Page 21 of Electricity

W e settled into his car together and the engine turned over on the first twist. It was almost dark outside—and then the clock on the dashboard came on. “It’s eight?” How had it gotten that late? We’d just left the Shax fifteen minutes ago, at seven.

“Yeah,” Darius said, backing up his car.

“But—that means I was in there for at least thirty minutes.” It’d only felt like a few seconds on my end. How had I lost that much time? I’d just been sitting here on his couch alone with him for half-an-hour? “You just sat there watching me?”

His skin went a shade darker. “No. I was watching you destroy the entire game on the screen. Everything that I could see was like on fast-forward times a hundred—and you skipped all the cut scenes.”

I had absolutely no memory of that time in my body at all. It was like I’d been abducted by aliens, instead of killing them.

I wrestled with the implications of that all the way home.

Where had I been, if not in my body? Where had my mind gone?

And how vulnerable was the rest of me while I was out of it?

Maybe I could control my powers now, a little, but how scared did I need to be about being sucked away again?

What if my mind went somewhere and it couldn’t get back?

“You’re being awfully quiet,” Darius said.

“What if they rebooted the servers while I was still inside?”

He put his car in park outside my trailer. My mom’s car was still in the driveway, Barbara must’ve given her a ride, and there was still a light on in Allie’s room, tsk tsk. “It was pretty clear they were rebooting them because of you. But—yeah—I don’t know. What was it like?”

I reached toward the waiting power of his engine, and felt it idling there, so close and far both at once. “Honestly that…was the first time I enjoyed it. Like maybe I was in charge of it, instead of it being in charge of me.”

He smiled broadly. “Good. See you tomorrow?”

I smiled back at him, briefly unable to help myself. “Yeah,” I said, and hopped out.

I walked up my driveway with an unfamiliar twist in my stomach. Hanging out with Darius had actually been…okay. I wouldn’t go so far as to say like, ‘nice’ or ‘awesome’, but…it hadn’t been half-bad.

It was more like confusing.

And again, I really, really, really wished I could talk to Lacey. I unlocked my front door, expecting to find my little sister on the couch watching TV.

Instead, my mother was waiting for me. She reared up from the couch and rounded on me—her mascara had made raccoon eyes around her own and she looked drawn and pale.

I raced up to her. “What happened? Did someone—is Allie okay?” Where was my sister?

“Where were you!” she shouted at me.

“What?”

“The Shax!” She pointed at the off TV. “We saw it at the bar on the news—there was a fire there, and I couldn’t get ahold of you—it’s been hours, Jessica!”

“I’m—I’m fine! I’m right here!”

“Yeah, I see that. But where were you?”

“Darius—my coworker—we didn’t get any dinner, so when things happened, he took me out to eat!” I knew I had to lie, she’d never believe the truth.

“I called you a hundred times!”

“My phone didn’t have any charge!” I fumbled in my backpack for it and prayed that this was true, or that I’d zap it just like I had Sarah’s. “See?” I said, holding it up, thumbing the power button frantically.

Her glower dimmed a little and she surveyed me. “He took you out?”

“Yeah.”

“Where?”

“The diner,” I lied, willing her not to call and crosscheck me.

“And who paid?”

My mom was fanatical about our income—and now that I was out of a job, oh man. “He did.”

She made a defeated sound. “You’re so empty headed, Jessica. You should have called me?—”

“I was safe. There wasn’t anything to worry about. I didn’t know it was going to make the news—I was just hungry.”

She looked me up and down again, like I’d grown an inch in front of her or something. “Yeah, well, just try and think harder next time, okay?” And then she brought me in for a smothering hug.

I hugged her back, completely surprised and mystified.

“I doubt the Shax is going to go up in flames a second time,” I said. She kept looking at me like the aliens had abducted me and replaced me with a slightly-off replica.

“I thought you’d died!” she complained. “And instead you were just off on a date.”

My eyes widened. That was not what’d happened, but it was easier to let her think that? So I gave her a nervous smile.

“Next time, ask me. And I want to meet the boy,” she decreed, and then flopped back down on the couch and turned on the TV.

As confused as I had perhaps ever been in my life, I slowly backed away, toward the bathroom and my room down the hall.

“Pssssst,” Allie said as I walked past. “Did you get me fries?”

“Nope,” I whispered back and reached out to close her door.

Alone in my room I pulled my phone out again. “Lacey, I need you,” I told it, like she could hear me. I could tell Sarah but once the word Darius left my mouth she’d either laugh or hang up on me and I wasn’t sure which one would be worse.

I carefully plugged it in, using a combination of other implements so as not to touch it with my skin, and much to my relief saw it charging. I watched the bars bounce back and forth, and then I jabbed at it once to turn it on.

Darius was right—I couldn’t let this, whatever it was, control me. I had to learn to control it. So I sat cross-legged in front of my phone, like I was some kind of snake-charmer and it a snake, humming tunelessly to myself, attempting to look like anyone meditating I had ever, ever, seen on TV.

“Okay. I can do this,” I announced to the universe, closed my eyes, and picked my phone up.

In a second I was:

there again

Flickering images of Sarah ? —

nu phone, told u!

—my mom crying, yelling, from soft to loud, “Where are you?” “Where are you?” “Where are you???!!!” like echoes in a horror film.

Pictures, so many pictures—Sarah, Lacey, and I on a swing-set by the elementary school, jumbled together shoulder to shoulder wrapped in chains, all of us in front of the cafeteria mural sticking out our tongues, the three of us crammed into the backseat of Sarah’s mother’s car before any of us could drive.

Words drifted in and out like overlays, blurry against the rest until I concentrated on them.

OMG did u c?—

got a tampon?

I know I heard?—

she’s always kissing ass?—

Liam broke up with her!

—could Coach Stevens suck more?

—no, its a technical impossibility

—my mom hates me

—come over tonight and watch it with me!

I gotta get home before?—

see you tomorrow, babe!

—love u bye!

—love you!

—text me back!

I had only been in the ocean once, when I was five, when we’d driven as a family all the way down to the Gulf.

But I’d never forgotten the way it’d felt, how the ground didn’t seem groundy beneath your feet, always silting back out to sea—and that was how I felt right now, like I wasn’t standing on dry land.

Memories raced up with the photos, bright as day, then faded twice as fast and voices from voicemails I’d saved—Dad, Allie, Lacey—got loud then soft, drifting near and far like passing trains.

I let myself fall into it all like I’d fallen into the sea that day, the waves taking me for a tumble, end over end till I made it back to dry sand and then I was just me again, just looking at the screen of my phone, exhausted like I’d just swum to shore from a long way out.

My phone was still on. That was something.

I pulled up Lacey’s number and sent her a note:

Not grounded anymore

then turned the volume off so I wouldn’t hear if she responded—or more likely didn’t—to me.

And then I downloaded Juicejam.