Touch

31

After my talk with Zayn, Luke and Hanna are all twenty-questions-times-a-hundred about what he had to say.

But I just don't feel like talking about it. Instead, I stare out the window as Luke drives us home, watching the swirl of colors, of houses mixed with buildings and trees, all blending together into one big blur. "Come on," Hanna begs.

"If you're not going to give us the full story, then how about just the CliffsNotes version?" I shake my head, still unnerved by my conversation with Zayn, by the image of his girlfriend as she fell over the cliff that day, and the look of horror that must have covered her face when she saw him lunge for her.

"Paging April The Month," Luke says, cupping his mouth and speaking through his makeshift megaphone. "Maybe she needs some water splashed on her face," Hanna suggests.

"All I've got is a day-old Big Gulp," he says, jiggling a supersize soda cup. He peers at me in his rearview mirror, but I look back toward the street, suddenly very anxious to get home.

"Do you want me to come in with you?" Hanna asks, once we pull up in front of my house. "No, thanks," I say, managing a smile. "I'll call you, okay?" She nods , and I go up the front steps and straight inside to the kitchen, part of me relieved to find a note from my mom saying that one of the teachers at the yoga studio called in sick and she's covering for her, and another part scared to death to be alone.

In my room, I pull down my shades and make sure both windows are closed and locked, unable to shake Zayn's words. It's barely even five o'clock. I have at least another hour until my dad gets home.

And so I camp out at my computer desk and google the term psychometry, half hoping it's just some made-up word, that Zayn doesn't know what he's talking about. But it pops up right away.

Psychometry: the ability to "see" through touch: to learn about an object's history or read into a person's future by touching it or him.

I sit down on the corner of my bed and snuggle against my stuffed polar bear, trying to figure out what all of this means, what it'll mean if I choose to believe him.

I stare back at my reflection in the dresser mirror, hair pulled back, heart-shaped face, eyes set wide apart, wondering what Zayn really sees when he touches me.

And what I would look like dead. A moment later the phone rings, startling me. I stare at it, debating whether or not to pick it up, if whoever left me that gift knows I'm alone.

Four rings.

Five.

I finally pick it up, but it's a dial tone before I can even speak. I take a deep breath, trying to exhale away the knot in my chest, wishing I had taken Hanna up on her offer to come in.

Instead of clicking the phone back off, I leave it on and head downstairs to the basement, where I've got a pottery studio set up in the corner, complete with table, sculpting tools , and potter's wheel.

I take the tie off a bag of clay, cut myself a nice, thick slice, and then thwack it down against my board.

The clay is smooth and moist beneath my fingertips. I roll it out between my palms, resisting the urge to think too much or plan anything out, and instead I take notice of the texture of the clay and how it shapes in my hands.

"What does this sculpture want to be?" I ask, taking Chase's words to heart about letting the work guide me for a change.

I continue to punch, prod, and pull at my clay for at least another hour, but somehow all I have to show for it in the end is a long, stringy piece with handles at both ends, like a jump rope. Pretty much as pulseless as you can get.