,” I say, leaving my stuff as I run out the door. Down the long hall, all tile and dark wood. Into the residence wing. Up the stairs that smell like lemon furniture polish. Straight to the window, the one I opened last week to see how far the drop was.
It’s nailed shut.
Screw this, I am gone. I sprint up another flight of stairs to the dorms with their warm yellow lights and plush red carpet. I will grab everything I own and I will run straight out the front doors. I will run into the sunshine and I will never come back here where everything is wrong for no reason. I burst in, and Annie’s there, on the couch, and she’s crying.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, out of breath. “What happened?”
She looks up, but she’s smiling. Why is she crying and smiling at the same time?
“I’m not the only one,” she says. “Fia, it’s not just me! Clarice can do it, too. Clarice sees things before they happen. And she’s going to help me learn to do it better, to control it. Oh, I knew this school was the right choice.” She stands and holds her hands out for a hug and I stumble forward, letting her wrap me up because I never stay away when she wants me close. “Think about it, Fia. If I had known how to control it before, I could have seen Mom and Dad earlier, I could have understood what I was seeing, I could have…” I know what she saw because she’s told me so many times, crying in the middle of the night.
She saw their lives smashed out of them. She still blames herself because she saw the accident and didn’t change it. (She didn’t change it. I am here because—no, stop.)
Maybe this school is the best thing that ever happened to her; she can figure out how to deal with what she sees. But why do I still feel so wrong when she’s so happy and hopeful? No. It’s my job to take care of her. If staying here is what she needs, I’ll stay.
The hairs on the back of my neck prickle and I turn to see what Annie’s eyes can’t. Ms. Robertson is standing, perfectly silent in the doorway, watching me.
It’s been two weeks since the window was nailed shut. Bars were installed on all the windows, on all the floors. The administration said it was because of an attempted break-in.
Every day Annie chatters to me about what she learned, how smart Clarice is, what an amazing coincidence it is that she’d end up with the one person in the world who could understand her. I do not smile because with Annie I don’t have to, but I lie when we are together.
Now I am sitting in class.
I am not doing any of my assignments.
I sit perfectly still and straight, and I do not work, and I do not answer questions, and they do not do anything to me. There is no detention. There are no threats. Except in self-defense, where my instructor hits me and hits me until I finally block and hit back.
I am riddled with bruises under my stiff white shirt that smells of bleach and makes me miss my mom with an ache I didn’t think I could feel anymore.
I do not tell Annie. I cannot tell Annie. Annie is happy, and I have to let her be happy. It is my job to make sure Annie is happy.
I glare at Ms. Robertson, standing in the f
ront detailing the upcoming ski trip; I still blame her for the nailed-shut window, though I have no reason to.
Then I have an idea. Maybe Clarice isn’t a coincidence. This school is wrong, I know it is. I want to know why, because if I know why, then maybe it won’t make me feel sick all the time. If there’s a reason why it’s wrong, then I am not crazy for feeling this way. (I’m not crazy, I’m not.) I lean back in my chair, stare straight at Ms. Robertson’s forehead, and think, I have a knife in my shoe. I have a knife in my shoe. I have a knife in my shoe, and I am going to pull it out and stab Eden. I am going to stab her until she screams. I have a knife in my shoe. I’m going to stab Eden. Right now.
Ms. Robertson sprints down the row and rips me out of my chair, knocking me to the ground; my head slams against the floor. She pins me, it’s not hard—I am all elbows and knees and I am only thirteen. She yanks off one of my shoes and then the other, breathing hard. My face is smashed into the tile. I can’t see anything. I can’t move.
My teacher swears. “What—why would you—Eden! How is Sofia feeling right now?”