Chapter Ten
Timeline
Not long after that, the night quieted down. There was some football game that was on, and I read a book as Uncle Leonard, my father, and both grandfathers sat down to watch it. I could feel none of their minds were actually on the game, but it gave a distraction from what had happened. I could feel that my family was looking at me in the corner of their eye, trying to figure out just what had happened, only my dad seeming to really know. At eight that night, everyone said goodbye, and the house got quiet.
It seemed that though my grandparents on my father's side had agreed to stay with us over night, then fly back to Bend the next day, they decided to get a motel for the night instead, and I could feel that it was because of me.
They thought it was best that I rested and got over what happened that night, and I felt bad and stupid. "Is there something you want to talk about, Gabby?" It was my mother who spoke, her voice soft. I shook my head.
There was really nothing to say past what my father had said, and that only confused me further. I was close to asking what happened when I was five or six, but I'd only get more lies and silences, so I thought 'Why bother?'. I took my book and went into my sanctuary, my room, where I'd wanted to go since right after dinner. It would have been rude to my family, and since I didn't get to see them much after we'd lived in New Gotham, I wanted to spend as much time as I could with them, secrets or not.
I sat down at my desk and opened a writing program and began to make a list, a timeline of sorts, of when things changed for me. I theorized that everything started around the time Dinah got to New Gotham. Or at least, everything that became significant started with her around. I figured that she'd brought on a slight emotional stress when I worried about her so much, and when I felt the protectiveness come over me once we'd become friends.
The only thing was, the actual day of the beginning of the humming, I don't think I was in any emotional stress. Before Dinah'd come over, I was just bored. Same thing in the theater when the volume of the humming increased. I wasn't in any real stress, in fact what stress I was under was relieved when Dinah had agreed to the movie outing. I wasn't in any stress at all, but- But Dinah was.
I continued to type up dates and events as I remembered them, and it looked something like this:
Tuesday, October 1st, 2002- Dinah Redmond's first day of school, obtains title Zipper Girl
Wednesday, October 2nd, 2002-Introduce myself to Dinah
Sunday, October 20th, 2002- Dinah comes over, humming/whispering started, dream of Dinah's memory (?)
Monday, October 21st- Friday October 25, 2002- Dinah's gone from school, worried sick all week
Friday October 25th, 2002- Ms. Gordon tells me to stick by Dinah because she needs me, Kelly stops being my friend because of my growing friendship with Dinah, says Dinah's dangerous, sent a mental messege to Dinah for her to call me (?), she calls, and I invite her to a movie
Saturday, October 26th, 2002- Go to movies with Dinah, humming gets louder, learn about mother, hear word 'metahuman', Dad acts strange that night, tells me to go to my room, overhear about the Institute, research word 'metahuman', dream of my father's memory
Sunday, October 27th, 2002- Send mental messege to my father about genes (?), Dad sends mental messege to me as a test and I ignore it, I realize I have real telepathy, Dinah takes me for a drive, feels I needed to talk, which I did but couldn't tell her
Wednesday, November 6th, 2002- Dinah obviously has a crush on Matt Kendall, despite my jealousy, nothing triggers my powers or affects them in any way
Thursday, November 7th, 2002- Sexy Dinah walks into class, despite being struck dumb, nothing happened regarding my powers. That night, Matt Kendall asks me about static and Dinah, the same thing I felt the night the humming started, fear of Dinah's rejection of our friendship doesn't affect my powers
Friday November 8th, 2002- Dinah's not mad at me about Matt, I sense something happened between her sister and her sister's best friend, we're cool, hear 'Poor Helena'
Tuesday, November 19th, 2002- Touch Dinah on accident, saw flashes of memories and emotions. Dinah wanted to kill someone but was stopped (?), go see Uncle Leonard about the Institute, he lies to me and forces me to go home. He's heard of people with special powers, I'm not the only one (!) (Should I go talk to this Kyle chick?)
Thursday November 28th, 2002 (Thanksgiving)- Heard 'Where's our little sunshine girl gone?' dream of Grandpa Cook's memory, wake up crying, feel that my father failed me or is going to fail me, he says he's sorry as if he knew what I had a dream about.
It felt as if a lot of the confusion and stress I felt upon first getting signs of this ability went away, and writing things down seemed to make things better. Not easier, really, but better. No longer bottled up until I would burst. Mr. Zeros and Ones will hold on to my secrets. It was as if writing down the clues so far made the mystery not as hard to solve, Sure, there was a lot to it, but I'm sure it will all connect together somehow, and I felt that Dinah had played a big role in this mystery that is me, and creepier still, I felt much more has yet to some, much more that Dinah will be a part of.