Page 18 of Electricity

I lost Lacey not because of the subsequent chaos—although there was chaos, as everyone who wasn’t in a class yet headed toward the nearest exit, and none of our fire drills had ever covered an ‘before classes start’ experience without teachers to be inmate-counters.

No, I lost Lacey because she wanted to be lost. I started running again, but there were even more kids in the halls now.

“No no no no no!” I shouted at her, at everyone, trying to weave through them to get to the parking lot where I thought she’d gone, but then Coach Stevens was there and started whistling in the halls, directing the flow of students a different way.

“Oh, come on!” I said, fighting with him, him blowing his damn whistle in my face, until I finally gave up and walked in the direction I was supposed to go, outside.

The morning was ruined. How was I going to make it up to Lacey? How could I get her to believe that I was on her side? Why had I ever thought it’d be a good idea for me to branch out on my own? Who did I think I was, Nancy Drew?

I skulked around our lockers as long as I could in between every period, and never saw her again—she’d gone home without me, I knew it.

“I didn’t see any smoke signals,” Sarah said, sliding in beside me in bio, oblivious to all that’d come before.

“He just wants someone to study with is all.” I shrugged and turned her way. “Lacey was here this morning?—”

“I heard her locker got egged. Gross. Where is she now?”

“I’m pretty sure she just left campus again. During the fire alarm.”

Sarah’s lips took a prudent turn. “She’s going to have to face the music someday. She can’t hide for forever.”

“She wasn’t exactly hiding before that,” I said, my voice drifting. Until I ruined it all. I inhaled to defend her and explain, but then Ms. Liebel did her irritating clap-thing to quiet the room.

By lunch, the word on the street was that Lacey’d pulled the alarm herself after talking to Liam. No matter that he hadn’t said a word to her, and that it was physically impossible for her to’ve pulled it, since she was running down the hall away from me at the time.

The janitors were still stalking around, trying to figure out which switch had been flipped, so they could backtrack to find a guilty party.

I was the only one who knew there wasn’t one.

It’d been me. I hadn’t been able to control myself.

Startled and angry and upset—somehow I’d lashed out and set the sirens blaring.

I even had the headache to prove it, my own personal fire alarm sounding inside my head.

I crouched in the back of the library, the only place I felt safe from my powers, since the only thing electronic in here was the air conditioning system overhead. I was sitting in a U-shaped bend between Religion and Philosophy, sucking on chips so that they wouldn’t crunch when I chewed them.

What the hell was wrong with me? And would I ever get Lacey back? I looked down at myself and my orange-stained fingers. My powers were useless until I could control them—and I had to figure out a way to do that without hurting anything—or anyone—else.

The next class bell rang, and I rolled my bag of chips up without making any sound.

I made it to chemistry first, the library being closer to the science hall than the cafeteria, and sat down.

“So, about studying,” Liam said, making a bee-line for my desk when he got there.

I stared up at him darkly. Everything was his fault.

For being popular, for having famous older brothers, for being on the baseball team just like them, for having parents that didn’t care about drinking—my hands curled underneath my desk, and that halo-light thing started happening around the edges of my eyes.

I inhaled and exhaled deeply. I couldn’t do this, not twice in one day.

He tilted his head, looking down at me. “What’d I do?”

The look he gave me was blank, puppy-like-and-innocent. Was he that dense? Did he not know anything? Or could he really act that well?

“Nothing,” I said, and turned back to face the chalkboard.

Our lecture today was on noble gasses and Boyle’s law. I wrote down notes, trying to keep my mind on the lecture and not other things. I usually liked math and science—they always had to make sense.

But I knew Liam was behind me, just like yesterday—just like he’d been all year. What was I going to do?

Given the absolute pressure of high school, what kind of volume should I be screaming at, right now?

Class ended, and I heard him come up to me again, saw the fireflies swirling in his pocket near his phone. “So can we study tonight?”

Looking up at him, I froze. He was the boy I’d spent hours dreaming of kissing on ZB—and the reason that bad things had happened to Lacey on Friday night.

His place, his party, his horrible friends.

I wanted to stand up and tell him off—but Lacey didn’t want anyone to know—and here he was looking innocent and expectant with those gray-green eyes. I had never been so confused.

I shook my head. None of it mattered anyways. “I have to work.”

“What about tomorrow?”

I inhaled to say I’d have to work tomorrow, the day after that, and the day after that one and any days in between I’d be washing my hair—but as he looked down, with his letter jacket slung over one shoulder, I realized he was the only in I’d had into what’d happened to Lacey.

He, or someone in his group, knew who hurt her—and who was sending her messages on ZB.

She may not want to know what happened now—but what if she changed her mind?

“Sure.” I heard myself say.

He flashed me one of the smiles he was famous for and said, “K.”

I spent the bus ride home imagining a thousand different ways I could prove myself to Lacey again—if only she’d give me the chance. I just needed for her to believe in me.

I ignored when Shannon and Emily said things, egged on by Kortney, and I hopped off the bus to walk straight to Lacey’s. Her car was in the driveway, so I rang the doorbell and waited, listening for any movement inside.

When I heard nothing, I knocked politely. After that, I knocked harder. “Come on, Lacey! It’s not like it looked!”

I waited patiently after that. When I got no response, I tromped around to the back of her trailer where her room was. “Lacey—I know you’re in there.”

“Go away!” she shouted.

“I was stupid, okay? I’m sorry!”

No response.

“Look, I was only trying to figure things out. Things are weird right now?—”

At that she slammed her window open. “Yes. Yes, they are. Now go away.”

I opened my mouth to say something, anything, to fix things—but announcing that I thought I had superpowers was not going to help here, I knew it.

“Love you, bye,” I said meekly, and followed the direction she was pointing, walking off of her lawn.

I got home to my own trailer and slouched. Mom was in hiding again, and Allie was playing—she’d taken several Barbie dolls and popped their heads off. Other Barbies were attempting to solve the crime. I sincerely hoped she was acting out an episode of Law & Order , when the phone rang.

She abandoned her dolls immediately and ran for it. Only two people called this place—the truant officer, after that one time Mrs. Jadeberry had screwed up attendance and gotten me grounded for a month even though I was right there , and Dad.

“Hello?” Allie said, breathless from the speed with which she’d crossed the kitchen floor.

Her face took on a strange expression, at once disappointed yet hopeful. “Yeah. She’s here.” She held the phone out for me. “It’s for youuuuuuuuu.”

I crossed the kitchen slowly. If it were Lacey, Allie wouldn’t be acting like that. “Hello?” I made sure to hold the earpiece away from my ear.

“Hey Jessica, it’s Darius.”

“Oh, hey.” Allie started doing a crazy dance on the kitchen floor. Oh God. In her mind, we were already married or something. “What’s up?”

“I thought you might need a ride tonight. And that you might still be grounded.”

“You thought right, on both counts.”

“Four-forty-five?”

“Sounds good.”

“See you then,” he said, and then hung up.

Allie leaned in, waiting for the moment the earpiece hit the receiver. “That was a boy.”

“It was,” I agreed, and took myself back to my bedroom before she could ask any more questions.

I emerged still sullen in time for my ride, and during my absence my mother’d decided to make herself known. She was putting together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for herself and Allie—they assumed I’d eat at work, like I always did.

“Are you gonna bring home any fries?” Allie asked.

“I’ll try,” I said, shouldering my bag.

“Who’s taking you?” my mom asked, without looking up.

“Darius.”

“Is that his name?” Allie said. I knew instantly she’d never forget it, ever, no matter how much I might want her too.

At that, my mom looked over. “What about Lacey?”

“She’s still sick, Mom. I think she’s gonna get fired?—”

My mother grunted, licked peanut butter off of one finger, and then made her way to her bedroom. When she returned, she held my cell phone out.

It was a tacit acknowledgement that if a girl were to get into a car with a strange boy they ought to have a cell phone for just in case.

If only I’d known it’d be so simple to get it back.

I made to reach for it, and then remembered Sarah’s phone and whirled, “Can you just toss it in there?” I asked, presenting my backpack to my mom.

She didn’t bother to hide her eyeroll. She slid my phone into the front pocket and zipped it shut.

“There you go,” she said, tone belabored by the weight of having a perpetually quirky and disappointing daughter.

“Thanks.” Tires crunched in the road outside as Darius pulled up. “Gotta go?—”

“Don’t forget fries!” Allie shouted, as I ran outside.