Read Online Underneath by Sarah Jamila Stevenson - Free Book Online

be able to stay happy.

six
    Breathe. In past my nostrils and filling my lungs; hold. Feel the breath leave my body and puff out of my mouth. Again. Breathe .
    Again.
    Breathe —there’s another knock at the front door, and my eyes fly open.
    It’s Saturday, and I’m spending it on an unsuccessful attempt to meditate in my room while my parents lead the neighbors in their weekly session of Yoga for Aging Suburbanites.
    Normally the last thing I’d do would be to follow one of my mother’s wacky suggestions. She thinks meditation is the solution to everything except maybe actual broken bones. But I can’t keep from hoping that somehow it’ll help me. It’s worth a shot. I don’t know what else to do. Once or twice a day, without fail, I’m hearing somebody’s thoughts in my head, feeling someone else’s emotions sweep me away like the tide. And I don’t have anyone to talk to about it.
    I never asked for this … ability. My life was fine.
    I never even asked for anything . It’s almost like an echo, and I shiver. Shiri’s journal. She said nearly the same thing. Only she said it about her own life. Her sad story, all the little hurts we never suspected but which added up somehow. The mysterious THAT. Shiri’s life was anything but fine. And now mine feels like it’s spiraling out of control, too.
    I sit cross-legged on the floor next to my bed with my hands folded in my lap. What a joke. I’m supposed to be focusing on my breathing, clearing my mind. Instead, I keep thinking , nonstop. Shiri. Auntie Mina. Cassie. Spike. Even Cody and Mikaela. All of them going around and around my skull like animated bluebirds when a cartoon character gets whacked on the head.
    This isn’t working. I open my eyes and try a different strategy: I grab my journal. I might as well make it good for something, so I write down every incident of underhearing that I can remember.
    I start with the very first time, the time I was in the pool during the swim meet and thought I heard screaming.
    The day that Shiri died.
    The first time it happened, it was during the phone call to my mom. THE Phone Call. Then I write the rest down: the incident during dinner at home, the one with Spike, the Cassie debacle, and everything else. I try to remember every detail I can. What I was initially doing. What the other person was doing. What I was thinking and what they were thinking. I make a chart, I draw arrows, I sort and re-sort the information. I make one more list, writing down what both parties were feeling at the time.
    That’s when it all starts to fall into place.
    Emotions. Each time I underheard someone’s thoughts, the other person was having strong emotions that I was able to sense, feel , at the same time that I heard their thoughts. And I was completely caught up in their feelings, my own emotions drowned out. If the moment of strong emotion was just a flash, all I heard was a few words. If the feeling was surging through, then I might catch as much as a few thoughts. It’s as if their thoughts are the notes from a musical instrument, their feelings an amplifier. And the other person is always nearby; if not next to me, then somewhere in the vicinity.
    But it’s connected to my emotions, too. Like when I was sitting there with my old friends from the Zombie Squad, feeling guilty about not going to Spike’s party. It was the minute I cleared my head, like I’d hit pause on my feelings, that I heard Cassie. Or my first day in Emo­ville with Mikaela and friends, earlier this week, when I got pissed at Cody. I tried to maintain composure, swallowing down my gut reaction, and suddenly I heard Mikaela’s angry thoughts. It’s a moment of clarity, but I’ve still got those emotions pushing at me below the surface. Something about that state of mind makes the impossible possible. At least for me.
    I close the journal, put my pen down and