Free Untethered by Katie Hayoz Page A

beer.
    Cassie pokes me in the shoulder and whispers in my ear. “Hey, you okay? Are you weirding out on me, Sylvie?”
    “Did you hear Kevin?” I whisper. “His step-mom leaves her body! Like me!”
    “You are weirding out.” Cassie bangs her knuckles on my temple. “Earth to Sylvie.”
    We haven’t ever talked about my out-of-body experiences since that one night of truth and dare. And especially not after the whole hallucination debacle with the doctors. But I’ve always assumed she believed me. I mean, she knows to shake me when I melt on her. And when she does, she always smiles at me and says, “Welcome back.”
    But maybe she never knew whether to really believe me or not.
    Well, can you blame her, Sylvie? You didn’t know whether to believe you.
    In the kitchen, things go on around me, but I stand still, thinking and leaning against the wall. For once, I don’t care what anyone else thinks. Bryce pulls out a pack of marshmallows from the cupboard. Sam says something to him and suddenly the whole group is cheering around the microwave, watching the marshmallow blow up to ten times its normal size. Bryce pulls it out and offers it to Ashley, who laughs as it deflates before her eyes.
    Kevin’s step-mom left her body . All this time I wasn’t sure what was actually happening to me when I slipped out of myself. Whether it was real. Whether I was crazy. After seeing the schizophrenic reference that one time, I was afraid to research it more. Afraid to talk to anyone. Afraid of what I’d find out. I’ve been living with this ... thing all by myself. But now ... someone else did it. And then wanted to do it again. Figured she’d learn to control it. Saw the power in it.
    “So.” Ashley comes up to me, licking marshmallow off her fingers, breaking my concentration. “Having fun?”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?” My voice is sharp. We’ve been in the same English class since freshman year, but this is the first time she’s ever talked to me to say something other than, “Faint much ?”
    “Uh ... duh ... it’s supposed to mean ‘are you having fun?’”
    I look at her for a minute, taking in her smug expression and the casual way she flips back her chestnut hair. I’m not sure if she’s really trying to be nice or making fun of me. But before I can decide, she sucks in a breath then exhales loudly, “Bitch!” She goes back to Bryce, wrapping her arms around his waist and leaning over to whisper something to Latisha.
    Heat rushes to my cheeks. I should have given her the benefit of the doubt.
    Sam pokes my arm with a sticky marshmallow finger and smiles. “This is great, but we gotta go. It’s almost 11:00.”
    Ten minutes later when we get into Cassie’s parents’ car, Sam bursts out, “They were nice to me!”
    Cassie grins. I turn around to look at Sam. “Did I miss something?”
    “The marshmallows ... can you believe they’d never microwaved them before? I thought everyone had done that.”
    “Didn’t you notice Bryce and Kevin and all them were slapping Sam on the back?” Cassie turns off of Bryce’s street and heads towards my dad’s place.
    They like Sam ? I shake my head. No. I didn’t notice.
    “Next time it’s Mentos in Coke.” Sam is practically beaming. I’ve never seen him like this before.
    “You were pretty quiet at the end, there, Sylvie. If it’s about Kevin sitting next to me, it’s not my fault. I was kind of worried, what with the beer and everything that you might get upset. ” Cassie glances at me with pleading eyes, then focuses once more on the road when the car swerves.
    “No, everything’s fine. I was just ... thinking, that’s all.”
    “Find something good, will you?” Cassie points to the radio with her chin. I fiddle with the control, stopping on a station that’s playing Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones.
    “'Cuz I try and I try ... ” Cassie and I sing. We’ve heard it trillions of times in Mr. Crawford’s Geography class. But