Chapter 32 Mariella
I fall into a dreamless sleep, waking the next morning groggy with a heavy fog blanketing my brain.
I sit up and rub my aching neck, pausing to stare at my hand.
The familiar electrical tingling is absent, replaced with a systemic numbness.
I can’t smell the lingering smoke clinging to every surface of my house. I can’t smell anything.
I take two more pills, pull the moth-eaten blanket over my head, and shut my eyes.
I wake disoriented and starving. When did I last eat or take my meds?
I drag my feet into the bathroom and splash cold water on my face.
Catching my reflection in the bathroom mirror, I flinch.
A cool sweat breaks over my skin. I edge forward until my nose is an inch from the mirror.
Wet strands of brown hair cling to my pale face, a haunting emptiness whirling behind my mismatched eyes.
The spitting image of my mother in that hospital corridor. Alone and confused. Just like me.
I dry my face and make instant noodles on the stove, but they taste like bland cardboard. Get dressed. Go to class. You’re falling behind.
I lie back down on the sofa and close my eyes.
White light dances around me, easing as I step forward. Waves break on the shore, the scent of ocean and sunscreen filling my nostrils.
“Mari, come here,” my mother calls to my younger self through the waning light, unaware that the same girl will watch this memory far too many times to count, hanging off her every word with silent tears streaming down her cheeks.
The light continues to recede, but I draw it back toward me, ray by golden ray, until I’m submerged in blinding light, just as Parker told me I could.
I don’t want to spend every night haunted by my mother’s end.
By what I will one day become. I hold the barrier of shimmering light around me, like a memory-retardant blanket, and wait until I wake and can take my medication.
“Open the door,” a faraway voice calls.
“Go away,” I mumble.
I rouse to a heavy pounding on my front door, electricity surging through my body. Tears well in my eyes and I shake my hands, pushing the energy away.
“I’m not going away until you talk to me.” The voice is closer now. Clearer.
Anna’s voice registers, and my eyes snap open. Dragging my feet, I cross the living area and open the door. It’s odd, Anna standing on my dingy porch in her designer clothing and studded stilettos. I curl my hands inside the bottom of the same oversized top I’ve worn for the past three days.
Anna pushes her way inside, heels clicking on the scuffed floorboards. “I’ve been trying to—” Her mouth drops as she looks around my mother’s house and back at me. “Call you.”
“My phone died.”
She exhales and passes me a tote bag, the sequins on her dress swishing. “You left these at my place. You didn’t need to move out.”
I peer into the bag, filled with my mother’s journals. “Thanks,” I say, placing them on the dining table.
“I didn’t read them,” Anna says, pursing her dark red lips. “If you were wondering.”
I nod and, for the first time in our friendship, an awkward silence hangs in the air between us. I flick away the current jumping between my fingertips.
Anna takes a step toward me, rolling her shoulders like she’s preparing for battle. “Why did you lie to me?” she asks. “I thought we were friends.”
The waver of her voice hits me like a jab to the heart. I’ve hurt her, and after everything she’s done for me… She’s better off without me.
Anna’s wide, glassy eyes don’t stray from mine. “Did you not think you could trust me?”
The stabbing sensation worsens. “Of course I did,” I say.
“Well then why?” she cries, searching my face for answers I can’t give her. After a moment of silence, she turns toward the door.
“Wait,” I blurt. I need to give her something. So she knows this is all on me. That she’s been nothing but a wonderful friend who deserves better. “I lied because you were the first friend I’d ever had, and I wanted you to think I was normal.”
She tilts her head, her nose scrunching. “You are normal.”
“But I’m not. I haven’t been my whole life.
At school, I never fit in. Then my mother got sick, and it became so much worse…
I was the girl whose mother ‘went crazy and killed herself’.
Every single day was hell, and when I started college, I made a decision to do everything I could to blend in.
Build a normal life. I changed the way I dressed, and I never drew attention to myself in class.
I didn’t even plan on making any friends, but then you sat next to me, and you kept sitting with me… and we became close.”
“So why didn’t you tell me then?”
Tears pool in my eyes. “Because I was afraid you’d push me away, like Silas. I opened up to him about my life and my past, and he—I couldn’t risk losing you too.”
“You should’ve trusted me,” she says, smearing black tears across her cheeks and storming to the door.
She grasps the handle, her manicured fingers white.
Her shoulders creep up, then she drops her hand and her face whips to me.
“You know, Ella, when we met, you were awkward and quiet, sure, but what I liked most was that you didn’t judge me.
My whole family—and many of my friends—think I’m a joke, but everything they teased me about, who I am and the way I live my life, you looked up to me for. ”
She takes a deep breath and shakes her head.
“I liked you from the start because I thought you weren’t like all the other fake bitches I knew.
You never judged me. Even after I sat next to you for an entire lecture calling you the wrong name.
” Her bitter laugh is like a stab to my gut.
“I guess the joke’s on me. I was dumb enough to fall for your act.
” She eyes me up and down, mouth twisted like she’s ingested something stale.
“You wanted to fit in and be like everyone else? I think you’ll be fine.
” With one last resigned glance, she steps onto my porch and shuts my front door.
Tears rolling down my cheeks, I stand by the door on numb legs.
I’d always wondered why Anna kept me as a friend.
It wasn’t because I was trying to be something I wasn’t—it was because I gave her the freedom to be herself.
But now she’s hurting, because of me. Because I didn’t reciprocate her trust.
I’m reminded of the many occasions Anna invited me to go to her family dinners and hang out with her friends.
“I’d love someone to take the attention off me.”
All this time, I thought she was just being nice. But she wanted backup. And I let her down.
I yank open the front door, current buzzing down my legs, and storm across the front lawn toward Anna’s Jeep.
I don’t care if she thinks I’m crazy, or different.
As long as she doesn’t believe I share similarities with the people in her life who’ve hurt her.
All that matters is proving I was worthy of her friendship.
“Anna, wait,” I call.
Tears spilling onto her cheeks, she gets into her car and slams the door with such force, the faux lipstick hanging from her mirror swings. I open the passenger door and jump in. “I don’t think you’re a joke.”
She turns to me, hands clutching the steering wheel. “Is that why you created a fake friend, so you had an excuse not to spend time with me?”
“Of course not.” How can I prove to her it’s the opposite?
That I’ve always looked up to her, with her bold opinions and the way she’s uniquely herself.
That deep down, a part of me has always wished to have one ounce of her confidence.
“At first, when I said I was with Sarah, I was here, alone. It wasn’t you I didn’t want to be around, it was—all the other people.
Groups scare me, okay? And the thought of hanging out with you and more than one other friend was overwhelming. ”
“And after you moved into my place?”
I promised Parker and Rose I wouldn’t tell anyone about the time we spent together. So how do I tell Anna I was with a man from my future? That I’m a time traveler?
“Get out of my car,” Anna demands.
“Wait!” I grab her hands. Even if I tell her, she won’t believe me.
But maybe I can show her. “I don’t know if this will work but just—wait.
” I close my eyes and draw in a slow breath, focusing on the current jumping between my fingertips.
And for the first time in my life, I don’t immediately push it away.
I call to it. It flurries in response, as if it’s waiting for me, simmering beneath the surface.
The energy concentrates in my hands, heat warming my palms from the inside out. I pull my second memory of Anna.
She’d come to class, just as she had the week before, and plopped down next to me, a whirlwind of accessories and color.
A spike of adrenaline rushed through my veins.
Had she made a mistake for a second week?
Heart thrumming, I spent minutes mustering the confidence to tell her I loved her earrings.
She launched into conversation, information spilling from her like an overflowing fountain.
After class, she clutched my hands and told me she’d known we were destined to be friends.
My reply lodged in my throat; why would this flamboyant, courageous person want to be my friend?
The sentiment fresh in my mind, I force the warm current pooling within my palms toward Anna, just like when I anchored Rose.
Volatile energy ignites within my chest and tears down my limbs.
Euphoria floods my body, but it’s fleeting, pouring out of me, yanking the buzzing current with it.
Photons of bright white fly toward us, like thousands of shooting stars engulfing us in light.
Anna’s hands stiffen in mine, her acrylic nails digging into my skin when the tunnel of white expands.