Page 38 of Electricity

“ J essie.”

“Muh?” I blinked awake and found my little sister peering at me, mere inches from my face.

“There’s a boy here.”

“What?” I sat up and reached for my phone—I hadn’t gotten any calls or texts, and it was only nine.

“Is he supposed to be here?” she asked. “Is he your boooooyfriend?”

Well, was he? Excellent question, Allie. “Where is he?”

“Outside.”

“Good girl.” I rolled out of bed and started pulling on the same thing I’d worn yesterday.

Darius had to know if he surprised me like this I wasn’t going to look amazing—suddenly all the girls I’d ever mocked for trying too hard were taunting me inside my mind, a cruel chorus.

“Tell him I’m coming. Don’t let him in.”

“Okay!”

I hauled my hair up into a ponytail and brushed my teeth and then went for the door.

“What’re you—” I began, and then saw who it was.

Liam. He gave a low wave. “Hey.”

“Hey.” I’d imagined this moment at least forty million times. “What’s up?” I said, stepping outside and pulling the front door very firmly shut behind me.

“I thought maybe I could bum some English knowledge off of you today.”

I grinned. “All tutoring appointments have to be made twenty-four hours in advance. If you’d’ve read the fine print, you’d’ve known that.” I crossed my arms and tried to look serious.

“Awww, come on. professor. You got better places to be? I’ll even feed you breakfast. Or lunch. Whichever one sounds better.” Some small part of me trilled as he kept talking. “Just us. No books even. Unless having books around makes you feel safer, and well, then, books.”

I couldn’t help but laugh and do that thing where I tried to hide behind my hair only I’d pulled it into a ponytail earlier so I probably looked like I was having a seizure.

He was three steps lower than me, holding out his open hand, and everything in me was tempted to take it. Up until a week ago I would’ve gone with him without question. But now –

I heard the front door reopen behind me. I turned to give Allie a death-stare and found my smiling mother just inside.

“Liam Lewis! Well I never—come in, come in!” she said, and it was too late.

“Hello. Mrs. McMullen!” he said cheerfully.

“Call me Rachel,” she said, waving us both inside.

Liam behaved like this sort of thing happened to him all the time.

The line of recognizable people in Redson wasn’t very long—the Mayor, Rebecca Molange—the newscaster from Lawrence that started here and who came back to do exposés after each tornado—and all three members of the Lewis baseball dynasty.

I wondered what it was like to be him and go to the grocery store.

“I would’ve cleaned if I’d known,” my mother apologized, rearranging throw pillows on our shabby couch, then hip bumped me suggestively toward him and looked pointedly at the kitchen. Allie sat on the kitchen table with her colors out and was watching.

“Do you, uh, want anything to drink?” I asked, feeling like a robot.

“No, I’m good, thanks.”

“So what brings you here today?” my mother butt in, saving me from small talk.

“I was just hoping Jessie here could help me study.”

“I’m sure she could—my daughter’s probably the smartest girl in that school.”

I felt myself flush bright red, then saw Allie’s mouth opening, to tease me I was sure—and then my phone got a text. I pulled it out, even as the words unfurled in my mind.

Need you at the hospital now. Come here? Room 243?

“Oh no.” I murmured.

“What? What?” Allie asked, leaning forward and looking down.

I made a disappointed sound. “I’m sorry—I’d help, but I’ve got to go.”

“Where? Why?” my mother asked, turning sharp.

I held my phone out where she could see. “Lacey’s mom’s in the hospital now, and Lacey needs me.”

My mother’s shoulders drooped sympathetically. “That poor family. They just can’t catch a break.”

“I know,” I said. I looked up and saw Liam make a face of some sort, one I couldn’t quite catch or describe—and by the time I noticed it, it was gone, replaced by the normal Liam grin. I turned to my mother. “Can I take the car, mom?”

I watched her inhale to refuse me, but then she realized Liam was watching, and she wanted to be the cool mom. “Sure. Why not?” she said, and went to her purse for her keys.

“When’s your test? Can we reschedule?” I asked Liam.

“Of course. Monday night? After practice?”

An evening study date was even more like a date-date and I felt weird, but there was no time to delay. “Works for me,” I lied.

My mother returned and held out her keys and I made sure to follow Liam on his way out the door, grabbing my backpack from its home on the floor, so she couldn’t stop and change her mind without witnesses.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can, Mom.”

“You stay as long as she needs you,” my mother said, looking a little pained. “And—Liam—don’t be a stranger, okay?”

“Sure thing, Rachel,” he said, with a suave nod to her and then to me, “See you tomorrow? Chemistry?”

“Yep!” I said, cheerfully nodding and walking to the Buick and turning the engine over quickly. He got into his truck, and I couldn’t help but realize that even though he’d ostensibly wanted to see me, he hadn’t offered to give me a ride.

I was just outside the trailer park when I realized I needed to explain myself to Lacey.

Especially if something bad had happened to her mom.

I tried to think of ways that I could show her what had happened to me safely, but in the hospital—I didn’t want a repeat of the Shax?

Maybe it was just easier to have her trust someone else’s word.

Plus—I wanted to see Darius. And…I wanted to know if he wanted to see me back. I’d spent last night hoping he’d text, without having the guts to text him, but now—I didn’t bother pulling my phone out.

Hey. Can you meet me at the hospital?

The words flew straight from my mind to the screen, and within seconds I had his response.

See you there.

We wound up parking within a space of each other outside Mercy. I got out of my car first and walked over to him.

“Hey.”

“Is her mom all right?”

“Don’t know yet. I hope so.”

“Me too.”

And despite having an apparent arsenal of electrical powers, I felt better facing whatever was coming with him beside me. “Let’s go see.”

Darius stayed a little back as I introduced us at the nursing desk, and we stood apart from one another while we were waiting for Lacey. She came out, looking wan, with black circles under her eyes that not even Sarah’s skills could fix. She was happy to see me, but at seeing Darius she scowled.

“Why’d you bring him?”

“It’s a really long story. What’s going on? How’s your mom?”

“My mom’s,” Lacey said, then inhaled and exhaled deeply, “here. They’ve got a room for families, if no one else’s is going to hell in a handbasket now.

” She pulled me down the hall and Darius followed at a polite distance.

She opened the door for me to go in and then looked at him sourly. “Why are you here?”

“She asked me to come,” he said, looking to me for instruction.

“He helped me save your mom’s life,” I said, as her eyebrows rose. “Unless we didn’t. Then I am totally cool with him going back out to his car and getting some things for the next three to four hours.”

Lacey made an exasperated sound. “It’s just that—I can’t talk to you about it in front of him.”

Darius stepped firmly into the room. “Yeah you can. I already know everything.”

Her head pulled back like she’d been slapped. “You didn’t,” she said flatly, as Darius quickly talked over her.

“That’s how Jessie saved her—with her electrical powers—I know all about them.”

Lacey’s jaw froze open and I could almost see all the words that were trapped inside.

“Yeah, Darius, she doesn’t really know about that,” I said, tapping lightly on his arm so he’d be quiet.

He blinked. “Ohhhhhh.”

“Yeah. Oh.” I took a few bold steps inside the room and sat down on the couch there. “It’s time to talk. I’ll go first, okay? And then you can decide what, if anything, you want to share, and with who, after that.”

Lacey was still frowning, but she sat down in the chair closest to the door.

“First off, is your mom okay?”

“For some values of okay, yes.” Lacey said, crossing her arms.

“Oh thank God.” I felt a weight lift off my shoulders.

“Look, Lacey, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, but there never seemed to be a good time—mostly because it doesn’t sound real when I say it out loud.

That’s what he’s here for.” I looked at Darius.

“It’s not the kind of thing you just believe someone when they say it. ”

“You don’t say,” Lacey said, her voice dripping with irony. And seeing as half the Redson High student body wouldn’t believe what’d happened to her if it got out, she had a point.

“On the way back from here that night I saw you, there was a storm. I—I got hit by lightning. And ever since then, I’ve been able to do things.”

Her left eyebrow rose high. “Like?”

“Like…accidentally burn down the Shax?”

She dropped the irony and went back to being my friend. “What? That’s not like you, Jessie.”

“I know! I was horrified?—”

“I don’t get it though—you felt compelled to grab matches?”

“No—”

“Just show her,” Darius said, handing over his phone. “Lacey, have you and I ever texted before?”

“No.”

He waved his hand at me. “Show her. Do it.”

I took Darius’s phone and set it in my lap. And without touching any of the keys I sent a message to the phone number I’d had memorized since I was ten.

This is what I’m talking about.

Lacey’s phone chirped, and she looked down. “But you didn’t do anything,” she said, looking at my hands.

“Yeah, I know. I can do that now. And some other things.” I shrugged a little. “Darius has been helping me practice them.”

She stared at her phone mystified, and then she stared at me. “So—after what happened to me, you got…what? Superpowers?”

“Yeah,” I said softly. “They’ve been pretty useless so far,” I said, trying to downplay things.