Repossessed (4 page)

…and the evening and the
morning were the first day…

W
hen I came back to myself, the first thing I felt was gravity. It pulled my cheek down against the sheets, pressed one side of my body down into the mattress.

My
cheek?
My
body?

No.
Shaun's
.

I opened Shaun's eyes.

Yes! I was still here, and Shaun's body was still wrapped around me.

What was sleep?

Nothingness.

Lost time.

Only the Creator knew what purpose it served.

I sat up. I was a little groggy, but felt great. I raised one of Shaun's hands over my head in a fist, and punched the
air in victory. I wanted to shout, but thought it would be better not to alarm Shaun's family.
“Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!”
I whispered instead, trying to sound like a cheering crowd. I've always wanted to do that.

I still didn't know how much time I'd have. I lowered Shaun's arm and looked around with satisfaction. How wonderful to see a real live earthly morning! The room had changed color subtly with the morning light, the forest green paint of the walls taking on a rich, hopeful glow. It was the same room I'd gone to sleep in last night, yet ever so slightly different.

I had shut the door when I'd retired, but someone must have opened it at some point, because it was ajar and Shaun's cat was staring at me from atop the dresser.

“Good morning, Peanut,” I told the cat in a friendly manner.

He stared at me, unblinking.

“It's a pleasure to be here again.”

Peanut didn't move.

“There's nothing to be afraid of. I'm not going to hurt you. Would you like to come over here and be petted?” I patted the bed beside me.

Peanut laid his ears back and hissed.

He'd never treated Shaun that way. He definitely knew I wasn't Shaun.

I thought,
Perhaps he misses his owner
. For a split second,
I almost felt bad about what I'd done.

But not quite. Shaun would not have been here, whether I had taken his body or not.

And I didn't like it when Peanut leaped off the dresser and ran under the bed. I wanted to pet him.

So I lay on Shaun's stomach and pulled myself to the edge of the bed to lean over and look underneath it. I had to lift the edge of the bedspread to do so.

In the darkness were two glowing orbs. They must be Peanut's eyes—but now they had turned luminous green and gold, as if lit from within. I caught my breath.

“You're a beautiful creature,” I told the unseen Peanut. “You're a lovely creation.”

I reached toward him, offering my hand.

The two orbs leaped toward me, and a ripping pain opened up in Shaun's fingertips. I jerked back as Peanut darted out, a brown blur disappearing into the hall.

When I sat up on the bed, Shaun's fingertips were bleeding from thin, razorlike scratches.

It hurt like hell. So to speak.

I held the fingers up and stared at the slashes, already welling red. It was a bright, compelling color, but the slashes felt sharp and raw, as if the very air in the room was raking the bare nerve endings.

“It hurts,” I heard someone say in a low voice, and then I realized it was me. I sounded puzzled, I thought.
But I knew there was another emotion in my voice as well.

The cat knew I wasn't Shaun. But maybe that wasn't why he'd rejected me. Maybe he knew
other
things that humans didn't.

Perhaps he, an animal, sensed that I was
supposed
to be rejected. Perhaps this animal was nearer to the Creator's heart than humans were, and as such was
made
to be closed to the Fallen.

Perhaps he was a reflection of the
Creator's
rejection.

It is no small thing to be shut off from the one thing you long to know more than any other.

The blood slowly formed small blobs. Then gravity took over and it turned into drops, sliding slowly down Shaun's fingers.

Why would an all-knowing One create a being and give it a nature—give it desire, give it need—and then reject that being for doing what its nature called it to do? Why would He insert imperfections into His creations and then punish them for not being able to overcome those imperfections?

If you're one of the imperfect, you don't know the answer. And you'll never be given it.

No matter how many times you ask.

“G
ood morning, Jason,” I said as I came into the kitchen.

“Bite me, Shaun,” said Jason.

Jason may not like Shaun at all, but I really like Jason. He doesn't know it, but he has a lot in common with the Fallen. From the time he was small, Jason has been disliked and rejected because of his nature. He was always very active, unable to sit still. Whenever he saw something that interested him, he had to touch it, take it in his hands. And then he couldn't just look at it; he had to work it, move it, bend it until it broke. His babysitters and teachers used to tighten with dread when they saw him coming, and when they corrected him, their words were angry and impatient.

If I was aware of their reactions, you can bet Jason was, too.

Oddly enough, bending things till they break is a trait that Jason has in common with the Boss; it is also the Boss's nature to want to test the limits of things. And like Jason, he doesn't do it out of disregard for the feelings or property of others, but out of irrepressible curiosity.

The Boss is still irrepressible. Jason is not. All the years of being dreaded, of being punished and disliked because of his actions, have made Jason retreat into a fortress of cynical loathing. It's there in his surliness for anyone to see. Not that anyone cares to try much.

I feel a kinship with the Jasons of the world. So although I did not speak to him, I fixed myself a Shaunian breakfast of Froot Loops with milk, then pulled out a chair and sat at the kitchen table with my new brother. I liked being in the same room with him.

He downed his Cinnamon Toast Crunch while I poked Froot Loops with my spoon and watched them disappear under the milk, then bob back up.

They tasted even better than ketchup.

Jason finished his breakfast and rose to leave. I spoke to him kindly.

“Have a good day, Jason,” I told him as he picked up his backpack and slung it over his shoulder.

“Get bent, Shaun,” Jason answered without looking around. He strode out of the kitchen, and a moment later I heard the front door open and shut.

He didn't brush his teeth
, I thought. I had, last night—had rubbed the tiny little brush in circles against each tiny little tooth. I would do so again in a moment.

The Froot Loops had been crunchy at first; now they were soggy. Still good, though; I chased the last ones around and captured them with my spoon. Then I lifted the bowl to Shaun's lips and drank the last of the milk. It was sweet and tasty.

I completed Shaun's morning routine except for a few minor changes. Shaun always leaves his bowl and spoon in the sink, but I put them in the dishwasher to save Shaun's mom some time later. And I flossed; Shaun almost never does that.

I grabbed Shaun's backpack out of his room and was headed through the living room when a speck of white caught my eye. A piece of notebook paper, on the coffee table.

Jason's homework. It was wrinkled and covered with writing: messy, heavily scrawled pencil marks with many erasures. One had even torn through the paper.

He'd forgotten to take it.

I thought of the way he'd looked, hunched over his work; the way his hair had been sticking up last night. He'd labored over this page. Yet at school today, it would be as if he hadn't done it at all.

There was nothing I could do about it. Jason's bus
would already have left. I still had to catch Shaun's.

I pushed away a twinge of sympathy. This was my holiday, my vacation, away from the sorrow and pain of others. I had been saturated with all that for most of my miserable existence. Those feelings were exactly what I was trying to get away from.

This holiday was about having
fun
.

I set the paper back on the coffee table and left, locking the front door behind me.

I
thought, as I headed out to catch Shaun's school bus, that I wanted to eat some cookies today. Maybe chocolate would be best. To start with, anyway.

I wore Shaun's headphones while I waited for the bus, listening to one of his CDs. The music reminded me of his messy room; the noises piled and draped over one another so that I couldn't distinguish them. I didn't like the way the CD drowned out all other sounds, anyway, so I took the headphones off and put the player in his backpack.

Shaun always seemed embarrassed, standing by himself on this corner, waiting all alone. He stuck his hands in his pockets and wouldn't look up when anyone drove by. It was as if he felt vulnerable.

I didn't quite understand why. I don't know what terrible thing he thought might happen if people saw him alone.

I
liked
standing alone.

I looked around at the way the wind blew the leaves on the trees. I imagined this must be the way a school of fish looked, each one moving separately but in unison, each maintaining its own space.

I watched one squirrel chasing another in the yard across the street; at first it looked like they were playing, but after some observation I decided it was a territorial dispute and that one was trying to bite the other's balls off.

Then I closed Shaun's eyes and listened to myself hum; I liked the way it made the inside of Shaun's head vibrate. It also sounded different when I stuck my fingers in Shaun's ears—much louder.

So I did not hear the bus, but I smelled the gasoline fumes—slightly unpleasant, compared to the fresh morning smell of damp grass. When I opened Shaun's eyes, several faces were staring at me through the open bus windows, some puzzled, others leering.

I removed Shaun's fingers from his ears and climbed the bus steps. “Good morning,” I said to the bus driver, who nodded at me with a slight grin.

I went to sit next to Bailey, which is what Shaun
always did. “What were you
doing
out there?” Bailey asked as I slid into the seat.

“Nothing,” I said. That was Shaun's stock answer; I felt it should be mine, too.

Bailey eyed my collared shirt and khakis. “What's up with the clothes?”

“Um. Everything else is dirty,” I lied. I didn't want to get into a discussion about fashion right now. It was my first time to ride in a motor vehicle, and I didn't want to miss anything.

Interesting—after the initial start, which threw me back against the seat, all I could feel was a humming vibration under me. I peered around Bailey and out the window. If I hadn't seen the houses and trees going by, I might not have known I was moving at—what? Twenty, thirty miles an hour?

Fascinating.

“How come you weren't online last night?” Bailey was asking.

“I didn't have time.” That was true. “Can I sit by the window?”

He gave me another odd look—I couldn't interpret this one—then shrugged and stood up. I scooted over while he pressed himself against the seat in front of us.

“Hey! Sit down back there!”

That was the bus driver. All I could see was the back
of her head. Then I saw the mirror above her. Her face was reflected in it, and she appeared to be glaring at me.

Even though she was facing the opposite direction, we could see each other. How clever.

The window was open, and I stuck Shaun's hand out of it to see if I could feel the air as we passed.

Yes, I could. A cool, rushing pressure.

“Hey!” shouted the bus driver. “You!” I looked up at the rearview mirror; she was glaring at me again. “Do you want to
walk
? Get that hand back in this bus!”

I pulled Shaun's hand back in. But I wanted to understand. “Why?” I asked the bus driver.

In the mirror, she seemed to expand, to swell till she filled the whole frame. “
Why
? Are you asking me
why
?”

I started to say yes, but she didn't wait for an answer.

“Because I
said
so,” she thundered. “
That's
why!”

Being in Shaun was in some ways like being shut up in a box. Before, I had no sight, but I was
aware
of everything. Now I
saw
, and what I saw was only the driver's back, and her eyes in a mirror.

I felt sure that she was angry, though.

I remembered that she always went on about people following the rules. Apparently she liked her job to be uneventful; perhaps it was stressful to her when students on her bus or other cars on the road did anything different
from what they did on every other day.

Like sticking a hand out of the window, apparently.

So I said nothing, but kept my hand away from the window for the rest of the ride.

I
knew what Shaun's mother believed about Shaun's love interest. A while back, she'd found a note from a girl in one of his pockets. She put it back and never told Shaun she found it, I suppose because she feared he'd think she'd been snooping. Although she had been.

The note wasn't what she thought; it was from a girl that Shaun liked—or rather, lusted for. The note wasn't even written to him. It had fallen on the floor, and he'd picked it up on the way out of class. He had actually masturbated over it once before becoming ashamed. I knew he was ashamed because of what he said afterward. “You pervert,” he'd whispered to himself in the mirror.

Even so, he didn't throw the note away. He took it out every once in a while and looked at it, smoothing the
paper with his fingers.

I wish I'd known what he was thinking then.

For Shaun, this was all much easier than actually speaking to the girl, which indeed would have been a mistake, because not only had she shown no interest in him, she almost certainly didn't know who he was. Shaun was not bad-looking, but in the hierarchy of twenty-first-century American high schools, looks don't always matter as much as self-confidence. And except in the presence of his closest friends, Shaun slunk around hunched in on himself, speaking only when spoken to, and that in uncommunicative monosyllables.

Thus, he was mostly invisible.

The girl who wrote the note, who apparently occupied much of his thoughts, was generally spoken of as being quite attractive, compared to the rest of his classmates. Specifically, it seemed she had largish breasts, a small waist, slender legs, and facial features that were pleasingly symmetrical.

I didn't care about these things. It was the
feeling
I wanted, the feeling my—or Shaun's—body would have while engaging in the sexual act. It didn't matter with whom the act occurred so long as I experienced my side of it.

With this in mind, I knew a better candidate than anyone Shaun would have chosen.

Her name was Lane. Lane Henneberger. She'd had a crush on Shaun for some time. She wrote things like “Mrs. Shaun Simmons” in her diary, which she kept locked and hidden under her mattress. According to her writings, she also worried that she was the only virgin left in her high school—although she wasn't, not by far—and she'd had vague dreams of Shaun letting her know that he'd secretly been in love with her for some time. After which exchange of information they'd make tender love and Lane would lose her dreaded virginity, thus making her—or so she imagined—like all the other girls who were wanted and desired.

Shaun, of course, never noticed anything out of the ordinary about Lane. I felt sure that if he'd thought about her at all, he would have been critical of her wide hips, flat chest, and large nose.

Shaun never was the sharpest tool in the shed.