Chapter 2
On my way back from the dojo, I stared out the bus window watching the traffic lights change, my head throbbing in time with my pulse. Why that girl? Why now? I didn’t really even know her. Jesus, I had been so careful not to get attached to anyone here.
It wasn’t fucking fair. This thing I had, it was never anything I could control. If I could, then my life wouldn’t have turned out like this. Maybe it would be different if I could pull tomorrow’s lottery numbers out of my ass, or predict the right answers to next week’s history midterm. I know plenty of kids who would pay for that kind of information and not ask any questions. But that wasn’t the way it worked.
No one else got off at my stop, and I’d missed dinner by the time I got back to the house. Mr. Powell stood at the kitchen sink cleaning the dishes. He nodded at me as I grabbed a plate of leftovers. “Good evening, Matthew,” he said, a trace of the Deep South still in his voice even though his folks had moved north when he was a little kid. It came out the strongest when he preached.
I nodded back. Mrs. Powell’s voice drifted from upstairs. She always sang to put the little kids to bed. Usually I loved listening to her, but I wasn’t in the mood for anything that uplifting right now. “Sir.”
Except for the gray hair, he didn’t look a whole lot different than in his army pictures, and even at sixty, he could still do a couple of hundred sit ups without breaking a sweat. He reminded me of Sensei Young. Not so much in looks, but something in the set of the shoulders and the direct stare.
“Lights out in an hour.”
“Yes, sir.” That would give me at least a little time for homework. I showered and changed before retreating to the room I shared with Jack and Dante. Two sets of bunk beds lined the opposite walls. Two sets of drawers took up the whole space under the window leaving just enough room between the bunks for a small braided rug. This place was the longest I’d stayed anywhere since landing in foster care almost eleven years ago.
I’m one of the oldest, the one the little kids always try to turn into their big brother until they learn that life is hard and I’m harder. None of us usually stayed anywhere for too long, and the sooner the new kids learned to cope on their own, the easier their next move would be.
Jack lay curled up in a ball around his pillow, sound asleep. Dante stared up at the bottom of my bunk. I guess he lived to see another day here with the Powells. Neither of us said a word to the other, which was just the way I wanted it. I dragged my bag up the ladder and sat scrunched with my head up against the ceiling working on math problems until Mr. Powell tapped on the door.
“Nine-thirty. Lights out.”
This was one of the few things about this placement I really hated. Lights out meant lights out, and I never fell asleep easily. Too many nightmares followed me. Most nights, I spent at least an hour staring at the ceiling trying not to think about bad shit. The things I’ve seen, the things I’ve known about before they happen, never fade like real memories. Lucky me. Every freaking vision I’d ever had was just as sharp and as painful now as the first time I saw it.
When I closed my eyes, I kept seeing the fear in that girl’s eyes. What could I possibly do that would scare her like that? And why her? If I was going to pre-play anyone’s shitty future, I figured it would be the Powells’, not some girl I barely recognized. I tossed in the top bunk until Dante hissed at me. At two in the morning, I finally gave up trying to sleep and went to sit at the dining room table.
I ran my hand over the smooth wood. Mr. P had sanded and coated it in a dozen layers of shiny urethane until it looked more like a gym floor than a picnic table. Probably fifty kids or more had sat here over the years. I was willing to bet none of them saw visions like mine. Slumping over, I put my head over my crossed arms on the table and closed my eyes. I didn’t even know her name.
“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.”
“Fuck you.”
He jerked to sitting, the smile sliding off his face. “What’s your problem, Garrison?”
“You have my stuff.” It didn’t take a psychic to know Dante Alvarez was headed down the same road as his mom.
“Jeez, you really know how to kill a buzz.” He hit the power button and handed the iPod back to me.
“And don’t keep your stash where any of the kids can find it.”
“Yeah, thanks, man.”
“And stay the hell out of my stuff.”
Dante slithered back into his bed, rocking to whatever music was burning through his brain. “Whatever.”
I didn’t smoke, and I didn’t drink. It wasn’t because I was some freaking choir boy, and it wasn’t for lack of trying. After Mr. Murphy, my ninth grade math teacher died, I spent the better part of that year drunk or high. It didn’t do anything to erase the visions of his car slamming into a concrete barrier and smearing his body parts all over the icy pavement. If anything, the more stoned I got, the stronger and more frequent the visions became. The headaches that followed got so bad, I thought my head would explode. Eventually, I got sober.
When Mrs. P called us in for Sunday supper, Dante’s eyes were clearer and he had changed his clothes. Whatever. It wasn’t my problem. The girl from school took up most of my brain space. It didn’t make sense. I never had visions before of someone I didn’t have a connection to.
Besides, what I saw this time wasn’t a car crash, or a natural disaster, or a shooting. This was me threatening some girl I didn’t even know. Maybe I couldn’t stop all those terrible things from happening to other people, but I sure as hell could stop myself from hurting someone. I would just stay away from her. No matter what. It was only a few months before I could get out of the system and be on my own. I just had to make it until them.
Trina set her stub of a pencil down and carefully shimmied into the seat next to me. I raised an eyebrow. Mrs. P shrugged. Trina always sat on Mrs. P’s left. As long as I’d been at the Powells’ place, that was Trina’s seat, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She would scream if someone else sat there.
“You don’t mind helping her, do you Matt?” she asked.
Mrs. P usually cut Trina’s food and made sure nothing touched anything else on her plate. I smiled and shrugged one shoulder. It would give me an excuse not to talk too much at the table.
“I’m going to try out for the school play,” Lola said. “Mrs. Cramer said I had the loudest voice in the class.”
I winced. She definitely had the loudest voice here. If Dante did somehow screw up, Lola would probably be the one to let us all know about it.
“That’s great, Lola,” Mr. Powell said. “Break a leg.”
Jack swallowed hard, and his cheeks got red. “That’s not nice!”
When he had come here, green and purple bruises covered his skinny arms and legs.
“Oh, honey,” Mrs. P said. “It’s okay. That’s just something you say to actors and actresses to wish them luck.”
Jack drew his dark eyebrows over confused hazel eyes as he watched Lola for a few minutes. “Break your arm, Lola.”
“Not quite, Jackie,” Mr. P said, “but close enough.”
Everyone laughed around the table, even Dante, who usually stayed in his own little pot-fueled universe.
I glared at him, and he smirked back.
Really, I didn’t care what the hell he did as long as he wasn’t dealing out of the house or getting the kids turned on to his shit. The Powells weren’t stupid just because they were nice. They’d figure Dante out soon enough.
No one noticed when Trina leaned close to me to tug on my sleeve. I turned to her, figuring she needed something else to eat, but her plate was still full. It looked like she had taken exactly one spoonful of everything. As I tried to turn back to the conversation, she patted my arm, her amber eyes staring directly into mine.
Seconds passed and she didn’t blink. I could feel my face heat up. Normally, she couldn’t cope with eye contact, but I was the one who shied away.
“Don’t be scared, Mattie,” she whispered, squeezing my arm one last time before letting me go.
Four words. Four more words than she’d spoken to anyone. Ever. And she said them to me.
I looked around the table, but everyone was still talking to Lola and Jack.
“Trina?” Her empty gaze slipped past me, staring at nothing again, or maybe she watched her waggling fingers.
A chill crawled down to the base of my spine, and I wasn’t hungry anymore.