He greeted Nicole, but caught himself peering past her at the vending machines, thinking of Emily’s words about watching the popular kids talk and wishing she were part of their group and never quite finding the right way to fit in.
The words must have been lodged in his mind, in that cryptic corner that didn’t let anything slip by, the one that seemed to be opening up lately more and more—maybe too much. He heard the words about her yearning to belong as clearly as if she were reading them herself, “I watch them and I despise them and I envy them and I hate myself for wanting to be like them.”
“Daniel?” Nicole was waving her hand in front of his face.
“Huh?” It took him a moment to collect himself. “Yeah?”
“Are you okay? You just zoned out on me.”
“Sorry, I was just remembering . . . .”
“Remembering what?”
“Something I read that Emily wrote.”
“What’s that?”
“About how much she wanted to belong.”
Nicole processed that. “We all do, I guess.”
No one should slip through the cracks.
It’s so easy to close up circles so kids like Emily can’t come in. It’s a lot harder to open them up.
But it was worth it to at least try. It was one thing he could do, one thing he decided he was going to do.
He asked Nicole, “What were you saying when I blanked out?”
“There’s still one thing I don’t understand.”
“What’s that?”
“The marks on your arm. They formed just because of your thoughts? Because you were convinced Emily had touched you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we’ll figure that out next week. I have an appointment with a shrink on Wednesday. I hope he’ll finally be able to tell what’s wrong with me.”
“Or what’s right.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you’ve got this . . . I don’t know, ability, gift—even though it doesn’t seem like a gift—whatever it is, it helped you solve all this. Maybe it’s not something you need diagnosed and treated, but something you need to figure out a way to use again.”
“Yeah, I’m not so sure about that. I think I’m done seeing blurs—at least, I hope I am.”
He didn’t think that bringing up what he’d told Stacy that night in his room—that the barrier between reality and fantasy was gone for him—would reassure Nicole too much, so he kept that to himself.
The tardy bell rang.
“This’ll be my first tardy slip this year.” Nicole sighed.
“I’m a bad influence on you.”
“I think I can live with that.”
He thought about everything that’d happened over the past two weeks. In a way it reminded him of the themes of the stories and poems Miss Flynn preferred, the ones that were about death—or about life, depending on how you looked at the endings.
Soon, as measured by stardust and time. Soon as measured by comets and dreams.
Soon. Soon.
Soon, I will be dead.
And here is the question that determines everything—what will I do until then?
Yeah, that was the key. To realize it’s not about dreams and death at all.
It’s about dreams.
And life.
He took Nicole’s hand and as they headed to class, he started to calculate how many minutes he’d been alive, but stopped himself, and simply embraced the one he had instead.
TO BE CONTINUED IN
FURY
SPRING 2015
Special thanks to Eden, Pam, Trinity, J.P., Randy, Liesl, Todd, Tiffany, Amy and Larry.
Photo © 2014 Emily Hand
STEVEN JAMES is the bestselling, award-winning author of nine thrillers. This is his first suspense novel for teens. When he’s not writing or traveling, you’ll find him trail running, playing disc golf, or drinking really strong java at a coffee shop near his home at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains in eastern Tennessee.
Steven James, Blur (Blur Trilogy)
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