Beyond the Eyes: YA Paranormal Romance
Page 42
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The next two days at school turned out fine. Ashley didn’t talk to me, Matt was still sick, and not once did my ears ring. I was beginning to feel halfway normal. That was until Thursday afternoon when Nathan and I were at the grocery store getting food for Easter dinner.
At first we were having fun, acting like a silly married couple. He took charge of pushing the cart while I tossed food into it. But when I threw a frozen pie in the cart, he picked it up in disapproval.
“What is this?” He waved the box in the air with a shocked look on his face.
“Why, honey, it looks like a frozen apple pie,” I teased.
A young mother with her cooing baby in the grocery cart wheeled by us and snickered.
A tight, playful smile formed on his lips, and he batted his eyes. “Pop tart. Love muffin. The sweetest desire of my loins”–he covered his crotch with the pie box and swirled his hips around, making me laugh–“I’m well aware of that, but this simply will not do. Our pastry needs to be homemade, not from a store, and certainly not frozen.”
I tightened my lips in an attempt to keep a straight face.
Lifting my eyebrows, I said, “Are you going to make it then?”
He stared at the ceiling and moved his head around as if he was watching a fly, then his gaze shifted on me. He innocently pointed at himself. “Are you talking to me?”
“Give me that,” I said when he laughed, snatching the box from him. “We’ll make it together.” I opened the freezer door to put the pie back, wincing from the blast of cold air, and then the ghostly voice spoke:
“Tragedy strikes to the least expected, but they will reunite, and a new life begins.”
I dropped the box and it smacked the floor. I stared at it, but not really seeing it. All I could think about through the zinging noise in my head was the word tragedy.
“Paige.” Nathan picked up the box and stuck it in the freezer. He lifted my chin. My eyes shifted to his. “What is it? Did you have a premonition?” he murmured.
I nodded, feeling a sludge of sickness slosh inside my belly.
“C’mon, I think we have everything,” he said, rubbing my shoulder.
As Nathan paid for our groceries, I stood in a daze, replaying the premonition in my mind. I could feel his eyes worrying over me, and his anxiousness when the receipt machine jammed, and we had to wait for the cashier to fix it. I continued to concentrate on the premonition, determined to figure it out. But I soon snapped out of it when a tantrum-throwing toddler started screaming at the top of his lungs. He ran by me, knocking me over. Nathan caught my arm before I fell face first on the concrete.
“I’m sorry,” the mother apologized, chasing after her monster.
I turned to Nathan, my arm still in his grasp and smiled gratefully at him. “Thank you.”
“Anytime,” he said, reminding me of the first night we met, flipping my stomach.
A few minutes later, as we were crossing the parking lot, the cart wheeling noisily over the rocky asphalt, I told Nathan I’d tell him about my premonition on the way home. For some reason, I had an unsettling feeling in my gut and wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. My hasty behavior made him nervous. He told me to get in the pickup, but before I made it to the door, a high-pitched ringing sounded in my ears, and that was when I saw her coming.
Chapter Sixteen
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