The Cost of Knowing: Chapters 1–4

But the most telling detail, the revelation that might affect my future, lies in the background.

I blink, directing all my focus into darkness, the abstract, nothing.

And my only answer to the inevitable question, “How do you know for sure?” will be “I can see the future,” an idea so ridiculous that I didn’t even believe it until I got out of that hospital and it started interfering with my daily life.

I used to be able to wear cheap latex gloves up front. We used to have to wear them while scooping, as mandated by the health department. I’d put them on, cancel a quick vision of them, and go the rest of the day blissfully unaware of my—I don’t even know what to call this—disorder? Affliction? Curse?

The visions started coming back about ten minutes after I put them on, and the discomfort of sweaty palms, and the strange looks I’d get in public, began to outweigh the respite they gave me.

The novelty of smelling ice cream all day wore off by the end of my first week. Now I barely smell anything. But I’ve heard that’s normal.

Ashlynn, who stands what feels like a foot taller than me and who always wears a too-tight brown ponytail that’s creeping her hairline farther back than any twenty-year-old should have, glances over her shoulder at me with that jaded smirk of hers.

I own a consignment shop down the street.

“Sorry,” she says, her voice monotone and unwavering as she kneels and picks up each plastic shard and heads back down the hallway to retrieve the broom and dustpan, leaving me alone in here with Ena and Mabel again.

I flinch and step back reflexively, and Ena looks up at me with a hint of confusion on her face.

I lean down and pick the card out of the trash and force the ensuing vision to end—the vision of my hand sliding it into my pocket.

So there I sat at that little blue table, heart pounding, as Scoop—then I called him Mr. de la Cruz—pretended to scrutinize every word of my list of qualifications before shaking my hand to make my employment as official as under-the-table work can be.

I found whole forums full of people with “visions” who said their premonitions were from God or Satan or their “higher self.”

My chest feels like it’s being squeezed in a vise.

“Okay,” I concede with a sigh, still reeling from that vision.

She doesn’t reply, her eyes transfixed on the road, her mind somewhere else.

A torrent of water barreled down on the windshield and sprayed glass into the car, releasing the flood into the cabin.

My stomach twists into a knot of apprehension.

Aunt Mackie is sitting at the other end of the dining table, which has papers strewn all over it.

Rex and the Thimbles and Plush Frog are both playing at the Wall this weekend, which is only a mile away from here, but I can think of only one artist playing that would warrant a petition from Mrs. Zaccari.

Their voices dwindle into nothing, and I weigh my options.

Panic crawls into my stomach like a colony of ants, and I try to breathe as the futility of this whole situation sets in.

He’s sitting, hunched over at his desk, staring intently at the screen.

“So, of all the things you could choose to do today, you want to visit Mom and Dad?” I say, probably a little too flippantly, conveniently leaving out the implied or Shaun?

I wish I could offer him some kind of solace in resting my hand on his.

Mrs. Zaccari even went as far as to start a petition about the concert, when, as far as I know, the Wall is a public venue. It’s fair game for any artist popular enough to fill seats.

The hope of solidarity was nice while it lasted.

We meander in silence across the grass.
“Do you know where we’re going?” I ask.

Besides school, I didn’t go anywhere, didn’t talk to hardly anybody except Shaun and Talia, who came over all the time afterward to keep Isaiah and me company and take our mind off the fact that we were orphans. Isaiah and I reciprocated the company after Shaun and Talia’s father left for a business trip months later and never came home.

“Why can’t I sit up front?” he seethed, arms folded, brows knit together in an angry knot.

Once, two years ago, I was sent home from school after having my first panic attack, to be expected after years of vision- induced anxiety, right in the middle of the lunch line, out of nowhere.

“I’m saying exactly what I’m trying to say,” he insists, his face suddenly growing solemn again.

Even though there’s no one else nearby, it feels wrong to be screaming among so many dead people. Irreverent or something.

But seeing into the past also sounds miserable. To have to live with that every day, forced to dwell on the grim past all the time, I can’t imagine how demoralizing that would be.

What kind of man chooses his job over his family? Isn’t that a cliché by now?