Update: Yes it has been a while. Between moving three times and going away to University it has been busy and I haven't been as devoted to my writing as I should have been. Getting into the feel of it again though so hopefully this will be a more frequent occasion. But until then enjoy!
I followed the movement of Claire's hands. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear before smoothing down the page. She'd told me what it was about – something about genetics and what caused our abilities. My interest had waned at that point, it didn't matter what caused them as they were here now. Their damage was already done. Claire turned a page, the edge of it rasping under her finger and running uncomfortably down my spine. I resisted cringing though, making movement of any kind. She would hear me if I did, feel my presence as more than just an awareness down her spine. And then she'd make me talk. Where I went last night, about what happened at school, about mom, about dad ... my thought trailed on the name. The one that had been given to too many people and none of them here to hear me say it. Who deserved to hear me say it. Or even think beyond italics. Dad.
"Hey," Mr. Bennet said, suddenly standing in the doorway and the presence of him weighing down in the room with the irony of my previous thought. "Your mom made waffles."
"Uh, okay," Claire answered, removing her attention from the book by folding the covers over her fingers to hold her place and pressing down on the front. "I'll be down in a minute."
"You were right to be angry," he said, coming in and over to the chair Sandra had aesthetically put in the corner. I curled my legs up to my chest in the instinct of hiding myself, the movement folding over the quilt and reminding me that even if he couldn't see me that I was still there. Not a narrator impartial to the story but a character within it with all those questions I didn't want to answer weighing on my chest. An uncertain heartbeat that went in the space of too many empty others.
"You tried to talk to me and I lost my temper. I'm sorry." I looked up as he continued, my soliloquy not pausing the action but instead interrupting it. Though maybe they had to be said aloud ...
"No, it's fine," Claire insisted, swinging her legs over the side of the bed so she could face him from where he had sat in the chair. I mentally noted a self thank you that I had chosen not to sit there myself. "I shouldn't have ambushed you with all those questions."
"No, of course you should," he said, head bowed and hands folded as if asking forgiveness for his lie. That his actions didn't support his words. "I've asked you to carry a heck of a secret. And sometimes I don't think I appreciate how difficult that must be. For you and for Jess. So if there is anything either of you girls have to ask me about, as long as we're in the privacy of our own home, please, ask away." He smiled, cautious of the admission and how far we might take it. Of the things we might ask and the answers he'd have to give.
"If someone here found about us – me and Jess," Claire began slowly, testing out each word for how hypothetical it sounded. How close she could come to confession before she had to atone for it. "What would happen?"
"We would have to leave California immediately. Go deeper into hiding. Maybe forgo school and jobs altogether," Mr. Bennet said without hesitation, eyes fixed on hers and not letting them fall. I felt the weight of it as if it was on me, the black and white answer to the grey question and the little voice in the back of my head that they didn't count as colours. I resented his confidence – that I used to find comfort from it. That he would have kept me safe no matter the cost– that I now suffered because of its price.
"But that's worst case scenario," he allowed, a dad again and smiling to remind her of it. I saw the deception of it though, the thin line he thought he could so easily bridge from parent to murderer and back with a smile. Something bit into my hand and I looked down to the empty space where some instinct told me it was. I'd curled my hand into a fist and pressed into it too hard, three lines of pink for a moment standing up in that empty space before fading again. Another reminder that I was there. That I couldn't narrate the story, lie and say I wasn't affected by it. That I couldn't so easily bridge that difference that he'd had years to perfect. I wasn't as good a liar. But then again neither was he.
"Oh ...," he was suddenly standing, by the door again and the play continuing without me so I needed the moment to catch up. "And if you see Jessica can you tell her that I still want to talk to her?" He was facing her, deliberately not looking beside her to where I sat – to where I always was. An inch behind and to the left, unnoticed and invisible but for those who knew me well. And he did. I hated the truth of it and the years that went into knowing it. That I was always there and listening, knowing more then I should and yet not nearly enough. Hating with the full weight of my knowledge and fearful for the empty spaces that went around it. That I didn't know him well enough. That there was more he hadn't told me and that I didn't want to know.
"And that ... that I'm worried about her," his eyes flickered before resting on me. A weight pressed into the back of my spine, the awareness that I really wasn't there but that he saw me anyway. I was only the narrator – the comical off stage voice who pitied the characters playing out their scenes and wondered why they couldn't do anything right. So I didn't feel anything when he looked at me. That he saw me when I wasn't there.
I struggled to keep up with Claire's purposeful step, finding it harder to run when I couldn't see my own feet. Mental note for later: Walk while invisible. Don't run!
"It was a pedicure," she said, finally stopping next to a line of lockers and speaking to a taller boy with brown hair falling across his face. Subtle Claire. Subtle.
"I'm sorry?" He asked after a moment, eyebrows creased above his nose and playing off that he didn't know what she was talking about when I could tell from intuition that he already did.
"The other night that's what I was doing, I was giving myself a pedicure," she gave him an innocent smile that came off more uneasy, willing to believe the rehearsed lie.
"You're not very good at it," he said, closing and locking his locker before coming around her and almost tripping over me. I shuffled back and away from him, running into another student who spun around in panic for whatever touched him.
"What is it with you creeping around my house anyway?" Claire went on, falling into step behind him and her voice going higher with her irritation.
"I just wanted to lend you a book," he laughed, hands spread to plead his innocence.
"You know if I want to start a book club with you then I'll let you know," Claire allowed, hands pressed together as she pleaded with him and so I had to suppress a mock gasp. A book club with Claire? My one dream! "But until then just stay away from me."
"Will do but just run me through this one more time: so I didn't see you cut your toe off last night?" He came closer to her, towering above her with the question he asked. I took a step back as if it was me he had come to close too. She hadn't told me that ...
"The bottle of nail polish fell over and it just looked like it was bleeding," she defended, carrying on past my thought like she hadn't heard it and I reminded myself she hadn't. My soliloquy was inward: a new kind of monologue. Coming to a theater near you. *Some conditions apply.
"Don't do your nails on the way!" West called after her as she was suddenly walking away, some exchange that I had missed that explained his continued smirk and the infuriation on her face. I ran to catch up with her but still making sure to trip him as I went.
I edged sideways through the length of desks, a girl leaning over one of them and neglecting to make room for me as I went. I bit down on an exaggerated sigh, turning into the last seat at the back of the class and sliding my textbook onto the desk. I flipped open the front page, the list of names written into the cover of all of those who had had it before me. And then Jessica Butler at the bottom in blue ink. Nothing out of the ordinary about that. Except for the fact that it was only half my real name. In the first days of running – when I was still somewhat optimistic or at least putting on a brave face – I had asked if I could change my first name too. Something exotic like Eleanor or Annabelle. Sandra had smiled sadly and told me that my name was beautiful, that of all things I should be able to keep that. I should have told her I didn't want it. That what was one more loss when my insides had already been scraped too clean. What was one more scar carved out of my chest?
"Good morning class!" The teacher, calling over the students still trying to find their seats and being obnoxiously loud about it as they did. "Lots to do today. Lots to do." He tossed his jacket over the back of the chair and pushed his glasses further up his nose. "Review for the big test next week so you better hope that you're here." A couple people laughed, myself included. I wasn't going to pass on marks alone.
"Alright. To attendance: Daniel Applegate," he glanced over his glasses as someone in the front row raised their hand and he nodded to acknowledge them. "Brittany Brian, Amanda Brent, Jessica Butler?" I raised my hand to indicate my presence before dropping it back onto the desk. There was a silence after the name so I looked up to question it.
"Is Jessica Butler here?" He asked, looking over the twenty or so heads and squinting like I might be hiding or suffering mistaken identity. I raised my hand again, waving it obnoxiously from the back row. Look through the glasses – not over them.
"Has anyone seen Jessica Butler?" He looked to everyone else, ignoring me as I half stood and continued to wave.
"Who?" Someone in the front row asked and more than half the class laughed. Anger burned hot in my chest and I opened my voice to call – along with some not so choice words – when I caught notice of my hand. Between turning it in my wave it fluctuated from visible to not. I brought it down to my chest, rotating it and watching as it went from the dark green of my shirt to clear and back. I was invisible. I'd gone invisible. But ... I'd gone back. Retracing the steps of the pressure rolling back onto my shoulders in the bathroom stall and walking out after Claire who had told me good luck and I had mumbled something the same. I couldn't see myself when I was invisible. That is how I could always tell. But now – it was reflex. I looked up at the classroom who had moved on from my search and who raised their hands as they were called on and unperturbed that I wasn't there. But I was there. I was here – right here. And no one noticed. No one saw me when I was there or missed when I was gone. I was my own self professed narrator and now all I wanted was to abandon the role. I forced my textbook away from me and onto the floor and ran, shoving aside desks as I went and ignoring the reactions that followed.
I lifted my hand trembling to my lips, lighter between my fingers and flicking at it to burst the flame. Come on. Come on. A spark lit and I held it close to the cigarette between my teeth, cupping the tiny flame with my hand. I exhaled the puff of smoke and leaned back against the brick wall, turning my hand in front of me and watching as it went from visible and back. Visible and back. It wasn't that big a deal. Not really. Claire had so many bones poke out through her skin that she was cutting off toes like getting pedicures. Going invisible without realizing it would be like a walk in the park to her. For me more like a sleeping-in-on-a-school-day. Or a new-pair-of-running-shoes. I smirked, pulling out the cigarette and exhaling again. I stretched my leg out in front of me and turned my shoe to the side. I could use a new pair. Size six. I would even take some fluffy pink ones if they were the ones Sandra picked out. See if my ability stretched that far. If the atrocity could go invisible. I grinned and wiped my face, my fingers coming back wet so I must have been crying. I tossed my cigarette to the grass and ground it in with my shoe and wiped my eyes with both hands. Stupid thing to cry about. Everyone wanted super powers. To be able to fly or move things with their mind or be a supernatural genius. To turn off emotions when they no longer did you good and were more of a weight on your chest then I reminder you were human. I leaned back my head again, closing my eyes against the sound of people laughing and walking by to their next class. I wish I could do that. Turn off my emotions or fly. Be able to walk into the crowd and become one of them by association and adapt to that way of life. To homework and boyfriends and maybe a girlfriend or two. I would give up being invisible for that. I would even give up being able to fly.
"Hey, baby!" I jumped inside my skin and opened my eyes at the familiar voice. The boy I had made out with the other day – the one who had come after me and had called me a tease. He was walking across the front lawn purposefully and I pressed back against the wall wishing I was invisible. He stopped at one of the girls waiting for him and pressed a strong kiss against her lips, grinning as she pulled away and laughed with him. Oh right ... I was.
A newspaper kicked up around my ankles and I could see the grinning face on the front. Nathan. Claire's dad. Winner of a landslide victory and dead ... far as I knew. I lifted my chin to look down the street, car doors open and more papers tossing down the pavement. I'd been here before. A long time ago. Or at least what felt like a long time. But I couldn't remember when. It was a hole in my history and something told me that I should remember it. Clues ... clues. Nathan. The election. The empty streets that should have been full ... Peter. I stepped back. The day – the night he'd died. When I stood there with the gun in my hand and unable to kill the man I'd met half a dozen times even if it meant saving the world. The weakness, the love of me ... But if this was then ... now was before then he ... Then Peter. My breath caught and my vision tunnelled to a singular point empty but for the shape of his name on my lips. Then he was alive. In some twist of fate he had to be. And I could save him. My mouth went dry and I tried to swallow that panicked wish. That he was alive. That he could be. I spun, boots tangling my legs under me as all I saw were cars and that smug grin plastered over store windows, the one I remembered so sadly when he went to hold his brother and die with him. Would that mean he was alive too? I wouldn't tempt fate that much. Tilt the scale that far.
"Pete – Peter," I breathed and I stopped. I could see him. Standing a dozen feet from me and stopping as I did so he saw me too. His lips moved and I could see them saying my name. I started running. I shoved a door closed that was in my way as I passed and didn't stop. If I could get to him in time – if I could warn him. I collided into his chest and his arms were around me lifting me up. I buried my face into his shoulder – the liberty I had never taken to hold him like this. He had kissed me by surprise and I had thought I'd have a hundred times to be prepared. A hundred chances to memorize his lips, his scent, the way his smile pulled up on one side. I pulled back, reaching out to touch his face and felt – hot. His cheeks – his skin was hot and I could see the flare of red running up under his neck. No ... Something grabbed me – someone pulled me back and I screamed. No! Not again! Not now. His gaze fell to his hands as they begin to heat – to glow and swell with it. He raised his head – his lips shaping the words 'Jess run!' and then there was white light –
I jerked upright, gasping and sweat sticking to my skin and under my pyjamas. It was dark, the light from the streetlight faded on the carpet and over Claire's face lying beside me. The book she had been reading – the one I had picked up was half underneath me and the side digging into my hip. I swallowed and sank back to the pillow – an ache I couldn't form words around collapsing in my chest like I had suffered a loss twice. That I had lost him twice. But I hadn't. He had always been dead and I laid back down with that thought and the weight of it keeping me from leaving the bed and finding something more sinister to ease the heaviness.