Till Forever is Ours

12.

"CAN I ASK JUST ONE MORE?" I PLEADED AS YELENA accelerated much too quickly down the quiet street. She didn't seem to be paying any attention to the road.

She sighed.

"One," she agreed. Her lips pressed together into a cautious line.

"Well... you said you knew I hadn't gone into the bookstore, and that I had gone south. I was just wondering how you knew that."

She looked away, deliberating.

"I thought we were past all the evasiveness," I grumbled.

She almost smiled.

"Fine, then. I followed your scent." She looked at the road, giving me time to compose my face. I couldn't think of an acceptable response to that, but I filed it carefully away for future study. I tried to refocus. I wasn't ready to let her be finished, now that she was finally explaining things.

"And then you didn't answer one of my first questions..." I stalled.

She looked at me with disapproval. "Which one?"

"How does it work— the mind-reading thing? Can you read anybody's mind, anywhere? How do you do it? Can the rest of your family...?" I felt silly, asking for clarification on make-believe.

"That's more than one," she pointed out. I simply intertwined my fingers and gazed at her, waiting.

"No, it's just me. And I can't hear anyone, anywhere. I have to be fairly close. The more familiar someone's... 'voice' is, the farther away I can hear them. But still, no more than a few miles." She paused thoughtfully. "It's a little like being in a huge hall filled with people, everyone talking at once. It's just a hum— a buzzing of voices in the background. Until I focus on one voice, and then what they're thinking is clear. Most of the time I tune it all out— it can be very distracting. And then it's easier to seem normal"— she frowned as she said the word— "when I'm not accidentally answering someone's thoughts rather than their words."

"Why do you think you can't hear me?" I asked curiosity.

She looked at me, her eyes enigmatic.

"I don't know," she murmured. "The only guess I have is that maybe your mind doesn't work the same way the rest of theirs do. Like your thoughts are on the AM frequency and I'm only getting FM." She grinned at me, suddenly amused.

"My mind doesn't work, right? I'm a freak?" The words bothered me more than they should— probably because her speculation hit home. I'd always suspected as much, and it embarrassed me to have it confirmed.

"I hear voices in my mind and you're worried that you're the freak," she laughed. "Don't worry, it's just a theory..." her face tightened. "Which brings us back to you."

I sighed. How to begin?

"Aren't we passed all the evasions now?" she reminded me softly.

I looked away from her face for the first time, trying to find words. I happened to notice the speedometer.

"Holy crow!" I shouted. "Slow down!"

"What's wrong?" She was startled. But the car didn't decelerate.

"You're going a hundred miles an hour!" I was still shouting. I shot a panicky glance out the window, but it was too dark to see much. The road was only visible in the long patch of bluish brightness from the headlights. The forest along both sides of the road was like a black wall— as hard as a wall of steel if we veered off the road at this speed.

"Relax, Kate." She rolled her eyes, still not slowing.

"Are you trying to kill us?" I demanded.

"We're not going to crash."