room for her. “Was it the dream again?” she whispers, and I turn to look at the ceiling. Mattie knows I dream of Zane’s death, but she doesn’t know that in the dream it’s me dying. That I was actually with him when his psychotic mother crashed the car, killing them both instantly. That I was . . . inside him.
There is no technical term for what I am, what I can do. At least not that I know of. The moment Zane died, I was in his mind the way I’ve slid into the minds of so many others when I’ve touched something they’ve left an emotional imprint on. That night, I was purposely trying to get into Zane’s head to locate my missing sister, so I tapped into him using one of his beloved Fitzgerald novels. People can leave bits of themselves on all sorts of things—jewelry, clothing, furniture, money. It all depends on what they’re touching when they feel a surge of emotion.
I wasn’t always able to slide. In fact, I was pretty normal until I turned twelve. That’s when I started to slide. In one particularly upsetting episode, I was taking advantage of the fact that Billy Morgan was out of the classroom and hiding his Cubs pencil case behind the teacher’s desk, and the next I found myself using a urinal in the boys’ bathroom. It was pretty traumatic. Since then, I slide into others whenever I touch something with a strong emotional imprint. Sometimes I can stave it off by munching caffeine pills, trying to stay alert and focused, but most of the time I have no control. Only over the past year have I learned how to manage my power. There are still times, however, when I’m exhausted or distracted—and I just can’t help it.
But Mattie doesn’t know all this. All she knows is that my first love was killed in a horrific car accident six months ago and he keeps haunting my dreams. She reaches her arm across me and squeezes. She gets how dreams can seep out of your head into reality. She lost her two best friends around the same time that Zane died—one to murder and one to suicide. I imagine her dreams are as bloody as mine.
“It’s only three thirty,” I say, after peeking at my alarm clock. “Let’s just go back to sleep.”
Mattie nods, her eyelids already drooping. I watch her drift off, and then I roll over and stare out the window. Sometimes I can see my mother’s face in the shine of the moon, but not tonight. The clouds are too thick.
The smell of bacon pulls me from my restless sleep. My father must have gotten up extra early to make us breakfast before he leaves for the hospital. I glance at the alarm clock. Not even six yet. Mattie’s mouth is wide open, and she lets out these sporadic snores that sound like a little dog yipping. I roll out of bed without disturbing her and turn off my alarm clock.
Downstairs, my father stands at the kitchen counter with his back to me. His dark hair lifts in adorable little spikes. Though I know full well he’s made Denver omelets enough times to be able to recite the process backward and forward, he traces his finger gently over an orange cookbook lying open before him.
It was my mother’s.
I retreat into the front hallway and approach the kitchen again, shuffling my feet loudly so he can hear me coming. When I enter, I see that he’s closed the cookbook and returned it to its home between the extra virgin olive oil and canisters of exotic spices.
“Good morning,” he booms. “How did you sleep, Vee?”
I could tell him about my nightmare-riddled sleep, but I don’t want to worry him before he goes in for a big surgery. He needs his mind clear when he works on the babies. He has to be able to forget about everything, including his girls at home.
“Fine,” I say, plucking a piece of bacon that’s been cooling on a paper towel and popping it into my mouth. The crispy meat melts into salty deliciousness against my tongue. “Yum.” I grab another piece.
“Is Mattie awake yet?” he asks.
“Uh, no,” I say. “I’ll go get her.”
Upstairs in my bedroom, I stand for a moment, hesitating. Mattie could get another half hour of sleep if I leave her alone. From the dark circles that are permanently under her eyes, I know she’s been as sleepless as I have. Still, I’m sure she’ll want to see Dad before he leaves for work. I bend down and squeeze her shoulder.
“Mattie,” I say gently. “Breakfast. Dad made bacon.”
She doesn’t move.
I put my hand on her leg and shake. “Mattie!”
“What? What’s wrong?” She bolts upright, staring at me with wide eyes. I wonder if she was dreaming of Sophie, lying motionless in a puddle of blood on her bed. Or Amber, sprawled on the football field with a hole in her head. Mattie’s had horrifying luck with best friends lately. I don’t blame her for being jumpy.
“Nothing, Mattie.” I tousle her hair. “Breakfast.”
Mattie is still shaking when we sit down at the table. My father has set out three placemats, three plates, three glasses. It’s been a long time since there were four of us. It hardly even hurts anymore to look at the chair by the window, the one where she used to sit.
Under the table, I pull a tattered picture out of my pocket. My mother is young in the picture, smiling broadly at the camera, under the shadow of a sombrero. She and my father were on their honeymoon in Mexico when the picture was taken.
With my blond hair and blue eyes, everyone who knew her says I’m the spitting image of my mother. I push the photograph back into my pocket. I know it’s dumb to carry it around, but ever since the horror of last fall, it makes me feel like she’s with me. A little.
“So what are you doing today, Dad?” Mattie asks, grabbing a piece of toast and smearing some butter on it. I spear a forkful of eggs and lift them to my mouth.
“It’s a case of polydactyly,” he says. At our blank expressions, he goes on to explain, “The girl was born with an extra digit on her right hand. Today I’m going to remove it.”
I put down my fork.
“I tried to explain to the parents that it would be best to wait until she’s a little older,” he says. “But they aren’t comfortable living with the deformity. I can’t say I blame them, exactly. People can be cruel. . . .”
“The parents are willing to risk surgery just to get rid of an extra finger?” Mattie asks, voicing my own question. It seems wrong to cut a baby just to make her fit into a mold that society is more comfortable with. They’re uneasy with her appearance, so they’ll make her fit in. I wonder what would have happened if I’d been diagnosed with my sliding condition in the womb. Would my parents have thought I was a freak? If there were an operation to make me normal, would they have requested it? I suspect my mom wouldn’t have because I think she was able to slide, too. She regularly suffered fainting spells. I bet, just like me, she found herself sucked into other people’s heads, other people’s lives. Too bad she died before I was ever able to ask her. Now I’ll never know. Whenever I try to broach the subject with my father, he starts talking about something else.
My father doesn’t believe that I can slide. I tried to tell him when it started happening, but he sent me to a shrink who said I was just trying to get attention after my mother died. I’ve tried hard to forgive him for that, for thinking I was lying, for pushing me away when I needed him the most. But sometimes the anger creeps up inside me and I just have to get away from him.
“The parents want to take care of the problem before she’s old enough to remember it,” my father explains.
“I’m
