“Marlena . . .”
I pull the sundress over my head and slide it down my body. Everything I’ve been wondering comes pouring out. “What’s it like to kiss someone? I mean, how do you even do it? How does it work? Like, is there a magic formula or something?” I wait for Helen’s laughter, for her to mock me.
But she doesn’t. “Such excellent questions. So you want to kiss Finn.”
My cheeks grow hot. I yank the hem of the sundress as far as it will go over my thighs. “He doesn’t think of me that way. But I wish I could kiss him. I’ve thought about it. Or tried to think about it. I don’t really have much experience to draw on. Or any,” I add, my eyes on my bare, knobby knees.
“If you really like him, and he likes you back, experience won’t matter,” Helen says. “You’ll find your way.”
The sound of the waves crashing comes through the windows and fills the silence. “I want him to like me so badly.”
Helen sighs. “I want him to like you, too.”
I shake my head slightly. “Why would he? I’m such a freak.”
“You are not. Don’t try and convince yourself of things that aren’t true.”
Helen sounds so sure of this, and I want to believe her. “The whole town thinks I’m a freak. The other kids my age talk about me like I am one. I hear Fatima and José discussing the gossip about me that goes around town.”
“They’re just jealous of what you can do,” Helen says.
“Right. Everyone must wish to live in total isolation, then draw crowds hoping for photos and begging for help on the weekends. It’s such a blast. Way better than going to homecoming and prom.”
Helen turns the key in the ignition and the car rumbles back to life. “Marlena, you perform miracles.” She glances in the side mirror and pulls onto the road. “You may not believe that people could be jealous. But trust me, to have the ability to change someone’s life, as you do over and over, is amazing. Something you can’t dismiss without at least a little admiration.”
I try and take in what Helen said. “You really believe in me.”
“Of course I do,” she responds, with the same confidence as earlier. “Don’t you?” she asks. It sounds almost like an afterthought, a question she doesn’t expect me to answer because the truth, at least to her, is so obvious.
So I let the question hang there, suspended on the sounds of the ocean as it rises and falls around us, beautiful and loud and unpredictable.
We get out of the car. Goose bumps rise along my arms and legs even though it’s hot outside. It seems like this heat isn’t ever going away. “This dress is so short.”
Helen appraises me. “Calm down. That dress is perfect for you.”
I try to ignore the strange feeling of air along the skin of my shins, my knees, my thighs. “If you say so.”
Helen heads to the door of the center. “Are you coming or what?”
“I’m right behind you.”
We head inside, Helen first, all confidence, like she’s been here before and knows exactly what she’s doing, where to go. She marches right up to Lexi, who I now know is studying neuroscience, like Finn, and who told me once while I was waiting for Angie that Angie has dozens of students competing for the chance to answer phones at the center. Just to be in Angie’s vicinity.
Helen explains to Lexi why she’s here and I wander down the hall, skin prickling with static, curious if Finn is around somewhere, if he might be sitting on the floor of Angie’s office sorting papers, like he often is. I enter the lab with the machines, the blinding sunlight pouring through the windows and giving everything an otherworldly glow. There’s something about the MRI machine that both calls and repels me. Today I am drawn to that big white tunnel. It looks like something you would see on a spaceship.
I put my hand out, nearly touching it, but not quite.
I wonder what it would be like to be inside it.
What would it discover about my brain? Anything useful? Would it show that my brain is as normal as the next person’s? Maybe I should just let Angie test me and be done with it. Maybe I would learn something important.
I lean closer, pressing my palm against the cold metal. A blinding shock goes through me and I retract my hand. The skin is an angry red, like I’ve just laid it against a hot iron skillet. I flex my fingers, then rub them, trying to soothe the burning.
Did I touch something I shouldn’t have?
Maybe I’m stupid, but I reach out and press my hand against the metal again. I want to know if the burning was real or my imagination playing tricks. At first, there is nothing more than the feeling of cold contact between me and the machine. One minute passes, then two, and the sunlight shifts, just enough so that it beams directly at me through the windows, thick rays of it, hot and blinding. I turn my face toward it and close my eyes, absorbing the warmth on my skin.
Images dance across the back of my eyelids. Glowing shapes, figures and objects surrounded by halos of light. There isn’t one color that dominates, but many. Pinks and pale blues and yellows, greens and a deep magenta; some hues are shades of gray and a black that nearly swallows the light and all other color. At first, I can’t tell what the figures are. Then, slowly, they become clear.
Minds. Brains.
I’m seeing into the brains of the people who’ve been inside this machine. The ways that certain pathways pulse with light and others are dark as night, as though they’ve died. I see growths with sinister tentacles reaching through every part of the mind, and tiny tumors, contained and compact. They flash faster, one after the other, bright and dizzying. I can’t pull myself away. It’s like the machine is playing a movie it produced only for me.
A loud rushing fills my ears and my entire body starts to tingle.
“Oh no,” I hear myself say.
Then everything, the noise, the flashes, goes blank.
“Marlena?”
It’s Helen’s voice, but it sounds far away.
“Are you okay?”
“Marlena.” This time, I recognize Angie.
I open my eyes. The two of them are peering down at me, worried looks on their faces. I am lying on the couch in Angie’s office, a blanket thrown over my body. Cool air is pouring into the room from the vent, despite Angie’s prohibition on air conditioning. My head is pounding. Spots shine across my eyes. “Hi,” I manage, but it comes out hoarse. I try and use my hands to stabilize myself so I can sit up.
“Don’t,” Angie says. “You should stay lying down.”
Helen shoves a bag of pretzels at me. “Eat these.”
I shake my head. “I’m fine.” I tug the blanket around my legs, though not because I am cold. My legs feel bare in this dress. Angie and Helen are skeptical. “Really,” I add. Then I gesture between the two women. “Angie, this is Helen, by the way.”
Helen crosses her arms. “This isn’t a joke. You passed out. You’re not fine.”
I look at Angie and try for a laugh. “Wow, I must have really scared you for you to put on the air conditioning.” No one else is smiling. I proceed to shed the blanket so I can stand up. I want to reassure everyone. At first I’m unsteady, but then the dizziness subsides. With my bare feet planted on the soft rug, I am feeling stronger. “Really. It’s no big deal. That happens sometimes.”
“What happens?” Angie asks.
“I faint. You know.” But the two of them don’t seem to get it. “After I have visions? It started a year or two ago.”
“Is this part of what you meant when you said your gift might be changing?” Helen asks.