“What about me?”
“You’re a bitch who got me beaten up by your brother.” I chuckle, but Mya’s still not smiling. She ditches her hair and wraps her arms around her knees instead.
She chews on her lips before speaking. “So you just randomly shift between these worlds?”
“No, it generally happens when I’m sleeping, but sometimes the shifts happen more abruptly. Like today, I was just walking and then wham, slammed into a different world.”
“Have you told anyone else about this?” She’s looking a little pale, her freckles standing out across her cheeks.
“No, only you.”
“Good, because this is crazy.”
“I know how it sounds.” I fold away the laptop and shuffle closer to her. “Do you believe me?”
She studies my face, her hazel eyes darker, a storm brewing behind them.
“I don’t know. Tell me more about the other me.”
“She goes swimming at Sully’s, which isn’t under construction. Benny’s still alive, obviously. Beat the crap out of me. You also have a tribal tattoo of an otter on your right shoulder.”
“Really? An otter?”
“Is that weird?”
“No. It’s just…” She pauses. “According to Native American tradition, my animal totem is the otter. Did you know that?”
I shake my head.
“Weird, huh?” She squirms a little.
“Other Mya is also a vegetarian,” I say.
“Now I really don’t believe you.” She cracks a grin, but it’s fleeting. Chewing on a nail, she asks, “You keep switching between worlds like this? How do you do it?”
“No idea. It just happens. Go to sleep in one world, wake up in another, or I’m walking and then things change and I’m in a different world again.”
“That must be tough on your sanity.”
“It’s getting easier. At first I got so confused. Each time it was like losing Danny or Shira all over again. It was really bad. Thank God the nurses thought it was just PTSD. Took me a while to figure it out. Now I know Shira and Danny are both there, just at different times, so it’s not so hard anymore.”
“I can’t imagine what that must be like. When did this all start?”
“Sometime after the fire. I’ve documented it all. Maybe I can show you.”
The front door opens and footsteps echo in the hallway.
“Crap,” Mya whispers. “My dad’s home. I’m supposed to be selling ice cream.”
She cranks open her window, and gestures for me to go first. Her dad’s in the kitchen, fridge door hissing shut, snap of a can opening.
It’s a tight squeeze, but I manage to haul myself out of the window and land on hands and knees less than half an inch from a spiky cactus hunched over a dry flower bed.
Mya leaps nimbly from the ledge, grabs my hand, and leads me around the side of the house, ducking low to avoid being seen from the windows. I don’t relish the idea of facing my parents, but they’re less likely to launch into a tirade if I’ve got a friend with me. More than anything, I want to show Mya my book. Maybe she can help me make better sense of it all.
She’s tugging at my hand, dragging me backward through the sand. The crippled stand of piñon to my left breaks apart like the head of a dandelion, shattering as I turn around to face Mya, but Amy the psychologist shoves me up against the door of her office instead.
Chapter Ten
Shira’s dead
“Kyle, just calm down.” Amy’s breath is rancid with chili and garlic. She’s strong for such a small woman, all muscle beneath the buttoned blouse and pleated slacks.
Bright bands of pain constrict my head, driving nails into my brain. Blood spurts from my nose as I crumple to the ground, battling to breathe through the pain in my ribs.
“Please, don’t send me to the loony bin,” I say as Amy passes me wads of tissue.
“I’m not sending you anywhere, but I do have a legal obligation to inform your parents if you’re suicidal.”
I tilt my head back and blood runs down my throat. “I’m not going to kill myself.”
“That’s not what you said a moment ago.”
“I didn’t mean it. Sometimes it just gets too much.”
Amy slides down to sit beside me. “The loss of Shira?”
“Yeah, the whole situation is just so fucked-up, with Daniel in the chair, you know?” I cast her a sidelong glance. She’s nodding and rubbing her chin.
“You’ve been through a lot, Kyle. It’s only normal that you’d be having dark thoughts, that you’d be feeling a whole array of emotion. It’s important to know it’s not your fault.”
“That’s what everyone keeps telling me.”
“You don’t believe them?”
“They weren’t there. They don’t know.” I cough, the taste of metal on the back of my tongue, and tears pricking my eyes.
“Don’t know what?”
“That I think I might’ve started the fire.”
“You’re not sure?”
“Not yet.”
She nods in silence. I’m not surprised. Not a lot someone can say to an admission like that.
“Can I at least give you ride over to the clinic, get you checked out?” Amy asks, getting up.
I accept her outstretched hand, wincing as she hauls me to my feet.
Thankfully, my mom’s not working at the clinic, else she’d have been fussing around me wanting to know all the details. Nondisplaced rib fractures, so nothing serious despite the agony. They dope me up and give me a box of pain meds to take away, telling me to breathe as deeply as I can as often as possible. The other injuries are just scrapes and bruises that’ll heal on their own given time.
When they ask what happened, I don’t get into details beyond falling out of a tree. From their raised eyebrows and muttering, I know they don’t buy it. The joy of living in a small town; they all know my dad drinks.
“You’re eighteen now,” one of the nurses says, a friend of my mom’s with warm brown eyes and a Mexican accent. “You can press assault charges.”
Even pressing charges against Benny wouldn’t do me any good. My word against theirs with no impartial witnesses. Getting the cops involved will likely just get me knifed next time. Easier to pretend it never happened. All I have to do is stay asleep in this reality to live in the other one.
Amy drops me off at home, telling me I can come by the center any time. She even gives me her cell phone number before departing with a wave and a smile.
“What the hell happened to you?” Dad asks. He’s sipping coffee at the kitchen table, a pack of aspirin beside his cup. There’s a new book of matches on the table from the Throbbing Strawberry.
“Jerks
outside Black Paw,” I say. Dad nods and looks relieved. His gaze meets mine briefly.
“Hope the other guy looks worse.”
“There were four of them. Not exactly fair, but they’ll be hurting.”
Dad smiles. “That’s my boy.” He fiddles with the matches. “You been screwing some tourist at this motel?”
“Hell, no.” By the look on my dad’s face, it might’ve been better to say yes. Only I’ve never been out to the motel before.
“I’m guessing those aren’t yours, then?” I ask.
“Damn straight they aren’t.” He slurps his coffee and grimaces before popping another aspirin. I leave him hungover in the kitchen, contemplating the mystery of the matchbook, and escape to my bedroom.
I force myself to take a deep breath. It hurts, but not nearly as much as before. Retrieving the book and pens from under my bed, I fill in a few more boxes, connecting them with colored lines. For the first time, I wonder if dying in one reality would let me live permanently in the other.
No messages from Danny. He’s still pissed then. I try calling, but he doesn’t answer. I give up after four tries.
This reality sucks. Danny hates me, Shira’s dead, my dad’s a violent drunk, Mya’s a bitch… But in another two months I’ll be out of here. Rice, Texas—my whole life ahead of me. If the world doesn’t end.
The other reality isn’t exactly wonderful either. I’m scarred and without a high school diploma, but at least I have Shira and Mya.
I flip through the half-drawn comics, adding a few details here and there, but my heart’s not in it, and I shove the book back under my bed.
Sometimes I wish I had a beagle and not bugs. I scoop Shatterstar out of the terrarium and let him scuttle across the back of my hand, shepherding him with a pencil.
Boring. Even harassed, the bug doesn’t bite me. Disappointed, I drop him back in his tank. I try Danny again, but now he’s hanging up on me after half a ring.
I flip open the book of matches. Only two left, taunting me with their pink heads. They’re just dying to burn. Scrunching up a scrap of paper torn from my drawing book, I contemplate fire. The terrarium’s still open, the bugs sluggish. It takes three strikes to light the match. I inhale the aroma of burning phosphorus.
It takes a moment for the paper to catch. Flames licking at my fingers, I drop the fire into the terrarium and close the lid. The vinegaroons scuttle away from the heat, seeking out the cool, damp spot beneath their driftwood. It will take them a while to die. The paper turns to ash, the flames extinguished.
If the matches aren’t mine or my dad’s, that means they’re Mom’s. That means two things: that she’s smoking again and going out to the less than salubrious motel. Not wanting to think about what Mom’s doing at some seedy by-the-hour establishment, I try Danny one last time. It goes straight to voice mail.
Searching through the pockets of my jeans, I find a half-crushed tea leaf cigarette. It’ll do. My left forearm is mottled with scars, the freshest still pink and oozing around the edges of the blister. I light the cigarette with the last match, watch the flames, then stare at my skin until my arm is no longer my own. As I touch the smoldering tip to my flesh, I expect to feel something more than just a jolt of pain. Nothing. Nothing but the searing ache in my arm and the fragrance of burning tea, like potpourri.
I chuck the remains of the cigarette out my window and blow a stream of cool air on the new crater in my arm. Danny has a home phone. I dial the number, but hesitate before calling. What if Gabriela or his mom answers?
Sleep seems like the only decent option. I knock a few painkillers into my open palm. It’s not that I want to die. I just want to sleep, a numb, senseless sleep that’ll keep me in the other world for longer. A few more pills then, just to be sure I don’t wake up for a while. Maybe permanent sleep would be best. I chug down most of the bottle.
Waiting for the drugs to kick in, I lie staring at my ceiling, taking deep, aching breaths. How the hell did I not get hurt? Shira and Danny were trapped inside…
Trapped.
For a moment, the memory is as clear as the New Mexico sky. Hands shutting the barn door, their screams ripping through the night as flames made kindling of the dry roof. My hands covered in their blood.
My ceiling ripples, peels open like an orange, revealing the sapphire surface of Obscura. I try to lift my arm, to reach out and touch the planet filling my vision, but I can’t move. There’s a moment of panic at my paralysis before the orb descends in a rush of blue, smothering me in a cool blanket.
Chapter Eleven
Danny’s dead
“Kyle?” A hand waving in front of my face.
I blink and the blue mist clears from my vision. “I’m alive?”
“Yeah, silly. You stopped midsentence too.” Mya’s voice. Sunlight, blue sky. My house crouched on the corner beneath the withered oak tree. I’m on my knees as needles of pain skewer my head. Blood pours out of my nose and I spit into the sand.
“Crap, Kyle. What’s happening?”
I can’t think beyond the pain. I’m going to explode. Blood spatters the neighbor’s flower beds. The agony slides down my spine and blossoms across my side, raking fire across my ribs. I’m gulping air and tasting blood. Surely there are easier ways to die.
Mya’s holding me, stroking my hair, mumbling soothing words.
I can barely hear her over the pounding in my ears. The pain recedes, leaving me a shaking, sweating mess in its wake.
For long moments, I remain on my knees with Mya’s arm around my shoulders.
“Can you stand?” she asks, and with her help, I manage to rise. “What just happened?” Her eyes are full of fear. She clamps her top incisors on her bottom lip to stop it from trembling.
“I shifted.” Deep, shuddering breaths that taste like blood and sand.
“But you were right next to me the whole time.”
“How long did I blank out for?”
“No idea. We’ve been chatting the whole time.”
“I don’t remember anything after jumping out your window.”
She catches her breath. “What?”
“Nada, sorry.” I wipe my nose with my shirt.
“Nothing about our almost hour-long conversation?”
“What about?” Just breathing is an incredible feat at the moment. I can’t think beyond in, out, repeat.
“My outfit for the dance and Nicholas, my ex.”
I shake my head.
“Is it always like this?” she asks.
We amble across the road toward my house. My hands are shaking.
“It’s getting worse.” I open the screen door for her. My mom’s in the kitchen; my dad’s not around.
“Kyle.” Mom hesitates when she sees Mya and plasters on a smile, although I can see she’s been crying.
“This is Mya.”
“Lovely to meet you.” Mom shakes Mya’s hand. “Would you like some lunch? I was just fixing up some sandwiches.” She glances nervously at me. It’s easier if we both pretend this morning didn’t happen.
“No thank you, Mrs. Wolfe. We just ate.” Mya replies with a smile that splits her whole face in two.
“Well, you just shout if you want anything.” Mom looks at me, a look that says
we’ll talk about things later.
I grab two sodas from the fridge and head upstairs to my room with Mya in tow.
“Seriously, Scarface?” Mya leans over the terrarium. “Vinegaroons and…” She picks up the jam jar. “You feed them live crickets?”
My heart stutters with regret. I killed my pets in the other reality. Pushing past Mya, I examine the bugs for signs of life. No ash on the sand. Twitching antennae and masticating mandibles; they’re alive.
“People have pet snakes and tarantulas. What’s wrong with these guys?” I tap the glass to agitate them, double-checking their status. “And they prefer hunting their meals.”