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“I thought I was dreaming about riding in a car, but this time I was driving . . .” My breathing becomes labored as I find myself living through it all again. “I pulled the wheel to the right and went off the road. Right into a telephone pole. Slammed my head into the window.”
“Wait. So you woke up driving your father’s car?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think this is a symptom of your condition? Like sleepwalking or something? Sleepdriving?”
“It’s never happened to me before,” I say, pulling at the hem of my sweatshirt. “It was so strange, how I blacked out and found myself in the car. It was almost like—”
“Like what?”
I shut my eyes tight, knowing how crazy I sound.
“Like someone slid into me. Like someone forced me to get into that car.”
I can almost see Rollins frowning. He only recently learned about my sliding. I suppose it’s a little much to expect him to believe there are others like me out there, much less those who live in Iowa City.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” he says. “Don’t you have to be touching a physical object that someone’s imprinted on in order to slide into them? If what you’re saying is true, someone in this town with the same power as you would have had to touch something of yours to force you to take your dad’s car. And they’d need a motive to do such a thing. It just seems a little far-fetched to me.”
“I know it doesn’t make sense. It’s just a feeling I had.”
He rushes to say, “It’s not that I don’t believe you. I do. I’m just wondering if you’re misinterpreting exactly what happened tonight. I know you haven’t been sleeping well. Maybe you started to have that nightmare about Zane dying, but this time you acted it out. In your sleep.”
I think about it. Rollins’s explanation seems plausible, but I just know that’s not what happened. Something deep down inside me keeps insisting that I was manipulated somehow tonight.
“So how did you end up getting home?”
“That’s another weird thing. This woman . . . Diane, she said her name was. She happened to be driving by and she gave me a ride home. But . . .”
“But what?”
“But I don’t think I gave her directions. She just seemed to know where I live.”
Rollins digests this information. “Are you sure? You did hit your head in the accident, right? Maybe you forgot about telling her.”
“Maybe,” I say.
After getting off the phone with Rollins, I lie in bed with my eyes wide open for a long time.
(#ulink_8e1a6909-72f0-5466-8ddb-b7e2356b0060)
he next morning, my phone buzzes with a text, waking me up. I glance at my alarm clock and realize I’m running late for school. Rollins will be here to pick me up any minute.
I peek at my phone. The text is from Rollins.
U AWAKE?
My thumbs fly over the keypad as I respond.
YEAH. BE READY IN 10.
Rollins texts back that he’ll see me soon. I pull on some jeans and slide the phone into my back pocket before heading downstairs. I find my father sitting at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper.
“How are you feeling?” he asks. “Do you have whiplash? Feel like you want to see a doctor?”
I grin. “I’m seeing one right now, silly.”
The anxiety in his eyes melts away, and he snorts. “Ha. But really. How does your head feel? Any dizziness? Nausea?”
Patting my father’s hand reassuringly, I say, “I’m fine. Promise.”
I sit down at the table, and my father pushes a glass of orange juice my way. I drink half of it in one long gulp.
“Well, I’m glad you’re okay. I know you don’t want to go to a doctor, but if this is a new symptom, we should really get you checked out. We can’t have you sleepdriving at night. You could have been killed.”
Sleepdriving. Is that even a thing?
“I seriously think it was a fluke, Dad. But if it makes you feel better, you can lock me in my room at night.”
He rolls his eyes. “I might take you up on that. Now can you tell me where I might find my car?”
“It’s a little off Highway 6. About five miles south of town,” I say, remembering the road signs I encountered on my hike.
“Ugggggggggggggggggggggggh.” My sister shuffles into the room, looking even more disheveled than I feel this morning. She must have been having nightmares about dead girls again. “Thank God it’s Friday.” Mattie grabs a coffee cup and fills it to the brim. I look on with envy. Perhaps I could have just a little caffeine to get through today. I’m operating on about three hours of sleep.
But before I have a chance to act on my impulse, I hear a car pull into our driveway, the radio so loud I can hear the opening notes of a Chevelle song from where I sit.
“Rollins is here,” I tell my dad. I gulp the rest of my orange juice and stand up. “Are you riding with us today?” I ask Mattie.
She nods and takes another sip of coffee before dumping the rest down the sink. Something in me dies a little as I watch the black deliciousness swirl down the drain.
“You sure you’re okay, Vee?” my dad asks.
“Yeah. Totally fine. If I start to feel sick, I’ll go to the nurse. Okay?”
Reluctantly, he agrees. I swoop down to give him a quick kiss and then dart out the door with Mattie following close behind.
Rollins doesn’t even wait for me to fasten my seat belt before he starts in on me. “How are you this morning, Vee? Are you sure you should go to school?”
Mattie drops into the seat behind me. “Dude, why is everyone so concerned about you today?”
Rollins throws me a curious glance. “You didn’t tell her?”
I shrug. “It’s not a big deal.”
“What’s not a big deal?” Mattie asks. In the rearview mirror, I see her checking her cell phone. She’s obviously very worried about my well-being.
“Oh, nothing. I just totaled Dad’s car in the middle of the night.”
I probably shouldn’t get so much satisfaction from the shocked look my sister gives me. “What? How did that happen? Are you okay?”
Feeling sort of bad for springing my accident on Mattie, I turn around to face her. “Calm down, Matt. Look at me. I’m all in one piece.” I make a split-second decision not to tell her about the whole driving-while-sleeping thing and the bizarre encounter with the woman, because she looks so alarmed already. At least, I’ll stay quiet for now. “Don’t worry. It’s no big deal.”
When I turn to face the front, Rollins gives me a questioning look. I mouth the word later at him and then fiddle with the radio. He growls and swats my hand away. Melting back into my seat, I welcome the normalcy of the scene. Rollins, rocking out behind the wheel. Mattie, in the back, scrutinizing a text message on her phone.
Then there’s me, wondering if there was someone else in my head last night.
An impostor.
(#ulink_95949462-4413-5ad0-82c9-2dbdccc2a90d)
here’s a girl waiting for Rollins at his locker. She’s curvy with black, choppy hair and a tattoo that runs the full length of her right arm. As we come near, I let my gaze trace over the tattoo. It’s full color and totally gorgeous, a depiction of Alice from Alice in Wonderland chasing the white rabbit. The girl’s eyes light up when she sees Rollins.
“Aw, hey.” Rollins gives the girl a hug. Jealousy prickles up my spine. He turns toward me. “Vee, this is Anna. She’s been training me at the radio station.”
I lift my face to hers and somehow manage a smile. The most distinctive feature of Anna’s face is her eyes, which are the most startling purple color with eyelashes that seem to go on for miles. I wonder if she’s wearing contacts because I’ve never seen eyes that color before. She’s wearing a lacy baby-doll dress over rainbow-striped tights and combat boots.
She is everything that I am not.
Suddenly I start to feel sick, remembering the song Rollins played last night. I’d kind of assumed he was thinking of me when he played it. But what if, the whole time Dave Grohl was singing, Rollins had been staring at this beautiful girl? The thought is so uncomfortable, I banish it from my mind. I am the one he loves. He told me as much that night he rescued me from the fire. True, that was six months ago, but still—could his feelings have changed that much?
“Hi, Vee,” Anna says, holding out her hand to shake mine. I pump perhaps too vigorously and then feel like an idiot.
“Hello,” I say. “Cool tattoo.”
Can she hear the envy in my voice?
She touches her arm gently. “Thanks. The artist is a good friend of mine. If you ever want to get a tat, let me know. I can get you a special deal.”
Rollins laughs. “I don’t think Vee is exactly a tattoo kind of girl.”
I scowl at him. “I like tattoos. Why would you think I’m not into them?” I turn to Anna. “I used to have pink hair, you know. I only recently dyed it back because . . . because I was bored with it.”
I don’t know why I said that. I guess it’s because I feel out of place somehow. Anna and Rollins just look like they belong together with their piercings and tattoos. And then there’s me . . . former preppy cheerleader turned narcoleptic slider.
Anna nods politely. “Well, Rollins, I’ll catch you tomorrow night if I don’t see you before then.” She disappears into the crowd.
I stuff my hands into my pockets so Rollins won’t see how my fingernails are digging into my palms. “She seems nice,” I say in a strained voice.
“Oh, yeah. She’s really cool. Knows her music, too.”
“Oh.” I don’t dare say anything else, in case the jealousy I’m feeling will come through in my words. How can I be feeling jealous? This is Rollins, my best friend. Of course he can have another friend. He should have other friends. I’m so ridiculous sometimes.
But then I wonder, as I watch him slam his locker shut and head toward first period, what if he likes her as more than a friend? What would I do then?
The five-minute bell rings, saving me from my thoughts. I rush to my locker and grab my books for English class. As I reach into my backpack to grab a pen, my fingers brush against an old bottle of caffeine pills I stashed away for emergencies. I let my hand linger for just a moment and then pull it away.
My head throbs from lack of sleep. As Mrs. Winger works her way up and down the aisles, picking up homework, I feel my eyes droop.
“Look alive, Sylvia,” Mrs. Winger says, stopping at my desk. “Do you have the assignment?”
I open my folder and pretend to look through the papers, even though I know I didn’t do the work. I’d planned to do my homework while I listened to Rollins’s show, but I ended up falling asleep instead. Perhaps I could bring up the car accident for sympathy points. But, no, then everyone would just think I’m weirder than they already do. Add sleepdriving to my narcolepsy and I’m a Grade-A Freak.
“Sorry, Mrs. Winger. I must have left it at home.”
She shakes her head as though she doesn’t believe me and moves on to Samantha, who looks even worse than I feel. Her hair, usually perfectly straightened, is swept back in a messy ponytail. She’s not wearing any makeup, and there are huge circles beneath her eyes. Remembering how she was drunkenly singing in the back of Scotch’s car, I wonder just how hungover she is today. But Sam doesn’t just look dehydrated. She looks regretful or something. Her demeanor unsettles me, reminds me of how I felt the morning after the homecoming dance last year. I wonder if something happened to her. I wouldn’t put it past Scotch to take advantage of an inebriated girl. If Rollins hadn’t burst in on us in the locker room, who knows what would have happened?
“How about you, Samantha? Did you finish the assignment?” Mrs. Winger hovers over Samantha, tapping her foot.
Samantha doesn’t even pretend to look through her things. She just glares at Mrs. Winger wordlessly until the teacher gets uncomfortable and moves on. Sam must sense my eyes on her because she then levels her gaze at me. I don’t look away.
She continues to give me her patented death stare while I scoot into the empty desk between us so I can talk to her without Mrs. Winger, who has moved to the back of the room, hearing our conversation.
“Hey, Sam,” I say, using her nickname for the first time in ages. It feels strange on my tongue. “Everything okay?”
Samantha crosses her arms over her chest. “What do you care?”
I hesitate. Samantha was so out of it last night. Unless Scotch told her about our encounter, which I’m thinking is highly unlikely, she probably has no idea that I saw her in Scotch’s car. If I explain, I’ll have to tell her about the car crash, which I really don’t want people finding out about. But if I don’t tell her, I’ll just look really nosy.
In the end, I choose nosiness over freakishness.
“Did you have a rough night?” I ask, hoping to sound sympathetic.
She narrows her eyes. “Why? What did you hear?”
I try to look innocent. “Nothing. You look kind of tired this morning, that’s all. Just wanted to make sure you’re all right.”
My neighborly concern doesn’t seem to be winning Samantha over. She pulls out a notebook, flips to a clean page, and writes the date at the top. I realize that she’s ignoring me.
“Samantha, we don’t have to be enemies,” I say, thinking how false the words sound even as they come out of my mouth. Nothing has changed since I tried to save her life. I am still the girl who went out with the guy she had a crush on. She is still the girl who told everyone I was a slut. She is still the girl who watched Scotch drag me into the boys’ locker room and didn’t do a thing to help me. A few words aren’t going to change that. Still, I want to try. “I don’t hate you.”
Samantha makes a disgusted noise and sets down her pen deliberately. “Vee, I don’t give a shit if you hate me or not. You are, like, the least of my concerns this morning.”
Her outburst wasn’t exactly what I was going for, but it’s something. At least she’s admitting that there’s something going on with her.
“What is your biggest concern this morning?”
The look Samantha gives me could freeze Satan himself. “None of your effing business.” She picks up her pen again, and I know I’ve been defeated.
Mrs. Winger moves to the front of the classroom and starts to talk about the Puritans. Reluctantly, I return to my seat. The rest of the period crawls by. I keep sneaking peeks at Samantha, but she is either really immersed in Mrs. Winger’s lecture or completely determined to pay no attention to me whatsoever. At the end of the period, she stuffs her notebook and pen into her oversized purse and rockets out of the room, never once looking my way.
I sit in the back of the library with the tattered copy of Sports Illustrated lying open before me. Before I try to slide, I wait for the librarian to take attendance and then sit down with her own magazine.
I’ve gotten to the point where I’m almost always successful at triggering slides, except when I’m amped up on caffeine. Thank God I didn’t give in to the pills in my bag this morning. Otherwise I don’t think this would work.
I’m going to slide into Scotch and see if I can figure out exactly what went down last night. He’ll be in gym class. If I’m lucky, he’ll be gossiping with his jock friend again. If something did happen with Samantha, I’m sure he’ll be bragging about it to the whole school.
Once the librarian settles down with her copy of Crock-Pot Adventures or whatever the hell she’s reading, I run my fingers over the glossy pages of the magazine. I’ve opened it to an article about some NFL player who overcame great adversity—family problems, health problems, academic problems—to get where he is today. The page has been turned down, as if someone wanted to return to it for inspiration. I wonder if that person was Scotch.
