“Um…” said Bethany.
“I know why I’m blind. Let’s hear your stories!” Iggy waved his hand, “accidentally” flinging peas all over the people sitting closest to him. Nudge’s cheeks flushed, and she stared at me, like, Stop him.
Oh, yeah, that could happen. No prob.
He turned to Madison. “What about you? Were you born this way, or did something happen to you?”
The people around the table looked at one another in uncomfortable silence.
“I’m not blind,” said Madison.
Iggy pretended to look confused, then shook his head, the soul of compassionate understanding. “You’ve got to face up to it. You can’t let it hold you back,” he said gently. “Denial is not just a river in Egypt.”
“I’m really not blind,” Madison said, looking confused.
Nudge gritted her teeth and stared down at her food, mortified.
Yep, we spread joy and sunshine wherever we go.
9
I TICKED OFF bird kids on my fingers. “Gazzy has Science Club today. If he blows something up, I will personally take a belt to him. Nudge is walking home, unwilling to be seen with any of us. And Iggy has soccer.”
“I saw him on the field yesterday,” said Dylan. “He looked great.”
“He’s always been good at it,” I said. Somehow, Iggy’s blindness had forced all of his other senses to overcompensate. His navigational skills and coordination were sometimes even superior to the rest of the flock’s. “So can we fly home, or do we have to be normal some more?”
“Oh, I have something better planned, sugar drop,” Dylan said with a twinkle in his eye as he led me to the school’s parking lot.
“Call me that again and I will flay you alive,” I promised, but I followed him to a large red motorcycle. “What’s this?”
“I’m borrowing it,” Dylan said, swinging one leg over the saddle. He patted the seat behind him. “Hop on.”
I had been raised unburdened by the concept of “other people’s property,” so I hopped on. Dylan kicked the motorcycle into gear, and off we went.
I don’t know if you have ever been on a motorcycle (if your parents don’t know, please do not nod now), but I must say: If I didn’t have wings, and if motorcycles weren’t, essentially, extremely cool death traps, I would want to ride on one all the time. It’s about the closest approximation to flying there is. The wind whipping through your hair, the sense of freedom, the bugs slamming into your face—it’s flying, but on the ground, burning gasoline and making a lot of noise. What’s not to love?
We didn’t go straight home. I put my arms around Dylan’s waist, leaned my head against his back, and closed my eyes. He felt warm and solid. I didn’t have to do anything, for once—I just sat there. It was almost scary. Because I wasn’t totally in control of the situation.
I felt the motorcycle slow, and then come to a rolling stop. Reluctantly, I opened my eyes. “Where are we?” I asked.
Dylan climbed off the motorcycle and held it steady while I got off. He waved his hand at the view. We were on the coastal highway, with rocky cliffs on one side and the Oregon coast in front of us. The ocean looked gray-blue and choppy, and the air temperature had dropped about fifteen degrees. Seagulls wheeled above the waves, cawing, and I wanted to join them.
I moved to the railing, ready to jump off.
“Wait, Max.” Suddenly, Dylan’s dazzling smile was nowhere in sight. His face was solemn, his eyes a darker shade of teal. For a second I thought he’d spotted some kind of trouble far in the distance, across the cliffs. You could say Dylan didn’t just have the eyesight of a hawk—he had the eyes of the Hubble Space Telescope. His gift for seeing faraway things, especially in space, was a little mutant DNA bonus from the mad scientist-slash-genetic engineer who created him.
“I found this place the other day, when I was out flying,” he said, shifting to a less guarded, more emotional tone. “I feel closer to the clouds here, more than anywhere else. I wanted to share it with you because… I feel closer to… to Angel here, too.”
My eyes flew to his face, my mouth partly open in shock. Angel. The youngest member of our flock. My littlest bird.
I was assaulted with memories: Angel smiling sweetly at Total, her pale blond curls making a halo of fluff around her head. The depth in Angel’s eyes when we witnessed disaster, way more knowing than any seven-year-old’s should be. The way she’d get into my head, under my skin, inside my heart, always. And then—
Angel disappearing in a cloud of smoke. I grimaced, thinking of Paris and the explosion.
“We do not talk about that,” I reminded him tightly.
He gave a sad smile and gestured out at the vast ocean, the craggy cliffs behind us. No one was around—it was me and Dylan, water and rock and sky. And my bleeding, ripped-open heart.