What's Left of Me (5 page)

But tonight, I got close. I flirted at the edge of it, too frightened to make the leap but angry enough to think I might.

I don’t know who suffers more when Addie and I don’t speak to each other. For me, staying silent all Friday night and Saturday made the time dreamlike. The world swam by like a movie, distant and intangible.

On the other hand, Addie had no one to remind her about the little things. She forgot to get a towel before getting in the shower. Our alarm clock blared us awake at seven o’clock on Saturday. She looked everywhere but the bookshelf for our hairbrush. I said nothing. Hadn’t I always known she couldn’t do without me?

I studied when she was too busy daydreaming or stressing to do anything but keep our eyes on the text and flip pages when I told her to. I put words on our tongue when she was too flustered to speak.

And so whenever we fell into sullen silences and refused to talk to each other, it was always Addie who broke down after a few hours—a day at most—and spoke first.

But Saturday melted into Sunday, and Addie stayed mute. I felt the emptiness beside me, the hard, blank nothingness that meant she was struggling to keep her emotions bound.

“Are you all right?” Mom asked when we came down for breakfast Sunday morning. I felt her eyes on us as Addie opened the cabinet and grabbed a cereal bowl. “You’ve been acting funny all weekend.”

Addie turned. Our cheeks tightened, stretching our lips into a smile. “Yeah, Mom. I’m fine. Kinda tired, I guess.”

“You’re not coming down with something, are you?” she asked, setting down her mug to feel our forehead. Addie pulled away.

“No, Mom. I’m fine. Really.”

Mom nodded but didn’t stop frowning. “Well, don’t share cups with Lyle or anything, just in case. He—”

“I know,” Addie said. “Mom, I live here, too. I know.”

Our cereal stuck in our throat. Addie dumped the rest in the trash.

When she went back upstairs to brush our teeth, I stirred enough to stare at our reflection in the bathroom mirror. Addie was looking, too. There were our brown eyes, our short nose, our small mouth. Our wavy, dishwater-blond hair that we always said we’d do something with but never quite dared to. Then Addie shut our eyes, and I couldn’t look any longer. She rinsed with our eyes still closed, felt for the washcloth, and pressed it against our face. Cool. Damp.

Addie always gave in first. I waited for some kind of satisfaction, some kind of relish that once again I had won and she had lost. But all I felt was a great sigh of relief.

she said. Our face stayed buried in the cloth.

I said.

I said.

We stood there in the stillness of that Sunday morning, a barefooted girl in a T-shirt and faded red pajama pants, water dripping down her chin, a terrible secret in her head.

I said.

The washcloth was suddenly hot with tears.

Six

A
ll Monday morning, no one talked about anything but the Bessimir museum flood. Those of us in Ms. Stimp’s history class suddenly became the most sought-after students in school, even among the upperclassmen, who usually paid attention to the freshmen only when they wanted us to get out of the way.

Addie hid from everyone’s eager questions as best she could, but she couldn’t avoid them all. Again and again, she had to describe the scene at the museum, estimate the amount of water there’d been, how our guide had reacted, had anyone screamed? Had she suspected it was an attack? Did she see anyone suspicious? Daniela Lowes said she had. What about the fire? Had anyone seen the fire? Oh, you’re the one who fell, aren’t you?

They always seemed disappointed by Addie’s answers. Apparently, everyone else had gotten soaked up to their knees and seen shady men in the corners—or at least caught sight of a tower of flames.

Hybrids
, ran the whisper in the corridors, the bathrooms, the classrooms, while everyone pretended to pay attention to the teachers.
Hybrids.
Hidden, free hybrids.
Here
.

“They could be next door and you’d never know it,” said the girl sitting in front of us in math, her voice full of wonder and excitement. Others weren’t so bold. We found an upperclassman crying in the bathroom after second period, convinced that her father, who worked at Bessimir’s city hall, was in terrible danger. Addie fled from her tears.

By third period, we were pale, almost shaking. Our hands gripped the sides of our seat to stay still, to keep ourself in our chair until lunch. We’d both forgotten our money that morning, but neither of us was in the mood to eat, so it didn’t matter.

Finally, the bell rang. Addie all but ran into the hall. Shouting filled the air, bouncing off posters, banging into dented metal lockers. Addie jumped aside to avoid a boy’s elbow as he yanked off his tie.

I said. I almost didn’t dare to ask, considering everything that had happened that morning, considering how tightly our fists were clenched. But I had to.

Addie looked down the hall.
<506>
she said softly.

We pushed our way there, gathering speed as the crowds thinned. Addie walked stiffly, planting one foot in front of the other with the deliberate force of someone who had to keep going forward, never stopping, for fear of never starting again if she did. Soon we were jogging, then running, through the halls.

We crashed into room 506 with such a clatter and a bang that the teacher cried out and leaped to her feet. Addie threw out our arms, bracing against a desk to keep from falling.

“Sorry, sorry,” she said. She bent to right a chair we’d knocked over. “I’m—I’m looking for Hally Mullan. Was she here?”

“She just left,” the teacher said. Her hand was still pressed against her chest. “Really, is it such an emergency?”

Addie was already halfway out the door. “No, it’s not. Sorry.”

she said, and I felt a rush of gratitude. The school crawled with anti-hybrid sentiment. Our chest was so tight I felt each breath squeezing in and out of our lungs. Addie could have said,
She isn’t there. I tried. Maybe tomorrow.
Instead she just asked,
Where now?

We scanned the faces in the lunchroom for Hally’s black-rimmed glasses, searched for a glimpse of her long, dark hair among the café’s coffee drinkers and newspaper readers. But she was nowhere to be found. By the time we left the café, lunch was more than half over.

I said.

Hally’s teacher eyed us as we reentered her room. Addie slid into a seat by the door, crossing our arms on the desk. We waited. And waited.

I said.

But she didn’t. The minutes passed, long and silent. Hally’s teacher cleared her throat. We ignored her. Finally, Addie stood.

But Addie shook her head and gripped our skirt, wrinkling the cloth in our fists. Taking careful, measured steps, she walked out the door.

Addie said.

Addie froze. I felt her mind go white. Hally hadn’t seen us yet. She stood by her open locker, fiddling with her books. Where had she been? How hadn’t we found her? That didn’t matter now.

But Addie didn’t budge.

Our feet stayed glued to the floor, our lips stapled shut. There were only half a dozen feet separating us and Hally, but it seemed like the world.

A fist closed around our heart. Addie took a painful step forward.

“Hally?” she said. Our sweaty hands fidgeted at our sides.

Hally’s head lifted just a little too quickly, her lips twitching upward. “Oh, hey, Addie,” she said.

Addie nodded. She and Hally stared at each other. I wrestled with my impatience. If I pressed her, it might snap her already slingshot-tight nerves. But if I didn’t, she might lose her courage.

Come on, Addie,
I prayed.
Come on. Please.

“I . . .” Addie said. “I . . . um—” She looked around, ensuring there was no one listening. “Eva,” she said, so quietly I feared Hally wouldn’t hear her. “Eva wants to learn.”

Our voice gave out. Addie wasn’t even fidgeting anymore, just staring straight ahead, not quite meeting Hally’s eyes.

“Oh, great,” Hally whispered. “That’s great, Addie. Just fantastic.”

Addie gave her a rigid smile.

The end-of-lunch bell rang. Hally grabbed one last book, then banged her locker shut. Her smile lit up her eyes. “I’ll meet you by the front door after school, okay?” she said. “We’ll go to my house. You’ll meet Devon and Ryan properly. It’ll be great. I promise.”

Ryan. The name of the second soul dwelling in Devon’s body. I tucked it away, another piece of these past few days that I just knew were going to change everything.

“All right,” Addie managed to say.

Some boys were already coming up the hall, chatting and laughing. Addie stood by Hally’s locker, watching her walk back to her classroom. But just as Hally was about to enter, she turned and darted back. The group of boys was almost upon us, but Hally leaned in and whispered with a laugh, “This is fantastic, Addie. Really. You’ll see.”

This time, Devon was sitting at the kitchen table when Hally opened the door. He had a screwdriver in one hand and what looked like a small black coin in the other. A mess of tools lay scattered across the table, half encircling him like some sort of wall. He looked up when we appeared in the doorway, then returned to his tinkering with only a nod
hello
.

“Hi,” Addie said. Her voice had none of the spark she usually pumped into first meetings. With other boys, she could craft a mask of smiles and laughter. She seemed to hardly want to glance at this one.

Why? Because he wasn’t really one boy, but two? Because hidden inside his body were twin souls, nestled side by side?

If so, then Addie looked away for exactly the same reasons I wanted to stare until I memorized the shape of his face. But I wasn’t the one in control.

“Want some tea?” Hally asked. She’d bustled inside after kicking off her shoes and was already halfway to the fridge.

“Tea?” Addie said.

“Yeah. It’s good. I promise.”

Addie bent to untie our shoes, picking at the thin laces. “Okay, sure.”

Nobody said anything about why we were here. Addie stood by the doorway, our arms crossed, our hands gripping our elbows.

I wasn’t sure. We looked to Hally, but she was too busy rummaging in the cabinets to notice. Devon tightened something in his coin, frowning as he did so. Addie and I might as well have not been there.

Finally, Hally turned and laughed. “Well, don’t just stand there, Addie. Come on, sit down.” She pointed to the chair across from her brother. “Devon, entertain her while I get something from upstairs.”

The boy raised an eyebrow without even looking at her. “Isn’t she your guest, though?”

Hally rolled her eyes. “Ignore him,” she whispered as she passed us en route to the stairs. “He’s just rude and antisocial like that.”

“Ignore her,” Devon said, still intent on . . . whatever he was doing. “She’s just upset Ryan took apart her doorknob.”

Hally pulled a face at him, and then she was gone, leaving us and Devon alone. Addie still hadn’t moved.

“You
can
sit down, if you want,” he said, finally raising his head.

Addie nodded and, after another awkward second, walked over to the chair. She sat. Devon turned back to his tinkering and tools. The seconds ticked by.

she snapped. Our body tensed, irritation flickering to our eyes and mouth.

Devon looked up.

“So, um . . .”

He didn’t speak. Didn’t say
Yes? Do you want to ask me something
? He just watched us, his face still half tilted toward his hands.

Addie said.

She writhed in the silence. I racked my mind, but Addie’s irritation made it hard to think. It was like trying to brainstorm next to a thrashing bird.

“So are you really Devon right now, or should I be thinking of you as Ryan?”

The question burst from our lips, and no matter how fast Addie shoved our fist against our mouth, she couldn’t take it back. I was too shocked to speak.

Devon blinked. Or
was
he Ryan? No, he couldn’t be; he’d just referred to Ryan. The boy frowned, looking more nonplussed than truly annoyed. “No, I’m Devon. But if you’d prefer Ryan, we can—”

“No,” Addie said, leaning back. “No, that’s quite all right, thanks.”

Her coldness wiped the quiet puzzlement from his face, made his expression blank again. Devon nodded and turned back to his tinkering. Silence reigned, broken only by the click of his screwdriver when his hand slipped.

I said.

Heat rushed to our face.

I fell silent. A wall slammed down between Addie and me, sealing her emotions to her half of our mind. But she didn’t do it quickly enough. I’d sensed the tendril of guilt.

The kettle started to shriek.

“Coming!” Hally called, thumping down the stairs. She skidded to a stop by the kitchen counter and reached over to switch off the stove. The kettle’s screech puttered into a low whistle, then silence. There were a few moments of quiet, interrupted only by the clinking of mugs and what was probably a spoon.

Addie tore our eyes from Devon’s hands. “What kind of tea is it?”

“Oh, um, something my dad gets. I forget the name,” Hally said. She bent over one of the mugs, sliding the spoon out against its rim so it didn’t drip, then brought the steaming mugs to the table. “I put a little cold milk in it, so it’s not that hot. Try it. It’s good.”

She watched as Addie took a sip. We’d hardly ever had hot tea before. This tasted sweeter than I expected, milky and spiced.

“Lissa’s obsessed with tea at the moment,” Devon said. “A month ago it was those ornate pocketknives.”

Lissa. Was she Lissa now? Addie threw a sideways look at the girl sitting next to us, but of course she looked exactly the same. Same dark hair, same dimples, same brown eyes. I didn’t know her and Hally well enough to discern between them.

“I’m not obsessed,” Lissa said, taking a long drink from her own mug. “And I’d still collect the pocketknives if Mom would let me.”

“The tea does taste good,” Addie said quietly.

Lissa smiled at us. A bright, overeager smile. “It does, doesn’t it?”

A moment crawled by. Addie fingered the handle of our mug. Even through the wall in our mind, I could feel her tension mounting. It leaked through the cracks like steam.

“Why me?” she said.

Both Lissa and Devon looked up, the former from her tea, the latter from his tools. The strength of their stares, identical in so many ways, made Addie falter, but she soldiered on.