Chapter 3

“REPORT TO HEADQUARTERS!”

It’s 5:30am. I wake up immediately to the thunderous voice of my father, Lt. Colonel Finn MacLeanard. He thinks that army principles should be applied to all areas of life, particularly child-rearing. Consequently, for the last 13 years of my life, he’s woken me and my brothers up in this rather inconvenient manner. Luckily for them, they’ve moved out now.

I swing my feet out of my bed, and run downstairs in what I slept in, black sweatpants and oversized band t-shirt. “Headquarters” is the kitchen. I stand at attention, the effect mostly spoiled by my disheveled hair and the dark circles under my eyes. My father looks me over as if I were a real soldier in the army, although he ignores my bed head and sleepy face. He nods. “Dismissed,” he says.

I know what you’re thinking. Really, I don’t know why he insists on this ritual every morning. I am now free to perform my daily routine to get ready for school. I take a shower, attempt to comb my wildly curly red hair, and get dressed. As I look myself over in the mirror, I sigh in irritation. My pale skin looks sickly, and my dark red hair looks no better than when I woke up. Only my eyes look fine, other than the ever-present dark circles. Most people don’t notice those, though. My eyes are such a bright shade of green, uninterrupted by any other colors. I do have to admit, they are…noticeable, though I certainly wouldn’t call them beautiful.

I turn to grab my black messenger bag and toss my notebook, also black, into it. I also dump in a few differently colored mechanical pencils. I can’t stand the normal kind of pencils; I only use mechanical.

I return to the kitchen, where I make myself a smoothie out of strawberries, yogurt, and bananas, with a little bit of honey. I put it in the freezer to chill until I was ready for it.

My dad is waiting for me in the living room. He doesn’t say anything at first. Then, “DROP AND GIVE ME 50!” I honestly can’t fathom why he feels the need to scream his head off at me when I’m only about 6 feet away from him. Without a thought, I drop to the hard wood floors and begin the required daily regimen. After 4 and a half minutes of push-ups, I finish my fiftieth and rise to attention until the next order.

Some of you may think that the calisthenics would be pure torture. You would be absolutely right. Even though I’ve done this since I can remember, my muscles still groan and protest in the morning. The one pro in this is that I’m fully awake once I’ve finished.

The bus shows up outside the front window. I grab my smoothie and dump it into a tall disposable cup, then rush out the door.

The driver doesn’t even look at me. We’ve never been on good terms with each other. I move past the empty seats in the front; I like to be by myself. I sit in the fourth-to-last bench, far enough from the rough crowd at the back, but still far away from the band geeks and everyone else.

My stop is the first on the route, so there’s no one else there. I slowly retreat all the way into own thoughts, unaware of the shiny, tough vinyl bench, or the cool autumn breeze catching in my hair. The bus fills with students, all sitting in their usual seats. No one sits near me. It’s always this way.

It’s not necessarily that people don’t like me. I just don’t generally like them. It wasn’t always like this, though. Mostly after my mother died in a drunk driving accident two years ago. It was about a year before we moved from Ireland.

My mother and I weren’t especially close. I’ve always been more of a daddy’s girl. But of course, I was still really sad. That probably has something to do with it.

The first day it happened was about three days after my mother’s death was confirmed. I passed my brother Aidan in our narrow hallway. He was 17 at the time, and I was 13. When we passed, his hand brushed my arm. I suddenly felt split; torn apart to become two people. I could feel his every thought, and I knew every thought he had ever had. I saw myself stumble through Aidan’s eyes, felt his worry, and my own panic. Actually, I’m not really sure which one of us was doing the panicking. It was probably both.

Aidan reached down to steady me. I thrashed about—his touch was physically hurting me. My fist accidentally connected with his nose. We both felt the crunch of his nose breaking. He jumped back, severing the physical contact. Immediately everything cleared and I was myself again.

I was hysterical, crazed and disoriented. Only when he was sleeping peacefully in the hospital bed did I finally calm down.

At the time, I didn’t know that the whole episode had happened because of physical contact. Naturally, it happened again. My gym teacher was the next unfortunate victim of my terror. He ended up with an elbow in his gut. Then it happened a third time with at cashier at a superstore. She had just given me my change. As luck would have it, her fingers touched mine. That time it wasn’t as painful, so no one got hurt. I left having exchanged nothing but a grimace and a sideways glance with the cashier.

As I lay in my bed that night, not sleeping, I pieced things together. Something that I can’t explain happened. Something was awakened in my by my mother’s death. I have the power to feel people. Some are gentle. Some people have serious mental issues. And some people are just plain stupid. Whatever the case is, it’s always painful finding out, especially if it’s by accident.