Page 28 of Electricity

S arah waited until the end of class to resume our conversation. “Well I’m glad your colon and I agree.”

“On what?”

“That Danny’s a shit.”

I still hadn’t gotten word from Lacey. I’d even checked my phone with my own two eyes to be sure. “I just think we should wait to hear Lacey’s side of things.” How did she want me to play this? How was she gonna play it if she ever came back to school?

“If she bothers to tell you,” Sarah said, then went on. “Don’t you think it’s trashy?”

“Of him to talk, given the circumstances? Yes.” I attempted to be as circumspect as possible.

“Well, yes, that, but—I mean,” Sarah shouldered her bag and we walked for the door. “She just did it. No dates or anything—just saw him there and spread her legs wide open.”

“Sarah,” I said, my voice low in warning. She turned and looked at me. “We really need to talk to her first.”

She gave me a look of disbelief. “It’s just trashy. It’s trailer-trash-trashy.” Which she could say, because she had moved.

“Oh, so, you sleeping with Ryan is all rainbows and unicorns?”

“For your information, yes, it is. I mean we’ve been dating for three months.”

“One fourth of a year. Got it. That’s the cut off. Two months and twenty-nine days, whoredom, but at the 90 day mark, you’re free and clear.”

Sarah blinked at me. “I had no idea you were such the jealous type, Jessica.”

That wasn’t it, but there was nothing I could tell her until Lacey told me I could. “I just need to go, okay?” I said, sidling past her into the hall.

I flung myself into the river of students going to class, hoping to lose myself in their number.

There was so much going on in the real world right now—and the other-world pressed in on every side, as phones chirped and lights beamed and air conditioners thrummed. What had the lightning gotten me into?

I looked up, hoping to find some strength from somewhere and saw someone standing tall in the waves of chaos, like an island.

Darius.

I headed straight for him. “Can I talk to you?”

“Sure.”

We diverted off to an unoccupied patch of wall, and because I didn’t want anyone else to hear what I had to say I stood close by him. “I feel like I’m becoming more sensitive.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Can you use your phone now?” he asked, and I nodded.

“Yeah—I, uh, managed to send a text without touching any keys just a little bit ago.”

He got a wicked smile. “That’s badass.”

“Kind of? But also weird as hell. Juicejam helped—I think I need to practice more, though.”

“Got it. When?”

I doubted I could get away from my mother for two nights in a row. “Friday?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, and pulled back, disappearing back into the herd once more.

I walked around in a daze for the rest of the day, feeling messages pass through me.

It was impossible not to snoop—I heard about people’s sick cats, sick grandmas, condom purchases, homework assignments, and a series of what I was pretty sure were answers to one of Coach Steven’s history tests.

There were plenty about Lacey and Danny— Which girl is that?

The one with the tits or the skinny one?

Him? Why does he get laid instead of me?

— but nothing useful. I could shut them out if I wanted to, but I was hoping I’d feel one from Lacey.

At lunch I went into the library, gave Mrs. Frost a pleasant nod, then took myself back to my corner to hide, I was briefly away from all that.

And just when I thought I was safe, I felt a sting, a message actually meant for me.

I whipped my phone out of my pocket like it was on fire—but I knew just as I unlocked it who the message was from.

sorry about the trailer-trash comment.

s’okay

I typed, then decided to throw Sarah a bigger bone .

Next time I see you, I’ll tell you about Liam.

She sent me a string of emojis in return.

I went into chem that afternoon not knowing what to expect.

Were Liam and I ‘friends’ now? He gave me a grin as he walked in the room, but then went straight to sit behind me.

I tried to think of things to say but before I could the bell rang and Ms. Goodman announced, “Pop quiz!” and began walking the isles, placing papers on our desks face down.

The entire room groaned, and even I, who knew I knew what I was doing, felt the pit of my stomach drop.

“Ten minutes—and ten minutes only!” she warned, then counted us down. “Three, two, one?—”

Thirty papers turned over at the same time. I scanned all eight of the ‘show your work’ questions—they were pretty much the same as I’d done with Liam the prior night. I started working on the first one when?—

You shouldn’t have told anyone, Mason?—

zipped through. I chased after it in the other world, feeling it slip away like fine grained sand.

I’m just watching your back, dawg. This way, if she does talk?—

This one, I tried to catch, or to follow, but Lindsey sneezed three rows back and five people said bless you, and half the class laughed and—the moment was gone. I’d caught the butterfly, but it’d disintegrated in my hand.

I grit my teeth and threw myself back into the lightning-place, harder and farther than I ever had before, until my classmates were red mazes of nerves and the bright light of the projector overtook the room.

Who’d sent those messages?

There was a quick drumming on my table that distracted me. I gasped in air like I was resurfacing as Ms. Goodman leaned over, her black fingers ending in the red nails that beat impatiently on my desk. “Five minutes, Jessica,” she said, pointing to my currently blank quiz.

I finished in time, barely, and didn’t have a chance to check my answers. Hopefully I’d get enough points for showing my work to cover if I’d messed up the math.

We passed our papers forward to Ms. Goodman and I risked looking over my shoulder. Liam saw me and gave me a wide smile and a thumbs up.

As Ms. Goodman lectured, I knew she was onto me.

Any time I started phasing out, she asked me a question—it felt like I was being picked on by the end of class.

And it wasn’t worth it anyhow, all the other green-zings I went after weren’t from the same phones from earlier, I could tell.

Probably because they were busy now in class just like I was supposed to be.

I looked out the nearest window, and realized that the science wing was closest to the gym, but when the bell rang I was no closer to answers.

I was packing my backpack as Liam walked by and paused.

“Hey—Friday night?”

I looked up at him. “English?”

“No.” He gave me a bemused look. “The baseball game. You going?”

I was perhaps the only student at the school who didn’t have the playing schedule memorized. Not that I’d need to, if I were willing to read all the glittery pep-squad posted signs in the halls.

“If you go, I can get you a party invite afterwards.”

It felt like I’d been waiting to hear him say those words for half my life and under any other circumstances I’d have started screaming like a BTS fan.

But.

“Thanks, but no thanks.” I said, attempting a charming grin.

“Your loss,” he said, unruffled. And as he walked down the aisle and out of the classroom some small and traitorous part of me thought he might be right.

I was practically hiding in the front of the bus when I finally got my text from Lacey.

Can I come over?

My thumbs reached for the keys, but then I slowed down. Lightning Land, population me.

YES!

I typed with my electrokinesis, feeling smug. Kortney said something cruel from the back of the bus, I could tell by the tone, and Emily laughed uproariously. I quickly sent another one:

U don’t want to be waiting at the bus-stop today—meet me at my house?

Within seconds I got back:

K

I slunk off the bus and practically ran to my house to find Lacey waiting for me on the steps with Allie, who was beaming from ear to ear.

“So after you find them all,” she was saying. She’d pulled out one of her old treasure maps for Lacey, and was explaining all the X’s. My arrival interrupted her, and she was visibly disappointed.

“How are you?” I asked Lacey.

“I’ve been better.” She stood, extracting herself from Allie’s attention. “Can I keep this?”

“Sure!”

Lacey carefully folded the map up and put it in her pocket. I was just about to drag us around the trailer to go out back, when my mother rapped at the window, startling all of us. “I made lemonade!” she shouted through the glass.

Lacey gave me a look, but we all dutifully tromped inside.

“You feeling better now?” my mom asked Lacey solicitously.

“Much,” Lacey said.

“Good. Appendicitis—Barbara got that once, it knocked her on her ass for a week.” She poured our glasses expertly, out of habit, handing them over our kitchen bar one by one. “Did you hear?”

Lacey looked back and forth between us for clues. “No?”

“Jessica went out with Liam.”

I could feel my face turning beet red. “Mom, it was a study date.”

“Was it now? You were already in bed when I got home, and I didn’t want to wake you.” She looked pointedly at me, waiting for me to share. When I didn’t she prompted, “So? How’d it go?”

I shrugged one shoulder. “It went fine. He bought me a Coke at the drive-thru, and then I helped him learn gas laws—which we had a pop quiz on today at school. He thinks he aced it, thanks to me.”

“Good!” My mom celebrated by taking a long swig and I realized she hadn’t poured a drink for herself in front of us—I suspected that her personal lemonade was spiked.

“See, ladies?” she announced, putting her glass down.

“This is how it all starts. You help him get good grades, he helps you be popular, and then everything starts to happen.”

She was drunk. I could tell. I glanced at Allie, who was doing her deer-quiet thing—she knew it too. Lacey just looked at my mom like she always did, like she was from another planet.

“Mom, even if we do wind up going out—which we’re not—how many times does going out in high school equal staying together for the rest of your life? It’s unrealistic.”

“Your dad and I met when we were nineteen.”

And look how well that turned out, was on the tip of my tongue, but I resisted saying it as she went on.

“I’m just saying both of you girls need a little more fun. Always studying or watching TV. Need to go out and live a little.”

“Yeah. We do,” Lacey agreed.

I looked at her, and she shrugged. “Isn’t that the point of high school?”

The point of high school for me was to get good enough grades to get the hell away from here—and I knew Lacey agreed, we’d talked about it often enough.

“Precisely,” my mother agreed. She pushed herself back from the bar, logic triumphant, making her way into her bedroom again. Not long after that, we could hear the blare of her TV.

I looked to my little sister. “Allie—you have homework to do?”

“Yeah.”

“Then do it. I need to talk to Lacey some again. Outside.”

I opened up the sliding glass door to our backyard, and pulled Lacey out behind me.