Page 139

“Me either. Jessie, are you really going to be able to do this?”

“Hope so!” I said, to try to shut it down. I wondered if this was how Liam felt on game days, when everyone was slapping his back in the halls, telling him to hit a home run. “What’d you do last night?”

“I texted with Sarah about three hundred times.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“What about?”

“Everything. Ryan, her sister, her mom—that if it was up to her, she’d figure out a way to have Sprite chew Danny’s balls off.”

I felt overly familiar with Sprite after my time with Sarah’s phone. “She could probably train him to do that. They’re very close.”

“It was…nice. Like, the first time I felt like things might really get back to normal, you know?”

“Yeah,” I said, with a deficit of conviction.

Lacey took the final turn into campus. “Jessie, no matter what happens today, things are gonna be okay, okay?”

I turned toward her as I realized she was pre-forgiving me. “Yeah,” I said, bravely. “Just don’t forget to meet me in the cafeteria.”

I’d almost forgotten how awful school was going to be because I’d been Not Thinking about it so hard it’d almost worked. More people knew about my ostracization since yesterday, which was good and bad—more kids felt free to take pot shots with their bags, but others avoided me like I had the plague, giving me more room to maneuver.

And when I got to Biology, Sarah was there looking angry at me.

“What?” I asked as I sat down.

“Don’t talk to me,” she said loudly, and then under her breath, “Ryan saw your ZB post last night. He’s freaking out, says I can’t talk to you.”

“And you didn’t tell him to shove it?” I whispered back.

“Not yet. Don’t worry, I’m going to. I just want to see where this thing leads first.”

“Hedging your bets?”

“Hell no. But if your thing works, I’m going to write an amazing expose for my personal essay,” she said, while looking over my head at a crack in the ceiling as if I were invisible. “I’ve got your back but I’m not blind—everything that’s going down is also journalism scholarship material.”

I sat there momentarily bewildered by Sarah’s ability to always land on her feet, no matter the situation, and right after that, Ms. Libel started teaching.

I spent class drawing a map of campus. If the nearest cell phone tower was west of us and all the history classes were all clustered on the north side, then I needed to be north-west to be between the two—and to make sure I got the text, I needed to give myself at least a half-hour, maybe more. By the end of class, I’d missed most of the lecture, but I had a plan and I already knew where I’d hide.

Sarah elaborately sighed for the back of the room’s sake, so everyone knew sitting beside me was awful, and was currently making a constipated face as we picked up our bags. “Keep your phone on, okay? I might need you,” I said.

“Will do,” she said, and winked.

I walked down halls like I was headed somewhere for the entirety of break and then dove into the appropriate bathroom at the end of it. The one with the writing on the far wall was the most north-west bathroom in school—a little north-north-west, but it’d do, if I knew a hawk from a handsaw. (Mrs. Jadeberry would be so proud of me.)

As the final bell rang the bathroom emptied and I faced a wall of mirrors alone. It was impossible not to do what I’d done in front of every mirror since that night—I pulled up my shirt a little, and turned around, and confirmed what I already knew: the marks on my back were almost gone.

I went into the last stall, slammed my bag up on the coat hook, and sat down on the toilet. I just needed one more day. “Come on,” I said to no one—and phased.

Instead of being the bright fireflies and fireworks it had been prior, Lightning Land was dimmer now, like trying to see the stars beside a streetlamp. I could feel the cold pressure of the seat beneath me, sense the claustrophobic metal walls, visualize the checkered laminate flooring under my shoes—everything in me wanted to be distracted, because if I didn’t try I couldn’t fail.

“This is the last time we’re doing this, okay?” I said, trying to coax my powers. And as if sensing the truth in that, the engine turned and purred and they finally unfurled like gentle wings.

I knew texts lulled during classes as teachers enforced no-cell-phones-policies, but kids found ways. Right now, I envisioned my powers as some kind of net, reaching up wide behind me, a filter-feeding organ made from my own body, capturing texts like whales caught plankton.