Free Yesterday by C. K. Kelly Martin Page B

know.” She seems more surprised than angry and I push aside my instinct to fi ght with her. Why did I suspect her reaction would be worse? “I guess I didn’t want to have to stop and talk about it.”
    I begin to explain to my mom, as best I can without giving some of my darker feelings away, how things here are different from New Zealand. I tell her I don’t want to look like the preppy/jock kids who listen to bad music, can’t think for themselves and tend to treat the less-popular kids like they’re invisible or worse. The bottom line is that I’m hoping she’ll give me money for new clothes to complete my transformation.
    My mother listens with her head cocked. “If it’ll make you feel better, you can buy some new things,” she says eventually. “I guess I should consider myself lucky if your teenage rebellion amounts to some hair dye and dark clothing, huh?” She ventures a smile.
    The smile I return is wider and warmer. “Very true,”
    I say, plucking the family photo from the bed and staring down into my own eyes. They’re sort of like my dad’s but the rest of my face is more like my mom’s. My parents are what you would call attractive people— tall, thin and youthful for their age. Olivia seems to have a general predisposition towards good looks in common with them but not much else and as that occurs to me, a wave of heat washes over my body from head to toe, just like the one that overwhelmed me at the dinosaur exhibit in the museum. My head swirls with dizziness and I clutch my elbows and exhale slowly, fi ghting for control over my body.
    “I fi nd it hard to look at photographs of him too,” my mother says as she peers sympathetically up at me. “Diffi cult but comforting at the same time.”
    I hand her back the photo, feeling, for the zillionth time, like a phony.
    I do miss him. I’d give anything to have him back. But I can’t shake the feeling that my dad’s absence isn’t the only thing that’s the matter, that it’s not even the worst thing. It’s as if I’m … infected by some quicksand type of suspicion.
    I don’t know who I am anymore.
    This moment. Here and now in my mother’s bedroom.
    That’s real. Christine dyeing my hair earlier. My sister downstairs … my sister …
    I sit down on the bed next to my mom to stop myself from collapsing. Sweat dampens my forehead. I press my palms into my eyes and then drag my hands out to my hair-line, counting in multiples of three to stop the panic racing through me.
    Three. Six. Nine. Twelve. Fifteen. Eighteen.
    Stop thinking, Freya. Just count.
    Twenty-one. Twenty-four. Twenty-seven. Thirty. Thirty-three.
    This is all the reality you need. Here and now.
    Thirty-six. Thirty-nine. Forty-two. Forty-fi ve.
    My mother’s rubbing my back, drawing me to her, and I rest my head on her shoulder, breathe measured breaths and count all the way to ninety-nine before I’m okay enough to stand again. Then I kiss her cheek and plod into my bedroom where I open the window to let in winter air. It’s a long time until I’m calm and cool enough to quit counting entirely and when I reach that place, the blond boy from my dream is there too. He looks okay. Normal. Not furious and feral like the last time. He knocks his arm affectionately against mine and says, “You’re all right, Freya. You’re okay. Everything’s going to be all right, you’ll see.”
    I want to believe him.
    The boy’s lips form a goofy, lopsided grin, like he’s aiming to make me laugh. I recognize the funny expression just like I recognize him. He makes me feel better and it’s not the fi rst time.
    When I wake up— from a dream I didn’t realize I was having— I’m smiling into my pillow. My bedroom’s freezing and I tug a sweater over my head and pull the window shut.
    I climb under the covers and quickly shut my eyes, trying to fi nd the place I left the boy. Trying to fi nd the Freya I was in my dream.
    s i x
    The boy eludes me. My dreams are of other