Member Review

Entering the Zilker neighborhood from the trail beneath Barton Springs Road, I passed Barton Springs pool on my right and kept my eyes straight ahead. It had been almost a year since I’d risked exposing my family’s secrets to save my sister from drowning in that very pool. My stomach tightened, and I tried not to think about her, my dad, stepmother, and the rest of those radiant, inexplicable creatures that were my extended family.
When I entered the neighborhood, marked by the ranch houses and bungalows, election signs in front yards, and cracked sidewalks I knew well, I slowed to a walk. Only a block away from my destination, I didn’t want anyone to see I’d been running in June heat but didn’t have a drop of sweat on me. I slowed even more when I noticed the large number of cars parked on both sides of the narrow street. Upon arrival at the curb in front of the Ford house, I was met with a “Happy Graduation” banner that hung on the red-painted front.
The door opened and three girls my age, still in their dresses for their graduation, exited onto the walkway, phones in hand. I could hear sounds of a party coming from the backyard. This wasn’t the small family gathering I’d assumed it would be.
The girls glanced in my direction.
“Is that who I think it is?” Though there was distance between us, I could easily hear the brunette with the floral sundress and messy bun murmur incredulously to the other two.
"What, are they back together?”
“No. The world would know.”
“Then why is she here?”
This was the reason I hadn’t gone to the graduation ceremony earlier in the day. I hated the scrutiny. But I’d reached the mailbox of the Ford’s house and turning away would be even worse.
The girls parted in front of the door to make more room for me.
“Hi. Excuse me,” I said, trying not to let my self-consciousness show.
I entered the house and carefully removed my sunglasses, tentatively stepping into the small living room. The sectional was piled with boys and a couple of men watching basketball playoffs on the TV. They all glanced up at once. I gave them a tight smile and averted my eyes.
French doors connected the living room to the small kitchen. Beyond it, smoke from the grill billowed past the open back door. From the sound of it, most of the party was outside. Cautiously, trying not to draw extra attention, I walked past the partygoers stationed in the kitchen and took the single stair down into the backyard.
At least forty people were scattered across the rectangular lawn—a collection of teens, their middle-aged parents, and some younger children playing horseshoes under the live oaks near the back fence, likely getting eaten by mosquitos in the damp grass.
My heartbeat picked up when I finally laid eyes on John. He stood on the grass in a group that included his younger brother, Alex, two other friends, and someone’s dad in a tie. John briefly turned to kick an errant soccer ball back to the little girls who played behind him. I smiled inadvertently and quickly stepped off to one side of the patio, under the scant shady cover of the eaves so I could watch for a moment unseen.
When we first met, I couldn’t acknowledge it, but now I saw that John was beautiful. He wore his almost black hair on the shaggy, sexy side. The brothers looked a lot alike, but John took after their father, more of his Asian heritage apparent with his much darker hair and eyes. Alex was a couple of inches shorter, and I guessed he would have killed to have John’s height since they both played tennis. John had the ideal build for the sport he had come to resent: tall, lean, but still muscular.
The graduation ceremony ended hours ago, but John still wore a white button-down, only now with the sleeves rolled and paired with shorts and flip-flops. I recognized the shirt as the one I’d borrowed the first night I ever came to his house. That was the night I told him the truth about my uniquely evolved family, when we ended the night pressed up against each other and the wall of his bedroom, unable to keep our distance.
I was glad John didn’t know I was studying him. I was always studying him, making sure nothing had changed— that he hadn’t changed—since the last time I’d seen him. Six months ago, John scared me when he told me about a vision he had of where my family was hiding. Visions were something only Novak, my father, could experience.
The night I ran away from home, the same night our entire clan seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth, Novak told me about a prophecy. He said that we would be able to read the mind of an outsider and that person would be essential to our survival. Up until that point, I’d had an idea that he wanted to prove there were more of us—genetically advanced humans—or at least that there were people who might be able to shift to become more like us. But I hadn’t known the details.
Novak had no idea that I’d been reading John’s mind for months already, ever since I’d been banished to a different school and told not to even think about using any of my abilities. At first, I had been embarrassed by my strange connection to an outsider. Then I found I was strangely and overwhelmingly drawn to John the more I listened in on his thoughts. When I left my family, I took my secret with me.
But nothing out of the ordinary had happened during the time I’d been with John and since the day my family disappeared from Austin. Now I sometimes wondered if John had had a vision at all. He seemed completely himself, a typical eighteen-year-old, and different from the perfect, unearthly kids I’d grown up with. That was part of why I was in love with him.
I saw the soccer ball right before it hit the shoulder of the man in the tie standing next to John. The force of the ball knocked the glass out of the man’s hand, and it flew through the air, projecting wine in one long, red arc. John extended his foot toward the flying glass, catching it on top of his flip-flop and shifting its descent from impact with the concrete of the walkway to a soft landing in the grass.
A quick, incredulous cheer erupted from the crowd.
“Nice reflexes,” the man in the tie said.
Alex shook his head at his brother. “What are you doing? Way to risk your tennis career to save a wine glass.”
Was this reaction something for me to worry about?
No, the man was right. It was just good reflexes.