Echoes by Marissa Lete (best books for students to read txt) 📕

In the living room, the movie starts up again.

“I know we’ve seen this one a thousand times, but I still love watching Marcy and Dante’s playful banter every time,” Grace comments, shoving a handful of popcorn into her mouth.

“So Laura, you’re a senior, then?” Annie’s echo asks.

“Junior, actually,” my echo replies.

“My condolences,” Maverick’s smooth voice says, halfway into the kitchen now. The smile I’d heard before is back, seeping between the words. “I can’t imagine the torture of having almost two years left of high school.”

“Don’t remind me,” comes my reply. It’s a strange feeling, hearing myself take part in a conversation that I don’t remember having. As if I’m listening to an entirely different person in an entirely different life, and yet, we share the same voice and house and family. Like a parallel universe, shifting into mine for a small moment.

“Are you okay?” Grace’s fingers snap in front of my face, causing me to jump.

I shake my head, feeling heat blooming across my cheeks. “Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry.”

“You’ve just been standing there, staring at the bag of popcorn in your hands as if it was a long-lost lover you’ve finally been reunited with,” she chuckles.

“Sorry, I just got lost in thought,” I tell her, turning to the empty bowl on the counter.

Grace snatches the bag of popcorn out of my hands, then opens the microwave. “I guarantee that the reunion with this lover of yours will be much better after the bag has been popped.”

I let out a nervous laugh, closing my eyes for a few seconds to regain my bearings. I can’t keep doing this—getting so lost in the noise of the past that I forget the present. It’s already hard enough to act like a normal teenager while the echoes are always surrounding me. I’ve used every excuse in the book to get out of going to concerts, movies, dances, and other loud places with Grace. If I can’t even act normal with her in my own house, then I’ll never be able to carry out a normal life and go to college and fit in with society. I have to act normal if I want to be normal.

So when the microwave beeps, I pour my popcorn into a bowl, join Grace on the couch, and try my best to ignore the echoes for the rest of the movie.

✽✽✽✽✽

After Grace leaves, I spend most of the afternoon attempting to start writing the Mrs. Andrews-assigned research paper I’d almost thought was due today. It isn’t actually due for another two weeks, but the echo from this morning served as a good reminder that I should at least start working on it.

I don’t get very far.

Apparently, last year when we were moving into the house, I had chosen this exact time frame to start bringing things up to my room and unpacking it all. I can hear the past version of myself pacing the floor of my room, cutting open boxes, and shuffling things around. Hearing echoes like this isn’t new to me, because I hear things like this all the time outside of the house. But it’s been an entire year since I’ve heard echoes in my own home, and I realize very quickly how much I’ve taken the silence for granted.

I know that, theoretically, I could cross the hall and work on my paper in the office we’ve set aside as a quiet room for me, but I imagine that even there won’t be very quiet either, since we still had to move things into it on this day.

So, by the time my parents get home from work and Mom gently taps on my bedroom door, I’ve only read through one chapter of the book about acid rain I’m supposed to use as a source.

The door swishes open, and Mom’s soft smile emerges from behind it. “Hey, Laura.”

“Hey, Mom,” I greet her with a smile.

She crosses the room in three strides, her eyebrows creased in concern, and then presses a hand to my forehead. “How are you feeling?”

A beat of confusion passes over me until I remember that I’d left school earlier because I’d been “feeling sick.” I feign a sniffle. “I’m okay. I think it’s just a cold.”

Mom keeps her hand on my face, unconvinced. “You feel kind of warm. Maybe we should take you to the doctor. I can—”

I pull her hand off my forehead, cupping it in my own. “No, Mom. I’m okay. I promise. I might have just been feeling anxious,” I tell her, trying to stop the worry-hole she’s about to spiral down. Except, a beat after the words are out of my mouth, I realize I might be digging that hole deeper.

Mom’s brows crease, and she looks even more worried than before. “Anxious? Is it because…” she hesitates. “Well, I know that today is… you know…”

Fighting the urge to roll my eyes, I say, “The one-year anniversary of living in this house? The day I can start hearing echoes in my own home again?”

She bites her lip. “Yeah. That.”

“It’s okay, Mom. I was a little anxious, but I’ve been here all day and I’m fine.”

She tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, sitting on the bed across from me. “Are you sure? Have you been…” she trails off again.

“Hearing echoes of the past?” I flash a grim smile. “Always.” Then a memory tugs at me. Annie and Maverick. The neighbors I don’t remember.

Clearing my throat, I try to build the courage to ask my mom if she remembers them. I don’t want her to worry even more than she already does, so I have to be careful about how I phrase it.

“Do you remember the day we moved in last year?” I ask nonchalantly as if I’m just bringing up