by Winter, Eden
“I got water!”
Another pixie was racing toward us from inside the club. Quite a few patrons had come outside. The fire was out, but word must have gotten out—or in this case in—and curious people from inside the club were emerging.
The pixie handed me a glass of water, and drinking it definitely did the trick. My insides were raw from the coughing, but they no longer felt like they were on fire.
“Let’s go,” I said to Peter.
“What?” The only expression I could see on his face was telling me I must be crazy.
“There are too many people. I don’t want to have to keep telling everyone I’m okay. I don’t want to call the police. It was an accident. Please, let’s just go,” I said. I struggled to get on my feet, but once I was standing, I realized how weak I was.
“Okay,” was all Peter said. He stood up as well and followed me. I walked through the parking lot and over to where I remembered Peter had parked his car. He didn’t say anything else until he was about to open the door.
“Do you want me to take you home?”
“I don’t think I want to be alone right now,” I admitted. He wouldn’t have to say or do anything. Just knowing I wasn’t alone at home would be enough for me. Peter nodded but didn’t speak. He got into his car and waited for me to get in before shutting his door.
I reached for my seatbelt too.
“Oh, no,” I whispered. I said it low enough that I knew Peter wouldn’t have been able to hear me. There was a slight dizzy feeling that rendered me motionless for a second. Was it a vision coming? I waited for a bit, but nothing came. There was only the weak sensation and slight spinning, but I couldn’t see anything.
And that was when it occurred to me. I wasn’t always going to see something when I had a premonition. Sometimes I could just feel it because those were warnings. The dizziness without the premonitions were letting me know something. They were letting me know that the vision I had seen was just about to come true.
*
“I’m sorry about tonight,” Peter said. We hadn’t spoken during the entire ride over to his apartment. Peter pretended to be focused on driving, and I pretended to be preoccupied with whatever was outside the window. I played with my fingers the entire time and couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
We were standing outside his front door. We had walked through the door of the main building, hopped into the elevator, waited for it to take us up to the third floor, and then walked to his apartment before either of us said a word.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” I said. “You didn’t do anything. I should be apologizing to you. You keep having to save me. You’ve… always been the one to save me.”
“Right place at the wrong time perhaps,” he said. We stepped into his apartment, and I stood close to the door while I waited for him to lock it behind us. It was nice, but then again, I knew that. I remembered how it was from the vision I’d had when I had gone to visit my dad. It was small, and it had a basic color pattern of brown, black, and white.
His kitchen was pristine even though I knew he must have spent a lot of time in it. I could smell so many foods and spices from where I was. When you walked into the apartment, you were immediately in Peter’s living room. Across from the front door on the opposite side was an island and the kitchen. I liked the open plan of his home. In my house, every room was separated by a large archway.
“I don’t want you to think you need to rescue me all the time,” I said in a soft voice. Peter was in front of me and walking in the direction of his living room. There was a black velvet couch in the middle of the room, and he scooted past it. He gestured to it to encourage me to sit, and I did.
“If you try to avoid getting into trouble, I won’t feel the need to save you,” he said. He took off his shoes and put them in one corner of the room. I wondered if I should have done the same. For someone who lived alone, his house was very tidy, but you could also tell that it was a bachelor pad.
“How is it that you keep getting into trouble anyway?” asked Peter. “The fire I can’t explain, but what was going on at the lake?”
“My life is like a terrible soap opera.”
“Does that mean I’m now a leading man in your life story?”
His back was turned to me, so I couldn’t read the expression on his face. It sounded like a joke, so I decided to treat it like one.
“I guess so,” I said. I chuckled to try to keep my cool.
“Are you hungry?” he asked. I didn’t notice just how hungry I was until Peter said something. I told him that I was, and he started taking things out of the cabinets and the refrigerator.
He hadn’t tried to delve deeper into my mind. He asked no questions about the lake or what was causing all of the bizarre and dangerous things to happen to me. I gave a silent sigh and watched him while he worked. He had a serious look on his face, but then again, he seemed serious so often that I was still having trouble figuring out his emotions based on just his expressions.
“So, tell me a bit more about you,” Peter said with his back still turned to me.
“How random,” I answered.
“Is it? I thought that was how people got to know one another.” His face turned so I could see him flash me a smile. It caught me off guard because it was the first time I saw him smiling with teeth. It was nice to see. Despite the near-death experience that happened not even an hour before, looking at Peter made me feel calm. I couldn’t explain how his smile calmed me down, while on the other hand being around him in itself was a form of mental and emotional frustration for me.
“It is, but I wasn’t expecting that right out of the gate. What would you like to know?”
“The things you want to tell me will come to the surface, and your words will move you from there,” he said. No one had ever said anything like that to me. People would sometimes try to be cute and say ‘everything’, as if that narrowed it down. And then there were those who would ask a list of basic questions, and to make them seem interesting and interested they would ask a not-so-basic question to throw you off and make you think. Peter simply said it was up to me to share. I liked that.
“I have an older sister. She’s my best friend, but we lost touch for a while. It was because of a guy—the same one Delilah was talking about when we were on the lake. He wasn’t a good guy. Shit. I should stop talking about him. This is about my sister. I don’t want you thinking that son of a bitch is the only major part of my life. My sister is Isabelle. She’s three years older, and she is the friendliest human being on the planet. When you meet her you’ll think it’s fake, but it’s not. She’s something out of a dream.”
I was rambling because I didn’t want to look Peter in the eye. He was pretty busy with the food he was preparing. I couldn’t see what he was making from where I was.
“Do you look alike?” he asked. It was an autopilot question. He heard me, but he was also preoccupied.
“Not really. She’s tall like a giraffe with these amazing legs. Her hair is super red. The only thing we have in common is our eyes. You can tell we’re related because of them.”
“I would really like to meet her one day,” he said.
“She would like you. And I’m not saying that because she pretty much likes everyone. I really mean that.”
“Well, before my encounter with her, I’m already flattered.”
“Where did you move here from?” I asked. I didn’t want the focus to be on me anymore. I was still jittery from nearly being burned to death. If I thought too much about myself and the fire, it would stir up a lot of negative memories and bring up a lot of questions that I knew I wouldn’t have the answers to any time soon.
“I moved from the west coast, before that I lived in Switzerland, and before that, Korea.”
“Wow, you’re so well-traveled,” I said. I was a bit jealous of that. I hadn’t ever been too far away from this place.
“Well, my mother is South Korean. I was born there
. My father is now a well sought-after chef, and my mother was a diplomat. We moved to Switzerland where my father is from, and that’s where my mother passed away. We didn’t have as much money after that. My father put my inheritance away so I could do something with it once I turned eighteen, and that’s what helped me when I eventually moved here. We lived in Switzerland until I was seventeen, and then we headed out west because my father became a private chef for a very wealthy family. He still lives there. I came here because I took a map of the country and threw a dart at it. No extravagant explanation about what brought me here, I just…” Peter turned to face me, and that was when I recognized the situation.
He wasn’t looking at me. Peter was looking at something on the other side of the couch. He was looking at my past self from when I had seen him while I was sitting on my father’s couch. Peter blinked several times and then closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry. What was I saying?” he said.
“You were talking about what brought you here,” I said. Should I have spoken up about what I thought he might have seen? How was I going to get closer if I kept hiding myself from him?
“Yeah, it was random. It was an exciting and bold step,” he said.
“Are you sure it was random?” I asked. I stood up from the couch. I didn’t ask him in a sort of ‘autopilot’ way. I was trying to tell him something.
Peter was facing me now. There were a ton of ingredients on his kitchen island, and he was in the middle of cutting up an onion. He stopped to look up at me. He understood the way I was asking the question, but not the reason why I was asking it. He had no answer for me just then. How could he?
“Peter… Did you just see me?”
“What?”
“That day at the lake, when you stopped and thought you saw something. And just now when you were looking over there,” I pointed to the edge of the couch, “did you see me?”
A complete look of bemusement came across Peter’s face. He cocked his head to one side and his eyebrows flickered up and down in confusion.
“How did you…?”
“I’ve seen all of this before. I knew I was going to meet you before I met you. I saw you and your friends at the lake. I was on the ground, and that was when you thought you saw me. And on the boat at the lake, I panicked because I saw the fire. I saw the fire that happened tonight before it happened. And I saw you… I saw you in your kitchen looking at me—the me I was when I was looking at you from a completely different time and place.”
I regretted saying everything the moment the words escaped my lips. It was too much and too soon.
“What are you saying?” he asked. He was looking around the room in a way that said he was trying to piece together what I had said.
“I’m saying that up until a few weeks ago, I was a normal fairy, and then one day I saw you. And ever since that day, my perception of life, time, and free will has changed. Everything I’ve seen has involved you, whether directly in the vision or because you’re involved in whatever the vision is.”
Peter had put the knife down and was moving around the island. I took several bold steps forward, and he was looking right into my eyes from just a few feet away. I continued talking and made sure I was looking at him when I spoke.
“I don’t think you being here was random at all. I think that you and I were meant to…” My sentence was cut short. Peter had walked over to me and taken my face in both of his large hands. He smelled of spices, he smelled of a familiar feeling… he smelled of home. And then he brought his face toward mine and gave me a long, sweet kiss.
Chapter Six
Family Affair
I wish I could say that something more happened between Peter and I that night, but after that kiss, I made some pathetic excuse about needing to go home and I left. He didn’t argue or mention the fact that he was halfway into preparing us some food. He was disappointed, and it showed, but he offered to take me home anyway. I was grateful to him, but I felt a disconnect because he didn’t even ask me what had happened.
We rode in silence on the way to my house, and I leapt out of the car in order to avoid a messy or beautiful and painful goodbye. That kiss terrified me more than I cared to admit. I was still vulnerable and hurt because of my failed relationship with Alex. I had to learn that not everyone was like Alex, but tonight was not that night.
Peter and I weren’t really the phone type, so I didn’t message him right away. I was nervous about speaking up about what happened on the night I’d nearly burned to a crisp, but I also secretly hoped he would message me first.
What about the kiss? What was going to happen the next time we spoke or even saw each other? I played the scenarios over and over in my mind with too many different outcomes. I found that it was better not to think about it at all.
But how could I not? I had told Peter my biggest secret and then left everything dangling in midair—my visions, the connection between Peter and the visions, the small flicker of a new flame inside me that had begun to burn for him, and a kiss that could have meant something more.
I waited almost four days before I got in touch with him. The excuse I made to myself was that I was busy with work, but I knew I had been avoiding him. I chose to text because hearing his voice would have made me feel even guiltier.
I sent a single ‘hello’ and put the phone in my pocket. I was sitting on my bed after a long day at work and sorting out my mind. I was trying to piece together life before Peter, life before his friends, and life before these premonitions. I wondered what it was that had triggered them, and if it was possible I would have gotten the powers even if I’d never met Peter. I wanted to know if the two were linked. Maybe my father’s grandmother developed her gift because she met my great-grandfather. Did this power only come when two of the right souls were connected with one another?
Maybe the reason the powers had developed now was because there was something I needed to do. I wish they had come at a time before I knew Alex. The premonitions could have saved me from a lot of hurt.
My phone buzzed. I stared at it and decided to count to twenty before reaching over for it. I got to nine before I flung myself over the bed and picked it up. It was a reply from Peter.
‘It’s good to hear from you, Sam. I hope you’re feeling better. Sorry if I scared you.’
I smiled with only one side of my mouth. It was more a shameful pursing than a real smile. I was the one who revealed to him that I knew him before I’d even met him and that the two of us had a special connection because I was sometimes able see the future, and he was still the one worrying about having scared me. The kiss only scared me because I was afraid of repeating a mistake and falling for the wrong person. I wondered then if I was going to spend the rest of my life being afraid to connect with anyone because of what Alex did to me.
‘You didn’t scare me.’ I started to type. It wasn’t a total lie. I was more afraid of the situation and the possibilities than I was of him. ‘I’m feeling much better. I hope you’re okay too.’
His response came almost immediately, and for some reason that made me giddy inside. It could have been that he was holding his phone and waiting on my response. Maybe the tiny flicker was something he felt inside himself as well.
‘I’m fine. Will I be seeing you soon?’ Peter responded.
‘I’d like that. I know I have a lot of things to explain. Please be patient with me.’ I replied.
‘I’ll do my best. Let me know whenever you’re ready to talk. I’ll be here.’
I smiled when I read the message. I would reply to it in a little while. I didn’t realize how tired I was until that moment. There was no rule that said I needed to send a reply right then and there. I would be better equipped to talk after a short nap.
I rested my head on my pillow, and before I knew it, I was fast asleep.
*
It was as if I’d started to dream the moment I had fallen asleep. I was sitting in Malcolm’s pickup truck. He was driving, and Isa
belle was sitting at the front seat. It was a cloudy day, and I remember thinking that was strange since we were in the middle of summer.
We were driving on a road I didn’t recognize, and it was surprisingly smooth. Trees surrounded us, but there weren’t any other cars there. I could hear music on the radio, but I wasn’t able to figure out what it was.
Now, I’m not sure if someone can fall asleep in a dream when they’re already asleep, but I could feel that I was dozing off while Malcolm was driving. My dream-self was shutting down. She wanted to take a nap too. The eyelids of my dream self were getting heavier and heavier every time I blinked.
Then, I heard a scream. My dream-self jolted upright, and I looked around wildly. I felt a hard jerk and then the pickup truck was spinning. Isabelle was screaming, and I could hear that I was screaming too. I pressed one hand against the door and the other on the passenger seat beside me to keep myself from being thrown about like a rag doll. I had on a seatbelt, but I was still able to toss about and spin with the way the car moved. We spun so hard and so fast that it was about a 200 degree turn we made. I couldn’t see what we had hit, but my neck was in agony. I shrank back into the seat, grateful we had stopped, and I just kept breathing deeply.
I didn’t hear anything else. And then, I woke up.
When I opened my eyes, the sky outside was a deep blue with the small remnants of an orange and purple hue. The sun had just finished setting, which meant I had been asleep for at least an hour. I groaned and looked down at my phone and saw that there were no messages.
Surprise, surprise.
I was groggy, but I felt okay enough to get up out of my head and get a glass of water from the kitchen. It helped. The dream scared me even though I tried to shake away the feeling. It wasn’t real, but it felt real. It felt like something I’d experienced before. I rubbed my neck. It wasn’t stiff or painful, but I still wanted to feel it just to make sure.
When I went back into my bedroom, the screen on my phone was lit. I was getting a call from my sister.
