The Outliers

Supplies. It’s what I think of next. We’ll need supplies. And yes, that is mostly my way of delaying the inevitable: the outside. But also, supplies couldn’t hurt.

As I head upstairs toward my bedroom, Jasper follows. Uninvited again. Though I didn’t specifically ask him to wait downstairs, because it didn’t occur to me he’d come. But him hovering is the least of my problems. The outside is looming larger and larger with each passing second. With each step, my feet feel heavier on the stairs, my lungs stiffer.

“What exactly are we doing?” Jasper asks as we continue up the stairs.

I realize now that he probably followed because I started marching upstairs without an explanation.

“I need to get some stuff. It might be cold,” I say. “You didn’t have to come.”

That is true. It might be cold. North on 95 and north on 93. That’s what Cassie said. It’s cold still in Boston even though it’s May. Who knows how much colder it could get. Or how far north we may have to go.

A change of clothes, warm things—socks, boots, sweaters. And that is partly me being paranoid. But it can’t hurt to be prepared. That’s one thing the Boy Scouts and my mom could agree on.

Once she finally had some marching orders from Dr. Shepard—help build Wylie’s confidence—my mom was all over it. By then I was in seventh grade and I’d been seeing Dr. Shepard for nearly a year. And my mom was desperate to help, to do something.

To her, building confidence meant one thing: adventure. My mom had learned all her outdoors skills from my grandfather, the original Wylie, when she was my age. Wylie the First—an actual, real-life explorer always in search of some relic in a far-off land—had to return home for good once my grandmother was hospitalized. After that, he’d take my mom to the woods often, teaching her to build a fire or navigate by the sun, and out there, surrounded by all that wild, they’d both try to forget my grandmother’s untamable mind.

Those trips with my grandfather had always been fun for my mom. For me? Not so much. They were too terrifying to be considered fun. The second time I ever rock climbed I got stuck halfway up, convinced my mom would have to call the National Guard with a helicopter. But she didn’t. She didn’t rush to rescue me at all like I thought she would. Like I kept begging her to. Instead, she just kept telling me that I could do it. Again and again and again. You can do it. You can do it. Not a shout or a yell or a cheer. Just quiet and steady and sure. Like a promise. You. Can. Do It. Of course you can. And so I closed my eyes and pretended I believed that until eventually—two hours later—I made it to the top of that rock. And for someone bawling, I did feel pretty awesome. I wasn’t cured and I wasn’t exactly having fun, but that trip and others did give me hope. And I needed that more than anything.

I also loved every minute alone with my mom. Couldn’t get enough of listening to her explain how best to pitch a tent in the rain or how to get a foothold on a steep sheet of rock. And I’ll never forget what she looked like out there in the woods in the glow of a rising sun. Like a goddess. Or a warrior. A warrior-goddess. In my memory, that’s who she’ll always be.

When Jasper and I reach the top of the steps, the bathroom door flies open and Gideon bounds out on a cloud of steam, a towel wrapped around his waist. He ends up nose to nose with Jasper.

“Who are you?” Gideon asks. He looks small suddenly compared to Jasper, who has only an inch of height on him, but many pounds of muscle.

“Jasper.” He holds out a closed fist, but instead of bumping it with his own knuckles like a normal teenager, Gideon tries to shake it awkwardly and upside down as he struggles to keep up his towel.

“Jasper is Cassie’s boyfriend.” I wave for Jasper to follow me down the upstairs hall.

Gideon squints at Jasper. He’s jealous, of course. He thinks he should be Cassie’s boyfriend, though he would never, ever admit this.

“Hey, wait!” Gideon calls after us. “Does that mean Dad found Cassie?”

I flinch as I continue on down the hall, hoping Jasper won’t put two and two together and realize that I must have known that Cassie was missing when he got there. That I played dumb when I answered the door. But as soon as we’re in my room, I can tell by the look on Jasper’s face that he didn’t miss a thing. No one actually ever said he was stupid.

“You pretended not to know Cassie was gone?” He doesn’t sound angry, only seriously confused.

I shrug and look away. “I wasn’t sure what you knew.”

His eyes open wide, then squint shut. He’s not confused anymore. He’s pissed. “Wait, do you think I had something to do with what happened to her?”

“I didn’t say that.” But I’m also not going to say that I don’t think it’s possible. I’m not going to lie to make this less uncomfortable. I’m used to uncomfortable. It’s the only way I know how to be.

“But then why would she text me to come get her?” he asks.

“I didn’t say you did something to her.” Because there are other ways to be responsible. “And I can’t drive, you know. If she wanted me to come, she’d have to figure out a way for me to get there. Anyway, Cassie has gotten herself into stuff before, but nothing as bad as this. She has kind of fallen apart, you know, since you two started dating.”

“And that’s my fault?” Jasper’s eyes are wide and bright.

“I didn’t say that.” Though I do kind of mean it. I cross my arms. “Anyway, do you really want to do this? To waste time having some kind of situation between the two of us? You don’t like me and I don’t like you. But we both care about Cassie, right? What matters is getting her out of whatever mess she’s in.”

“How can I not like you?” Jasper blinks at me. Like that was the only important part of what I just said, the part about him. “I don’t even know you.”

I’m relieved when my phone vibrates in my hand again, saving me from saying something I shouldn’t. But it’s not Cassie. It’s my dad: Be home in ten minutes.

Shit. The time for stalling is over. We have got to get going. And I have to get myself out the door.

Any sign of Cassie at her house? I write back.

Not yet. But I’m sure she’s fine. Don’t worry.

Am I really going to do this? Not tell him or Karen that I’ve heard from her? I don’t want to keep it from them, but I don’t feel like I know enough to overrule Cassie. At least not yet. Besides, it’s not like we can’t change our minds. We’ll wait for more details. Once we know exactly what kind of mess Cassie’s in and how deep it goes, then we’ll decide who needs to know.

“Listen, we have to go. My dad will be home soon.” I grab my small duffel bag and start tossing things inside: a change of clothes, sweatpants, one of my bandannas. The bandanna reminds me of my hacked hair that Jasper has still been doing a decent job of pretending not to notice.

“Does your dad or brother maybe have a sweatshirt or something I could borrow? I ran out to come here when I got Cassie’s text.” Jasper looks down at his short sleeves. “If we stop back at my place, my brother will never let me leave again with his car.”

“Sure, yeah,” I say, feeling a little guilty that I’d assumed he was showing off his bare arms on purpose. “I’ll see what I can find.”

My mom’s Doc Marten boots are still sitting in the middle of my parents’ carpet. I stand in front of them for a minute, staring down. Finally, I push my feet in and jerk the laces tight—they’re a size too big, but not terrible. I also grab my mom’s favorite sweatshirt off the back of the door. It’s not an accident that it’s been hanging there for the last four months, right where she left it. But right now, I need it more than my dad does. Besides, he was the one who didn’t care about her shoes.

The last thing I take is from my mom’s nightstand. Her Swiss army knife. A gift from my grandfather when she was sixteen, it has her initials on it. Good for everything, she always said. I turn it in my fingers, feeling its weight in my palm.

When my hands start to tremble, I jam it deep in my front pocket.

Back in my room, Jasper is walking around looking at my photographs. Black and white, they’re hanging from a string that runs around the edge of my room. It’s been so long since I’ve even noticed them, probably since the day of the accident. Once upon a time I lived with my fancy, birthday-gift digital camera in my hands, seeing more of the world through that lens than with my own eyes. My mom always said I had this way of capturing the real person hidden inside, the mark of a true photographer, she assured me. Now, I can’t imagine taking a picture of anyone ever again.

“They’re kind of—” Jasper searches for a word, his eyes on a photo of an old woman sitting on a park bench near Copley Square with a big plaid bag next to her. She’s staring straight up at the camera, not smiling, a pile of crushed saltines between her feet. “Depressing.”

I hate how naked I feel. Because they are depressing. I’m depressing. But Jasper didn’t actually have to say that to me, either. I wonder if that was him being clueless or if he was trying to be rude. With him, it’s kind of hard to tell. But either way, I want him to stop looking at my pictures. I want him out of my room.

“Come on.” I shove a long-sleeved shirt and a fleece of my dad’s at him. “We need to go.”

Amazing how confident I sound. Like this outside thing is a real, legitimate possibility. Like it hasn’t been three weeks since I’ve stepped out the door. Sure. Right. No problem.

Once we’re downstairs, I try to stay in the moment like Dr. Shepard has taught me. Not to get ahead of myself to where the dread lies. I feel the scratch of the fabric as I pull the heavy coats from the closet, the cool metal of the doorknob. Those things are real. Everything else is in my head. But the panic monster—Outside! Outside! Outside!—is still screaming. And my heart is beating so fast it feels like it’s going to explode.

“Here, take this.” I shove my dad’s parka at Jasper.

Already, he’s studying the side of my face as I turn toward the garage. Jasper has noticed there’s something wrong with me, of course he has. He’d have to be a total idiot not to. For all I know, Cassie’s told him all about my “issues” anyway. And they’ve gotten way worse than even she knows.

I suck in a mouthful of air as I pull open the door to the garage. As I step out, the air is so thin and sharp. Like we just entered outer space. And that’s with the door to the outside still closed. I put one hand on a nearby shelf for balance and catch sight of my mom’s camping gear. The stuff I will never let anyone ever give away. I’ll take some of that gear too. I need to suddenly. I grab one of the compact tents, a plastic tarp, a sleeping bag, some flares, a compass, the water purifier. I stack half on the floor; the rest I clutch against me.

When I turn, Jasper is staring at all of it.

“Um, did Cassie say something about us camping somewhere?”

We don’t need it, part of me wants to confess. I do. To get me out the door.

“You never know,” I manage, then motion for Jasper to grab up what’s left on the floor. I point to the button on the wall next to him. “Can you press that? It opens the garage door.”

I twitch when the door grinds up loudly, squeezing my supplies so tight that they cut into my ribs. The pain is weirdly reassuring, though. Before I pass out always comes the numbness and then the tunnel to blackness. And I don’t feel any of that, not yet. Just deep underwater, the pressure crushing my skull.

As the door rattles the rest of the way up, maybe Jasper says something, maybe he doesn’t. Because I can’t hear anything but the roar of that door. Can’t feel anything but the thumping of my own heart.

There’s a rush of cold air on my face as the night sky finally rises before my eyes. I can see the house across the street, the front yard I played in so many times as a little kid. The side yard that was once my shortcut to school. Memories now from someone else’s life. The air smells good, too, like wood smoke and snow. Safe. And yet all I feel is more afraid.

Jasper is already out on the driveway, marching toward his car like the totally normal person he is. Loading up his trunk with the rest of my useless supplies. A second later he’s back, standing next to me, staring. But even with the shame of Jasper’s eyes boring into me, the pain of knowing that I could be wasting Cassie’s time, my feet still will not move.

There’s only one way out of this garage: to believe that I can. You can do it. You can do it. I hear my mom’s voice in my head. I can feel her fingers crossed as I inch my way for hours up the side of that stone. It got me up that stone. It’s what will get me out that door.

“Give me your arm,” I say to Jasper without looking at him. He hesitates, then holds a bicep out toward me. I wrap a couple of fingers around his bare elbow, which was supposed to feel less weird than actually holding his muscular arm. But does not. “I just need you to walk me to your car. Don’t ask why, please. I’m not going to tell you anyway.”

And then I close my eyes. Because pretending I’m not actually doing this couldn’t hurt either.

“Okay,” Jasper says, almost like a question.

My eyes are still closed tight as we walk forward through the garage. Still, I can feel the darkness rush in around me when we finally step outside. Breathe, I tell myself as we make our way down what I’m guessing is the driveway. I don’t open my eyes until I feel the cool metal of the car in front of us. Finally, I suck in some air, dropping Jasper’s elbow and opening my eyes only long enough to dump everything inside the open back of his old Jeep. I squeeze my eyes shut as I feel my way over to the passenger door. Behind me, I hear Jasper close the trunk.

I climb into the car, heart pounding. But for the first time it’s a rush of something good: I made it. I almost don’t believe it, looking down at myself sitting in the Jeep. I brace myself for all the questions Jasper will have when he finally slides into the car next to me. The ones I told him not to ask. And I can feel him staring at the side of my face again for a long minute, like he’s considering.