A World Without You (26 page)

I can't sleep.
I was up at dawn, and from my window I could see the Doctor leaving the academy. I scramble for clothes and race out in the early morning light. Dew still clings to everything, and a chilly sea breeze swirls around me as I burst through the door.

Maybe if I get far enough away from Berkshire, Ryan's powers won't be so strong. Maybe if I can talk to Dr. Franklin outside of Ryan's influence, then we can break through the illusions and figure out a way to stop him once and for all.

Dr. Franklin was heading north, probably to take a walk around the grounds. I pass the camp ruins—the Doctor's not there—and then I veer toward the boardwalk.

I find Dr. Franklin sitting in front of the ruined remains of the chimney. He looks incredibly small and vulnerable, sitting cross-legged in the sand, staring into the blackened bricks as if they could still provide him warmth.

“Hello, Bo,” the Doctor says, turning his head toward me as I approach.

“Hey.” I sit down beside the Doctor, facing the chimney as well. What should I say? How do you tell someone that the life they're living is a lie, an illusion created by a crazy teenager with far more power than responsibility? That the world is stranger than you believe, and you have powers you cannot fathom?

I open my mouth to speak, but then, out of the corner of my eye, a flicker of movement catches my attention. I see Carlos Estrada, dripping wet and shivering. He raises a finger to his lips. I nod subtly and wait for the Doctor to speak first.

“I don't know what's going to happen next,” Dr. Franklin says finally.

“No one ever does,” I say. “Even me.” This is the most important thing I've learned since Sofía disappeared: The future is all possibility, countless options that you can choose to take or not.

I start to speak again, but behind the Doctor, the image of Carlos stares me into silence.

“I've failed a lot here lately, Bo. I failed Berkshire. I failed Sofía. I failed you.”

Ryan is doing this to you
, I want to say.
Ryan is making everyone believe something that's not true. He's powerful. We all have powers, even you. But his are stronger.

I want to say all this, but I don't. I don't.

“You were in my office last night, weren't you?” Dr. Franklin asks.

I look down at my hands. “I had to find out the truth.”

“And did you?” He won't look at me.

“I think . . . I don't know, but . . . maybe?”

“Good.” The Doctor works to keep the emotion out of his voice, so I don't know if he's surprised or proud or disappointed. But he smiles a little when he pats my shoulder. “I shouldn't be surprised that you came out here, to the chimney, like I did,” Dr. Franklin continues. “You've fixated on this place, and little wonder. Bo,” the Doctor says, touching my arm and forcing me to pull my attention directly to him, “I want you to know it's natural to feel guilt in a situation like Sofía's death. I feel guilt too. In fact, a lot of my guilt is rooted in her death. But Bo, it was suicide. Sofía's depression was not something you were equipped to deal with. There was nothing you could have done to prevent it.”

Suicide.
The word reverberates inside me.

“Do you remember that first day here at the academy, when we were introducing ourselves?” The Doctor doesn't wait for me to answer him. “We each talked about our biggest problems, our biggest triggers and worries. And I told you about myself. Remember?”

Vaguely. He told us that he could heal, and he showed us the scars to prove it.

“I discussed my drug addiction when I was a kid,” Dr. Franklin says. “I said that was the reason I took this job, why I wanted to help kids with problems.”

There's a roaring ocean in my ears, but I push it down, so my head's above the water and I can hear. My heart can drown, but I need my mind.

“I keep going back to that time now,” the Doctor continues,
his voice contemplative. “I keep reminding myself that not everyone can be saved.”

That's not true
, I want to say.

“Sometimes people don't want to be saved,” he says. “And that's frustrating.”

“Yeah,” I say.

“You understand, don't you?”

I nod. It's not something I could put into words, but yeah. I understand.

It's complicated.

Life is like the timestream, all knotted and twisted and convoluted. And maybe if we could all see exactly where the threads of our fate lead, we'd be able to make the right choices all the time, but we can't. Not even me. Especially not me. Because I never saw
this
. There are possibilities we can't imagine, futures we could never envision. And there are spots of darkness we cannot see past.

“I wanted to save Sofía,” Dr. Franklin says. “And I truly believe she wanted to be saved.”

“But you can't save everyone,” I say in a low voice.

Beyond the Doctor, Carlos Estrada, dripping wet and slowly turning blue, nods.

I remember the day Sofía told me about Carlos's death. The way no one noticed. Everyone was playing and splashing in the pool, everyone but him. He sank quietly underwater. He never came back up.

Real drowning is quiet
, Sofía had said.
It doesn't announce itself.

It just happens.

And then you're gone.
She's gone.

Carlos Estrada nods again, and then he disappears.

• • •

I understand why she told me about Carlos Estrada now.

• • •

“You wanted to change the past so much that you believed you could,” Dr. Franklin says.

I stare at the empty place where Carlos Estrada was.

I'm not even sure I know what the past is anymore. The past is Sofía in 1692. The past is yesterday, and realizing how much power Ryan has. The past is my sister's bedroom door locking. The past is a deer in an empty field, a camp for sick kids, two men riding on horseback in the marsh.

I remember the way she tasted on my lips the first time I kissed her, with a rocket soaring into the stars behind us. I remember the way she held my hand, as if it were a secret. I remember the sound of her voice, the faraway look in her eyes, the sweep of her hair over the side of her face.

I remember the morning we snuck away from the Berk to watch the sun rise over the ocean, and we fell asleep in each other's arms until the waves licked at the bottoms of our feet. We'd missed the sun, but found each other.

• • •

I remember another morning. The morning that she left me.

I saw her from my window, just like I saw the Doctor this morning. I don't remember what I was thinking; I just knew I wanted to be with Sofía. I dressed quickly and ran outside. I went to the camp ruins first.

I saw her shoes. Her red shoes.

It was cold, and I picked up her shoes because I knew she'd need them.

But Sofía wasn't at the camp.

I walked to the edge of the grounds, to the ruins of the chimney, where I found Sofía, curled up inside the fireplace. Sleeping.

No, not sleeping. There was vomit on her shirt, bright red and orange like fire, some of it clinging to her lips.

No. I took her back in time. There was literal fire in the fireplace, and a house, and she got stuck in Salem.

But then the Doctor was there. He'd followed us. “Oh my God,” he said.

I found her. I was there. I saw it.

NO!
I scream, but the word never reaches my lips.

Ryan's influence is too strong, even here at the edge of the academy grounds. This isn't how it happened, Sofía's not dead, she's just lost, and I can bring her back. I can, I can.

The Doctor pats me on the back and uses my shoulder as leverage to help him stand. “I just want you to know, Bo, that whatever happens, you're a good kid. You couldn't prevent Sofía's suicide. I don't think anyone could. If she hadn't taken the pills, she would have found another way. When someone's depressed like that, when they don't have the will to live anymore . . . if time can't heal them, nothing can.”

That's just the thing, though, isn't it? Time can heal her. It can. It can do anything. As long as I control it.

Phoebe

I'm home alone.

It's actually somewhat rare for me to have the entire house to myself. Dad works from home, and Mom doesn't work at all, so there's almost always someone else around. But today Mom went to a women's meeting at church, and Dad had “business” at a bar in Boston, so it's just me.

This house is always quiet, but it's the uncomfortable sort of quiet, the kind where you can almost hear people trying not to make a sound. Today, there's real silence, which is kind of nice.

I half considered inviting Jenny and Rosemarie over, but it's not like the three of us would have a wild party or anything. We'd just end up watching movies, and that just feels so exhausting right now.

We got a letter from Berkshire Academy. It said that the school was being shut down.

It's been a source of much debate between my parents—what
do they do with Bo now? He'll be coming home at the end of the semester, and Mom has nowhere to take him in the fall. Dr. Franklin called our house personally to suggest that Bo move to a more secure facility in the future, and he recommended one in upstate New York.

Dad was immediately against it. The school Dr. Franklin recommended puts academics on the back burner in favor of focusing on therapy; it would take Bo an additional two years at least to graduate, and Dr. Franklin recommended a six-year program that would give Bo an associate's degree at the end. “Six years?” Dad had raged. “For just an
associate's degree
?”

“It's not about the degree, George,” Mom had said quietly.

It's not about the money either.

The school in New York is even more expensive than Berkshire Academy. I added it up. Three months of Bo's current tuition would fully pay for me to go on the class trip to Europe this summer. Four thousand dollars. That's the recommended allowance for the trip and spending money. Four thousand—though I could probably swing just three, if I didn't buy anything and was careful with food. That's nothing compared to what Bo costs, between tuition and medication and travel and that last hospital visit and . . .

I threw away the pamphlet about Europe.

Rosemarie isn't going on the trip either. She has no problem telling anyone who asks that her family can't afford that much money, not for something like a trip, not with college expenses just around the corner.

Jenny is going.

The thing is, I
deserve
that trip. I study, hard, all the time. I bust my butt in every college-level course James Jefferson High
School offers, even science, which I hate. I'm in the top 2 percent of my grade. I've joined every club, I stay after school for orchestra practice, I even tried out for the tennis team just so colleges would consider me more “well-rounded.” Not because I want to do any of that.

Because I know I need a scholarship to escape. Bo may get tens of thousands handed to him to go to a school with bars on the windows, but my parents aren't going to have that kind of money when it's my turn.

I deserve a trip to Europe. I deserve, just once, just once in my
whole life
, to be selfish. That's all I want. It's not even about Europe; it's about getting the chance to be selfish. Bo asked me what I want in the future, and it's this. I want to be stupid and selfish, and I want to do things without overthinking them first. I want the chance to just . . . be normal. My whole life has been a giant compromise around Bo—what Bo needs to be healthy, what bills have to be paid for Bo, what allowances in time have to be carved out, which holidays have to be shortened, which weekends sacrificed, which things
I
want that have to wait until later so Bo can get what he needs first.

It's not fair
, a little voice inside me says.

And it's not. Not for me. Not for him. Not for any of us.

Rosemarie describes my house as “richy-rich.” She always says it in a joking way, but I often wonder if she just laughs to hide her bitterness. Our families are the same size; our houses are not.

But I see the credit card bills that stack up at the end of our table. I see the late hours Dad works. I saw the bill for Berkshire's tuition. I added it up.

I dig the brochure for Europe out of the trash and allow
myself to look at it one last time. Then I fold it in half and very slowly, deliberately rip it apart. I relish the way the paper comes apart, and then I stack the pieces up and drop them back into the trash can.

I know I'm being childish and stupid and trite. I know Bo's health is more important than any trip.

But none of that erases the bitter jealousy in my heart.

I can't help what I want. I can't help wishing things were different, wishing
he
were different. So that I could be too.

Across the hallway, I see the sheet hanging in Bo's doorway. I stride into his room before I can tell myself it's wrong. I don't know what I'm looking for. Just . . . a peek behind the literal curtain.

It feels like going into a stranger's room, or maybe like going into the room of someone who's died, riffling through their belongings in an attempt to find closure or meaning. It's wrong. But I don't let that stop me.

The room smells slightly musty, like the body spray Bo sometimes uses, but old. Mom has already stripped the bed and replaced the sheets and duvet cover for the next time Bo comes home. He probably never notices that she does this, that every single weekend, he has fresh sheets.

I trail my hand along his dresser, leaving a faint trace of my fingerprints in the very thin layer of dust. The top is cluttered with things he's probably not used or even noticed in years: a little carving of a turtle he bought from a Native American in Four Corners during that family trip out West; a Mickey Mouse snow globe from an “adventure” to Disney World; a box that holds a mint coin collection, something Mom gives
us both every year at Christmas, because what kid doesn't want money he can't spend.

These are the things our parents would say were important. But Bo wouldn't. That's why he left them behind.

In one corner of the dresser there's a huge marble made of black-and-red glass, so large that it barely fits in my palm. It's on a little clear plastic stand, and when I move it, I can see the stand's footprints in the dust on the dresser.

I gave this to Bo for his birthday last year, just before he left for Berkshire. I stare down at it in my hand. I had bought it for him because I had no idea what else to get him. He had no reason to want a huge round marble, but it looked kind of cool—at least I thought so when I saw it in that little shop at Quincy Market. He had seemed happy with it, rolling it across the table and letting the colors flash. He had thanked me, and though I never knew if it was sincere or not, I had hoped it was.

I slide the marble into my own pocket now, wondering if he'll ever notice it's missing. I leave the little plastic stand behind as a clue.

On top of Bo's desk is a notebook with a broken USB drive awkwardly sticking out of the pages—the same drive that I used to watch videos of Bo's class.

I flip the notebook open, curious to see what Bo's thoughts on the videos are, but it quickly becomes apparent that he wasn't taking notes at all. The pages are chaos: brief snippets of ideas, reflections on people he knows or little stories about history, nonsensical lists scratched through. I try to read a few pages, but I can barely make the words out, much less make sense of them.
Attempt 1
is written at the top of one page, but
everything under it is scribbled out. Another page has a different list of “attempts,” all crossed out with the word
FAILURE
written in caps.

Another entry is just the words
I'm sorry
written over and over again, each one methodically scratched through.

I touch the apology page, my fingers dancing over the bumps made from the grooves of each letter.

Each page becomes more and more chaotic, more panic-ridden.
I don't understand
and
I'm scared
jump out at me from one of the pages. I read the passage—the words are all in English, but they don't make any sense.

None of it makes sense.

It's like a visual representation of Bo's mind. It starts out organized, but descends into something unrecognizable.

None of us can understand him
, I think.

Soon enough, the ink-stained pages give way to nothing—more than three-quarters of the book is empty. Still, I turn the blank pages, one by one. In a weird way, seeing them gives me some peace. They're not riotously scribbled in. They're calm. They're the quiet without the storm.

If I could choose, I think I would give him the blank pages instead of the black ones.

My hand pauses, hovering over a crisp, clean, empty page.

If the ink on the first pages represents Bo's mind, what do the blank pages mean? And what kind of person am I to prefer them?

I told Bo's psychiatrist that I was horrible for thinking that Bo might do something terrible if given the opportunity. But that's not really horrible. That's just fear. No, I'm horrible for what I'm thinking right now.

For wondering if we would all be happier with the blank pages.

I close the book and brush my fingertips across the mottled cover. My hand is shaking when I pull it back. I slam it on the book, then sweep it off the desk with a roar of frustration and bitterness and sorrow and rage. Black ink or blank pages, who am I to say one is better than the other? Who am I to want to choose for him? Who am I to wish I could?

Who am I at all?