Cold Kiss

Dad was gone and later, when Gram died, What I couldn’t understand was what could be bad about something like that, something that was pure beauty, and why Mom never wanted to talk about it.
    Even that night when I shattered the lightbulb, and she was picking sheer slivers of glass out of Robin’s hair, she didn’t say a word. Just tightened her mouth into a hard line and told me to get the broom.
    Instead, I set my plate down on the table with a hollow thud and ran upstairs to my room.
    It’s different now. Aunt Mari has told me some of it, even though Mom would probably kill us both if she knew. But once I was old enough to walk downtown on my own, I figured nothing was stopping me from going to Aunt Mari’s apartment or meeting her at Bliss, the coffee shop where I work now. Whatever happened to change things after Dad was gone was the one thing Aunt Mari wouldn’t talk to me about, but she was happy to share what she knew about the power inside of us.
    Practice makes a big difference, too, even if I still can’t levitate on my own. But once, when Danny and I were tangled on his bed making out, I had to pull away before he noticed I was hovering over him, a half-inch of space between us everywhere but our mouths.
    Being with Danny focused whatever it was inside me, somehow, When we were together, holding hands or kissing or even just curled on the couch, that hum was much stronger, a constant pulse I could feel hot in my blood. But I never showed him what I could do. I never once hinted at it. Even without Aunt Mari’s warnings and a lifetime of my mother’s example, I knew the things I could make happen were just for me.
    Even now, Danny doesn’t know what I am, or what I can do. But then, there are a lot of things Danny doesn’t understand now.
    The fact that I go to school without him is the worst, for him anyway. He doesn’t miss classes, he just hates the fact that I can’t stay with him all day, curled up in the loft. Last week, I stopped climbing up to see him on my way to school because I couldn’t face having the same conversation over and over again.
    “Why can’t I come?” he would say, crowding me against the wall, as tall as ever, his cold hands cradling my face. “I miss you when you’re not here. I’d just sit with you, Wren, I swear. I wouldn’t get in the way. Quiet as a mouse, promise.”
    It’s so hard to say no to that voice. Danny’s always been pretty persuasive, and when he drops his voice like that, low and soft as he whispers against my cheek, I have to fight not to melt into a sloppy puddle.
    What’s worse is how much he sometimes sounds like the old Danny, the one who could make me laugh at all the wrong times, the one who could do dead-on impressions of Mrs. DiFranco intoning the morning announcements over the loudspeaker or ramble movie dialogue off the top of his head. My Danny, the one who died three months ago, is still in there, buried underneath the new one.
    The one who doesn’t want or think about anything but me.

CHAPTER THREE

    I SHOULDER MY BACKPACK AND GO OUT THE front door when I leave the house this morning, the way I always do, but I can’t help sinking down into the collar of my jacket. There’s no way Danny can see me from the one window in the garage loft, but I’m always worried that he’s watching anyway.
    I look over my shoulder a dozen times as I walk to school. As far as I know, he has to do what I tell him to do, and even when he argues about it, which isn’t often, he’s never once actually ignored me. I’m not sure he can, but the last thing I need is to find him shambling along behind me, pale and squinting in the sharp October sun, calling my name.
    Once I’m at school, lockers slamming and kids laughing and shouting at one another down the hall, I can relax. I slide into my seat in homeroom and nod at Meg D’Angelo, who still has her iPod earbuds in. She nods back, same way she does every morning—we’ve known each other since third grade, and she’s one of those sort-of friends, someone I hang out with at school when Jess and Darcia aren’t around.
    Of course, I haven’t seen them much since Danny died in July, and while Jess has gotten angrily vocal about it over the last few weeks, Darcia just stares at me sadly across the row that separates us in World Lit and sends me cryptic texts about new songs she likes or her little brother’s soccer games.
    At least Meg doesn’t look at me like I’ve disappointed her.
    I