Ether (6 page)

            The library
is almost empty of other students. Two girls sit at a table to one side and the
librarian works quietly at her desk, but other than that the usual hushed
whisper of the library is absent. I glance toward Justin’s usual table, he isn’t
here yet. Instead of taking out my books, I make my way into the shelves.
Nestling myself out of view, I whisper, “Ephraim?” 

            Instantly,
I feel the warmth of his presence near me. I turn, a smile already on my face,
I can’t help myself. He is smiling, leaning arms folded against the book shelf.
In the artificial light of the library, in this dimly lit recess, he looks more
solidly real than I’ve ever seen him. On impulse I reach out to touch his arm.
Touching him is like trying to collect a handful of sauna steam. Something warm
and liquid pushes back against my fingers, but then my fingers slip right
through him.

            He frowns
as my fingers slip through his image and I step away, “We have to give it time
Becks, tactile persistence requires a very strong connection,” he says.

            “Tactile
Persistence?”

            “The
ability to channel Ethereal energy into a physically form in any lasting way,” he
explains patiently, moving in toward me, “But you didn’t call for me to talk
about metaphysics did you?”

            He is standing
close enough to me that I can smell his sun warmed earth and freshly mowed
grass scent. I close my eyes, taking a deep breath in. When I open them he is
so close to me that we are almost touching. My skin tingles with his nearness. I
am painfully aware of him on every level, as if my entire body is tuned to his
frequency. “I don’t like what’s happening Ephraim.”

            He winces, concern
playing across his face, “I wouldn’t hurt you Becks. I know this is strange but
you have nothing to be afraid of, really,” he implores, his eyes searching
mine.

            “I didn’t
mean you, or us, or whatever, I meant all the other stuff.” Did I really just
say ‘us’ as in, there’s an
us
? I decide to gloss right by that. “I’ve
been, you know, almost dying a lot lately. And there’s other strange things
happening. At first I thought it was my imagination but something was
definitely wrong with Matt this morning and just now I saw this guy and his
eyes were completely bleak-” and I sound crazy even to my own ears.

            Ephraim is
looking at me with his liquid gold eyes and there is no trace of doubt or alarm
in his face, “You’re safe with me. The Numina may keep trying to kill you, but
I’m going to keep saving you. I won’t let anything happen to you. Besides,
you’re not as easy to kill as you used to be. One of the fringe benefits of
being ethereally bonded, you heal quickly and survive the impossible.” His tone
is relaxed and self-assured. The urgent fear I’ve felt since this morning slips
away, replaced with his calm confidence. I feel myself nod. His image
fluctuates for a moment, like a ripple passing across the surface of a pond.
“I’m with you. You’re safe with me,” he repeats.

            I take
another deep breath of his scent and when I look up he’s gone. The space near
me still feels the same though, earthy and sunlit. I think I can feel him, when
he’s near me, even if I can’t always see him. I find myself a table and pulled
out two chairs, one for him and one for me.  We sit together while I pretend to
study. My thoughts keep drifting between the feel of having him close to me and
the blankness in Matt’s eyes this morning. My skin tingles and crawls by turns.

At the bell, I thread
my way through the stream of freshmen pouring out of the cafeteria. I step out
of the path of traffic, searching for Mandy’s curls or Justin’s bright crop of
hair. I hesitate and then take a step toward the ‘cool’ table. As I move a
silent ripple travels through the room and eleven sets of very dark eyes glare
out at me. Even surrounded by hundreds of students I can see each person
clearly and I know that they are looking directly at me. Their pupils are huge
and their skin has an unhealthy blue tint. 

            I step
backward, but their eyes don’t move with me. It’s then that I realize they are
actually looking slightly beyond me, to my right. I back away again and again
until I am standing outside the lunch room, beyond the doors.

            “Ephraim.”
I hiss under my breath, even though he can’t answer me, “don’t follow me in.” I
don’t wait for an answer, hoping he’s heard me. I steel myself and swing the
doors back open. Everything seems completely normal. No unsettling eyes follow
me; no strange intangible effects go off. I turn in a slow circle, trying to
remember which faces seemed wrong to me before, but I can’t. I scrub my eyes
and picked up a lunch tray. Is it all in my mind or just some of it? Is there
any way to tell the difference?

            Carrying my
tray to our usual table I do a double take, Justin and Mandy are not only
seated at the table, they look like they are almost through eating. “There you
are!” Mandy exclaims, “What’s with the late to lunch thing all the time now?
You haven’t developed an eating disorder have you? because that’s a pretty
cliché problem.” She goes on half chastising, half teasing me, and speaking
more to the table than to me directly. She turns on Matt next, “I told you she
was here today, honestly it’s like no one ever listens.”

            I look over
at Matt, sitting across from my empty seat. He looks pale, and really serious.
But otherwise he looks like himself. Brown eyes, wavy black hair, hard jaw.
Maybe he’s just coming down with something. He gives me a tight smile, and turns
away. Not that that’s surprising, since Paige is falling over herself, as
usual, trying to get his attention.  

            I slide
into my seat and lean my shoulder into Justin, slightly. His body stiffens briefly
with my contact and then relaxes, bumping my shoulder back in a small, playful
way. Now that I have his attention I whisper in his ear, “Can you come over
this afternoon? I need to talk to you,” I glance around the table and catch
Matt`s intense gaze focused on me, “alone,” I add softly.  Justin nods
silently, his bright eyes shifting between Matt and me curiously.

He
is waiting outside my class at the end of the day. He falls easily into step
next to Mandy and me, walking with us to the parking lot. Mandy drives a bright
red Acura at speeds better measured in Machs than miles per hour. She’s
generous with offers of rides but even before the accident, riding with her
felt death defying. Matt’s music is loud but his driving is pretty tame.

            Justin
steers me toward Mandy’s car. I grimace, sending him an imploring look when her
back is turned. “Sorry, Matt’s busy so it’s Mandy, school bus or walk.” Justin
says, holding the door open for me.

            “Walk!” I
shoot back instantly.

            He shakes
his head at me. “Again? After you ditched us this morning?  When you’re
supposed to be resting? Into the car please.”

            “Ditched
you?” I protest. “I’m not the one who wouldn’t unlock the door and then left me
standing in the dust on the side of the road.”

            Justin’s
head snaps up, giving me his full attention. “Matt did what?” he asks. “He told
me you weren’t coming.”

            I start to
point out that I clearly came to school but Mandy pokes her head out of the
window impatiently, “Can’t this conversation happen in the car? It’s not like
you don’t spend enough time together or anything,” she snaps irritably.

 She’s
definitely in a mood. I give Justin a meaningful look. “This conversation could
happen on the bus,” I suggest.  Justin shakes his head and points to the car.

Mandy
pops her head up again, glaring at me. “Come on Becka. It’s not like I’m going
to kill you.” Justin gives her a look, which she doesn’t immediately
understand. “What? What did I say? Oh! Sorry. I didn’t mean- Of course everyone
understands why you’d be nervous in cars now especially at night, or going fast,
but that was a freak accident, nothing like that’s going to happen today. I’m a
very safe driver. Listen, if it’ll make you feel better I’ll even stay near the
speed limit.” Before she can say anything more horrifying I tuck myself into
the car, checking the seat belt over and over to make sure it’s fastened. I’ll
say this much for the drive home, at least it’s over quickly.

“See,
no need to be such a baby. You’ve got to get over it sometime right? Got you
home safe and sound didn’t I? And in record time! There’s no way Matt could
have beaten that! I’ll call you, maybe even stop by. K?” Mandy doesn’t wait for
my answer, she guns the engine and one sonic boom later, she’s gone. I stare after
her blankly.

“Wow,”
Justin says next to me, “Next time, school bus.” He grabs the hide-a-key from
under the mail box and lets us in. “You really should just make me a key,” he
adds, taking my backpack from me.

After
all the weirdness of the day, being with Justin feels amazingly normal. I relax
a pinch and smile back at him. He closes the door behind us and heads for the
kitchen. Fishing down a large bag of cookies and swiping two cans of soda from
the fridge he turns to me, “Living room or deck for this conversation?”

            We end up
in my bedroom, with the door firmly shut. With any other teenage boy, even
Matt, a closed bedroom door is a first order taboo. But with Justin, Justin who
camped by my bedside in the hospital, Justin who has been sleeping over since
we were two, it’s just normal, comfortable even. He lays back against my pillow
and looks appraisingly around the room. “Good to be home,” he says with a sigh,
putting his arms behind his head. “I never feel entirely comfortable without
cartoon ponies overhead, very soothing.”

            I shove his
feet to the side and perched on the end of the bed. It would be great to just
lounge here with Justin, making small talk, cracking jokes, watching bad TV,
but I promised myself I’d tell someone about what was going on.  “Justin?” His
eyes flick over to me and I can see the deep concern in them that belies his
flip, joking tone. I open my mouth and close it again helplessly.  What exactly
was I planning to say here?

            Justin taps
me lightly with his feet, his bright eyes searching mine. I smile self-consciously
and shrug, “I didn’t really plan what I was going to say. I want to talk to
you, tell you everything but it’s like, completely impossibly to put it all
into words, you know.”

            “Maybe,”
Justin says slowly, “the stuff that you’ve been going through, the divorce, the
accident, all of it, is the sort of thing you just need to talk about a little
at a time.” He reaches a hand out and pulls me down next to him. I can feel the
warmth of his shoulder seeping into me, a steady, pulsing comfort.  We stare at
the ponies in silence for awhile, just being near each other.

            “Alright,”
I say at last, “Here goes. I’m not the same person I was before the accident. I
feel different. I am different. Everything has changed and I don’t know what’s
going on but it scares me.” I pause, sneaking a look over at Justin. He has
picked himself up and is leaning on one elbow, watching and listening.

            “I think
that’s normal, after what you’ve been through,” he says.

            I nod. He’s
right, that much is normal. “I know, and if that was all I’d be counting my
blessings and seizing the day and all that second chance at life stuff-”

            “Please
don’t tell me you found God, because if you start making me go-”

            “It’s
nothing like that. I mean, maybe it’s something like that but I can’t explain
it. It’s just people keep saying it was a miracle I survived, that I’m so
lucky, that I had a close call but I didn’t, have a close call. I didn’t nearly
die-“

            “Becka, I
saw you afterwards, you really did.”

            “Die. I
died. I didn’t almost. It wasn’t a close call. It happened. I was all the way
dead. Someone brought me back but it changed me.”

            Justin sits
all the way up, turning his full attention on me as I talk. “Vivid near death
experiences are common Becka. The doctors went over this with you. Remember? I
was there. You asked about speaking to people in a white place, the doctors
explained the effect of blood loss and oxygen deprivation on the brain. It’s
straight forward science.”

            “Is it?
When the doctors first spoke to my parents they told them I might not make it.
Then they told them I’d survive but spend months in the hospital, then they
told them my injuries weren’t as severe as they’d feared and I’d be home in a
few months. And now? It’s barely a month later and do you want to know what I
did last week? I walked all the way along the beach and back home again. How is
all that possible?”

            Justin
shrugs. “Easy. It’s one part the doctors being alarmist and assuming the worst
and one part luck and a whole lot of you being healthy, young and strong.”  He
gives my hand a little squeeze. “Maybe we should start on that homework now. I
don’t think it helps to obsess about this stuff. You lived and you’re
recovering, that’s what matters.”

            I snatch my
hand away from him, rolling up the cuff on my yoga pants as far as it will go.
The skin underneath is smooth, white and perfect. “Look at this Justin. My
whole leg was skinned, and all those scrapes have healed completely.” Justin
just shakes his head. He doesn’t seem too impressed. I let the cuff drop slowly
and stand. I half turn away from him and carefully peel the waist band down to
show him the smooth raised scar on my thigh. “How about this then? It’s healed.
That’s scar tissue, completely healed scar tissue. And don’t tell me I’m a fast
healer, because no one heals this fast.”