While You Were Gone (21 page)

Mac raises his voice and all the employees give him their attention. “Listen up, folks. We're going to run a phase one diagnostic. Please ready your stations.” The energy of the room changes as employees take position. He lays a hand on Warren's shoulder. “Set it for five.”

Warren's fingers race over the keyboard. “Ready.”

Mac walks to where I'm sitting and crosses his arms. He looks confident. Proud. “Sit back and enjoy the show.”

A clock appears in the corner of the largest screen, counting down in milliseconds.

Five.

Four.

Germ looks as freaked out as I feel.

Three.

I grip the arms of the chair.

Two.

One.

The screens switch to a skeletal view of the city and cold races across my chest. Yellow circles and red
X
s swim in my eyes. My jaw clenches, my muscles go taut, and through the static I hear Germ yelling.

But instead of the tunnel and the pull, everything fades. When I open my eyes, I'm on my knees surrounded by DART employees staring down at me. One switches off the alarm on the heart monitor.

I never saw the other Phoenix. Never felt the other Danny.

“Shut it all the way down.” Mac's face is pale. The confidence is gone. He stands with one hand on his hip and runs the other over his face. In a loud voice, he says, “Someone get me Governor Solomon on the phone.”

I push my door open with my elbow and, once inside, bump it closed again with my hip. Everything's a mess, just like it's been since I got back from shopping with Mom on Tuesday. Here it is Thursday and I don't even know where the time went. Oh, wait. Yes, I do. It went to Vivian. The art supplies tumble from my arms onto the bed, and I flop down beside them, exhausted. I don't even glance at my phone. I already know he hasn't called.

“So,” I say to the girl in the painting on the easel, “how was your day?”

She doesn't say anything back, of course.

Her face is shiny, the oils still wet. I painted her in a hurry this morning, in the little time I had between breakfast and going back to Vivian's. She's full of angst and frustration, her eyes fierce like her blazing-fire hair. The Art Guild would never approve, but that's okay. She's not for them. She's for me.

I pick up my palette and brush, thin out burnt umber and pull it through her hair. My arms are tired, but painting her, I find my own fire again.

Tomorrow is the jury deadline and Vivian's paintings look great. Maybe she's even learned something, watching me do all the work for her. Somehow I doubt it, though. Just like I doubt she's thought about what will happen when she gets to Belford and they discover she's a fraud. But that's not my problem, right?

I smirk and grow the flames higher. Then my eyes move to the remains of
Confidante
tucked away in the bag on the coffee table. No, my problems are something else entirely.

“What do you think?” I ask the flame-haired girl. “Should I do it?”

Her eyes are severe, like a dare.

I slide open my closet door and search through bins of art supplies until I find a spool of thin gold wire. In a separate bin, beneath a bag of Popsicle sticks, I find the cutters and the pin tool from my sculpting set.

Time to reclaim what I've lost.

I listen to the phone ringing and tell myself not to worry. There's a logical reason she's not picking up. She hasn't been thrown into the back of a van. She's the governor's daughter. They wouldn't put her in—

“Hello?”

I jolt upright. “Eevee?”

“Danny! Oh my God, it's you.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” She sounds both panicked and relieved. “Sorry. I was working and didn't hear the phone ringing. Are you okay? I've left you so many messages.”

“I know. I'm sorry. It's just…things have been kinda crazy.”

“Same here.” She pauses. “Actually, I was starting to wonder if you were dodging me.”

“What? No. Didn't you get my note?”

“Note?” Her breathing changes as she moves through her room.

“I stopped by yesterday, but you weren't there, so I left a note under your door.”

“You were
here
?” She makes a frustrated growl. “Figures I'd be out. Hang on.” I hear her moving things. “Such a mess. No wonder I didn't see— Oh!” There's the sound of paper, and she says, “You came to see me,” like she can't believe it.

“I did.”

“You weren't dodging me.”

“Of course not.” I fall back on the bed and exhale. “So, what are you working on?”

“A new art project. Well, kind of new. It's a little hard to explain.”

“Try me.”

“You know the bits of painting I scavenged from the fire? I'm trying to stitch them back together using wire.”

“That sounds cool.”

“I guess so.” She yawns. “It feels good to try something different. What about you?”

“I haven't been painting at all.”

“You know what I mean.” I can hear her smiling. Wish I could see it, too. “What have you been up to?”

I let silence settle between us as I sift through everything that's happened since I last saw her. I want to tell her about Hydro and Dad's confession, about the Skylar test—and most of all, about me—but Warren warned us about sharing information over the phone.

“Danny? Are you still there?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“Have you and Germ been able to—”

“Only one. It's been…difficult.” Better change the subject. “But enough about that. What about you? You've been super busy.”

“Yeah.” She still sounds concerned. “I've been, um, doing a lot of painting.”

“That's great.”

“Not really,” she says. “It's all crazy stuff. My weird ideas. Not anything I can actually show. The jury is tomorrow, and…” She sighs. “I'm not going to do it.”

“What? Why not?”

“I can't submit this stuff. It's different.”

“Different is good. What would the world be like if everything was the same?”

“Not everyone thinks that.” She doesn't say anything for a long time, then, “I miss you.”

Her voice shivers through me. “I miss you, too.”

“Wish I could see you.” She sounds sleepy.

“I could come over.”

“Curfew.”

“Screw curfew.”

“We'll see each other tomorrow.”

“Well, I wish tomorrow would hurry up and get here.”

“Me too.”

The line goes quiet and I wonder if she's fallen asleep. Then she says, “Is all of this worth it?”

The question hangs there between us. “It will be,” I say at last. “It has to be.”

My phone alarm startles me awake, stuck under my face and blaring in my ear. I peel it away and squint at the screen.
Art Guild jury,
it reads,
begins in one hour.

Great. I'd set it weeks ago, thinking I'd need to be up bright and early this morning, and forgot to cancel it.

I untangle my feet from the covers and sit up, taking in the damage from the night before. Bits of wire and canvas lie strewn around the floor. Tubes of paint lie uncapped and drying. The cup of brushes lies on its side, knocked over in my dive for the phone. Brushes surround it like a motionless explosion.

When did we hang up? I don't remember saying goodbye. Wait. It's Friday. I get to see him tonight.

The flame-haired girl watches as I walk to the sink and splash water on my face. I'm a wreck. It's going to take a lot of work to pull me together for the gala.

I grab a soda from the mini-fridge and tiptoe through the mess to sit in the chair, my legs tucked up under me. Morning light peeks in around the edges of the blinds and glints off the gold paint on the resurrected
Confidante
. The wire stitching looks macabre, especially with the sooty raw canvas edges. It's weird. Different.

Different is good.

His words last night caught me off guard. For a moment I actually thought about submitting these paintings to the jury. How crazy would that be?

I down the rest of the soda and go to the closet to pack for the big weekend downtown.

The flame-haired girl watches me pull out my overnight bag.

“No,” I tell her as I pack.

“Shut up,” as I get dressed.

“Stop looking at me,” as I brush my teeth.

“It's a bad idea,” as I gather my toiletries.

I pull the red dress from the closet and turn to find myself eye to eye with the other girl, the one emerging from the dark. Her hands reach for me. “Don't you start.” My gaze follows the flame-haired girl's to the coffee table, where my newest creation lies.

These paintings are my breath. My soul. They represent not only what I can do but who I am.

Different.

What would the world be like if everything was the same?

I swallow, feeling the fire of Danny's words. A little voice in my head says,
You'll be sorry.

Damn these Moments, making me choose.

“Fine.” A quick check of the time shows I'll have only minutes to spare if I hurry. I load the flame-haired girl, the girl emerging from the dark, the fractured Danny watercolor, an older one of people evaporating into butterflies, and the wire-stitched
Confidante
into my portfolio case, then leave before fear or reason can stop me.