Future Tense

Chapter 2

“Matt? Are you all right?” Mrs. P shook me awake. I blinked and cracked my stiff neck. Her brown eyes shined full of concern. Deep lines crackled the dark skin across her forehead.

“What time is it?”

“Six-fifteen.”

She worked the seven to three shift as an aide at the nursing home. If there was such a thing as sainthood, Mrs. P had a lock on the voting. Though, given my history, I doubted the universe worked the way she seemed to believe it did. I couldn’t understand how she could have any faith left after seeing an endless parade of human misery.

“Have you been here all night?”

“I guess.” I shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep.”

She stared down at me, frowning. “Matt, if you ever want someone to talk to … you know you can come to me or Mr. Powell. And your social worker.”

“No, I’m good.” The visions were bad enough, but her concern was the last thing I wanted. “It’s just that Dante was snoring.” If she got social services involved, that meant more meetings and counseling. Once, I tried to tell one of them about the shit I saw. It got me stuck on a psych ward for a month.

“I know you two don’t get along.”

Well that was the understatement of the year. Everything about Dante just got under my skin. “Sorry, Mrs. P.”

“I can pick up some earplugs from the pharmacy on my way home,” she said, as she wrapped a geometric African print scarf around her head.

Of course she would. “Earplugs will be great. Thanks.”

In a couple of months, I aged out. This place had to work until then. Soon I’d be able to keep to myself. It would just be me and my visions. Maybe they wouldn’t hurt so much if I didn’t know the people in them. I pushed away from the table, ignoring the way my shoulder blades itched as she watched me leave the room.

The girl wasn’t in homeroom that day. Maybe she would leave school and I wouldn’t ever have to worry about her again. I almost believed it. And I got through the rest of Friday without any sign of the disturbing vision. I did miss my sweatshirt, though.

*

When I came in from helping Mr. P carry some boxes to the Church, Dante lay sprawled across his bed, listening to my clunky iPod. Old and beat up enough that no one would want to steal, but I worked hard for it, and every song on it meant something.

None of us had a lot and what we had, we held on to. Trina had her sketch book. Jack dragged a grimy, threadbare stuffed dinosaur behind him anywhere he went. Mrs. P had to wash it in the middle of the night so he wouldn’t know it was gone. Lola had her special glasses. Nothing was actually wrong with her eyesight, but she insisted on wearing the clear lenses with rhinestone frames.

“Hey, you don’t mind, right?” Dante said, the sound of a loud back beat leaking from the headphones.

I wanted to rip them from his ears and wipe the smirk off his face, but fighting meant an automatic removal from this house, and I wasn’t ready for that yet. Besides, he was the one in the wrong. Instead, I stared down at him, my fists curling and uncurling. His eyes were red. The sweet scent of pot smoke clung to his clothes and his hair. I breathed slowly the way ten years of karate had drilled into me and let the impulse to tear him apart drain away.

I held out my open hand, palm up. “I do mind.”

His smile just got wider. “Aw, come on, be a sport.”