I glanced once more over my shoulder at Tori’s house, which still hadn’t had anybody come or go since I’d been standing here, then took a few steps in the direction he gestured. “Okay.” I stopped myself in mid-step. “If I’m going to walk and talk with you, and I’m hoping you’re not some psycho killer or something, then can you tell me how we know each other’s names?”
He held out his hand for me to shake. “Hi Mara, my name is Max Carter. And I have no clue how I know your name.”
I took his hand in greeting. It felt warm, soft, and instantly made me feel relaxed like I’d known him my entire life. “So, Max Carter. How do I know you? Do you go to our school or are you in college? I don’t remember seeing you around my high school or even our town. Are you friends with, Van? Cause if you are, then I totally dislike you right now.” Not that I would really do that. I couldn’t think all guys are total douches just because my ex. I would’ve remembered seeing his face, and as I snuck a glance at his body, there was no way that I could forget one like that.
His hair was a bit longer than most guys in our town. It looked like it had a natural curl to it and he kept brushing back the dark brown mess of thickness when it fell into his eyes. It looked like it was in a constant state of messiness, but in a good way. He was shorter than Van, which meant he was below six feet. My guess he was around five foot ten or so. He was well built, not overly muscular, but there was definition under those clothes.
“Well, Mara Crowe. I’m not from around here.”
His voice brought my attention back to the fact that he could talk and was probably wondering why I was staring so much with my mouth slightly open…you know the look that you have when someone catches your eye, and you can’t get over how great they look. He wasn’t strictly here for my viewing purposes only.
He let my hand drop back to my side, and we continued our way.
“That’s obvious. I mean like I said, I’ve never seen you around here before. We have a small town where everyone knows everyone.”
Max nodded his head. “You like to talk a lot.”
I let out a silent puff of agitation. “No, not really.” I mean I’d been talking to him for about ten minutes, and he had already classified me as a chatterbox. “I’m pretty quiet most of the time. But hey, this is my illusion, so I can do what I want, right.”
Max chuckled again. “Are you still going with that notion that none of this is real? I mean it is, but then it isn’t.”
“Yes, and you’re confusing me.” It was like he was talking in riddles with whatever he said. ‘It is, but then it isn’t.’ I mean really, come on. What kind of thought process is that?
“Mara, stop and look around you.” His hand took hold of my elbow.
There went that warm, fuzzy feeling again. The kind like it was a cold winters night, and I would snuggle deep inside of a big, soft, feels-so-good comforter.
“What do you see?”
I looked around where we had gone. We were back at my house, and I had no clue how we got here so fast. ‘Duh, it’s all imagination, Mara.’ “We’re at my house.” I pointed to the two-story white vinyl sided house with the white picket fence in the front yard. The classic home that most people want to look at and feel like they are living in good ole ‘hometown in the USA.’
“Okay, have you seen anyone else out and about?” He motioned with his hand to the vastness of nothingness that was going on.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “No, but maybe I don’t want them in my drug induced state of mind.”
Max rubbed his face with his hands and let out a slight grumble. “Tell me what was the last thing you remember?”
I closed my eyes and tried to think back on everything that went on that night. Ashley and I were getting ready. The big crowd at Tori’s house. Ashley was drinking with everyone else. Van outside with some girl. Van and I were arguing. Van grabbed me on the deck. Me running back inside. Me walking up the steps. All the people that had been waiting for the bedrooms to open up. The master bedroom door. Me opening it up. Two bodies together. The light went on. Van with Tori’s mom. Me running outside. Me driving. Me crying. Honking. Bright lights. Loud crash. “Oh my God, I’m dead!” I opened my eyes and looked at Max waiting for an answer.
“Not dead.” He shook his head.
I let out a deep sigh, knowing that I hadn’t passed over the bridge.
“But…”
There is always a but and it’s never good. I waited to see what else he had to say before I started my mental break down.
“…Not quite alive either.”
I bit down on my bottom lip and tilted my head. “What do you mean, not quite alive?” He really needed to explain that a bit further. I’m not, or I wasn’t the most religious person, so I’m not sure about what all the levels were before one got into the powerful kingdom.
“You’re alive somewhere, most likely there. But not active where your mind and body are. So until everything gets back into check on that side, you’re here.”
“And where is exactly here?” My guess now had taken a different route, and now I was almost positive that this wasn’t a drug-induced joyride.
“Somewhere between here and there.”
“Damn it, Max. Quit talking in circles. Where the fuck am I?” Now, I was starting to get pissed at his supposed funniness.
“You’re not here, and you’re not there. You’re somewhere in-between,” he shouted a little too loudly, and it seemed that his voice echoed off of everything.
“But I can’t remember how or why I would be here.” My head was starting to hurt from trying to remember.
“It’ll come.”
“I’ll remember what happened?” I lifted my eyes upwards to meet his.
He nodded his head once and then looked away.
“Do you remember why you’re here?”
Max shrugged his shoulders “I think.” He kept staring at the ground with his eyes closed like he was either trying to remember or maybe forget the reason.
I guess he probably didn’t want to tell me why. I had swallowed the huge lump in my throat before I spoke, “Will I die?” I mean as mad as I was or think I was; it didn’t say I wanted to die yet. There was too much that I wanted to do and see, I couldn’t just have it end where it did. Me being pissed off at Van. What a way to go out. My God, I was only eighteen. I had my whole life ahead of me—or did I?
The corners of Max’s lips turned a bit upwards into a smile. I heard a soft snort through his nose like he was trying to hold back laughter. “I don’t know, Mara. I haven’t figured everything out yet. People come, and people go. Most don’t go back, though.”
Well, that part sort of ruined the moment. “How come you haven’t gone anywhere but here?”
Another shoulder shrug. “I don’t know that answer either. Maybe I’ll be stuck here forever. Not that it’s a horrible place, but like you maybe everything was taken away too quickly.”
I looked around and didn’t recognize any of my surroundings. Everything was still like not even a breeze or Songbird was noted. There was no one about like it had been the end of the world and we were the only survivors. I just had to keep my eyes out for zombies or something. Hey, you just never know what could show up. “Um Max, where are we?”
His head lifted upwards with a slight jerk.
I followed the direction he wanted me to look, and there was a house down the graveled lane. It looked to be a big farm with a long driveway that went to the front of the house. There looked to be miles upon miles of fencing that bordered the entire estate. The grass was a luscious green and seemed to go on forever back to the horizon.
“That’s my mum and dad’s house. It used to be mine too, but I don’t know if I’ll ever get back there again.”
“Okay, so we just traveled from my hometown in New Hampshire clear over to England or wherever you came. You know.” I waved my hand at him. “Since you have the whole accent thing going on.”
Max laughed th
is time, like a real deep hearty laugh. “That whole accent thing.” He waved his hand like I did. “Well, Mara I hate to burst your bubble, but we aren’t in England.”
“We’re not?” Now, I had no idea where I was. The way that the landscaping was all hilly, green, and perfectly manicured and the fact that the temperature had seemed to drop, I assumed it would be somewhere near there. “Okay then, where are we?” I looked back at the house, which still hadn’t changed. It was still so weird to be able to walk around and not be seen or heard and vice versa. I couldn’t see or hear a living thing except for Max, but then again we weren't alive.
“We’re in Massachusetts. Sorry, we’re still in the U.S.”
“You were visiting?”
Max shook his head no. “We moved here.” He waved his finger towards the house. “I was about ten. I was born in Evesham, Worcestershire, England.”
“Ah, so that’s what’s with the cool accent.” After I had said that, I felt my face get a bit warm. Here I was with a guy I hardly knew, making cute little comments like I was flirting with him. I’m probably the only one that could get embarrassed in this type of situation. Everyone else probably floats along just feeling oh so happy and serene and then there’s me. I’m trying to flirt with a guy who’s stuck here in the in-between as I was. We’ll probably never see each other again after we—well after we would go our separate ways.
Max just smirked and shook his head back and forth at my comment. “I never really looked at it as being cool. It’s just a natural sound to me.”
I nodded my head okay, but didn’t get into any long drawn out detail over his accent. I would probably say something else foolish and embarrass myself even more. “What else can we do here? I mean is this all you do all the time is just wander around from place to place?”
“Sometimes.” Max motioned for me to follow him. “If I concentrate, I can focus in on what is going on in the real-time world. I don’t see myself, but I can see and hear my family and friends sometimes.”
“Really?” I bounced on my toes. That was something I wanted to do. Maybe I could figure out a way to let them know I was okay. Maybe I could haunt van and scare him shitless. That would be the coolest thing to do. I could write, ‘I saw what you did,' in his mirror when it was all steamed up after he’d taken a shower
Max waved his hand downwards like he wanted me to chill out. “It’s not that easy, and it took me a long time. And no, you can’t do stuff like that.”
“Like what?” How the heck did he know what I just thought? I hope he wasn’t able to read my thoughts. I would be humiliated to no end, especially since I’d been thinking about what it would be like to kiss him, touch him, and do other things that I never did with Van. Max just turned me on to a point that no one had ever done before. Oh my God, if he was able to read my thoughts then, he might be able to read them now. I squeezed my eyes shut and then opened one ever so slowly, just enough that it looked like I still had my eyes shut but could make out Max’s expression.
He was shaking his head, and his lips turned up into a smirk, enough that I knew that he knew everything. “Come on.” Max motioned once again for me to follow. “Let’s go.”
We walked along a pathway that weaved in and out among a lot of trees. It was so quiet I thought I could hear my heart beating, but knew that was impossible. “How long have you been here?”
“That, I don’t know. It’s like I’ve lost all track of time. Do you remember what day and year it was when you came here?” This time, it was him seeking an answer and not me. He glanced over at me and his face looked so hopeful that I might be able to give him an answer he’d been waiting to hear.
I tried to think back once again of what happened that day. “I’d gone to a party. Then lots of stuff happened that made me leave.” I didn’t want to make him suffer through my issues I had with Van. He probably already knew since he could read thoughts and stuff like that, so I’m sure he picked that piece of information out of my head already. “I can remember some stuff after that, but I don’t think it’s anything that would help you remember the date.” I tried to wish all those thoughts away; I didn’t want to draw on those memories again right now.
“Do you remember the day or year?” Max seemed persistent for me to try and remember that little detail.
“No, I can’t. I remember since I was a senior I wanted to stop partying so much and concentrate on my academics.”
Max stopped and took hold of my shoulders. “What was that?”
“What?” I looked around thinking he may have saw or heard something.
“You said you were a senior.”
I nodded my head that he was correct.
“Did you get held back any grades or anything like that?”
I shook my head no. I didn’t have a clue where he was going with this.
“And you’re eighteen, correct?”
Once again, I confirmed he was right.
“What year were you born?”
That was drawing a blank. I could always remember my birthday. It sucked because everyone seemed to bypass it since it was so close to Christmas. An image of a paper flashed into my head. Someone was writing down numbers. It was a small space for the date of birth. “I remember.” I knew it had to be me that I was seeing writing down that information. The image had the same small speckled mole on their thumb as I did. I looked down at my hands and yep just like I suspected my hand was identical to the one in my vision.
“What is it?” Max took my hand and held it.
I thought back to the memory again and willed myself to concentrate a bit harder. The image was becoming clearer, and then it all became oh, so visible. I told him the month, day, and year that I ‘d seen with a big smile on my face. It seemed to make him happy, made me happy.
“Wow, it hasn’t been as long as I thought.”
I thought he was going to break out into a song and dance as excited as he seemed. “What’s all this mean?”
“It means, since you could see the date, then all I had to do was add eighteen to it. No biggie, Mara.”
Okay, he had me confused but, at least, he seemed to know what he meant.
“It’s still the same year that it was when I had my accident to get me here. I haven’t been away too long, well long enough but not the years that I thought it might’ve been.” Max grabbed hold of me and pulled me into a tight hug. “Thank you so much, Mara. I’ve been waiting for like forever for that little bit of information.”
The longer he held me, the more I was thrown back into the events of my night. I could hear myself crying, the sound of a horn honking, the crash of something smashing together, then my scream. I heard myself cry in my past self and my right here and now self. I screamed because when Max held onto me—I remembered everything.
Chapter Four
“Mara, Mara.”
I opened my eyes.
Max was standing in front of me. He looked concerned about my little screaming episode.
“I remember. I remember everything.” It wasn’t just the party, lights, and sound of crashing that I remembered, but I knew what happened to me.
Max led me over to a wooden bench along the pathway. We both sat down, and he kept my hand with his. “Do you want to talk about it?” He lightly brushed my hair out of my eyes.
His touch alone made me feel comforted, but yet all different inside. I’d just met him, but it felt like I’d known him forever. “Um…” I tried to regain my composure after seeing what I just saw and getting my body to quit reacting to Max’s touch the way I didn’t want it to behave. Was I the only one who was half alive and half dead that was horny and wanting a guy to touch me even more?
“It’s okay, Mara.”
God, I love the way that he said my name. It rolled off his tongue so smoothly.
Max took hold of my hand once more. “You can tell me. I’ve been there and done that before, so I know what you’re going through.”
“I saw my car get hit by
another car, well really it was a big truck.”
Max gently squeezed my hand encouraging me to tell him more.
“I remember lying on the ground looking up at the stars. I felt the blood running down the side of my face and tried to wipe it away, but I couldn’t move my hand. I heard a guy screaming and then he was looking at me. He didn’t seem to be hurt too bad, maybe a small lump on his forehead. He had a cell phone and was talking to someone telling them what had happened and where we were at.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly before I continued, “It seemed like hours, but I’m sure it wasn’t before I heard the sound of sirens. Two police officers were kneeling beside me telling me that everything was going to be all right. I could tell by the looks that they kept giving each other that everything wasn’t as peachy as it seemed. Moments later, another vehicle pulled up, and everyone started scrambling. There were now four other people talking to me, asking me what my name was and if I remembered what happened, but I just couldn’t speak.” I wanted to stop right there; I couldn't continue with this story any longer.
“Mara.” Max lightly touched my cheek, so that I would look up at him. “You remember the accident.”
I nodded my head that I did.
“What about after everyone got there, do you remember anything after that?”
“The paramedics or whoever the other set of people were that came, strapped me onto a bed and put me inside of the ambulance. I could feel them sticking something in me, I guess it was IV’s or something, they were talking on the phone with someone, and all I heard was they didn’t know if I was going to make it there in time.”
“Was that all?”
I nodded my head that it was. “I guess whatever they gave me made me pass out.” I squeezed Max’s hand. “Is that what happened to you?”
“Sort of, yes and no.” He pulled me up so that we were both standing back on the path. “Let me show you something.”
I held tightly onto his hand and let him lead me where he wanted me to go. I looked around at the site where Max and I ended up. Our walks were becoming faster, and it didn’t seem like it took us no time at all to get where we were at, wherever that was. It was mountainous with rugged cliffs poking out over a large body of water.
Somewhere In-Between (Breathless #1) Page 3
