Nora Stevenson

Chapter Nine

"Would you stop?!" I say with annoyance, switching the dial forward yet again. "I'm the driver, Liam. I get to control the music volume!" My friend throws his head back in playful agony.
​"Fiiiine," he acquiesces, and he sticks his tongue out at me. I thwack him in retaliation. "So," he begins, "we're driving for two days—"
​"Not two days! Forty-one hours."
​He laughs. "Well, gee. My bad. I guess I have it easy now that I got seven hours shaved off of a FORTY-ONE HOUR CAR TRIP. Are we insane?!"
​I snort, keeping my eyes on the city road in front of me. "Why would you ever question my sanity?"
​"Because you're insane."
​I consider. "Fair enough." I turn my rental car to the right and shush Liam's probing questions as I merge onto the highway. Once safely on the freeway, I begin to answer him. "See, we can't fly because I'm technically classified as a criminal these days. I mean, you could take a plane, but honestly, where would be the fun in flying to D. C. all by yourself?"
​"A five-hour flight."
​I cock my head. "I thought you hated airplanes?"
​"Well, yeah, but anything's better than being in a car with you for two days," he jokes. I purse my lips and remain silent. "You want to say it, don't you?"
​"Dear God, yes," I reply.
​"Well, don't."
​"Fine." I blow wisps of blonde hair out of my face. "Forty-one hours," I mutter under my breath, just loud enough to annoy Liam. He inhales sharply and looks at me, exasperated. "Oh, shut up. Just deal with it."
​He sighs and gazes out the cracked-open window, the top tufts of his hair shifting in the wind. A few minutes pass in silence. "So... Tell me about this reading minds thing?"
​"Well..." Dang it. I'd known it was coming. But now? On a forty-one hour car trip? I sigh and start to explain as best I can. "I don't really know how it started, but since I was a teenager I've been able to kind of read minds."
​Liam laughs softly. I thwack him again.
​"Look, I know it sounds cliché! But I promise you, I really can. I can see what they're thinking, but just in these random words or phrases. Like, if you were thinking about, say, that nasty motel we stayed at—"
​"Can you not mention that place? I'd rather not puke in the car."
​I snort. "Yeah. Sorry. Well, how about I just demonstrate? You think about something, and I'll tell you the words that come to my mind." We come up on an exit off the highway, and I pull onto it. I drive a little further to find a QuikTrip on the side of the road. I park and face Liam. "Alright, go."
​He raises his eyebrows suspiciously but obeys anyway. I take one last look at him and close my eyes, concentrating. I picture my hand reaching into his mind and pulling out the top layer of thoughts. Time. Food. Nora. Startled at finding my name in his mind, I open my eyes and sit back up.
​"So?" he asks. "What was I thinking?"
​"Well, you were thinking about our car trip, right? I saw three words: time, food, and Nora. So I put them together and got the car trip."
​Liam raises his eyebrows again, this time impressed. "Nice. You got any other hidden talents no one knows about?"
​"Yeah, actually. I can feel others' emotions, too."
​"Explain?"
​I pull out of the QT parking lot and get back on the highway. "Alright. So, you remember when you came to the prison to get me out? And I asked you to look me in the eye? That was because I felt something weird about you and decided to read your emotions," I say with a bit of shame.
​"Oh, okay. So that's what that was about, then."
​"Yep." I pause. "You were really angry that day... Why?"
Liam shifts in his seat, fumbling with the seatbelt strapped across his chest. His mind instantly guards itself. "I think you know why, Nora," he says matter-of-factly.
"Abigail."
"Yeah."
Silence. "Well, Liam, this is what you're going to work on, right? Not getting so worked up about her?"
"Yeah, I know, it's just...hard." More awkward silence.
"Yeah, anyway," I begin, "I can't just read them like I do thoughts. I kind of experience them on my own and have to figure out what they are. "
Liam seems happy to have switched back to the conversation about me. "Well, how do you do that? Isn't that kind of, like, exhausting?"
I nod. "It is. For example, that day you were angry, I remember being really startled because I looked at you and couldn't control it. My stomach was in knots, my teeth were clenching, I wanted to scream. But I have found a way to deal with it. It's hard to explain, but I just sort of swallow it down and take a breath, and then it's gone. I can focus on other stuff again. And, since then, I can control myself from looking into people's thoughts all the time."
Liam, dumbfounded, stays silent for a moment. Finally, he speaks. "That is freaking awesome! I wish I could do that. You know, you could make money off of this. You could join the circus!"
"Haha." I narrow my eyes. The circus? I'm already enough of a freak show as it is. But I let it go. I fix my eyes on the road.
"Ooh, look!" Liam says. He points at a sign on the side of the road. "We're in Nevada!"
"Woohoo! You know what, we should celebrate every time we reach a new state. You want to get slushies?"
Liam stares at me, sincerity in his eyes. "Is that even a question?"