Having all of the cards on the table certainly changes mine and Eli's relationship. Whereas we'd formerly practiced cautiousness and hesitancy — or I had, at least — we are now sort of, well, freer. My mindset is that I've only one week left of school — finals week — and two weeks left until I graduate. Dad electronically signed a lease on an apartment in Iowa (I guess he's not planning on staying there for quite so long, either), and we're getting on the road as soon as I receive my diploma. So why shouldn't I let Eli hold my hand between classes? Why shouldn't I let him kiss me on the cheek as he drops me off at English? Why shouldn't I let him carry my physics book for me or stand so closely behind me as we recite The Pledge in homeroom, bent slightly forward, that I can feel his warm breath on the back of my neck? Who cares if my "name" is suddenly in people's mouths? For once in my life, I don't. We've only got twelve days left to get it right, and nothing else matters any more.

On Monday, we take our second, fourth, and fifth hour finals. English is simple because our final isn't cumulative; it's merely forty-five multiple choice questions on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which I read in grade nine recreationally, and I'd skimmed through it last night to refresh my memory. Spanish is a little more difficult, as I, nor anyone in my class of seniors, is fluent. But the thing is that Ms. Torres has several posters and things lining the walls cataloguing conjugated verbs and such that I think she "accidentally" keeps uncovered so we'll utilize them. So despite the serious lack of studying I've been doing amidst everything else that's been going on the past couple of weeks, I feel pretty hopeful about a B-.

As for gym class, there is no final. We have the choice to dress out and play dodgeball or dress out and do stretches, so it ends up divided between males and females almost equally. The game of dodgeball quickly morphs into an all-against-all, survival of the fittest one, and the stretching into the girls gossipping chattily and me studying for physics.

I don't have any classes with Stef, but I look for her in the halls. It's not that dire of a situation in comparison to others that plague me, but I still don't get why she'd invited us to Tyler's via Eli and then said nothing about it to me at the party. I finally track her down between sixth and seventh period. She's in line for the water fountain outside the computer lab. I waltz up to her as if I'm just another thirsty student in line for some water, but then I "recognize" her.

"Stef Simms?"

"Hey... uh, Alyssa?"

I give her a warm smile. "Yeah."

She bends over to meet the stream of water that shoots from the fountain. "How've you been?" she asks between sips. "I never did get the chance to congratulate you on making the not homecoming court."

"Yep. Did it all on my own, too." She laughs, her aura coral. "Oh, hey," I say as if I'd just now thought of it. "I wanted to ask you about Ty's party Friday night."

She wipes water from her mouth with her sleeve. "Ty Prestridge?"

"Yeah. Uh, Eli told me you invited him — or us, actually — on Facebook."

Her aura turns gray. "Eli... the Indian kid? I don't even think I'm friends with him on Facebook."

"Oh... really?" I ask as if I'm not alarmed. Not one bit. "He said you messaged him and asked if we were planning on going."

She shakes her head, her tiny blonde ponytail whipping side to side. "Nope. Must've been Paige. I didn't even go to that party."

I came into this conversation expecting a simple explanation, one that would make me go, Oh, of course, and wonder why I was even worried; an explanation so obvious that I'm embarrassed for not seeing it before. But this? This I could not have seen coming.

"You..." I stop, shaking my head at her. "You were there. I talked to you for, like, ten minutes."

She scoffs but remains smiling, her aura again coral. "That must've been Paige, too. Wouldn't be the first time she pretended to be me. It's like a game to her, or something; how many people can she trick? She likes to target — no offense — but she likes to target people that she thinks don't know many people."

"No, none taken. I don't know that many people." I've never even met Paige... And I was so sure it'd been Stef... "You were, I mean, she was there with two girls. Sarah and..."

Stef's brows furrow, her aura back to gray. "Sarah and Skyler?"

"Yeah, yeah. That was their names."

"That's impossible. They were at my house on Friday night; we were studying for our French final."

Even though this is the most confused I've ever been, probably in my entire life, I'm suddenly worried that Stef will think me terribly odd. So I give in. "Oh, really?" I fake a chuckle. "Must not've been them, then."

"Yeah, it couldn't have been." She offers up one last apologetic smile, one that doesn't quite meet her aqua-colored eyes. Hadn't they been a golden-brown color at the party? Strange. She and Paige must be fraternal... but at the same time, identical enough for me to mistake one for the other...

"Sorry about Paige," she offers. "See you around."

"Yeah. See ya." Then we both go our separate ways, me to art and her to wherever it is she's going, and I realize I have no way of knowing if that was actually Stef or if I'd just met Paige.

🦎

          "So I just ran in to Stef," I tell Eli as I take my seat next to him. The tardy bell hasn't even rung yet, and he's already begun painting his tree.

"Did'ja ask her about the party?"

"Yeah, I did. And she said she didn't go."

Eli frowns without looking up at me. "But I thought you said you'd hung out with her there."

"I did! Or, I thought I did... But it must've been Paige, I guess."

"Well Stef was the one who invited me." He sticks his tongue out in concentration as he traces a branch.

"She said that wasn't her, either. That she's not even your Facebook friend."

This obviously isn't affecting his psyche as much as it's affecting mine, because he still doesn't look up. "Oh. Weird."

"Yeah. It is."

"So, have you finally decided on what you're gonna do for your self portrait? You've only got five days left, you know."

I pull the empty, white canvas from the cubby on the wall behind me. I place it on the table before me and stare down at it. Maybe if I stare long enough, an image will reveal itself to me.

"I honestly have no idea."

"May I make a suggestion?" he offers.

"I don't know how to draw a chameleon."

"No, no. It's not that."

"What, then?"

He finally decides to look at me. He's got a brown streak of paint on his jaw, but I don't tell him. "I know why the caged bird sings."

"What does that have anything to do with me?"

"It's a poem by Maya Angelou."

"I know what it is."

"Okay, well have you read it? We read it in class a few weeks ago. It's very you."

"How so?"

He suprises me by reaching into his book bag and pulling out his English III textbook. He opens to a dog-eared page. The poem, actually titled "Caged Bird", is highlighted. I think it kind of strange that Eli had likened this poem, of all things, to me, but as I read the stanza he points to, I think I understand why.

"But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing."

I do not open my throat to sing. But I do lift my pencil and, finally, I begin to draw.

🦎

          After school, Eli and I walk hand in hand to the Camry. I silently agree to give him a lift home. He tells me that he's grounded for leaving Theresa's SUV on the Prestridge's front lawn overnight and that he can't have me over on Thursday. I thank his lucky stars that his parents hadn't found out he'd been drinking — they'd believed his story of he went to Ty's to play cards and then, not thinking, had left with Sampson. Apparently it's not the first time he'd done something similarly "boneheadish", as he'd called it. Kei is on permanent bedrest until further notice, and Theresa won't be home for another couple of hours. I sneak inside with him and we go upstairs.

Our kisses now are... different. He used to kiss me softly, slowly, sweetly, but now his kisses are more rushed, more urgent. As if he's afraid he won't get enough of them in in our allotted remaining time together. Also, now that he knows what happens to me when we kiss — that I feel a mimicry of whatever he is feeling at any given moment — he uses this to his immense advantage. He kisses me in ways that he knows he will enjoy, and I have little to zero choice in the matter of whether I will enjoy them myself, as well, because I inadvertently do, every single time. It becomes like a challenge to him — How crazy can I drive Aspen before she pushes me off of her? The answer? Pretty darn crazy. But every time I push him away, he just bursts into a fit of laughter, and as I catch my breath I try to differentiate in my own mind which feelings actually belong to me.

Being with him this way, I almost forget that I'm wanted and on the run. I've never had anyone besides my dad that knew all my secrets — everything I am and everything I can do and everything I'm running from — and it's as if Eli and I have lost ourselves in our own little bubble of us. I imagine it's quite similar to any other normal high school relationship, and this makes me both extremely proud and extremely possessive. I don't want to lose this feeling, but I know I can't take it with me. There is no room for it in Avery James's life, of this I am already sure. I'm also sure Eli would protest to this, but that is a conversation I am saving for a later date, one I am pushing to the very bottom of my list of priorities.

The bullet point that is currently housed at the top of my list makes itself present to me on a Tuesday evening. There is a knock on the door as I wash dishes and Dad finishes off the last of his baked ham and white beans. We both look at the door, then at each other, then back to the door.

"You expecting someone?" Dad asks.

"Uh-uh."

He takes a swig of water and pads to the door. I freeze, water running — plate in one hand, dish soap in the other. Dad looks at me one last time before twisting the knob, and a man stands on the other side of the door, fist lifted as if readying for a second set of knocks.

"Hi... May I help you?" Dad asks.

I stand on my toes to see the man with the olive aura over the hulking figure that is my father, but he has the door opened just barely so that I can't see his face. I hear the soft pitter-patter of the raindrops falling atop the concrete, but Dad doesn't invite the man in.

"Hello, my name is Dr. Joseph Talbot-Lilley. I was hoping to speak with your daughter, Alyssa?"

Ian.

I turn off the faucet and scamper the ten or so steps to the door.

I can hear the wariness in Dad's voice and feel it in his aura. "I'm sorry; may I ask how you know my daughter?"

I take the knob from my father and pull the door open. I speak before Ian has the chance to. "Dr. Talbot! Hi!"

"Hey, there, Alyssa." He gives me a friendly smile, his eyes crinkling.

"Dad, this is a family friend of the Whitneys'." I give Ian a look as if to say play along. "He joined us for dinner last week."

Dad's aura doesn't let up. "And what business do you have with Alyssa?"

"Dad, it's fine," I say at the same time Ian reaches behind himself to pull something from his back pocket. I feel Dad tense up beside me. He steps in front of me, putting a protective arm between me and Ian. But a gun is not what Ian holds out into the space between us.

He hands me an envelope, pretending to ignore my father's defensiveness. A few droplets of rain bounce off of the ground and land on the white paper. He directs his explanation to Dad, however. "Alyssa expressed to me at dinner last week her interest in medicine, as I'm sure you know."

Dad nods like he does, like that isn't a complete load of crap.

"We got to chatting about my thesis in school. I'd conducted an experiment on how anesthesia affects the brain cells." He looks at me, and his mouth tells me one thing, but his eyes tell me another. "I actually tracked down my essay and printed out a copy for you. You know, in case you decide to pursue an education in the field."

I look to Dad for permission, but his gaze does not leave Ian. His jaw clenches.

I tentatively take the envelope from Ian. "Thanks. I appreciate it."

"You bet." He holds a hand out to Dad. "It was nice meeting you, Mr. George," he says, because Dad has yet to introduce himself by name.

Dad stares at his hand for a moment, and I fear he won't accept it. But then he shakes it, and his expression does a complete one-eighty. He smiles warmly. "Likewise."

Ian wishes us a pleasant evening and hurries through the quickly heavying rain to his vehicle parked in the street outside our house. Dad locks the door.

Without saying a word, he snatches the envelope from my hand. I have no idea what it contains, but I have a very strong inkling that it's not Ian's thesis paper from college. Whatever it is, I hope to God that he was smart enough to disguise it in case it ended up in the wrong hands — in the hands it is in right now. With little care for neatness, Dad rips open the envelope at its edge. He pulls out a few sheets of paper folded atop each other in thirds. He unfolds it and holds it up to his eyes — he isn't wearing his reading glasses. I try to read it, too, but he steps away from me and holds up a palm in warning. He skims over whatever words the paper holds. I watch as his mouth moves, but it isn't decipherable. I keep my eyes trained on his aura — it goes from olive to gray to orange.

"You wanna become a doctor?" he asks me over the paper.

"I'm... juggling a few possible options."

His aura turns royal blue. "Like your old man. That's what I wanted to be. Yenno, before." He hands me the papers and then yanks them back right when I reach for them. "I don't like that fella just showing up here. Isn't normal."

"Sure, it is. Normal people do that all the time. And he has no reason to suspect that we aren't. Normal people." Worried that I'm being too obvious, I shrug as if to roll it right off my back.

He places the papers in the hand of my still outstretched arm. "I don't think I want you seeing him again."

I think about how I can't go to Eli's for game night, and how that is the place I'd supposedly "met" Ian. "That won't be a problem."

My heart beating much faster than I'd like it to, I take a look at the papers in my hand. Medical procedure... anesthesia... brain cells...? Is this really Ian's master's thesis paper? I flip to the second and third pages to confirm that what I'm seeing is true. Paragraphs and paragraphs of medical jargon sit atop the paper in proper MLA format. I think back to earlier with Stef when I'd thought I was the most confused I'd ever been, and I silently take it back. This is the most confused I've ever been.

I continue searching the essay for some kind of clue — there's no way Ian had gone through all the trouble of tracking me down just to deliver to me what is now a twice-used cover-up, if I'm correct. My eyes still atop a word. A common word, an ordinary word. The word "is". However, the "i" is capitalized, and it is not at the beginning of a sentence. Being a nineteen-year-old senior in high school, I know for a fact that "is" is not a proper noun. Curious, I scan the essay for other improper capitalization. And now that I'm looking for it... I find a lot. Too many to be mistakes. Certainly not final assignment mistakes.

Dad has abandoned his dinner and has taken to the solace of his bedroom, likely to simmer over Ian's visit and how he'd found no fault in it but still can't shake the feeling that something about it was wrong. I empty his plate in the trash and set it in the sink to soak.

I lock the door to my room before I take out a pen and paper. With shaking hands, I start at the beginning of the essay. I write down every unnecessarily capitalized letter I find. With shaking hands, I lift the notebook and read what I've written.

One word; a color. And an e-mail address.

With shaking hands, I tear out the notebook paper and crumple it up. I shove it down to the bottom of my book bag. With shaking hands, I pick up my phone. With this phone call, I might be one step closer to reclaiming my existence.

He answers. "Hello, my really cute girlfriend?"

Had he called me his girlfriend? I can't be sure. Because my mind is focused elsewhere. "I need to borrow your e-mail account."

"Oh, is this Detective Bumblebee? My bad. I'd thought it was Aspen." He switches to the high-pitched, nasally voice of Agent Eggnog. "You're in luck, Bumbles, as I would like nothing more than to give you my log-in credentials."

"No. I can't do it here. I'll just... Can I come over after school tomorrow?"

"Well, duh," says Eli. "Might I inquire the reason?"

"Dr. Talbot," I tell him in a hushed tone. "He wants me to contact him. I think he can help me. I think... I think he remembers Gray."

__________

What's up, Thursday?!

I'm currently on holiday. I saw Issues <3 with Pvris last night! And now we're on our way to see TWENTY-ØNE MOTHERFRICKEN PILOTS and I've never seen them and I'm gonna pee my britches. |-/

Any theories on what Ian'ss gonna tell Aspen? Or theories on Ian's himself?

ALSO, this edit was made by my fam @damonnkerseyy!!