Migration can be extremely dangerous for birds, and many don’t make it back to their starting point.
—Audubon magazine, 2012
I WRITE MYSELF AN imaginary doctor’s note for my afternoon French and history classes. Mallory Sullivan is under debilitating stress due to all the total jerks she goes to school with. Also, she still hasn’t figured out a way to raise five hundred dollars. Please excuse her from all classes.
I shove my phone under my mountain of pillows, trying to forget about the laughter in the cafeteria. I try to distract myself as I scroll through a We Are Not Alone thread about one woman’s passionate affair with a Martian. But even 50 Shades of Extraterrestrial can’t take my mind off what happened, and I have the masochistic desire to know what people are saying about me.
I bounce around online but don’t find much. Someone shared a photo of Caroline and Pia making ridiculous kissy faces with the caption, “CONGRATS, BITCHES!” Other than a few generic “Can’t wait till September 26!” statuses, there’s nothing of interest. For a few minutes, I think people have just totally forgotten me.
Then I see the post that makes my heart stop. I always thought people were exaggerating when they said that—obviously your heart didn’t really stop or you’d be dead, dummy. But I actually put my hand on my chest to make sure my heart is still beating.
It’s a tweet from Marco Beveridge, a douche bag whose claim to fame last year was showing everyone the X-rated photos he had of Emma Finnerman on his phone.
Nominations today were totally epic! Can’t wait to see if the freak shows up at the dance! #stayathomecoming
My breath gets shorter and shorter. I clutch the edge of my desk with both hands until my knuckles are white. This is Marco, I remind myself. He’s known for a sexting scandal, not for his incisive commentary. Probably no one’s even noticed this.
I should just shut my laptop. I should go eat lunch and forget all about this. But the part of me that’s full of sick curiosity searches Twitter for #stayathomecoming.
“Oh my God,” I wail as I scroll through all forty-seven results.
Can’t believe what happened at lunch! #stayathomecoming
This is definitely the most interesting court we’ve ever had haha #stayathomecoming
Whose idea of a joke was that? LOL #stayathomecoming
Blinking tears out of my eyes, I close my laptop before flopping onto my bed. The silly glow-in-the-dark stars that have been up on my ceiling since I was seven stare back at me, creating a fake sky for me now that I almost never leave the house to see the real one.
How did this happen?
I always sort of assumed I was just a Reardon nobody, not a freak or a loser to them. Someone they barely even thought about except to theorize why I wasn’t there anymore.
Clearly, that isn’t the case.
I’m the butt of the whole school’s joke. I was an idiot to think that my classmates would accept that I was home for “personal reasons.”
My dad’s gone, I’m broke, and someone conspired to make me a school-wide circus act. I don’t want to think about any of this right now, so I pull my laptop into bed and try to numb my thoughts with my favorite X-Files episode, “Monday.” It’s about a girl who’s stuck living the same day over and over. I want to do this—live a day over and over again, changing my decisions until I get it all right with just one small action.
I wonder, as I watch the main character walk into that bank for the millionth time, what could have stopped Dad from leaving. A cup of coffee from Mom? Tripping over the rug? One less sarcastic remark from me?
If I could live it over again, could I fix it and avoid all this?
I wish I could be like Lincoln—his reaction was the exact opposite of mine. While I shrunk further into myself, Lincoln seemed to grow two inches overnight. He got more extroverted, he smiled more, he laughed all the time. It’s almost like he was relieved. He just says I need to move on, like Dad has.
But how am I supposed to move on without an answer? Isn’t it normal to be concerned when one of your parents disappears without a trace?
I’m not the weird one here, am I?
My phone buzzes from inside its pillow prison. “Crap,” I say when I realize that it’s time for my weekly appointment with Dr. Dinah. The last thing I want to do, besides explain hashtags to my therapist, is relive anything that happened today. But last time I didn’t answer her call, my mom threatened to take away all my Internet time.
“Hello, Mallory!” she chirps, and I wonder again how her voice can simultaneously communicate warmth and the ability to cut me if I cross her. “What’s going on with you?” she asks.
“Well…” I’m still not leaving my house, I spend about 95 percent of my time wondering where the hell my dad went, I need five hundred dollars to register for a top secret bird-watching trip … oh yeah … and I just got nominated to homecoming court as a joke. Things are swell.
“Same old, same old,” I say.
Dr. Dinah doesn’t miss a beat. “Let’s get into more detail. What’s your progress like on the action item we discussed last session?”
“Expanding your comfort zone and meeting new people?” I do have something to tell Dr. Dinah. “BeamMeUp!” I say.
After a long pause, Dr. Dinah says, “I’m sorry?”
“No, I mean … that wasn’t a command. That’s who I’ve been talking to—er, engaging with—on We Are Not Alone.”
Dr. Dinah is already well versed in the intricacies of We Are Not Alone. I spent an entire session assuring her that WANA’s moderators check that all users have a verified high school or college e-mail address—those who don’t or “age out” move up to WANA’s sister site, GalaxyFest. Since I don’t like to talk about my dad or not leaving the house, there’s not much else I can share with her. Five minutes later and I’m still just getting into my Air America argument and why it was so ridiculous for BeamMeUp to even attempt to argue with me when she cuts me off.
“Mallory, this is all great to hear. I’m glad you care about something so much—enthusiasm is important. But I have to ask … We Are Not Alone doesn’t require you to leave the house, does it?”
Technically, We Are Not Alone doesn’t even require me to leave my bed. “Well…”
That’s when Dr. Dinah puts on her “business voice,” the one that I know means she’s going to make me do something I don’t want to do.
“If you remember, our ‘action item,’” she says, even her voice implying air quotes, “was to literally expand your comfort zone by taking at least one trip outside.”
Biting my lip, I realize I have a death grip on my X-Files box set. The phone is hot against my cheek.
“There are no literal locks and chains keeping you inside,” she continues. “The only locks and chains are in your mind.”
Dr. Dinah must have a PhD in awkward silences, because she waits a solid thirty seconds before continuing.
“So what I’m going to need you to do is to try your best to open those locks and break those chains. I know you can’t do it all in one day. Maybe you’ll just jiggle the metaphorical doorknob. I want you to step outside—”
“Step outside of the prison of my metaphorical heart?” I say, clearly without thinking.
“No, Mal.” Her voice goes stern. She’s definitely a mom, or the owner of a very well-behaved dog. “You need to literally step outside today.”
“But the thing is, it’s sort of hot today, and I—I don’t want to risk heatstroke…,” I stammer.
“For five minutes. You don’t even have to leave your porch if you don’t want to, okay? And I’ll wait right here on the line for you to come back.”
I swallow hard. “I’m just not really feeling outside today, you know?”
“Tomorrow is always one day away, Mallory. Today, you’re going outside.”
Damn, Dr. Dinah. The woman is tough. But the thing that really sucks is that she’s right—how will I ever go on this birding trip if I can’t even go in the backyard? Leaving the house today is the first step toward getting things back to normal.
“Fine,” I say, standing up. “Are you sure you—”
“Just put the phone down and go outside.”
“Can I take you with me?” My voice is small, and I know her answer before she says it.
“What do we say, Mal?”
I swallow. “I am safe, I am secure, I am capable.”
“I couldn’t quite hear that,” Dr. Dinah says, and I curse her sick sense of humor. She is always trying to get me to say—believe—this dumb mantra, and nothing could make me feel more like a self-help book reader than actually saying it out loud.
“I am safe. I am secure. I am capable.” I over-enunciate each word for her benefit.
“The more you say it, the truer it gets,” Dr. Dinah reassures me. “Now, go on.”
“Okay, okay. I’m going.” Maybe getting a break from the aphorisms will be worth the pinpricks of hot and cold that will shoot through my body when I step onto the porch. Taking the stairs lightly, my breathing gets heavier. “I’m just putting the phone on the stand in our entryway, okay? But I’m going to be right back. So…”
“Mallory. It’s okay.”
I set the phone down next to a bowl of keys and walk toward the front door.
Then I take a deep breath and open it.
My heart starts beating so hard that I’m a little concerned it might pop out of my chest altogether. My palms prickle as I curl my fingers around the door frame. Slowly, I move one foot out like I’m trying to test the water temperature in a pool before stepping onto the coral tile with both bare feet. I have to really think about breathing; it’s like I forget how to do it in real time.
I try to focus on how pretty it is out here. My mom spent a lot of time on our porch and the plants in our front yard. The outcroppings of cacti stand out against outdoor furniture spray-painted bright teal and yellow and, of course, multiple birdhouses hang from the trees. She’s great at making things look good from the outside.
I take another deep breath. All I have to do is focus on one thing; I choose the tree house my dad built. The sound of my feet on the porch as I walk across to the railing smacks in my ears. Narrowing my focus makes it a tiny bit easier to forget that I’m outside.
My gaze fixed on the tree house, I close my eyes and try to imagine what’s inside as my heart slows down from “jackhammer speed” to “frantic hammering speed.” Another one of Dr. Dinah’s tricks. I inhale slowly as I think about the faded and creaky wood, the old toys we never bothered to clean out, the crayon-drawing “art” Lincoln and I tacked onto the walls, the view of the night sky out the window, the birding maps where Dad pointed out all the places he hoped to go someday.…
I breathe in sharply, and for once it’s not because I’m panicking—my hands want those maps, to see the highlighted spots where he’d pointed out his favorite birding areas while I leaned over his shoulder.
To see, maybe, where he would have planned a top secret birding excursion.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I step off the porch and walk across the yard. Pebbles and rocks poke at my bare feet and the sun beating down on my face feels foreign, but I keep going, keep focusing on the tree house.
“You can do this,” I whisper as I put my foot on the first old wooden “step” of the ladder. The explosion of sound in my ears, like someone turned the dial on “outdoor” noises to at least one thousand decibels, is scary—but familiar. The wood cracks loudly under my feet and I imagine plummeting to my death and confirming all my fears about leaving the house.
But I press my body up one more foot.
A door creaks. I look up and across into the neighbor’s yard to see Brad Kirkpatrick sitting on a lawn chair—except Brad definitely doesn’t have the tattoos that peek out of this guy’s sleeves. He must be Brad’s half-brother, Jake, the one who went to the same fancy celebrity rehab as Lindsay Lohan and then turned his back on a life of crime with a vicious New York City street gang to live with his dad.
Okay, so all of those rumors can’t be true. But one of them has to be, right? Tattooed, rugged guys don’t just move home to live with their parents for no reason.
I haven’t seen a human being other than my mom, Lincoln, Jenni, and the mail woman in months. My feet are literally itching to jump off the ladder and run inside, so much so that I check to see if I’ve set off a nest of fire ants.
I wonder what Dr. Dinah will think when I tell her that my first time outside in months has given me foot splinters and a great view of a probable ex-con. Jake cracks open a can of beer and takes a swig. Day-drinking on a Thursday afternoon?
“Gross,” I say before I can help myself.
He looks up—right at me. I freeze, but he simply offers a brief, guy-style raised-hand wave.
Panic swells in my chest. I kick my foot up, and the step I’m on splits right down the middle.
“Shit!” I shout, and grab for the tree house. My fingers just reach it, but instead of hanging on, I only manage to pull a bunch of old toys out of it as I tumble to the ground. The plastic dump truck, Barbies, and Lincoln’s old xylophone do nothing to cushion my fall.
My mind screams at me to get up and run inside, but my yelping tailbone stops me from moving. Just as my breath is starting to come back, something blocks the sun.
The guy who might be Jake Kirkpatrick stares down at me.
“Are you okay?” he asks, a note of genuine worry in his voice. His knees crack when he crouches down.
“Um, yes,” I say, trying not to hyperventilate as I slowly stand. “I only fell, like, a few feet.”
“Are you sure?” he asks. I focus on his face. Instead of Brad’s blond hair and green eyes, he has dark hair, deep blue eyes, and a sharp nose. In the right light, he might even bear a passing resemblance to a young Fox Mulder. You know, if you were imaginative.
He looks at me expectantly, and I realize he’s still waiting for an answer. “I’m fine. I promise,” I say, standing and taking an eager step toward the house.
“Because if you’re hurt, I can call 911.”
“Oh no!” I shout, then try to rein it in, red coursing to my cheeks as I realize he’s probably joking. “I mean, oh … no need! I’m seriously fine, so I’m just going to go back inside.”
Jake picks up a Barbie who happens to be wearing only a skirt. He’s silent, but there’s a question on his face.
I am 100 percent not going to explain my entire life situation to this guy. “Oh yeah, I was just getting these for my little brother,” I squeak, grabbing the topless Barbie and pointing to her lack of shirt. My hands are so sweaty the Barbie almost slips out of my grip. “I need to talk to him about this, it’s super inappropriate. So you can just go back home and enjoy your beer.”
Shut up, I think to myself. Just get back to the house. Now.
Jake ignores Topless Barbie. “You’re clearly having trouble breathing.”
I place my Topless-Barbie-holding hand over my heart. It’s beating even faster than my short, labored breaths. “I’m fine,” I wheeze, taking two more tiny backward steps away from him. I’m calculating the seconds it’ll take me to cross the yard. He bends down to pick up the box that I pulled down, and I take the opportunity to bolt for my front door.
“Wait,” he calls after me. “Do you need this?” Jake’s brandishing the box. A dirty, rolled-up piece of paper sticks out of it—I instantly realize that it’s my dad’s map. I basically run back and lunge at him, plucking it right from the box.
“Thanks,” I say, sprinting back to the house before he can ask me any more questions.
“Hey!” Jake shouts as I grab the doorknob. I turn around to see him holding up the can. “This is root beer. I’m nineteen. Don’t believe everything you hear.”
But I’m already halfway inside. A cool wall of air hits me; my house has never felt so good. I clutch the map to my chest like a prize, proof that I can do this.
As soon as my breathing has slowed to something resembling a normal speed, I grab the phone off the entryway stand. “Dr. Dinah?”
“How did it go?” she asks immediately.
“I fell out of my tree house and ran away from my neighbor. Talk to you next week!”
I hang up.