The sun pours into the room, making everything sharper, more detailed, like it’s been through some kind of high-definition film process. Sitting up in bed, I breathe deeply. Is oxygen being pumped into the room? It must be because each inhalation makes me more energized.
To be honest—I feel absolutely great.
I don’t know why they’re keeping me. They’ve been telling me I’m here for observation, and my mom won’t do anything when I complain to her. “Listen to the doctors, honey, they know what they’re doing, and we all want what’s best for you.”
But after a day I wonder what’s stopping me from leaving. My bag and clothing are in the closet. My artificial limbs sit nearby.
I can take the train from here. It’s only a few miles to the train station, not a bad walk. What’s to stop me? I’m sick of being caged in this room.
In a few minutes I’m down the fire stairs and out the door, texting Mom. I’ll be home in a while. No worries.
The guys from Electric Storm are blown away when I walk into their rehearsal. “I’m ba-ack,” I say jokingly.
“Mira!” Niles says. “I saw your mom. She told me you were in the hospital.”
“I was—and now I’m out.”
“She said you fainted again,” he says.
“They fixed me, so I’m better than ever.” I smile at them all. “Still need a singer?”
They look to one another, probably recalling the mess I made of “Urban Creep” the last time I tried.
“I was still recovering last time,” I say. “I’m in way better shape now. I wouldn’t force myself back into the band if it turns out I’m still terrible.”
“Are you sure?” Matt asks.
“Go ahead,” Niles says. (Still with the cane. What is going on with him?) His eyes shine reassuringly.
I don’t need encouragement, though. I can do this.
They start playing and I step to the microphone. “Urban cree-e-e-p,” I croon. I’m stunned. This isn’t even my voice. “From down deep, I see you even in my slee-e-e-p …”
My throat reverberates, vocal chords twanging like guitar strings. The notes surge from my diaphragm, bursting into air. “Dreams of you on the street, running steps, the night’s own beat!”
I’m killing! I don’t need to see their faces to know it’s amazing.
The song ends and no one says a thing for a long moment. Finally, Tom breaks the silence. “Mira, what happened?” he asks. “Did you swallow an amplifier?”
“Have you been taking voice lessons?” Matt inquires more seriously.
“They implanted me with a new, more powerful chip,” I tell them.
“When?” Niles asks.
“Yesterday.”
“Yesterday?! Mira! You had brain surgery a day ago and you’re here today?” Niles cries. When he puts it like that it does sound nuts.
I shrug. “I feel good.” The guitar he holds gives me a new idea. An image, a memory of him playing it comes to me. “Can I use your guitar a minute, Niles?”
Niles looks puzzled, but he hands it to me.
“Mind if I play it?” I ask.
“Can you?” he asks, nodding toward my bionic arm.
I’m not sure. Up to now I’ve just been playing rhythm on my own acoustic-electric guitar. But I have a sharp image of watching him. My prosthetic fingers buzz electrically, my excitement zapping signals to them. I recall not only Niles but every video I’ve ever seen of a lead guitarist.
With my right hand on the frets, I run my bionic fingers up and down the neck of the guitar like lightning.
When I’m done, the guys are wide-eyed.
“Sings like Adele and plays like Slash,” Tom says quietly.
“Better than Slash,” Matt murmurs.
“All through the miracles of science,” Tom adds.
I grin, so pleased with myself.
Niles says nothing, though. He sits off to the side, pale and a little blank. “Are you okay, Niles?” I ask.
He startles as though I’ve called him back from some distant place in his head. “Yeah, yeah … no … I’m fine. That was awesome, Mira. Amazing!”
“I was remembering the way you play,” I tell him.
He grins. “I wish I was ever that good.”
My phone rings in my front pocket. I know from the ringtone it’s Mom. It’s my imagination, but somehow the ring sounds angry.
“Are you going to pick up?” Niles asks.
I cringe. “She’s going to be mad at me.”
“Yeah, well …” Niles gives me a face that says, No kidding. The phone is quiet for a moment and then starts again. “She’s got to be super worried,” he adds.
“I left her a message,” I say.
“Come on, Mira.” He’s right. Digging the phone from my pocket, I answer. Mad is putting it mildly. She’s so upset that I can’t get a word in. She’s coming right over! Mom gets off the call without even saying good-bye.
The guys stare at me and I stare back, not knowing what to say. I begin gathering my things and stuffing them into my backpack. “It was a bold move,” Matt says.
His attempt to be supportive makes me smile. “Thanks, but it probably wasn’t the brightest idea I ever had.”
“No, I guess not,” Matt agrees. “Still, it was gutsy. It goes with your whole Supergirl thing.”
“You’re feeling good, right?” Niles asks.
“Yeah,” I reply truthfully, “more than good … I feel better than I have in my whole life.”
“Really?” he questions, looking doubtful.
I nod. Then a squeal of brakes sounds from the driveway and my heart races. I can’t believe how quickly Mom got here.
“Bye, guys,” I say.
“You sounded awesome,” Tom says with a weak wave.
Niles throws me a smile. It makes me feel that whatever happens next won’t be so bad.
When I get into the car Mom’s jaw is clenched and she doesn’t even look at me. “Mom, I just couldn’t stand it there any—”
“Don’t speak,” she commands stiffly. “There’s no excuse you can possibly have.” She reverses out of the driveway, and from her direction I know where we’re headed—back to the hospital.
More boring days of rest and physical therapy. Brain scans, blood tests, so many electrodes on and off. I hear the monitors constantly beeping even in my sleep.
Here’s the thing, though: I’m getting stronger—a lot stronger. I imagine a current of white light streaming from the copper chip in my brain, spreading into the tips of my fingers and toes. This light is a rod of energy that’s so powerful it can’t be broken, not even bent. It’s just a feeling, but it never leaves me and every day it’s more intense.
Then after about a week, I hear from a nurse that I’m to be released. Dr. Hector comes into my room but he’s not smiling. “How are you feeling, kiddo?”
“Great!”
He scowls though I expected him to smile. “On a scale of one to ten?”
“Ten! Eleven!”
“Dreaming?”
“Every night.”
“Nightmares?”
“The opposite,” I tell him. “Last night I dreamt I was flying.”
“Ever dreamt that before?”
“Sometimes, but this dream was different. I was in outer space. I circled the space station.”
“Okay,” he says. “Listen, we’re sending you home today. All your tests show that you’re in great shape. Amazing shape. But you have to promise to stay in touch. If anything out of the ordinary happens, let me know right away. We’re sending you an online check-in app. I want you to fill it in every week and send it to me. Can you do that?”
“No problem.”
“Excellent. Don’t forget.” He extends his hand and we shake. “Pack up. When you’re mom gets here you’re a free young woman.”
I’m only home an hour when the doorbell rings. I know it’s Emma, since she’d texted to say she’s coming. “Look at you!” she cries, coming
into the kitchen where I stand at the stove making my usual can of tomato soup. “You’re like a supermodel! What happened?”
“I’m super bionic girl,” I joke with a laugh.
She slides into a kitchen chair. “This is seriously weird,” she says. “Though I like the partially shaven head look. It’s very rock star.”
I tell her how I fainted and Dr. Hector did the chip upgrade, careful to skip over leaving the hospital early. Given how much trouble I got into with my mom, I don’t want Emma freaking out on me, too.
“I want a chip,” she says. “And I’m only half kidding.”
My phone buzzes with a call from Niles. “Can you go with us to Poughkeepsie this Thursday?”
“Sure,” I say. “I’m not working this Thursday. What’s in Poughkeepsie?”
“That club, The Second Chance. Matt persuaded the guy there to audition us. This could be huge for us, create a real following.”
He tells me we’re going to rehearse for the next two days. I’m excited, but then I think of something and my whole body tenses up. “Who’s driving?” Once more, the awful memory begins to rise—the crashing, the screaming, the mind-bending pain.
“Mira?” Niles sounds so far away.
“Mira,” Emma says right in my ear, her hand on my good shoulder anchoring me back down to Earth.
I’m stronger today than I was in the diner. I can push the memory back down. “It’s okay,” I tell Emma and Niles. “I’m okay. I’m over it.”
There’s silence on the other end. “Niles?”
“Maybe it’s too soon for you to get into the van again. How about Matt drives the guys and I’ll pick you up in my car?”
That sounds nicer, so I agree. I hang up just as the soup bubbles, and Emma reaches around me to turn the burner off.
“What’s going on?” she prompts me eagerly. “What about Poughkeepsie?”
“The band has an audition for a club there—the first the guys will have played in months,” I say. “I’m sorry I freaked out—it was the prospect of getting in the van after … well, so Niles and I are going to drive together instead and meet up there.”
“You have a date with Niles!” Emma says.
“It’s an audition, crazy,” I correct her.
“I think you like Niles, though. Don’t deny it.”
“I might be taller than he is, now that I’ve grown.”
“Who cares?!” Emma cries.
“You don’t think we’d look silly?”
“No! He’s adorable. He likes you, too.”
I know he does. But how do I feel about him? Do I want to be more than friends?
“It went great, didn’t it?” I say to Niles as I climb back into his old Civic after our audition. The manager of the place hardly believed what he was hearing. It was written all over his face. When he said he wasn’t certain, that he had to think about it, I knew he just wanted to get our price down.
“The guy was blown away,” Niles agrees. “I’m sure we got the gig.”
I am, too.
Niles hasn’t even started the car yet when Matt texts to say we’re on for the following Friday. We jump into each other’s arms—but then pull away awkwardly.
Not that far, though. Our eyes meet. There’s an electric charge running between us that I’ve never experienced before. Not with Jason. Not with anyone.
Suddenly we’re kissing. I don’t know how it starts. We lean over the steering console, pressing our lips together.
We stop to gaze at each other, checking that we’re both okay with this.
We’re more than all right. I’ve never felt so all right in my life. “Is this real?” I ask. It feels real to me. It feels like the start of something completely new, and completely comforting and familiar, both at the same time.
“It’s real,” Niles replies. “It’s real for me.”
“Me, too,” I say and somehow I know it’s true.
I can’t stop thinking about Niles, even if I want to. He plays on an endless loop in my head. The way he smelled of almond soap. The feel of his lips against mine. The sound of his voice. It’s real for me.
With Jason, I never obsessed. Jason was there. It was nice to have someone special. We got along most of the time.
Niles has been there all along also. Until recently I never thought a lot about him. Then, suddenly, he’s taking up all the room in my mind.
Is he thinking about me in the same way? He must be, because he texts a lot, more than he ever used to.
To take my mind off Niles so I can concentrate on playing, I get out my guitar. I’m curious to see if I can reproduce the sound I got the other day. Finding some YouTube videos on my phone, I study different guitarists closely, willing myself to memorize every move they make. I’m astounded at how easily I can visualize what these guitarists are doing with their hands.
Can I reproduce it on my own guitar? Not exactly. Plus, it’s a mishmash of styles. But I like the way it sounds. It’s my own and I’m happy with it.
I don’t think of Niles while I’m involved with the guitar. I’m so engrossed that I barely make it to my shift at the diner on time. But once I have work to focus on—the orders to put in and coffees to fill and checks to tally up—my brain doesn’t wander to music or Niles even once, and it’s almost a struggle to pull my mind away as I walk to Matt’s house for rehearsal. I wonder if the new chip can do this, give me powers of concentration and intense focus that I’ve never had before.
Matt’s written a new song he wants us to try. The lyrics are about love, but I notice there’s a lot of colliding, crashing, and smashing imagery. It reminds me I wasn’t the only one in the van that day. The title is “Love Meltdown.” It’s not a bad song.
The arrangement calls for Niles and I to share a microphone and harmonize. We sound great together even though I have to be careful not to drown him out with my newly powerful voice. When our faces are close, he smiles at me with his eyes. I love that there’s a secret between us!
Matt’s written in a drum solo for himself. It gives Niles and me a chance to dance together. It’s not the same as before. The cane slows Niles down. He shuffles and sways.
Matt stops playing when his solo is done and calls for a break. “Niles, maybe you should let Mira dance alone,” he suggests as we all move into his kitchen. “That cane is messing you up.”
Niles turns to me. “Sorry,” he says.
“I didn’t notice anything wrong.” A white lie.
“Mira, do you think you could play like you did the other day?” Matt asks, twisting open a bottle of water. “Could you do it again?”
This time I’ve brought my guitar. “I’ve been practicing,” I tell them. “I’m pretty sure I could do it again.”
Matt and Tom move off into the den beside the kitchen, leaving Niles and me in the kitchen. Do the guys know something’s going on between us? “Did you tell the others about what … happened the other day?” I ask.
“What happened?” he asks, his face a blank. Can he be for real? Is he teasing?
I must look completely disappointed that he doesn’t think our kissing was the major event that I think it is. Then my face clouds over defensively. “I mean, it’s not like it was a big deal if you don’t want it to—”
Niles takes my wrist and draws me closer. “Kidding! Sorry! I was just kidding. Of course it’s a big deal. It’s a huge deal. It was a stupid thing to joke about. Sorry.” He scowls. “Wait. You don’t think it’s a big deal?”
“I just said that because I …” What an idiot I am!
“Because why?” he prompts gently.
To hide my embarrassment, I let my forehead drop to his shoulder. “I just meant that if you’re not that into it, it’s okay.”
“I’m into it, into you,” he says and then laughs lightly. “SO into you.”
The signal my bionic limbs receive from my brain is ecstatic. I’m thankful my leg isn’t carrying me off in a happy dance all over the kitchen.
Then a less joyful thought slows down my exuberance. “Does it bother you that I’m …”
“What … beautiful, talented, fun to be with?” He holds me close with his hand on the small of my back.
I raise my bionic hand, nodding toward it. “No. This.”
“No, it doesn’t bother me that you’ve been through a major accident and have managed to survive it. I like that you’re brave. And strong.”
“Really strong,” I say with a small laugh. “Like … robot strong. You’d better never make me mad.” I curl my robotic fingers into a fist but I’m smiling.
Niles turns his head close to me. “I never want to make you mad at me,” he says as he leans in, kissing me softly on the mouth. “Never.” Kiss. “Ever.”
On the big night that we play at The Second Chance, we open for another group that has a regional following: Zombie Rant. The local radio station plays some of their songs occasionally. We walk onstage to the sound of groans from the audience. A guy shouts, “We came for Zombie Rant!”
I tie my hair to one side with a leather cord so that the shaved part of my head will be obvious. Edgy, as Dr. Hector says. In my dark skinny jeans and bleach-splotched T-shirt I feel good. My boots are beat up from years of wear and nobody can tell I’m balancing on half an artificial leg and foot. I make no attempt to conceal my prosthetic arm as I grip my guitar.
Emma and a friend of hers named Toni are in the audience. I peer out over the crowd, searching for her. She’s in the front mezzanine and waves. Raising my bionic arm, I wave back.
The club darkens as the stage lights shine on us. We begin “Urban Creep” while the audience continues its restless chatter. We play, exchanging worried glances. We have to find a way to turn this around—but how?
“Next we’ll do ‘Love Meltdown,’ okay?” Matt suggests.
We launch into it. Matt nails the drum solo, but when his drumming stops, the audience barely notices. I give my guitar work all I’ve got, shutting my eyes and sending nerve signals directly to my fingers. They fly! This has got to grab their attention.
It doesn’t.
“Zombie Rant!” someone shouts.
We carry on to the end of our dismal set, trying our best not to give it up and walk off. I was so excited about my new abilities—my new voice, my guitar skills, the band’s whole new sound and new songs. I never expected this.