Drowned Silence

Part 1

"You don't smell half bad for someone who can't shower."

Of all the things Dylan Kushner could have said to Kelsey Wade to fill the silence, the comment about her odor was probably among the stupidest. But he'd already tried the "Mr. Castaneda's class blows, right?" that had opened successfully with his last research partner, and which led into his perfect imitation of Mr. Castaneda droning on and on about dead people through a perpetually-clogged-up nose. He might have tried what he'd asked a number of people this week, "What's your costume for Randi's Halloween party tomorrow?" but Dylan knew he didn't need to see the crickets chirping on Kelsey's Facebook friends list (did she even use Facebook?) to figure out no one was going to be inviting Kelsey anywhere—even if Randi was her sister. ("We're not twins, god. Why do people always think that?" Randi had made it clear she was a whole eleven months older than Kelsey the only time Dylan had bothered to ask. It probably didn't help that their parents had waited to enroll Randi and Kelsey in the same grade back in kindergarten, something Randi said they thought would be "cute," saying the word "cute" like it was a synonym for "nauseating.")

So Dylan had sat there, watching Kelsey fumble through that bag of hers—it wasn't a purse, or even a backpack; it was something like one of those sparkly small bags the girls brought with them to dances, the kinds that only had room for a tampon and lipstick and whatever else girls absolutely needed even just for a few hours. But it wasn't sparkly. It was made of some old fabric that Kelsey might have torn off of her grandmother's—scratch that, great-grandmother's couch. And because she wasn't speaking, he thought of everything he knew about her—weird, quiet, weird, Randi's sister, maybe a little hot, just a little, in a weird way, uh, allergic to water—and asked her if it was true that she broke out in hives if water touched her, and if that's why she got out of swimming. She hadn't answered—just sort of nodded—but he kept going. "How can you be allergic to water? Isn't that like being allergic to air? Do you die if you drink?"

And it was the first thing he'd asked that actually got her to open her mouth.

"Obviously not, moron."

Dylan took the insult in stride, considering who it was coming from. "But I thought I saw this thing on YouTube once about a woman who was even allergic to drinking water—"

Kelsey had bent under her chair to retrieve the pile of books she kept in book straps that resembled a couple of belts. "Well, that's not what I have. Just the skin contact thing."

That's when the line popped out: "You don't smell half bad for someone who can't shower."

Kelsey's darkly-shadowed eyes didn't open fully, but they did grow just a centimeter wider—enough to shoot Dylan a highly unamused look. Dylan cleared his throat a few times and started tapping his finger against the table. Kelsey did nothing to alleviate the building silence. All Dylan had for comfort were the soft murmurs of the other research teams around the library, but of course, he'd been stuck with the partner who walked straight toward the back corner, the farthest possible from other human contact. He'd had no choice but to follow, shrugging his shoulders apologetically to Ryan and Ashley, who'd beckoned him to the empty seat at the end of their table by the window.

Kelsey pulled a little jar of ink out of her handbag and an actual quill—a bird feather with a pointed end. She laid a stack of unlined paper atop the desk and unstrapped her pile of books, positioning a thick encyclopedia beside her jar of ink.

Dylan couldn't help it. The words came tumbling out of his mouth. "You don't... seriously need to use that, do you?"

Kelsey shrugged and pawed her encyclopedia volume, letting the cover fall open with a great thud. "This is history. There's nothing they didn't know about Martin Luther before the Internet that they suddenly know now."