Transcendent (19 page)

“They know I'm with a guy. And his sister. I told them that much to keep them calm.
Relatively
calm.”

“You know what I mean.”

“My parents wouldn't judge you. Or at least, not you specifically. I've just . . . I've never dated or anything like that before.” My cheeks burned hot at my use of
dated
—it's not as if
we
were dating after one strange, spontaneous kiss on a roof. “The only guy they've ever met is my friend Ethan, the one with the gigantic glasses, as you put it. So yeah, they'd maybe be worried thinking that I'd run off and started some wild fling with you. But you can't take that personally. Any strange guy would make them worry that way.”

He paused for a beat. “Well, they don't have to worry. About that, I mean.”

“I know.”

“I mean it. First off, I don't
date
. My life's complicated
enough already. I don't have time for all that drama and shit. Second, you . . . you're too good for any of the asses in our school, trust me. And my name is definitely on that list.”

“Oh, please. You're not nearly as bad as you want everyone to think you are.”

He smiled at that, and I leaned in closer, feeling brave. I could see the smile in his eyes, too, so close to mine now that they were just a blur of colors, gold and black and glowing. He kissed me again, softer this time. I closed my eyes, sunk into the feeling of it, the warmth of his body, the cool night breeze. I was convinced that I was glowing under him, shining brighter than any of the dim city stars dotting the sky. I was alive there; I was bright and radiant and infinite. I
was
special, in that moment. Up there on that roof. With him. He had said so. And somehow from him, from Zane, I couldn't not believe it was true.

But that thought, that word,
special
—it reminded me with a jolt why I had asked him where we could be alone in the first place. The questions I had for him, all the things I needed to hear about the world beyond this apartment building. I had thought I couldn't wait, but I was wrong. In the morning he would take Zoey to school, and I could go out and buy a stack of newspapers, keep the TV on all day. Tomorrow.

Tonight was for this.

Zane. Me.

The sky.

•   •   •

We lay out there, tangled up, sometimes kissing, sometimes not, until I dozed off and woke up to Zane carrying me down the stairs and back into the apartment. I groggily smiled up at him before closing my eyes again, letting my head fall against his chest.

But then—
“Zoey?”

The word jerked me awake. Zane set me down on my feet, so quickly I barely had time to steady myself, and he bolted toward the TV. My eyes followed his, saw what he saw—my face, consuming everything else on the screen. Everything else in the room. There were words, too, big and white beneath the picture of me, and a voice speaking in the background—but I couldn't make sense of any of it, couldn't see anything but my face, couldn't hear anything but Zane's voice, saying, “Zoey! Turn it off!
Now!
”

I ripped my eyes from the screen and toward the sofa, though I already knew what I would see. Zoey, wide-awake and perched on the edge of the seat. Her eyes were round, unblinking, like she hadn't noticed that Zane was yelling at her, hadn't noticed that we were even in the room at all.

Zane turned back toward the TV, reached out and pressed at all the buttons until the screen finally flashed to black.

“You were supposed to be sleeping,” he said, storming across the room. He crouched down, stared her in the eye. “What you just saw—that's Iris's personal business. No one—not you, not those news people—has a right to be talking about her.”

She was silent in response, eerily still. I held my breath, waiting. I started to feel light, dizzy, but then she opened her mouth.

“You're wrong, Z,” she said, calmly, matter-of-factly. “Because we
should
know. We should all know.”

Her head slowly turned, her eyes meeting mine.

“It's you,” she said, the words clear, chiming like bells. “You're
finally
here.”

Y
OU'RE FINALLY HERE.
The words from my dream. Here, now, coming out of Zoey's mouth, they were infinitely more horrifying. My knees collapsed, my back slamming against the wall behind me as I slid down to the floor.

Zane jerked up and ran toward me, but his eyes were on his little sister. “She's
finally here
? What kind of bullshit is that?”

“Like Grammy used to tell us,” she said, still staring at me as I shivered and shook on the floor. I wanted to look away from Zoey, to make her—all of this—disappear, but I couldn't. She was so sure. So hopeful. “She used to talk about it all the time, especially in the end, when we'd visit her at that crappy old-people home. Grammy always hoped she was still alive, and she is, Zane. She
is
alive, and we found her.”

Zane knelt down next to me, wrapped an arm around
my trembling shoulders. “We didn't
find
her, and even if she's here now, that doesn't mean anything, Zo. What Gram thought—Iris is just a regular person, okay? She's just like us.”

Zoey shook her head, scrunching her lips into a little frown. “That's not true, Zane,” she said, her voice quieter now. “And you know it, too; you just won't say it.”

There's just something about you,
Zane had said, up on the roof. But didn't all guys say that to a girl if they wanted to kiss her? Everyone was
special
in his or her own way. I was special, but so was Zoey, so was Zane.

I could feel him next to me, could feel the heat radiating from his body, but I didn't turn my face to see his expression. I didn't want to know. He was silent, not denying Zoey, and that already said too much.

“Iris,” she said, her eyes even rounder, more pleading, “I know Brinley's already gone. But maybe there are other people you could help. Why are you just hiding?”

“Because,” I said, the word breaking apart on my lips. Zane gripped my shoulder, pulled me closer against his side. I took a deep breath, tried again. “Because you're wrong, Zoey. They all are. Even if I wish you were right. I can't help anyone. I'm just a normal person. I'm just as likely to walk into a hospital room and save someone as you are.”

“Have you tried?” she asked. Three words, so simple.

“No,” I answered, blinking.

“Then how can you be so sure?” She folded her arms across her chest, those bright eyes now squinting, challenging me.

“I just know, Zo,” I said, though I was suddenly just a little less sure of myself. “How do
you
know that you can't save people?”

“Trust me,” she snorted. “My dad definitely wasn't
God
.”

God. My
dad
. It was a thought, a connection, a rationale I had tried to avoid in the past few weeks. It was enough just to acknowledge that the dad who'd raised me wasn't biologically responsible for me.

Yes, my mom had been a pregnant virgin.

But maybe I was all made up of
her
. All one person, one genetic code. Maybe there was nothing else; maybe she had been enough. Maybe
she
was the special one. Without actually testing, we'd never know for sure. But this is what I would choose to believe, what I
had
to believe, to stay sane: if I were studied, I would look the same as everyone else, deep down on the most fundamental level of what makes us all human. I was my mom, all the way through. And I was okay with that.

“So what would be so bad about trying?” Zoey asked, yanking me back to our conversation. “I think I'm right, but . . . even if I'm not, won't you be showing everyone else that you're just regular, too? Isn't that what you want?”

What she said—it made sense. It was like what I'd said to my family, that I'd go to Green Hill and somehow prove everyone wrong.

But maybe first I had to prove it to myself. Just to be certain. Just to be one thousand percent, without a doubt, absolutely sure. I'd ripped a cuticle for Caleb, showed him that I bled, just like he did. But that wasn't enough.

“Even if I wanted to,” I started, wiping my sweaty hands along the tops of my legs, “I wouldn't know where to go,
who
to go see. I didn't know anyone personally.” I still felt ashamed to admit it, especially after hearing all about Brinley.

“I know someone,” Zane said. His voice was quiet, so quiet that I wasn't sure I would have heard him if I wasn't pressed against him, my head tucked under his chin, vibrating with the deep buzz of his throat. “If you want to meet someone—if you want to make sure—I know someone who was at Disney.”

“Who?” I asked, the question out of my mouth before I even thought about asking. Before I thought about
why
I was asking. Because did it matter? Did the
who
matter? I wouldn't go no matter what. I couldn't.

Could I?

Zoey stood up from the couch and slowly made her way over to us. She crouched on the floor at my side. I
looked from Zoey to Zane, at their identical somber expressions.

“Who is it?” I asked again, my face tilted up toward Zane, my eyes just inches away from that angry scar and that dark tattoo, a pointy vine that snaked along his jaw. He was right—there was still so much about him that I didn't know. But I wanted to, if he'd let me.

“She was one of Brinley's best friends,” he said, not looking at me as he spoke. “Abigail. She was at their house almost as much as we were. She was in choir with Brin, so they were together when it happened. Brinley . . . she was gone right away, but Abby was lucky. Or maybe not so lucky; depends on how you look at it. She lived, but she'll never be the same. Blind in both eyes, burns all down her body . . .” He trailed off, shaking his head. “It's so fucked up what they did there. It's so beyond fucked up. Abby was a beautiful girl, so happy and sweet and jumping up and down all the time, and now she's been living on a hospital bed. She's never going to see again. She's never going to see her parents' faces, or her bedroom, or her damn dog she loves so much. She'll never see Brinley either; no one will. She probably wouldn't even want to see a world with no Brinley in it anymore. The two of them were inseparable. Sisters.”

“I was their sister, too,” Zoey whispered.

“Yeah, you were, Zo,” Zane said, reaching across my lap to grab her hand. “They loved you as much as you loved them. And Abby still loves you.”

“But she doesn't want me to visit. I send her cards and never get anything back. She stopped loving me, now that Brinley's not my cousin anymore.” Zoey's voice was so little, so sad, I wanted to wrap myself around her and never let go. I wanted to make sure that the world would never hurt her again.

Zane stiffened next to me. “Brinley will
always
be your cousin. Always.”

“But you don't believe in heaven, Z. So doesn't that mean there's no more Brinley?”

“I don't know what I believe.”

“How about you, Iris?” Zoey asked. “What do
you
believe?”

I felt the blood rush to my face, my cheeks, the tips of my ears burning hot. I didn't really believe in God, or in heaven, or in any kind of structured, orderly religion. Did I believe that Brinley was gone forever? That she was nothing but dust and decay?

No. But I didn't believe she was looking down on us from the clouds either, the only answer Zoey probably wanted to hear.

“I think we have souls,” I said, slowly and carefully, the weight of each word heavy on my lips. I shut my eyes,
but I could still sense Zoey's stare cutting through me, two beams of white-hot light. “I think somehow, somewhere, a little piece of us always lives on. The piece of us that makes us who we are. We can't see it with microscopes; we can't weigh it or study it in a lab. We just have to believe that it's there. That no matter what happens, a tiny piece of us will always keep going. We'll keep
being
.”

Was it true? Did I mean that? I wanted it to be true, I really did. I wanted to believe it, for Zoey's sake, for Zane's, for my own.

My eyes were still closed, but I could feel Zoey fall into me, feel her skinny arms squeeze around me so tight that I lost my breath.

“My tattoo,” she said, her words muffled against my shoulder. She pulled back from me, and I opened my eyes as she tilted her head, showing me her jaw up close, that swirl of dark black notes. “Zane let me get this for Brinley. So it would help me to always remember her. Remember how much she loved to sing. She even wrote her own songs . . .” Zoey's voice faltered.

“I'll go,” I said, the words tumbling out before I could stop them. “If Abigail lets me, I'll go to visit her.”

Zoey turned back to face me, grinning despite the tears still rolling down her cheeks. The edges of her lips curled higher and wider—dangerously high, dangerously wide.

“I can't promise anything at all,” I said, my heart pounding, racing from the electric shock of her hope. “I'll go, but I won't be able to do anything, really. Maybe I can just . . . I don't know, cheer her up a little?” The idea sounded flimsy to me, entirely without basis. And if she wouldn't even let Zoey visit, why would she let me? I would try, though. I would try for Zoey and Zane. Maybe even a little for myself.

“Thank you.” Zoey sniffed, still smiling at me like I was her favorite person in the whole wide world. Her superwoman. Zane didn't say anything, but he leaned in, giving me a quick peck on the top of my head.

The kiss only made Zoey's grin grow bigger.

“So what's the plan?” I smiled back, my heartbeat soaring way beyond its normal rhythm. “Where do I go?”

•   •   •

Abigail's parents agreed immediately.

They'd let Abigail turn Zoey away, maybe, but they wouldn't allow that to happen for me. They wouldn't refuse
Mina's daughter
.

“So they know who I am, then?” I asked Zane, after he'd walked back inside from his phone call on the rooftop. He hadn't even needed to say anything. I could see it in the cautious way he stepped into the living room, the tiny smile that even a tough guy like Zane couldn't hide.

It was late morning on Monday, which meant Zoey was back in school. Anthony was nowhere to be seen—typical, according to Zane—so it was just the two of us. Zane hadn't mentioned going to class, and I hadn't either. School was part of my old life. I wasn't ready to somehow fit it into the new.

Zane looked at me and nodded. “Yeah. The basics at least. But they've seen the news. They know who your mom is. And they know it's all top secret, you being here with us—that it's all off if it's leaked. They want you to come, Iris. They really want you to come.”

“And you trust them?”

“I don't know them all that well,” he said, his gaze steady, fixed on me. My stomach swirled with the knowledge that this was real now, that I would actually be doing this—this silly, pointless, nonsensical thing. “But I know them well enough to be sure that they won't go running off and telling everyone. The most important thing to them is Abby. And if there's any chance that . . . well, that you can help her in even a little way, that's all that matters to them. They're not going to do anything to risk that.”

“But you know that I probably can't, right? Definitely can't,” I said, correcting myself.

“I don't know what you can do. And I don't think that you can really know that either.”

“That's not true,” I said, suddenly feeling indignant.
Who were all these people to think they knew what I was capable of better than I did? I knew what I could—and couldn't—do. I knew, and
only
I knew. “I can't heal anything, Zane. I can't, for example, touch that scar on your face and make it better. I can't make it go away.”

As soon as the words were out, I wanted to claw them back in. “I—I didn't mean that,” I sputtered, looking away, unable to meet his intense gaze. “Well, I did mean that I can't help you, or anyone, but . . .”

“It's okay,” he said.

“No, it's not, it's none of my business, that scar, and I had no right to bring it up.”

“Iris. Seriously, it's okay. Look at me.” He touched a finger lightly to my chin, tilted my face until I was looking up straight into his eyes. His usual guard, that icy veneer of his, was nowhere to be seen. Instead of the anger, there was hurt. Sadness. The reflection of things that he'd seen and would never un-see.

I reached out and touched the scar, my fingers tracing lightly over the cool ridges along his jaw. He didn't pull away or stop me. Our eyes still locked, my fingers reached the tip of the scar, the point closest to his lips.

Zane sighed, reaching up to catch my hand, pressing his hot palm against mine. He let them linger there for a moment, resting against his scar. Then he eased our hands away slowly, though he didn't let go.