Rei squints at the computer screen, not because he can’t see what I’ve typed, but because he doesn’t like it. “How do you know what smoking this stuff will do to you? Those are your lungs, too. And you never know what that stuff would do to your brain.” Rei hides the sage in his bottom desk drawer, under a pile of college brochures. “I’ll figure it out in the morning.” He stretches out on his bed, flat on his back, and folds his hands under his head. He closes his eyes and I drift up and hover next to his bed. He looks tired. I’ve been feeding off his energy a lot today, and I can see the toll it’s taking on him.
“Hi,” he smiles without opening his eyes. “I can feel you there.” He opens his eyes and rolls over onto his side, bunching the pillow up under his head. “Did you know that?”
No, I didn’t. I shake my head.
“Yeah, I can feel you near me,” he repeats with a trace of melancholy in his voice, “but I can’t touch you.” He reaches out and runs his fingers back and forth through my arm like I’m the flame on a candle, and it tickles when he does this. “I wish I knew how all this works. You’re energy, I know that, but I wonder what kind.”
Probably nuclear,
I tease.
“Well, you are kind of glowing,” he teases back. “Let me see your hand.” I hold my left hand out, palm up, and let him inspect it. “I think maybe you’re some kind of energy that humans haven’t identified yet,” he finally says.
Who knows? I usually need to pull energy from around me in order for you to see me, and I need a lot of it if I want to move stuff. Are you tired right now?
“Yeah, but it’s getting late.”
Still, I’m getting some of my energy from you. Does the room feel cooler than normal?
“Yeah, it feels good, though.”
Because I’m also pulling heat from the room in order to have enough energy to type.
“I still don’t understand how you can type.” He runs his fingers through my arm a few more times. “How do you do it?”
I don’t know. How does the wind move things? That’s not solid, but it can rip a building apart.
“So what would happen if I wasn’t around to pull energy from and you were someplace cold, like the South Pole? Then what would you do?”
Pull from the sun.
“What about at night?”
It doesn’t matter. Stars give off a lot of energy and it’s all just floating around in space. And the energy that comes from nebulas or supernovas is pretty powerful. It’s like drinking a couple of Red Bulls. If I concentrate really hard, I can tap into that.
Rei’s smile is sleepy and sweet. “When have you ever had a couple of Red Bulls?”
When you weren’t around to yell at me.
He smirks. “That’s what I thought.” He rolls onto his back and stares up at the ceiling. “It must be cool to see a supernova.”
Want to see one? I can show you.
Not that I seriously expect him to consider it, but how much fun would it be to show Rei around the universe!
He turns his head to read the computer screen and shakes his head. “Ha. Nice try, though.”
Are you afraid someone will hijack you, too?
“Maybe. But like I said before, think about how fast you’re moving out there. What would happen if you got sucked into a black hole? There’s a lot of stuff in space that scientists have no clue about. What if something
can
destroy energy, and we just haven’t discovered it?”
You worry too much!
“And you don’t worry nearly enough,” he says. He closes his eyes and within minutes, the rhythm of his breath becomes deep and predictable.
For all the macho muscles he’s built, I still see the little boy in Rei when he sleeps. His face relaxes. His lips part slightly, but he doesn’t snore. He’s never snored,
ever,
and I can say this without exaggeration because I have known Rei
for
ever. We napped together as babies; we were potty trained together; we held hands as we boarded the bus on our first day of kindergarten. And this is why I feel so guilty now.
For years, I thought it was unfortunate that Rei’s top lip is slightly fuller than his bottom lip, only because it was perpetually chapped. But Rei’s all grown up now, and those lips aren’t chapped anymore; in fact, they look
really
tempting.
I rest my hand on his chest to feel it rise and fall, feel his energy hum along in harmony with his heartbeat, and it hits me for the first time: Rei has always been my ninja protector, but he’s not invincible. I know it’s late, but how much energy have I pulled from him today? I can’t keep doing this to him.
Yumi offers a type of hands-on healing called Reiki in her store. Literally, the word
Reiki
means unseen energy or life force, and it’s something Yumi went to classes to learn back when she was pregnant with Rei, which accounts for his full name—Robert Reiki Ellis. I used to wonder where she got this unseen energy, if she got it from the same places I find mine, but it’s not something I could just go up and ask about, not unless I wanted her to know my secrets.
I don’t know Yumi’s source of energy, but I wonder if I can use my energy the same way she uses hers. One of the laws of physics states that energy always travels from order to chaos. Well, if I’m not a bundle of chaos, I don’t know who is. I sit very still with my eyes closed, and I concentrate on that profusion of energy that exists within the universe. Like a magnet, I draw this power from the edges of creation, through all dimensions beyond me, pulling it toward me and through me, until I feel myself tingling. I float my hands over Rei and let the energy seep into him, little by little, until intuition tells me
enough!
I smooth his hair off his face and let him sleep in peace.
CHAPTER 14
Before she dresses for work the next morning, my mom wakes up Taylor and decides she’s okay to go to school. Taylor allows herself to be kissed on the cheek, and as soon as the bedroom door closes, she gets up and starts searching through my closet for something to wear.
“This is fugly, this sucks, absolutely hideous, wouldn’t be caught
dead
wearing this!” she bitches as she pulls one thing after another out of my closet and flings it over her shoulder. By the time she’s done, there’s a considerable pile of clothes on the floor and still nothing she deems worthy to wear. She settles on a pair of jeans and a shirt my mom bought me a year ago that still has the sales tag on it because I thought it was a little on the sleazy side. Once she tries it on, I realize I was right.
She roots through all my drawers looking for makeup and finds nothing but cherry Chapstick, so she waits for my mom to leave before sneaking into her room to use her stuff. The light is better and the mirror is bigger in my mom’s bedroom, so she puts on foundation, blush, purple eye shadow, a thick rim of black eyeliner all around my eyes, a few layers of mascara, and a heavy layer of dark reddish lipstick. She blots her lips and makes a kissy face in the mirror.
Who the hell
is
that? I don’t recognize my face anymore. She stands there surveying herself, then grabs a hairbrush and with a disdainful look, begins to brush. I don’t have that long, blonde Rapunzel look Taylor is used to. My hair is straight, tree bark brown, and I keep it long enough to put up in a ponytail. I tolerate the inconvenience of side bangs only because they hide the scar on my forehead. She has no choice but to make the best of it this morning.
Once she’s ready, she looks uncertain. She glances at the clock, then at the phone, and then she stares out the window for a few seconds. My cell phone is on the bookcase, so she picks it up and flips through all five of my speed dial numbers. Rei’s number is on top. I watch her press ‘1’ and we both wait for Rei to answer.
“So yesterday when we were talking on my front steps, you said I take the bus with you,” Taylor says by way of a greeting.
My hearing is sharp enough in this dimension that Rei’s voice is loud and clear right through the phone.
“Good. You remembered that,” Rei says. “You meet me at the top of my driveway every morning at seven, which means I will see you in … six minutes. Did you take anything out of your backpack?”
“No. Why?” Taylor kicks through the piles of clothes she tossed, looking for what I can only assume is my backpack.
“Because you keep your epi in your backpack, but you probably don’t remember that.”
“An epi? Am I allergic to something?”
“Peanuts. But you don’t eat tree nuts, either.”
Taylor groans. “Peanuts? You’re kidding me, right?”
“No, I’m not kidding,” Rei’s voice is crisp. “And I’ll see you in five minutes.”
That’s long enough. I fly over to Rei’s and find him still in his room. Damn! His computer is off and we don’t have time to boot it up.
“Good morning,” he says with a wry smile. “Nice of you to drop by.”
I wave and I point to the bottom desk drawer.
“What … the sage?”
I nod emphatically.
“Yeah, I haven’t figured it out yet.”
I roll my eyes in exasperation and point to the clock.
“Yeah, I know, four minutes. I have to go.”
That wasn’t what I meant!
I bounce back home to find Taylor mumbling little obscenities about me and my allergies, as if this is somehow my fault. She digs around the bottom of my closet until she finds a pair of seldom used clogs, and she unearths my black hoodie and backpack from the pile of castoffs on my bedroom floor. She doesn’t bother locking the front door behind her.
Rei waits for her at the top of his driveway, one earbud stuck in his ear. When he sees Taylor, he whistles softly. “Whoa. I guess you forgot you don’t wear makeup.”
“I do now,” she said shortly. “Does the bus pick us up right here?” She attempts her epic hair
swish,
which fails since my hair is not so swishable. It makes me laugh.
Rei shakes his head and grins down at her, clearly amused, as well. “Nope. It’s up here.”
She follows him toward the bus stop, and I follow along from a safe distance. Along the way, Taylor quizzes Rei about her schedule and asks more questions about things she ‘can’t remember.’ I realize now why I never wore those clogs. They are not compatible with mud.
On the bus, Rei offers an earbud to Taylor, probably to keep her quiet. She frowns when she hears the music, and from my safe vantage point, I can barely hear her ask to see his iPod. Rei hands it over. She spins through his music, frowning.
“Don’t you have anything good?”
Rei sucks in his cheeks. “Define good.”
“You know,
good
. Don’t you have anything, like, current? Some decent pop or R&B?”
Rei laughs, probably because she used the words
decent
and
pop
in the same sentence. “There’s a lot of current stuff on there, but most of it is from indie bands you probably don’t remember.” He holds out his hand for the iPod, and when she hands it over, he surfs for something. “Here, try this.”
She sits back with a look that clearly tells him she is settling for this music. Rei turns toward the window and rubs the center of his forehead just above his eyebrows.
For the rest of the school day, Rei coaches Taylor on where to be at what time, tells her which locker is mine, takes the package of cookies out of her hands in the lunch line and reminds her she’s allergic to peanuts.
“So? These are chocolate chip, not peanut butter.”
Rei flips the package over. “Read the ingredients.”
She huffs at him. “Flour,” she says sarcastically, “sugar…” she’s quiet as she scans the ingredient list. “Processed on shared equipment with peanuts and tree nuts,” she reads. “You’re shitting me, right?”
“Wrong.” Rei puts them back on the rack. “And in case you forgot, you hardly ever swear.”
“Yeah, okay, good. So what happens if I eat them?”
“Bad things. Just don’t eat them. And make sure you keep your epi with you
all the time
. Okay? When we get back to the table, I’ll show you how to use it.”
* * *
Rei is helping Taylor find her spiral notebook for Spanish class, when Callie comes striding up.
“Hey, I’ve been looking for you two.”
“What’s up?” Rei greets her.
“I just wanted to see how Anna’s feeling,” she says, and then she addresses Taylor, who is still poking around in my locker. “You okay?”
“No, I have a concussion,” Taylor finds a sharp pencil on the floor of my locker and finally turns around.
Callie gasps. “Wow, Anna! Why are you covered in makeup? You look like a…”
“Hey, Callie,” Rei jumps in, “Anna’s having some trouble remembering things because of her concussion, and one of them is that she doesn’t wear makeup.”
“Really? A concussion? Oh, you poor thing! Well, that explains the outfit, then. Nice sternum, by the way.”
Taylor makes a face like she’s going to defend my lack of cleavage, but then Callie asks the worst possible question.
“So what’s going on with Seth? I hear all these rumors about him and Taylor Gleason.”
“Seth killed Taylor Gleason in cold blood,” Taylor cranks up the volume of her voice. “I was there, and I saw him throw Taylor right off the ledge. He’s a murderer.”
Everyone in the hallway has now stopped to listen. Callie looks confused. “What do you mean, you were there?”
“I was there,” Taylor repeats. “The police are looking for him, and when they find him, I am an eyewitness.”
Callie looks at Rei for some kind of confirmation, but Rei just reaches into my locker, grabs my Spanish textbook, and thrusts it into Taylor’s hands. “You have Spanish in room 137,” he says coldly. “Meet me back here after.”
“I’m not…” Taylor begins.
“Go!” Rei orders in a voice that seems to jump-start all the eavesdroppers on their way again. Taylor huffs and stomps off toward Spanish.
“So what’s really going on?” Callie asks. “I heard that Taylor’s dead, but I can’t believe Seth had anything to do with it. And what’s up with Anna? She’s acting
really
weird!”