Seneca Rebel

I FOUND REBA at our usual meeting time and place. Once Reba and I were seated at our regular spot in the meal hall, it was safe to release my whereabouts. That way, S.O.I.L. would come find me here and see that everything was all fine and dandy. I lifted the block on my flexer. If it’s all smoke and mirrors, I was puffing the biggest Cuban cigar in front of the wonkiest funhouse mirror of them all.

I bit into my quesadilla and noticed several S.O.I.L. guards walking nonchalantly through the hall. They had eyes on me. I had more than just eyes on them. I savored this Jack cheese. My appetite was back. Reba was chomping a mouthful like he always did. He wasn’t acting like I was the presumptuous jerk who’d told him I didn’t want to be his girlfriend. What a good guy. I was fortunate he could see past my imperfections. He was antsy, though. I could tell he was desperately waiting for me to let him in on what I’d been doing. But he was going to have to wait. He was going to have to give something up first. How had he known that S.O.I.L. was on to me? How did he continually answer my unspoken thoughts?

Chomp, chomp, chomp– it drove me insane! Couldn’t this guy eat with his mouth closed?

“What? You don’t like to see my food break down?”

Wow, okay, there he went again with that answering my thoughts stuff.

He chomped again and I finally grasped how this was going to be. This was going to be a T.M.I.-loaded relationship. Here we go.

“I like it so much actually, so much...”

“I can tell.”

“Okay listen. You want me to come clean with you on some things, then first, I want you to come clean with me.”

“Chica, I’m cleaner than soap.”

“You’d tell me anything?”

He hesitantly made the decision in that moment that indeed he would. “Anything.”

“Tell me why you’re here.”

Reba sat back, chewing the rest of his mouthful slowly, with his lips pressed closed. I found relief in that.

He swallowed dramatically. “What does it matter?”

“It matters because I feel like you expect me to show you all my cards... but you. You remain a mystery.”

“Hmm... then you’re saying I’m dark and mysterious.”

“No. Just annoying.”

“Ohhh.”

“What’s your story, dude?”

Reba pushed his tray full of half-eaten food into the tube. “Alright. But if we go down this path, there’s no turning back. So let me go ahead and prepare for your reaction.” He pushed the button and his food was retrieved.

“Do you know what my reaction is going to be?”

“Surprisingly, no. But I have enough experience with everyone else to know how this plays out.”

“I’m not everyone else.”

“Fair enough.”

Reba fidgeted in his seat. I wanted to lighten the mood so I took a bite of quesadilla and chomped it. Smacked at that scrumptious Jack cheese. I watched his face warm up, his cheek muscles tightened, prompting a little grin. I think that although he was intimidated by opening himself up to vulnerability, there was also an impending sense of liberation in coming clean.

“Spit it out, freak.”

“Okay, okay...” He lowered his voice, “Ever heard of an

Intuerian? Well, that’s what I am.”

I stood up, feigning horror. “Oh, my god. I have to go now.”

“Okay, come on. Stop. Sit down.”

I sat. We needed to align and take some time to understand each other on a deeper level. I placed my almost finished food in the tube and sent it back, giving him every particle of my attention.

“When I was four years old, my birth parents started to notice that I was different than the other kids. I wasn’t interested in normal kid things like playing in the park. I was always tuning into someone around me. I would alert them to things that were about to happen before they actually did. Little things, like a woman about to stumble on a crack in the sidewalk or that my dad’s boss was about to flex him. My dad was freaked. My birth parents are super religious so they took me to the church looking for answers, solutions, anything. They were worried that somehow this could be the work of the devil.”

“That’s so messed up.”

“Yeah, well, that’s basic human error for you.”

“Can’t argue with you there.”

“But hang on, because there’s the other side to that. There’s always the other side.”

I nodded in agreement, wanting to show him that this didn’t freak me out in the least bit. It actually made me appreciate him more. I could tell that he felt more comfortable as he got into it and stopped worrying about the people around us. They weren’t paying attention anyway.

“They tried to have exorcisms performed on me, but my abilities only grew stronger. I tried to hide them because I thought they were bad. I have an older sister. We’re fifteen months apart so we were super close. They started keeping us separate. I became really depressed and didn’t want to eat or go to school. My premonitions became stronger by the day. I wanted them to stop because I thought it was why my family hated me.”

“Wow, Reebs. I am so sorry.”

“Don’t be, please. I don’t want you to feel sorry for me, Doro. I just want you to understand. Then you can decide for yourself whether or not you want me in your life. I understand either way,

I really do. I know this isn’t normal.”

“What is normal anyways? I don’t think I’m normal.”

“True.”

I smiled. Felt our connection grow. “So, then, what got you here?”

“After my birth parents tried everything that the church had advised, and I was still me, they decided the only thing to do with me was send me into foster care. I was placed with a family who raised special needs kids. They embraced me, while everyone else in that small town community didn’t want anything to do with me. I wasn’t allowed to play with anyone’s kids. By the time I got to intermediate school, I was bullied and beaten up so many times that my parents had to home school me.”

“Your parents or your foster parents?”

“My foster parents are my parents. They gave me the love and support that parents are supposed to give. Without them, I never would have survived. They were a blessing. And then along came Seneca.”

“The juicy part.”

“Exactly. When I was thirteen, a woman was raped and murdered in my town. I started having these visions that I couldn’t stop. They were so gruesome, Campbella, like nothing I’d ever seen in any movie. It made me want to kill myself. I fell so ill that it landed me in the hospital. I told a nurse that I knew what happened. The local authorities came to me, and then, the F.B.I. My visions were actual accounts of the murder. I knew who he was and where he was. I was brought in to help the F.B.I. uncover murders. Everything I gave them came from pure intuition. It was good because I was helping people, and that felt like the right thing to do, but it was bad too because those images stayed with me. Haunting me, keeping me up at night. Nobody understood what I was going through, until I met Lindsay. The F.B.I. had her there doing the same thing. We got each other like nobody else ever could. And then, when I was fourteen, Ellen Malone showed up at our house. My parents didn’t want to send me away at such a young age, but I begged and pleaded. I had to get out of that town. I had to get away from the people who had persecuted me and the memories there.”

“I don’t blame you. I am so sorry for ever calling you... the “f” word, Reba, I had no idea. I knew you had the nose of a bloodhound, but I never would’ve really thought you were a fullon psychic.”

“I’m no psychic, Campbella. I’m an Intuerian. I don’t speak with dead people. I can’t tell you if you’re going to come into a windfall of money. I am driven by my intuition. I have premonitions and visions that tie in to the life force around me. None of it is controlled. It’s all based on where I am at any given moment. People don’t understand us in the Aboves. We are seen as either psycho or satanic. But here in Seneca I am appreciated for what I am. They have accepted me and applauded my value to this society. I never imagined that could happen. The past two years have been my first chance to really live. Seneca is a dream come true. I never, ever want to leave. Even if it means never seeing Lindsay again.”