DOGWOOD ✔︎

10 | Auditory Hallucinations

"What are you doing?" he asks.

Kyle has obviously been run-dribbling his soccer ball. I know this without having to ask because he's wearing a sweaty t-shirt, and the blue and white ball is wedged between his running shoes. I've worked up a pretty good sweat myself. Also, I'm wearing gardening gloves and there's a pitchfork resting on the top of my wheelbarrow full of mulch. Isn't it obvious what I'm doing?

"Uh...spreading mulch," I say anyway.

"I thought taking out the trash was bad."

I get that he's making a joke. It's not funny but still, I'd offer up a pity smile if I wasn't so confused. Why is a boy I've never talked to standing in my driveway making bad jokes?

The voice in my head doesn't chime in, but I feel this source of curiosity that's just...extra.

Here we go again.

"You left this in the lunchroom," Kyle says, lifting his arm. He's holding my purple and green polka dot lunch bag.

The terrible warmth that comes with extreme embarrassment creeps up my neck. I left my bag in the lunchroom after I rolled my apple down the table.

"I tried to return it after school on Friday," he says. "But nobody was home."

"Oh. Uh...I was here. Sleeping, I guess."

"Lucky you."

I shrug. Because no, not really.

"I'm Kyle Hansley," he says. "We're in the same gym class."

"Yeah. I mean...I've seen you."

"I've seen you, too."

There's a weird seriousness to his tone and his deep brown eyes have this glint of something that might be curiosity. He does this sort of sideways head-shake to cast his dark bangs off his  forehead and raises his arm a little higher—reminding me that he's waiting for me to claim the bag.

I take it out of his hand and he says, "See ya in the morning?"

"Yeah," I say again. Stupidly.

Kyle steps down on his ball, putting a little backspin on it so it rolls onto his toe. Then he hikes up his knee with enough momentum to launch it up into his waiting hands. He tucks it under his arm as he turns to the street. His house is only a couple hundred yards from mine—diagonally: two houses up and across. But I have to walk halfway down my driveway to watch him open the door to his garage.

What in the world would possess this boy to pick up my lunch bag? And why didn't he just leave it on my front porch?

I reclaim my wheelbarrow—pausing only to toss my lunch bag into the garage—but then I can't seem to steer through the gate. I abandon it and walk to my tree, shedding my gloves. "Boys are weird," I say. "People in general, actually."

It's a stupid thing to say, because it's obviously me. I'm the weird one.

"Something happened Thursday night," I confess. "I don't know if it's real or my imagination, but..." I reach for one of the dogwood's blooms and then stop myself. This is what I've been avoiding. Because I'm afraid it will answer the real-or-not-real question.

Can I just go on with my life—mulch today, school tomorrow—and not know?

Nope.

I cup my hand under the flower—barely making contact at first, and then almost closing my fist around it. "Something's not right," I say, moving my hand to one of the branches. Then I stalk over to the giant oak tree—like the day Dad first brought me out here. I press my palm against the trunk for comparison. No buzz, as expected. I check the walnut and the smaller oak. Normal and normal.