MILA 2.0

Maybe here, at last, was someone I could talk to. Only, as luck would have it, I couldn’t think of a thing to say.

I fumbled for a suitable conversational topic. Horses came to mind, but I had no idea if he rode or, like Parker, thought they were “smelly giants with big teeth.” No, I needed something he was interested in.

What did I know about him so far? Not much. He was new, he was from San Diego. He smelled a thousand times better than the guy who sat next to me in English. My gaze fell to the book in his lap. Instead of rows of words, it was full of pictures.

“What’s that about?”

“Ghost in the Shell? The usual. Good guys versus bad. Major Motoko versus the Puppeteer.” He coughed, nudged his backpack with his shoe. “I should probably put it away. The rain . . .”

Before he closed the book, I peeked at the graphics. I saw a girl with wild hair and a futuristic outfit, holding a big gun, standing in front of a weird-looking machine. Interesting, and definitely not the usual sort of thing students carted around with them here.

I pulled my knees to my chest and watched him unzip his bag and stuff the book in.

“Are you a fan of manga?”

I hugged my legs tighter and wondered how to respond. “Don’t think so” was what I settled on. Not a total lie, but not an uncomfortable truth, either. “But I do like to read. Did you bring that with you in the move?” I couldn’t imagine he’d picked it up in Clearwater.

“Yeah. We had a great bookstore back in San Diego. They kept a manga collection, special ordered anything they didn’t stock.”

His slow sigh triggered an echoing wistfulness in me. Oddly enough, the knowledge that I wasn’t the only one longing for the past made my loneliness dissipate, just a teensy bit. Even if that longing was only for a bookstore, it served as a reminder. I wasn’t completely alone in this feeling. Hunter had been forced to leave favorite things behind, too.

With one arm still cradling my knees, I pulled the other up to rest against my cheek. To breathe in Dad’s flannel, searching for the minuscule trace of his scent that remained, the smell of sweet, pine-scented cologne. Every day it faded, leaving me terrified of the day the smell would disappear completely and I’d lose that last link.

“Gonna have to trek to Minneapolis to find a decent bookstore.” He paused, then added. “If you ever want to come with . . .”

“Okay,” I murmured past the giant knot clogging my throat. His kindness, losing Dad; my feelings were all blending together into one big explosive concoction. Who knew which emotion would burst free at any given time?

“Hey. You okay?”

I swallowed hard, nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

“That your dad’s shirt?”

I nodded again.

“He died . . . recently?”

I cleared my throat, forced air into my lungs. All this time, I’d been complaining about how everyone tiptoed around Dad’s death. Only a hypocrite wouldn’t answer.

“Yeah. In a fire.”

I heard his shoes scrape wood as he shifted positions. “Rough. Were you there?”

Supposedly. I sifted through my memory again, seeking flames, smoke, anything. Like every other time, nothing came.

And then I heard a scream. In my head, a girl’s scream.

The sound made the hair on the back of my neck prickle. But the only images to accompany it were those same white walls, a white lab coat. The smell of bleach.

Still no fire.

“I don’t remember.”

I felt his surprise more than saw it, because as soon as the words came tumbling out, I closed my eyes. I couldn’t believe I’d said that, and yet . . . instant relief.

The weight of his hand on my shoulder shocked me. “You okay?” he repeated. Softly.

“Yeah. But I don’t really want to talk about it anymore.”

When I peeked up between a few loose strands of hair, I was stunned to see that he wasn’t giving me one of those “what’s her deal?” looks, one of Parker’s specialties. “No problem.”

He closed his eyes. This time, the silence felt companionable. If I could have sat out there for the rest of the day, just feeling normal in someone else’s company for a change, I would have done it in a flash. But after a while, the warning bell stuttered its crazy ring, signaling lunch’s end.

Hunter groaned. He stretched his long arms over his head, an act that pulled his shirt tight across his chest and accentuated the fact that muscles existed there. I felt my cheeks flush and looked at my feet, whereas Kaylee would have squealed. Not that I couldn’t appreciate his physical attractiveness, because apparently I could. A lot.

But what was really compelling about him was his sensitivity. Something that none of the other girls even cared enough to discover before deciding he was potential boyfriend material.

That notion made me want to stuff him into my backpack and hide him away.

“Want to trade cell numbers? Just to talk and stuff,” he said.

I ducked my head before he could see my smile widen into an obnoxiously goofy grin. I gave him my number as I pulled my phone out of my bag. “What’s yours?”

My hands vibrated two seconds later.

Our gazes locked while I pushed send and lifted the phone to my mouth. “Hello?”

“Now you’ve got it,” Hunter said. In stereo. He ended the call, tilting his head as he studied my phone. “A Samsung ie80? They still make those? No surfing for you, huh?”

I sighed, glaring at my phone. “No. My mom’s sort of anti-internet. Anti-computers, really. She won’t even let me get a laptop.”

He looked startled; the same look everyone gave when they found out Mom chose to shun modern technology. One girl had even asked if I was Amish. “Parents” was all he finally said, though. With a knowing smile.

We headed up the path leading back into school, side by side.

“What class do you have next?” he asked, just before we reached the door.

“Pre-calc. You?”

“AP chemistry.”

See that? Not even remotely dim. “Cool.”

When we reached the door, he leaned across me to open it. The brush of his arm across my shoulder sent a shiver rushing through me. I stepped into the congested hallway and fumbled to put a name to the strange feeling, just as a familiar voice rang out.

“Hey, Mila, there you are! And . . . you ran into Hunter?”

Kaylee stood a few feet away, arms crossed over her chest, forming a platform-heeled, long-legged obstacle that students veered to avoid hitting. Her emphasis on “ran into” wasn’t lost on me, even in the din of chattering voices and footsteps as kids rushed to their next class.

Her gaze touched on me, lingered longer on Hunter and even longer on the cell phones we still clutched in our hands. I shoved mine into my bag, even though I wasn’t sure why, exactly. I hadn’t done anything wrong.

She stepped closer, her grin flashing fewer teeth than usual. “So what were you guys doing out there? Was Mila helping you fill out your forms?”

Hunter shrugged and shook his hair out of his face. “Something like that,” he said. And then he winked at me before merging into the flow of students and ambling down the hallway.

Kaylee pressed a hand to her chest and watched his retreat. “Mysterious guys are so hot.”

But the second he was out of sight, her playfulness vanished. She whirled on me with her hands on her hips. “Is that why you ditched us at lunch today, so you could get Hunter all to yourself? What, are you some kind of stalker now? Oh my god, Mila, that is so uncool!”

Red blotches erupted on her cheeks, and her voice rose with each question, loud enough to garner sideways looks from the kids passing by. Two girls from our homeroom started whispering, while a trio of boys poked one another and laughed.

“Shhhh!” I said.

“What, am I embarrassing you?” she said in an even louder voice. “About HUNTER?”

More kids turned to look, triggering that trapped feeling again. My muscles tensed. I wanted out of the public eye. Now.

In a quick movement hidden by the position of her body, I grabbed Kaylee’s upper arm. Then I pulled her to the door and yanked it open. My momentum propelled both of us outside, away from the streaming students and their way-too-curious eyes.

“Mila, you’re hurting me!” Kaylee tugged against my grip.

With dawning horror, I looked down to see I was squeezing her upper arm. I released my grip, and her other hand immediately rubbed the spot. “What’s your deal?” she said, her stare all brown-eyed accusation.

I shook my head, dazed, gaping at the way she cradled her arm to her chest. Seriously, what was my deal?

I couldn’t believe I’d just grabbed Kaylee like that, out of nowhere. What a terrible thing to do.

“Kaylee, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. There were all those people, and I just . . . get a little claustrophobic sometimes. I didn’t think.”

Between the jump with Bliss and my booth dive at Dairy Queen, there seemed to be a lot of that going on lately. Too much.

“You’re a nut, you know that?” she said, still clutching her arm.

My chin whipped up and down in my enthusiasm to agree. “I’ll work on it, promise.”

“Do that,” she said, shaking her head before walking off.

I tried to dismiss the incident. Really, I did. But a tiny, niggling worry made it difficult. The truth was, I hadn’t even been trying to grab Kaylee’s arm with any real degree of force. I definitely hadn’t been trying to hurt her.

So how on earth had it happened?

he worry still niggled at me after dinner that night, when Mom’s yell summoned me from my book.

“Mila, come here!”

With a sigh, I jabbed my bookmark into the middle of The Handmaid’s Tale and rolled off the green-and-gold quilt that came with the room and always smelled faintly of mothballs and lavender. Rain tap-tapped an offbeat rhythm against the window. Figuring she wanted me to check on the horses, I slipped my feet into my discarded Nikes and headed down the hall.

Mom waited by the coat rack, practically drowning in the brown fleece blanket she’d tossed over her shoulder. An unusually wide grin spread across her face. The sight of that smile, aimed at me, melted away any residual craving for Atwood and my bed. That was a smile from the old days. A smile that banished some of my loneliness and promised good things to come.

I almost didn’t want to say anything, in case talking broke the spell, but curiosity won out. “What are we doing?”

She pulled the front door open. “We’re going to watch the storm.”

I swung my legs back and forth against the rickety porch edge. Mom’s suggestion to go outside and experience the storm had sounded crazy at first, not to mention extremely un-Mom-like. But I couldn’t say no. Not when the invitations were so few and far between.

Raindrops splattered against my upturned palms. As usual, Mom was right—there was nothing quite like experiencing a Midwest storm firsthand. The sky’s vivid light show, the thick humidity that made my jeans cling to my legs, the smell of electricity and damp dirt, it enveloped us.

“Isn’t this amazing?” Mom asked.

In a stun of disbelief, I watched her peel off her boots and toss them over her shoulder. They hit the porch with a thud while she wiggled her bare toes under the drizzle. Her sigh was pure bliss. Yep. Decidedly un-Mom-like.

“You should try it.”

My shoes were stripped off before she could realize the storm had addled her brain. Under the dim light and mist, our naked skin glowed a ghostly white.

“Feels great, doesn’t it?”

The tiny drops felt wet more than anything, but her enjoyment was infectious. What really felt great was her acceptance. “Definitely.”

Another diagonal of light cracked the night sky. For a moment, all of Clearwater was illuminated, like someone had switched on a giant spotlight. Just as quickly, the brightness was snatched away and darkness returned, broken only by the glow from our kitchen window.

“One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four one thousand, five—” A deep rumble overhead cut off Mom’s strange chant.

“What’s the counting for?”

“Just something . . . we used to do together.”

My legs stopped moving. Mom rarely talked about the past, especially not in the context of things we’d done together. I got the distinct impression that she wanted nothing more than to wipe the slate clean. To start completely fresh here in Clearwater.

Too many questions to name spiraled through my head. In the interest of starting small, I latched onto one of the most innocuous ones.

“Did I use to like nail polish? I mean, before?” I asked, thinking back to Kaylee’s Dairy Queen convo.

I knew I’d made the right decision when even that simple, fluffy inquiry caused her to flinch. I held my breath, half expecting her to ignore me.

“Yes. When you were little. But . . . but only toenail polish, and only if your dad and I would wear it, too.”

She started off hesitantly, but the longer she talked, the more the story gained steam. “In fact, this one time, your dad forgot to take it off, and then he went to the gym . . . well, you can imagine the looks he got.”

She reached out to squeeze my shoulder, laughing. “Can’t you picture it? Your big, manly father . . . sporting pink sparkle nail polish.”

And with her words as my guide, I could picture it. My stout, dark-haired father. Standing in his gym shorts in the locker room and shaking his head at his sparkling toes. I reveled in the image for a moment before pressing on. Her laughter, the shoulder squeeze, had made me bold.

“Did the doctors do anything to my ears, after the fire?”

The second her hand dropped away, I knew I’d made a mistake, pushed too far. But I pressed on. “I have this memory. Of a man, in a white coat. And he did something to my ear. . . .”

It was no use. Even in the dim light, I could see her lips press together. She wrapped her arms around her waist, angled her head away from me, did everything short of slapping duct tape on her mouth and flashing a DON’T ASK sign.

“Why won’t you answer me?” I whispered, even as the familiar weight of rejection settled on my shoulders. “Please. This has been hard for me, too.” I hated the beggarlike quality to my voice, but I couldn’t help it.

Her hand lifted, like she might stroke my cheek, the way she used to in Philly every night before bed, back when her nails weren’t brown from horse grime or pungent with liniment. I caught my breath while seconds built up between us. While my heart pounded out its yearning for a return of that nighttime ritual.

She shoved her hands into her lap and turned back to the storm.

I curled my toes to subdue the building scream. Had my faulty memory erased some terrible thing I’d done—was that it? Was that why Mom couldn’t resurrect even a tiny piece of our old relationship? Why I’d somehow lost both parents when only one had burned in the fire?

Under the cover of my hair, I pressed a trembling hand to my own cheek, half expecting to touch something repugnant. Instead, my skin felt normal. Slightly slick from the moisture-filled air, but warm and soft. Nothing that should scare a mother away.

“Why don’t you love me anymore?” I whispered, to no one, really. Because I knew she wouldn’t answer.

I rose. Though the storm still raged overhead, its allure drained away as surely as the water that dripped from my hem and pooled at my feet.

“The counting gives you an approximation of how far away the lightning really is. Five seconds for every mile.”

Mom’s steady voice paused me after only one step. Was this her deluded attempt at an olive branch? Sorry, Mila, can’t hug you, but I can inundate you with random facts about storms.

Gee, thanks.

I didn’t have to listen to this.

Anger fueled my short walk to the door. I opened it, determined to escape to the safe haven of my room, where Atwood and my smelly quilt awaited.

“The thunder comes after the lightning, but it’s an illusion. It just seems that way because the speed of light is faster than the speed of sound.”

My grip tightened on the doorknob. I’d asked for her love, and instead got the speed of sound? Really?

“Also, the lightning bolt we see doesn’t really originate from the sky. It comes from the ground up.”

That did it. The door slam echoed in the night. I whirled, glaring at the sight of her slender back and that sleek, serene ponytail. “Why are you telling me this?”

I don’t care about the origins of lightning bolts and the speed of sound! I wanted to scream. I care about things that matter. About my missing memory and her missing love, about the wrenching pain in my heart that never went away. Not about some stupid storm in the middle of stupid Minnesota.

Not about—

Another white line forked across the sky. I caught a flash of sagging porch and Mom’s hand clenched around that stupid birthstone necklace before darkness reclaimed them. It couldn’t reclaim my spark of intuition.

“Are you trying to say things aren’t always the way they appear? What, Mom? What isn’t how it appears?”

Boards creaked and thunder rumbled, but there was no reply.

No reply. Right. Just like there was nothing I could say to change anything. Still, I took a grim satisfaction in correcting her. “You don’t even have your facts right. Not everyone sees lightning from the top down. I don’t.”

Before I could head inside, something interrupted my brilliant exit.

I cocked my head. “Did you hear that?”

“What?”

“A noise. From the barn.” Over the patter of rain, I’d heard it.

Clank.

“There it goes again.”

Mom was on her feet in an instant. Barefoot, she raced for the front door, shoving it open so hard that the bottom smacked the doorstop and bounced back. She darted inside and reemerged seconds later, wielding the giant Maglite she stashed in a kitchen drawer for emergencies. Weapon in hand, she leaped off the porch and ran for the barn.

“Mom?” When she didn’t look back, I sprinted after her, my feet slapping the wet path while muddy water squished between my toes. I rounded the corner of our guesthouse in time to see Mom reach the oversized barn door, to hear the nickers and snorts that burst within at her arrival. Louder than usual.

Someone had left the door ajar.

My neck prickling, I pulled up behind Mom as she yanked the door open.

“Hello?” she called out, flipping on the light.

Her voice echoed back through the rafters, as even-keeled as ever. But in her right hand, the super-long, super-heavy Maglite was clenched and at the ready. Shoulder level, like a baseball bat.

Nothing but silence followed, except for the intermittent raindrops that drummed against the vaulted roof. And then a high-pitched whinny, and straw rustling under restless hooves.

Mom took four careful steps inside, half crouched like some kind of jungle cat. I knew I shouldn’t be surprised, that Mom was ultracapable under any circumstance. Still, the transformation from mild-mannered veterinarian to prowling tiger was a little terrifying. Why would a few strange noises make her react this way?

Everything seemed normal. The sweet-sour smell of hay and horse bodies mingled into its familiar musk. The rows of pine stalls on either side of the empty corridor looked as tidy as ever, and the stall doors were all closed, as they should be. Since we tended to leave the green-barred windows open, a few inquisitive horse heads poked out over the tops. Also normal.

And yet . . . there was almost no way Mom had forgotten to latch that door. Not after the minilecture I’d gotten when we first moved here. Plus she was so vigilant about locking the guesthouse, you’d think we stored diamonds in our beds.

Mom peered over her shoulder and spotted me. I could see fear in the wide blue eyes behind her rain-splotched glasses, in the way she stabbed a finger toward the door.

“Outside,” she mouthed.

I clenched my jaw and shook my head, even though squeezing air into my ever-tightening lungs had become tricky. No way was I leaving her here, to deal with . . . whatever . . . on her own.

I must have had my determined face on, because she didn’t bother with a second hopeless attempt to send me fleeing. Instead she motioned me toward the stalls on the right side of the corridor, while she crept to the left.

She leaned her upper body into the open window of the first stall, looking for what, I didn’t know. But her paranoia was contagious. Feeling wound up enough to explode at the slightest sound, I peered into the first stall on my side. Gentle Jim’s quarters. When the big roan gelding saw me, he lumbered over and nosed me in the forehead, hoping I’d slip him a carrot from my pocket. The stall was empty except for him. Leaning over, I quietly grabbed his tin feed bucket and a steel-clipped lead. Just in case. Not my first choice in weaponry, but they were better than nothing.

I checked the next two stalls. Nothing but groggy horses.

Clank.

Loud. Just like I’d heard it before. Coming from the row of stalls around the corner.

Mom’s head whipped toward the noise. I tiptoed across the concrete floor, dodging unswept pieces of hay but ignoring the growing collection of grit and other unsavory substances on the balls of my bare feet.

As soon as I was close enough, Mom grabbed my head with one firm hand. My heart galloped as she pressed her mouth close to my ear. “I’m going to check it out,” she whispered. “Wait here. If you hear anything, run.”

I tried to shake my head, but her grip tightened, pressing me even closer. Her breath hissed between her teeth and collided with my earlobe, which I swear was already jumping from the thud-thud-thud of my pulse. “Mila. Please.”

As soon as she let go and rounded the corner ahead, I took off on stealthy feet after her, clutching my makeshift weapons like they were swords rather than random barn utensils.

When I reached the corner, I noticed the first three stalls in the next corridor had their green-barred windows tightly shut. Empties. There were a lot of those, space vacated by the boarders who came when the Greenwood family was actually in residence. Mom stalked past them. She moved so quietly, so smoothly, that her blond ponytail barely bobbed behind her.

She was only three stalls from the end of the row when we heard it again.

Clank.

Our heads swiveled as one toward the last stall on the right. My breath hitched in my throat. If there was a crazy stalker or horse thief in there, he or she could probably hear my heart slamming against my rib cage by now.

But under the rapid-fire beat of my heart lurked something else. An anticipatory tightening of my muscles, an unshakable determination to help Mom.

No matter what.

I traced Mom’s careful footsteps as she picked out a silent path that led to that last stall. I watched while those slender, capable fingers wrapped around the handle, squeezed, and eased the door open.

Maisey let out a startled whinny when Mom leaped across the threshold, Maglite poised for action.

The long black flashlight lowered an instant later.

“What the . . . ?” I heard Mom say as I leaned into the stall. Maisey was the lone occupant.

My heart decelerated to a gentler rhythm while I scratched the mare’s soft muzzle. Meanwhile, Mom performed an itemized inspection of the stall’s contents, running her hands along the walls. She stopped on the feed bucket attached to the wall.

Slipping farther inside, she reached over and pulled the bucket away from the wall, then pushed it forward.

Clank.