by A. M. Mahler
“I got you coffee. It’s not very good, but it’s caffeine.” Willow said, pointing to the counter where two more cups sat. “I didn’t know what Olivia drank, so I got her tea.”
“From where?”
“The little camp store,” she said. “It was before I did my makeup. I wore a hat and sunglasses. Nobody looked at me twice. I got us the drinks, milk, and cereal. They had beach towels, so I grabbed three for the shower. I did what I could in the way of toiletries too. There wasn’t a big selection.” Pretty sure Olivia and I had some in our go bags, but my brain wasn’t fully functioning yet. There was a lot to process, and I’d never been a morning person.
The cups were in reaching distance, so I grabbed the one without the tea bag string hanging out of it. It was still piping hot, and I burned my tongue with my first sip. Willow was right. It tasted god-awful. We definitely needed to pick up better stuff.
I looked across at Kim Kardashian’s smudged face. “Where did you learn how to do that?”
“YouTube, duh.” She propped a bare leg up onto the cushion. “You knew I had a plan to run away. Obviously, I didn’t want to be found. I’ve been practicing for ages. I couldn’t grab my makeup kit at home since I had to be in and out so fast, so we’ll need to find a good health and beauty store for me to restock. I want to make us a couple of different faces, so each time we check into one of these places we look different. I’ll teach you and Olivia how to do your own. We should also change our hair color.”
“We probably shouldn’t look like famous people though,” I said.
“Duh.” Again with an eye roll. Why was I suddenly feeling like an out-of-touch adult? I was only a little over a year older than her. “I rummaged through all the cabinets. There are four plates, four bowls, four cups, silverware, a few pots and pans. This thing even has WiFi. I don’t know where the bill goes or who’s paying for it, so I’m thinking we should probably stay off it.”
I cocked my head to the side and studied my sister. Since she was currently wearing Kim Kardashian’s face, I couldn’t tell if she looked tired. “How long have you been up for?”
“A few hours.” She took a sip of her coffee. The face was weirding me out. Except for the smudged cheek now, it was perfect. I didn’t see any of my sister at all in the features, and we had the same eye and nose shape.
Olivia tripped her way out of our bedroom and into the bathroom. She wasn’t a morning person either. Willow and I waited quietly for her to finish up. Exiting the bathroom, she turned toward us with a giant yawn. Looking at Willow, she blinked once, walked over, and dropped down next to me with a thud.
“Well, that explains all the makeup.” She said. She didn’t miss a beat.
“Took Jagger a good few minutes to riddle it out.” Willow smiled.
“Yeah, well, he’s a guy and was probably in denial that Kim Kardashian would not be sitting at our dinette in Nowhere, New Mexico.” Olivia looked longingly at my cup. “What is that? Do I have one?”
I pointed to the last cup on the counter. “It’s hot tea. Willow picked them up.”
Olivia arched a brow. “As Kim Kardashian?” She stood up, crossed the four steps to the counter, grabbed her cup before sitting back down.
“No,” Willow chucked. “As me ... incognito.” Olivia took a sip of her tea, closed her eyes, and groaned. “Now,” Willow continued. “As a teenage runaway, I know why I’m going in disguise, but it’s time to tell me why you two are. The truth.”
I looked at Olivia, and she shrugged. “I don’t see how we can tell her anything but the truth. Get ready for a demonstration.”
I will not hurt my sister to prove point.
“I meant reading her mind.”
“Oh.”
“Oh, what?” Willow asked me. “Nobody said anything.”
“That’s kind of the point.” I started. “I need you to hold all your questions and comments until the end, okay? Let me get it all out.”
“We need food for this.” Olivia said, looking over at the counter where small plastic containers of various cereal sat. “Cereal for all, it seems.”
“It all started when Olivia and I were five.” I began, and then took my sister through my entire life. I told her about the times Olivia had healed me, how I didn’t know until recently who she really was, and her grandfather, Jeremiah teaching me to hear more minds and to cast our defense out. All of it. Right up until the time Willow had jumped into my car at school. Through the hour and a half it took Olivia and I to tell the story, Willow stayed silent—which was a feat in and of itself for my sister.
“You should tell us more about that.” Olivia said suddenly. “It would make sense.”
Willow’s eyes widened. Maybe she hadn’t truly believed us until Olivia responded to whatever thought had just went through my sister’s head. I tried to tune in, but I still was not very good at it yet. I could see Willow’s mind, but not her thoughts. I needed to practice more to identify good thoughts from bad thoughts, so I didn’t hurt innocent people. If I couldn’t read someone’s thoughts maybe I could at least read their intent.
“Well,” Willow began with a wary glance at Olivia. “Since this is a day of big confessions, all of my life I’ve seen visions of things that later come true. At first, it started small. I knew what mom was going to make for dinner without having to ask. I thought I was guessing and had fun with the fact that I was always right. But then I started accurately guessing every time a teacher was going to give a surprise quiz, knowing that a boy was going to ask me out, or a friend was going be in a bad mood. They’re like short scenes that play in my mind like a movie. I knew you were leaving, Jagger, before you told me.”
Willow got up and walked to the refrigerator. My eyes followed her for the short distance there and back when she set down three bottles of water on the table.
“We’re going to go to the beach. There’s a campground that sits on the ocean. It’s an island, and we’re going to take a ferry to get there. We’ll be able to spend a few weeks hiding there, and in the fall, we’ll be in the north. The leaves are changing then, and we’ll pull up to an iron gate. I don’t know what any of this means, I just know it’s going to happen.”
Olivia stood up and stretched. We had been sitting for a while. She reached out and wrapped her arms around Willow. “I’m sorry we weren’t able to connect sooner.” Olivia said, warmly. She and I both. When I think of what my life could have been like had I known who she was all along, I get a lump in my gut. “But there’s the three of us now. We’ll need to pay close attention to the visions you have and try to piece them together.”
Willow reached out and grabbed my hand. In turn, I stood up and took Olivia’s in my other. Something happened then. It was like my blood started to hum—almost as if I could feel it moving through my body. The three of us exchanged surprised looks confirming we all felt it. We stood there, silent, frozen, waiting for something else to happen, but nothing did. It was just the humming blood, which was freaky enough.
Jesus, what were we?
Olivia
We stayed in New Mexico for another night then continued south and found a campground outside of San Antonio with wooded sites. Thanks to a cancellation, we were able to get the most remote site they had to offer. Though before we pulled into the RV resort, Jagger drove us to a nearby Walmart. In the parking lot, Willow did our makeup, aging us a bit. It took an hour to complete. Then she took a picture of each of our faces with her computer, so she would remember what she did for next time. In Walmart, we shopped for food and finally bought sheets, quilts, pillows for our beds, and a few more odds and ends in the way of clothing—not too much since we were tight on space. Bye-bye scratchy, over-starched sheets. Hello, Egyptian cotton. We bought enough food that could reasonably fit inside our small refrigerator and freezer.
When we were finally set up at our camp site, I took a shower. I was in my own world, enjoying my hot shower when I heard the bathroom door open and I froze.
&n
bsp; “It’s just me.” Jagger! “I’m going to open the window up here and let some of this crazy steam out.”
“Uh ...okay.” I said, like an idiot. This bathroom was the size of a closet and the only thing standing in between Jagger and my naked body was a thin plastic door, which I was suddenly afraid was transparent. Could he see me? Or my silhouette?
I was being ridiculous. This was Jagger. The boy I had loved since I was five years old. He was literally everything to me. Despite that, I was also inexperienced, and we hadn’t gone past first base yet. We had gone from sleeping at my grandfather’s house to life on the run. We were exhausted and anything else just wasn’t on our radar.
Until now.
“Livvy, you’re going to make my head explode.” Great. I forgot to block him from my mortifying thoughts. “We’ve been over this. I told you I wasn’t interested in anything you weren’t ready for. You’re setting the pace here. One day, we’ll get there, but not until we’re both ready. Also, you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen or encountered, and I promise you, whatever your body looks like behind this kinda see through door, will be beautiful to me. Have I ever made you feel less than perfect?”
No, never. Not once. Even when he’d discovered my identity—especially then—he lifted me up. Other girls didn’t exist for him. There was only me. I never doubted how much he loved me, so why would I doubt whether or not he found me attractive? Did I honestly think that my best friend in the entire world would ever let me fall?
“Not while there’s a breath in my body.”
I relaxed and continued my shower while he sat in the bathroom with me. The longer it took, the more accustomed to his presence—while I was naked—I became. I think he was slowly desensitizing me. He was not shy about changing clothes in front of me, even though I hid in the bathroom to change mine. Last night, he had come to bed shirtless. All the times we’d spent the night together, I slept on his chest. He didn’t say anything when I didn’t curl into his side like I normally did. Sometime in the night, I woke up with his arms around me and snuggled down on his bare skin. I stayed there—awake. I felt bold—like I was doing something so adult and sophisticated. Then I realized how naive I was. For crying out loud, I touched his hand all the time and we didn’t wear gloves. I had no problems with his bare arms, so why should his bare chest freak me out? It wasn’t like he went to bed in his underwear. He still wore sweatpants. Besides, Jagger had an amazing chest. He was an athlete, working out daily.
And to that end, he touched my bare arms and legs. He even ran his hand up my back and over my stomach under my shirt. I trusted him. I was nervous, but not because I thought he would hurt me or somehow be insulting. It was from not knowing what to expect. I didn’t know how it would feel. Would it hurt to be close with him? I mean, I touched my breasts all the time, and it didn’t hurt. But would it if he did? Of course, he would never intentionally hurt me, but did it hurt the first time a guy touched you?
I shut off the shower just when the water was starting to get cold. There wasn’t a big hot water tank in this thing. I startled when Jagger opened the shower door, but he only cracked it enough for his hand to fit through and give me my towel. When the door snapped shut again, I let out a breath which I was sure he totally heard. My heart thundered in my chest, as I felt my cheeks heat and not just from my shower. Seeing the shadow of him leaving the bathroom, I slowly opened the door and stepped out. I grabbed my brush from under the sink and quickly ran it through my hair before applying deodorant. It was all of three steps from the bathroom door to the other side of the privacy curtain that shut our room off from the rest of the space. I snapped it shut then turned around and yelped when I saw Jagger laying on the bed.
“I’m going to stay in here while you get changed.” He announced, stopping my heart, and making me tremble on my bare feet. “I’m going to take this pillow and cover my face, okay? We need to be comfortable around each other’s bodies, and not just in a sexual way. We don’t know what’s going to happen—well, in light of Willow’s announcement, maybe we will know—but what if it’s you that’s hurt? You can’t be nervous that I’m going to see your body. So right now, you’re going to get changed. I’m not going to look, but we’ll be in the same space.”
When he fell back and slapped the pillow over his face, I fell in love with him a little more. He always thought about me. He was always so considerate of how I felt and what I thought. I don’t know what I did to deserve him or why we were paired up in this unconventional life together, but I was so grateful for him.
Dropping the towel, I got dressed in record time then hung the towel to dry on a closet knob. On my hands and knees, I crawled up the bed and straddled his hips before I yanked the pillow off. His eyes darkened in a way I’d never seen them do before, but a warmth spread through my body. I planted my hands on either side of his head and slowly lowered down until my lips hovered just over his.
“I love you.” I whispered. “You’re so good to me and so patient. You’re gentle and caring. I know we’re in a weird situation. Everything is so unstable, but we’re both still new to a romantic relationship, and I want to experience everything with you. I trust you, Jagger. When the time is right, I know it will be perfect because it will be with you.”
He reached up and pushed my wet hair behind my ear. “There is nobody on this planet that has ever or will ever love you as much as I do. I will always stand between you and danger. You are my partner. We’ll help each other navigate this. And we’ll figure out what our life is going to be together.”
He took hold of my t-shirt and tugged me down the rest of the way until our lips fused together. I opened my mouth to his and our tongues tangled. The feeling of his arms around me and my body pressed to his was exquisite. We are both eighteen years old and not doing anything wrong. When the time for intimacy came, we would be safe. We eased down to our sides and intertwined our legs, linking our fingers. “Let’s stay here today. Kiss and touch and take time for us.”
“What about your sister?” I asked with a chuckle. “Won’t she be bored by herself? Where is she anyway?”
“Outside figuring out how to set up the television that’s out there. She also said she wanted to search for a good costume store so she can get better make up and prosthetic pieces, like fake lips and stuff.”
“She really has put a lot of thought into this.” I said, pulling one of the quilts we’d bought over us. It was surreal picking out sheets and blankets for mine and Jagger’s first bed together. All we had was this little space, but Willow and I both managed to find some things to make our traveling home cozier. She found some prints to swap out the stock pictures on the RV walls and I found a pretty pillow roll that said “Love” in flowing script for the bed. Jagger also bought me some art supplies, not too much, but he wanted me to have my creative outlet. We may be running for our lives—from who we still didn’t know—but we were also seeing the country and my fingers itched to draw things I saw. He hung the one canvas he took from my room on the small part of wall we had in our little nest. Something about that painting touched him, and I loved that he’d ran back to get it.
“It wasn’t often our father laid a hand on her.” Jagger said. “But the emotional abuse he hurled her way was harsh and hurt just as bad as a slap. He told her she was fat, she wore too much makeup, she was stupid ... he wasn’t going to pay for college for her because her only use in life was as a wife. He pounded her self-esteem to dust with his words.”
“But she pulled through.” I said. “She’s beautiful and really smart. She seems pretty confident to me.”
“She must have seen that she would leave.” He stroked a finger up and down my arm. Even though we were fully clothed, I realized Jagger and I had always been intimate. It may have been a mental intimacy, but there was no one that knew me better. It seemed silly to be afraid of physical intimacy. “I just ... I had no idea she had a gift like that. On the one hand, I can hardly believe it, but on the
other, I mean, it makes perfect sense. Telepathy runs in your family and something runs in mine. How can that be? And how did we wind up in the same town together? Did your grandfather randomly pick Colorado?”
My eyes welled at the mention of my grandfather. It was just three days ago that he’d died, and I hadn’t mourned him—not really. There was no closure, but he was gone. I knew that when I lost his pathway a few hours after we left town. I swiped at the tears that fell.
“Hey, hey,” Jagger said, pulling me closer and kissing my forehead. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I know,” I sniffed. “It just doesn’t seem real, you know? We just left him there, dying and alone. What kind of granddaughter am I?”
“The obedient kind.” Jagger said, running his hand down my wet hair. “He sacrificed himself for us, and we honored him by doing what he told us to do.”
“I know. I just ... I miss him.”
“I’ll be your family now.” He said, running his thumb along my cheek. “Willow, me, you, we’re our own family.”
Nodding my agreement, I wiped at my eyes again. I missed my grandfather like I missed a limb. He always knew what to do. He set us up to get away, but didn’t tell us where to go, where not to go, who was after us, or who we could trust. What crept into my mind—what really scared me the most—was that I don’t think he ever had any intention of telling us. He was consistently vague, and I couldn’t figure out why. Why wouldn’t he want us to have as much information as possible?
“I don’t know why he chose that town, Jagger.” I said. “He couldn’t know about you. If you could only hear me, how would he know?”
Jagger ran a hand through his hair and scratched at his scalp. “There are so many questions, and some we may never know the answers to. The only way we have a shred of hope of finding any information is to find people like us.”
“Which could be dangerous. And how do we know where to look?”
