by CS Yelle
The bad dreams were absent for that entire week. I prayed my good luck continued, looking forward to more positive days, and nights, ahead.
The three amigos and I cruised past the old Miller house all week, trying to catch a glimpse of the new owners. The house appeared lived in, the flowers bloomed on the large porch, but we never saw anyone tending them.
The first day of school I stood in front of a small oak tree in our backyard, the one I planted from an acorn, posing for the obligatory ‘first day of school picture.’ I rolled my eyes as Mom ushered me out to fulfill this yearly tradition.
“I’m going to be late,” I complained.
“No, you’re not,” she assured, snapping another picture.
“The girls will be by any minute,” I told her.
The familiar honk of the Wrangler’s horn alerted us to the arrival of my ride and I rushed past Mom as she checked to see how her latest memory saved on her camera.
I ran into the house, grabbed my backpack, and hurried to the Jeep in the driveway, mortified to see Mom taking pictures of the girls out front.
“Mom, you’re kidding, right?” I sighed.
“It’s not every day your only daughter begins her senior year of high school.” She choked up.
I reached out, pausing to give her a hug and kiss on the cheek before tossing my backpack to Elisa in the back and hopping in the front.
“I’ll be home after school,” I said.
We sped away and I glanced back to see Mom wiping away tears. I wiped a few of my own from my cheek and looked sheepishly to Trish in the driver’s seat.
“Don’t worry, Cassie cried like a baby before we got her away from her mom and they’ll see each other at school,” Trish smirked.
I looked back at Cassie sitting behind Trish as she gave me a hopeless shrug and we broke into laughter. We pulled into a parking spot at the same time a black Camaro slid into the spot opposite us. As Allister looked over at me our eyes locked and I felt the same connection as when we first met in the hospital cafeteria. Excitement at seeing him again mixed with the fear of his
disapproval, paralyzing me in my seat.The girls gasped as they caught the direction of his gaze.
No one moved for a long moment and then the passenger in the Camaro, who I hadn’t noticed until then, got out of the car.
Her long golden hair nearly touched her waist and she glared at me with vivid blue eyes. She slammed the door and stormed away, shaking the rest of us from our stupor.
Allister quickly got out and rushed after the girl.
I turned to find the amigos looking at me, shocked.
“What the hell was that?” Trish asked.
“What was what?” I stammered.
“Don’t give us that,” Elisa laughed. “The electricity between you nearly zapped us. He definitely likes you.”
“Oh, does he?”
“Come on, Britt. You two connected and connected hard,” Cassie said.
“He’s just interesting. You know, the new kid.”
“Bullshit.” Trish put her hand on my shoulder and gave me a shove, nearly toppling me from the Jeep.
I grabbed the side of the vehicle to steady myself and then eased out onto the blacktop of the parking lot. How could I tell them I believed he was the angel who saved my life? I didn’t have any proof…just a feeling, and one I couldn’t be certain of. If he really saved me at the river, did that mean the girl with him was the other angel. She still seemed to be angry with me…but why?
The girls jumped out of the Jeep and we headed into school, me lost in thought, and them staring at me uncertainly. I tried not to notice, but I did.
I felt relieved to have my girls with me as I walked into school for the first time in over a year. Using tutors during my absence helped keep me on track to graduate though the social part of school was
overwhelming, even with their support.
The looks the other students gave us were priceless. It felt like everyone stopped to stare as we passed. I was so happy to be back, I fought back tears as we reached Elisa’s locker.
“I’m going to drop my stuff at my locker and head to class,” I told them as Elisa pushed her books into the tiny space.
“See you at lunch,” Cassie said as I turned to leave.
“Yeah, save me a seat.” I smiled as I walked away.
I found my locker, took the books I didn’t need until after lunch, shoved them in and headed to first period. I tried to ignore the looks, yet found it hard not to notice. I didn’t even care why they stared at me; because the cancer was gone or I looked so different, it just felt good to be noticed for a reason other than being bald or sick.
I slid into my seat for first period and worked at pushing the glows around each person out of my mind. When I saw Mr. Kinsley, my first period math teacher, my breath caught in my chest. He glowed so dull he needed to be in the hospital. I stared. I couldn’t help myself. Turning away as much as possible as he lectured, I doodled in my notebook to keep my mind busy.
So caught up in the glow, or lack thereof, around Mr. Kinsley and trying to escape it as soon as the bell rang, I rushed from the room into the hallway, never noticing the person walking in front of me until colliding with him. We fell into a pile of tangled legs and arms.
Strong hands took hold of my upper arms and helped me to my feet. I looked up into the eyes of Allister Parks. He bent to retrieve my books strewn across the floor before the other students could trample them and handed them to me grinning, his blue eyes sparkling. I gazed, dumbfounded at him, and he visibly fought back a laugh.
“Hello,” he said first.
“Hi,” I said, a frog in my throat, then turned away, blushed, and cleared my throat.
“Haven’t been visiting the hospital anymore I hope?”
“No!” I shouted and then looked around as everyone stared at my outburst.
He handed back my books. “Good. I think things will settle down if we don’t do anything else to draw attention.”
“Whose attention are you afraid of drawing?” I took them quickly, waiting to be enlightened.
“We need to talk, but not here, not now,” Allister said abruptly.
“That’s such a convenient answer when you don’t want to tell me something.” I glared at him as we walked.
He looked up at the room number over the next classroom and stopped. I walked another step and paused, looking back at him.
“This is me.” He motioned with his head to the classroom. “Talk to you later?”
“Yeah, later.” I sighed and rolled my eyes before continuing down the hall to my next class.
The remainder of the morning flew by. Thankfully I didn’t see any more people like Mr. Kingsley before lunch, but Allister worried me more than any glow could.
I sat down next to Cassie after she waved me over in the crowded lunchroom. Elisa and Trish weren’t there yet so we waited, watching for their arrival.
“How’d it go?” Cassie asked, searching the crowd for the girls.
“So far, so good,” I shrugged.
Twelve hundred students and four lunch periods made it easy miss someone if you weren’t looking for them. As we searched, Cassie gasped and I turned to follow her gaze to the far side of the lunch room. When my eyes saw her I froze, unable to blink or move. Seeing her more clearly than this morning, my reaction was ten times stronger.
She looked so perfect, I felt ugly. Her eyes were ravishing, piercing blue. Her long golden hair flowed around her shoulders down her back. She turned to me as she walked past and I realized I’d stopped breathing. I gasped, lungs spasming uncontrollably causing the air to rush into my lungs noisily as she sat down at a nearby table by herself.
A figure passed between us, breaking my focus, and then sat down right next to her. My lips thinned and sweat beaded on my forehead when our eyes met again. I couldn’t put my finger on it; he gave me this foreign, indescribable tingly feeling when I saw him.
He held my eyes
with his and smiled, turning back to the girl next to him. I glanced at her again. She stared at me and then leaned close to him, saying something. They both looked back to me, her look disapproving, and his curious.
The lunchroom began to fill up and soon several students sat down with Allister and his sister, started a conversation with them. I wanted to go over and talk to him again, except his sister looked at me with such anger. I couldn’t build up the courage so I sat eating my chicken sandwich in defeat.
I noticed something about the glow around them I never noticed about Allister in our other encounters. They didn’t have one. Not a shimmer, a glimmer, nothing. I frowned, confused.
“OMG,” Elisa said sitting down next to me, following my stare to the table across the room.
“The Parks,” Cassie confirmed. “Angelina and Allister.”
“So, do you know them?” Trish asked sitting across from us.
“Not from before,” I sighed, “I ran into him a few times volunteering at the hospital and today, literally.
“Really? How embarrassing,” Cassie
commiserated with me.
“Tell me about it,” I said, grimacing.
“You should introduce us,” Trish went on boldly.
“I can’t.” I panicked, looking back at her, terror threatening to erupt.
“Easy.” Trish put a comforting hand on my arm. “I didn’t mean right now.”
“You’re really into him, aren’t you?” Elisa asked, serious.
“I don’t know.” I frowned in thought. Was I? I wasn’t too sure. The prospect of what he’d done to me and what I was doing now; what it meant made me uncertain how to act.
“That’s pretty fast.” Elisa raised an eyebrow.
“Wow, if Elisa thinks it’s fast, it must be,” Trish laughed. “She gives a cheetah whiplash the way she jumps from one guy to another.”
“Hey, don’t mock the system.” Elisa glared.
I pulled my gaze from Allister, with difficulty, to look at Trish and Elisa. “What system?”
“Oh, Elisa uses a system to read when it’s time to move on,” Trish sighed.
“I developed it over the years and it works very well.” Elisa shot Trish a glare. Her face softened as she turned back to me. “You see, Britt, all relationships have stages. During these stages, the connection between two people is at different levels.”
I took a bite of my sandwich and shook my head. “I don’t follow.”
“The first stage is the honeymoon stage. Both people trying to please each other. The next stage, I call the transitional stage. If it’s good, both people will be fighting to hang on to the honeymoon stage for all their worth. The next stage…”
“The dump-them-stage, Cassie and I call it,” Trish interrupted, getting a daggered look from Elisa and a nod of agreement from Cassie.
“The couple stage,” Elisa emphasized, “is too comfortable for me. When two people start to take each other for granted. And as you know, I should never be taken for granted.” She pushed out her chest and flicked her auburn hair with a flourish.
“So how long do you stay with a guy?” I asked.
“Each guy goes through the stages at a different rate. So far, Tommy is still in the honeymoon stage. But Billy Jasper went through the honeymoon stage in a week and the transitional stage in a day, so…”
“You only went out a week?” I gaped.
“Hey, you have to know when to get out.” She shrugged, taking a drink of juice.
I took another bite and turned back towards Allister and his sister. I felt a connection to these two strangers. I looked at them, pushing the idea they were the angels from my mind and considered them as people. It didn’t make them less fascinating. Allister Parks held some inherent mystery I wanted to figure out. But a part of me wasn’t sure I would like what I discovered.
I stared at them throughout lunch, scolded many times by the girls for being so obvious. Angelina and Allister didn’t appear to notice, only looking our way once more as they stood to leave.
I shook my head, clearing the crazy feelings from my mind. Get a grip, I told myself, he’s just a boy. Still, I had a hard time convincing myself the truth of it. He and Angelina were something more…but what?
We went to the rest of our classes and then home after school, disappointed to find the Camaro already gone from the parking lot when we left. I expected to see him as we drove past their house, but again, the house appeared lifeless.
With a mountain of homework after the first day, I toiled away at it until late that night. Subconsciously I wanted to stay awake as long as possible and maybe be too fatigued to dream. When I finally clicked the light off, my heavy eyelids unveiled my dream like the opening curtain to a play as they lumbered shut.
I stood in a house, a kitchen to be precise, looking into a family room from the darkness. I saw the back of a woman’s head as she sat on the couch, wrapped up in a blanket watching TV. I moved, unnoticed, creeping closer and reaching a hand, extended by the now too familiar hairy arm towards her. The hand contacted her shoulder and she turned with a start, the pull of vapors from her form already visible, as she screamed for a split second then went silent. Her eyes glazed and mouth fell open; her final scream silenced forever.
I woke with a shake as the bed still moved under me and felt my heart racing in my chest. When would this stop? How could I make these visions end? That’s what they were; visions, not dreams. Dreams weren’t real. These were real. Not knowing how much longer I could withstand the mental anguish, I questioned if surviving the waterfall was truly the better of my two options. Live with the horrific visions and guilt of being involved in countless deaths or ending it all at the waterfall. My idea that saving a life could somehow counteract the taking of a life didn’t line up with anything I learned about Christianity growing up. Even my rationalization about keeping the balance wasn’t working. That I was connected to the nurse’s assistant, seeing him kill while doing nothing to stop him, weighed on me.
I lay back, my bed damp with sweat. Maybe Allister had some answers for me, at least some advice for how to stop them. How would I ask him, even if he did? Hey Allister, are you the cause of my nasty visions? Did you save me so I could take the fall for this guy? Yeah, that sounded like the perfect way to send him running and screaming in the opposite direction. I’d better rethink that.
I closed my eyes, focusing on the image of Allister with a smile and then grimaced as Angelina’s glare came to mind. What did she have against me?
Chapter 7 The girls and I bundled up in our orange and black school sweatshirts and jackets to root for the Thunderhawks at the first football game of the season that Friday night. The disappointment of not speaking to Allister again that week overshadowed the excitement of the home game. I did my best to push it aside. Our meetings were restricted to passing in the hallway. Even though he smiled as he walked by, we didn’t have another conversation.
We went to the game and cheered our team on to a 17-10 victory, then rushed to the dance afterward at the school gym, crowding into the bathroom at the school to redo makeup and get ready.
I stood back, watching as the others put on lipstick and touch up eye shadow. Since coming back from Rochester I didn’t need to wear makeup.
Trish prepped frantically, her nerves at the prospect of watching Jeb and his band play at the dance getting the better of her. I’d never seen her like this before. Usually very calm and confident, she fluttered around like a bird caught in a tornado, her emotions all over the place.
Tommy planned to meet Elisa at the dance when he and his teammates finished celebrating. Elisa, calm and collected as ever, touched up her makeup in the mirror giving me a knowing wink as excited voices echoed off the porcelain walls of the bathroom.
Cassie brushed her hair and applied lip gloss, smiling at me through the mirror. Carl waited for her in the gym.
They took forever so I wandered out of the bathroom and stepped out a side door into the
parking lot to get some fresh air. A bunch of guys leaned against some parked cars, smoking. They flashed a wary look as I came through the door, hiding their glowing butts at their sides in case I was a chaperone or security.
I turned away, trying to assure them I wasn’t going to rat them out. They moved in closer, surrounding me on three sides. I looked at the closest and smiled, trying to push my nerves down.
“Hey,” he said, giving me a smile.
“Hi.” I looked around as if waiting for someone. I felt confident the girls would rush to the dance floor, never expecting me to be out here.
“You’re Britt Anderson, right?” the guy asked, “The cancer girl?”
“That’s me.” I gave him a sideways glance while continuing to scan the lot.
“You sure don’t look like you had cancer,” another guy piped up.
“How am I supposed to look?” My glaring eyes met his boldly.
“Uh, I don’t know, maybe skinny,” he stuttered.
“She don’t look too sick or skinny to me,” a third boy said, “but how can you be sure with all those clothes on?”
“I’ll check.” The voice came from behind me as an arm wrapped around my waist and a hand reached up under my shirt.
I gasped and struggled to move away. The guys on either side of me each took an arm and held me tight. The hand crept further up my shirt, searching for a prize. I started to scream, but the hand around my waist moved and clamped heavily over my mouth, muffling my attempt.
“You need to let her go. Now,” a smooth voice said from my left.
I looked up and Allister stood tall and solid, his perfect eyes so intense it sent a shiver down my back.
“If it isn’t the new pretty boy trying to be a hero,” the boy holding me with his hand up my shirt growled in my ear.
“I won’t tell you again. Let her go,” Allister repeated.
Two of the guys rushed Allister as he stood motionless. It happened so quickly. One minute they charged him and the next they lay on the ground, Allister standing over them. I didn’t see him move.
