aNO[R]M•a•ly: n. a deviation from the (agreed upon) arrangement
I end up on Trevor’s front porch, holding a heating pad and a graphic novel from my house. I hope he’s not disappointed to see me after I didn’t warn him about Stephanie’s party. Brody answers the door. “Hi, Addison.”
“Hi, is your brother here?”
“Yeah, he’s in his room, but he shut the door and when he shuts the door that means he doesn’t want anyone to talk to him.”
“But I brought him a book. Do you think I could just give it to him and then leave?”
He shrugs one shoulder. “Okay.”
“Trevor,” I say, outside his door with a small knock. “Are you decent?” There’s no answer. I knock again and try the handle, but it’s locked. “Trevor, please.” I rest my forehead against the door. Never before have I wished I was Bobby, but his ability to manipulate mass and walk through solid objects would come in handy right now.
Brody comes to my side, holding up a key. “Don’t tell him I gave it to you.”
I hug him. “You are a little angel.”
He blushes and runs away.
Trevor’s room is dark; only the light from the desk lamp is on. He’s bent over his desk, drawing. “Trevor?”
“You might not want to stay. I’m busy feeling sorry for myself.” He throws a smile over his shoulder.
The cord to the heating pad slips down my arm and sways by my legs. I look around, remembering all the things about his room that make me cringe a little but at the same time are so him: his messy closet, his unorganized bookshelf, his overflowing trash. I walk forward, searching the wall by Trevor’s desk for an outlet. When I find one, I plug in the heating pad and turn the dial to hot. It takes a few minutes to heat up.
“What are you doing?” he asks, when I drape the pad over his right shoulder.
This was a tip from my dad on how Norms heal sore muscles. “I thought you were probably sore from your performance tonight. And I brought you this too.” I set the book on the corner of his desk.
He stares at the cover without saying a word, then puts his left hand on top of the heating pad and closes his eyes with a wince.
“Too hot?”
“No, it feels good.”
I take the opportunity to study his face. The tips of his lashes nearly touch his cheekbones. His dark hair falls across his forehead and curls up at the ends. His nose is strong, with a knot on the bridge. I wonder if it’s another football injury. And his lips are thin, but smooth, no cracks or dryness. He probably drinks a lot of water, or maybe he puts on lots of lip balm.
When I look back up to his eyes, he’s looking at me. I blush. “Well,” I say, “I’ll leave you alone now. I just wanted to say that I’m sorry I didn’t warn you about Stephanie’s plans for tonight. That was a major best-friend failure on my part.” I turn and walk toward the door.
“Addison. Can I show you something?”
I spin back around. He’s sitting sideways now, holding up a piece of paper. I move back to the desk. It appears to be a page from his comic. I take it and read through several panels. It’s obviously the middle of the story, but the drawings are great and the conversations interesting. It surprises me that he’s letting me see it after his brother said he doesn’t show it to anyone. Why would he show this to me? Have I really earned it?
When my lungs start to burn, I realize I’m holding my breath. I suck in some air. There’s a tug on the bottom of my shirt, and I look down to see a section of it wrapped around his finger. My eyes dart to his, and he’s staring at me with intensity. My whole body feels like it’s turned to liquid, and I barely resist the urge to melt to the floor.
He takes the heating pad off his shoulder and sets it on the desk. “You want to be best friends?” Has his voice always sounded so smoky?
I nod. No matter how I might feel, I know we can’t be more than that. It’s too complicated. I am lying to him. I can’t have a relationship here when no one will ever know the real me. Plus we’re good as friends. Really, really, g—
He grabs hold of my hips and pulls me forward. “You didn’t fail me tonight. You saved me. I must’ve looked like the biggest idiot.”
I shake my head no, his hands on my hips making my breath come in shallow sips.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“You’re confusing me.”
“Really? And here I thought I was making things more clear.” He tightens his hold, and a chill goes through me. I hear footsteps running down the hall. Trevor releases me, and I take two steps back just as Brody bursts into the room. “Mom says I have to say good night and go to bed now.”
“Night, little man,” Trevor says. Why does he seem perfectly relaxed? My breath still hasn’t returned.
“How come it’s so dark in here?” Brody asks, looking up at the ceiling. I hadn’t noticed since I first walked in, but now it seems pitch-black and suspicious.
“We just forgot to turn on the lights,” I blurt out. “It didn’t look so dark because the desk lamp is on, but now it does.” I practically run to the light switch and flip it on. When I walk back over, Trevor’s eyes have a teasing smile in them.
“Say good night to Addison,” Trevor says to Brody.
“Good night, Addison.”
“Good night.”
“Brody,” a woman’s voice calls, followed by the woman herself. “Let’s go.” She’s pretty: long hair, dark eyes, curvy. She’s wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and has a pair of fluffy red slippers on her feet. She meets my eyes. “Oh,” she says in surprise. “I didn’t realize you had company, Trev.”
“Mom, this is Addison.”
She comes into the room and holds out her hand. “I’m DeAnn, good to meet you.”
I shake her hand. “You too.”
“I don’t know if Trevor warned you about me, but whenever I meet one of his friends, I like to get the basics so I feel like I’m in the loop. I know it embarrasses Trevor to no end, but that’s what moms do. So tell me a little about yourself.”
“Um.” Is she serious? I look at Trevor, and he nods as if to say, Yes, she’s totally serious, and I’m sorry. “Okay, well, I go to Carter High with your son. I’m a junior. Uh …” I freeze up, because this is the part where I would normally say where I’m from and I can’t bring myself to once again tell that lie. I search my mind, but the first things that pop into it are weird, random facts. Somehow I don’t think Trevor’s mom is asking for the story of my first kiss or wants to know that I have a sensitive gag reflex.
“She loves to read, Mom. Like these really old, boring books. The ones Dad likes.” He points to the graphic novel on his desk. “Plus lame ones, like I do. And she’s not a huge football fan. I think she only tolerates it for our sake. She’s supersmart, my main competition in Government. And since coming into my room, she has probably had to stop herself several times from cleaning up the shoes spilling out of my closet.”
His mom laughs. “Maybe you can teach Trev some organization, then.”
I nod dumbly. Tears prick the backs of my eyes, and I tell myself very forcefully that I’m not going to cry over the fact that Trevor just listed off several things about me like it was the easiest thing in the world.
Brody tugs on his mom’s arm impatiently.
“Oh,” Trevor continues, “and remember how I always used to get detention for being late to sixth period?”
His mom shakes her head in disapproval. “Yes.”
“Well, Addison is so anal about being on time that she forces all of us to get back to campus after lunch.”
“I do not.” My voice comes out a little wobbly and I wonder if he noticed.
“Yes. You do.”
His mom smiles at me. “That’s not a bad thing. I, for one, am grateful that someone can get this boy back to school on time. I think people as easygoing as Trevor don’t worry about small things like the concept of time.”
“Yeah, yeah, Mom, I know, I’m always late. No need for a public-service announcement.”
After another tug on her arm from Brody, she says, “I’m sorry, I’d better get this kid to bed. It was so good to meet you, Addison.”
“You too.”
“And thanks for indulging me. See, now I feel like I know who you are.” And with that she leaves.
I’m standing a little in front of Trevor, my back to him. The silence stretches out, and I try to think of something to say to dispel it. Thank you seems like too little … or maybe too much, since he couldn’t possibly understand how much I needed to hear what he just said. How much I needed to know that even without my ability, I am someone worth knowing. That every little and ridiculous quality I exhibit makes me who I am.
“And right now,” he says, “you’re dying because no one is saying anything.”
I bite my lip. I will not cry over this. “I’d better get going too.” I walk toward the door as fast as I can.
“Addie. Stay.”
It’s the first time he’s ever called me Addie, and I know I’m reading way more into it than I should. I stop by the door, hand gripping the frame for support. “You’re confused. You need time to think.”
He laughs a little. “What am I confused about?”
“You just broke up with your girlfriend.”
“I broke up with Stephanie over a month ago. She finally got it tonight.”
I don’t know what to say.
“I’m starting a new comic. With all the reading you do, I thought you could help me with the writing.” He opens his top drawer and pulls out a sketchbook.
I take a deep breath. I am in perfect control. “Really? What’s it about?”
He nods me over with his head, and I go to his side. He starts with the character’s eyes and by the time he moves to her hair, a mess of blond curls, I realize he’s drawing me. “Superheroes. You can finally have those powers you want. As long as you don’t kill me with them.”
“Of course I will. You have to make yourself the villain.”
He laughs. “Okay, that could be fun.” He moves on to draw my body. He glances at me a few times, studying my shoulders and neck.
I self-consciously shift my weight from one foot to another. “Uh, excuse me,” I say, pointing to the drawing. “That outfit is a little tight. I can’t fight crime in that. I don’t think I can even breathe in that.”
“Superheroes have to have tight outfits so their clothes don’t get in the way when they’re fighting crime.” He adds an A on the chest.
“I go by my real name? I don’t even get a secret identity?”
“How do you know that stands for Addison? Maybe it stands for Amender or Ax Maiden or Apple Thrower.”
“Apple Thrower?”
“I couldn’t think of any more A names.”
I smile, glad our awkward moment is over. “Okay. So what’s my power?”
“What’s that one you wanted? Telekinesis?”
A lump moves up my throat. “No. I think I like the one you wanted better.”
“Telling the future?”
“Yeah.” I have to tell him. I know I do. My father can’t ask me to keep such a big part of who I am from someone I like so much. The Containment Committee will never even know, because I’m sure Trevor can keep a secret. “It’s called Clairvoyance.”
“It’s a cool ability. So we’ll make it so you can see terrible things that are going to take place and then try to change them before they happen.”
“Well, it doesn’t really work that way.”
“What doesn’t?”
“One person can’t change the future. Do you know how many people and things are involved in every major event that happens? Sure, you might be able to change some of the minor aspects of a day, but ultimately things that are going to happen, if you go along a certain path, do happen.”
Trevor stops drawing and looks at me. “Telling the future is only a cool power if the future can be changed.”
“I know. That’s why it’s kind of a lame power.” I put my hand on his desk for support, because I feel like I’m going to pass out.
“The way you’re portraying it is.” He adds a few finishing touches to the drawing of me and then holds it up to inspect. One of his fingers starts to twitch, and I quickly say, “Don’t you dare crumple up that drawing.”
“Your hair isn’t quite right.”
I touch my head, patting down the craziness that is my unruly curls. “Maybe you should make it straight. I’ve thought about straightening it before, and it would be easier to draw.”
He looks up at me as though deeply offended. “Why would you ever straighten your hair? Your hair is perfect.”
I blush with the compliment and look back at his drawing. “Trevor, you’re an amazing artist.” And I really am Clairvoyant. Divergent, to be exact. That’s what I need to say, but I can’t bring myself to. “You gave me too many muscles,” is what I actually say. Why is this so hard to tell him? It doesn’t help that my school is responsible for his shoulder. If I explain who I am, I’ll have to explain that as well, and how can he ever have a good opinion of a group of people who could do that to someone?
I grab the picture and study it. He got my eyes just right. “The cool thing about mind powers is that if someone has an advanced mind, they’ve usually learned how to do other cool things with it as well.”
“Like what?”
“Like improve their hearing and sight.”
“I like that. We should write that into the plot.”
“Okay.” That’s exactly what we’ll do. We’ll write the book of my high school and when it is all done, I’ll say, That’s my life. Then he’ll know that there are more good guys than villains. He’ll see that in every place there are people willing to do anything to get ahead, but the majority of my people are good. And he’ll know why I had to keep it all a secret. He’ll understand. He has to.
He stands and is only inches from me. “I’m going to get some water. Do you want something to drink?”
“Yes, I do. I’ll come with you.” I turn to go, but he pulls me back by my arm.
“Don’t best friends hug before they go anywhere?”
I smile. He thinks he’s being funny, but I can play this game. “As a matter of fact, they do.” I slide my hands past his ribs and under his arms.
He wraps his arms around me, and I relax into him with a happy sigh. But then he starts rubbing my back, and tingles spread down my spine. “Best friends don’t rub each other’s backs,” I tell him.
His hands stop moving, but then they press me closer to him. I can’t decide which is worse, because my whole body is on fire now.
“Will you let me read the handbook so I know all the rules?”
“Yes. I will.”
He bends down and rests his forehead on my shoulder, his breath warming my skin. Why haven’t I pushed him away yet? “Does the handbook cover this?” he says.
I nod.
His lips tickle my neck as they move along it. Is he trying to drive me crazy? “It says definitely no.”
His lips come to rest against the soft spot below my ear. I can no longer think straight. It’s then I realize I have a fistful of the back of his shirt. I clutch it tighter. He must consider this encouragement because he takes my face in his hands and presses his lips to mine. They move over mine softly, his breath seeping into my mouth. My heart feels close to bursting. I want to rip up the fake handbook and throw it in his overflowing trash can. Holy crap, Trevor the nice guy is an amazing kisser.
He pulls back slightly and meets my eyes. “So when can I get a copy of this friendship handbook?”
“Friends? Who said anything about friends?”
He looks back and forth between my eyes. “Are you okay with that?”
With my fist still full of his T-shirt, I tighten my grip and pull him back to me.