The Outliers (The Outliers, #1)(11)

“Why are all the lights off?”

A voice behind me. When I spin around, heart racing, there’s Gideon, coat and backpack still on. He’s wearing sweatpants, his blond, shaggy hair damp against his forehead as he chews on what’s left of a Twizzler.

“Why did you do that, Gideon!”

“First of all, calm down.” He takes another bite. “Second of all, do what?”

“Sneak up on me, you stupid jerk!”

“Um, wow.” He holds up his hands like I’m pointing a gun at him, the half-chewed Twizzler flopping around in his fingers. He loves to point out whenever I’m acting nuts. Which, let’s face it, is most of the time lately.

Gideon is perpetually annoyed at me because he thinks it’s unfair that he gets less attention for being more normal. Like with the home tutor, for instance. Gideon is an insanely smart kid (though even he would admit I could easily crush him on any math test anywhere, any day), but he hates school even after moving to Stanton Prep so they could better accommodate his über-genius science needs. He thinks he should get to opt out, too. My dad had shut him down so fast, it had made my head spin.

“Did Stephen drive you home?” I look back out the window. Did I somehow miss the car? Am I now not seeing things right? “I didn’t see him.”

“We came the back way. We stopped at Duffy’s for fries with some of the other guys.” He shrugs: hanging out like all the normal kids with lots of friends do. That’s what the shrug says. He so bad wants to be that kid. But I know that only Stephen is Gideon’s friend, sort of, and that the rest of the guys on the track team mostly put up with him because he’s willing to run everyone’s most-hated race, the two-mile, without complaining. Friends have never come so easily for Gideon, maybe because of how smart he is. Maybe just because of how he is period. “I came in the back door.”

“You should go take a shower.” I turn back to the window. I want him to go, leave me alone, not pick a fight.

“Who died and left you in charge?” When I look back at him, he puts a hand over his mouth and opens his eyes wide in fake shock. “Oh snap. Get it? Who died? You gotta admit, that was pretty funny.” I scowl at him. Gideon always tries to make jokes about our mom being gone. It makes him feel better. And it makes me feel worse. My mom was right, we really are opposite twins. Forever repelling each other, like the wrong sides of a magnet. “Come on, it was.”

“It wasn’t funny.”

“Fine, whatever.” Gideon shrugs as he turns toward the stairs. Does he actually look hurt? It’s so hard to tell with him, but I know there’s a heart in there somewhere. And these days he’s just trying to survive. We both are. “When is Dad going to be back? I have to ask him something about my chem homework.”

Having exhausted all of Stanton Prep’s AP offerings, Gideon now takes science classes at Boston College. I don’t know if he really likes science or if it’s just a way to get closer to our dad. It’s not the worst call. One surefire way to get more attention from our dad is to somehow get mixed in with his work. I wouldn’t say our dad loves his work more than us, but sometimes it does feel like we’re neck and neck.

“I don’t know, maybe a couple hours,” I say.

I should have been more vague. Since the accident, our dad never goes out that long. It’s only going to lead to more questions. And I don’t want to talk to Gideon about Cassie. He’ll end up saying something rude. Gideon has never liked Cassie. Or, more precisely, he has always really liked her, but she never gave him the time of day. So he decided to hate her instead. Right now, I can’t take him insulting her down to a more manageable size. Or worse, trying to make me worry more just for the fun of it.

“A couple hours? Where did he go?”

“To help Karen.”

“Help her with what?”

Ugh. Too late. He’s already too interested. “She doesn’t know where Cassie is.” I shrug. No big deal.

For a split second, Gideon almost looks worried for real. But then his mouth pulls down into his fake-thoughtful frown. “Huh. Now I get it,” he says.

I hate it, but I’m going to have no choice but to play his game. “Get what, Gideon?”

“Why Cassie was acting all freaky when she came by here,” he says, like I should know what he’s talking about. “I mean I don’t know exactly why. But it makes sense that she’d be acting weird if she was about to take off.”

“Wait, Cassie came here?” My heart skips a beat. “When?”

Gideon rubs his chin, then looks up at the ceiling. “Um, I think it was—let’s see.” He counts on his fingers like he’s measuring the days or even weeks. “Yesterday. Yup, that’s it, in the afternoon.”

Jerk.

“Yesterday?” I say, trying not to get mad. Gideon wants to get under my skin, that’s the whole point. “Why didn’t you tell me she was here?”

“She didn’t want me to.” He shrugs. “She just wanted to drop off the note.”

“What note, Gideon?” I’m up off the couch now. “You didn’t give me any note.”

“Huh,” he says again, nodding. Like he’s confused, even though he obviously isn’t. Then he starts patting around his sweatshirt pockets and digging in his jeans. “Ah, here it is.” He pulls out a folded page and holds it up into the air, pulling it farther away when I grab for it. “Oh wait, now I remember why I didn’t give it to you. I knocked on the bathroom door to tell you about it, and you yelled, ‘Go away, jerk!’”