Forever Checking (Checked Series Book 3)

by Jennifer Jamelli

  If I ask these questions, he will answer them. And then he might ask me even more questions. There might be another form. And I don’t want that. So…

  If you drop your purse in an area of dry, seemingly clean concrete in a store parking lot, will you throw out your purse? Possibly.

  What if you drop your purse in a seemingly clean public bathroom? Will you throw it out? Absolutely.

  Why am I hypothetically in a public bathroom? Gross.

  If you step on gum, will you throw out your shoes? Absolutely.

  If you step on a Band-Aid on the street, will you throw out—

  Everything. I will throw out everything in such a case. Shoes, socks, nylons, pants—whatever I am wearing. I might even throw myself out if I can find a brand new trashcan.

  If you step on a Band-Aid on the street, will you throw out your shoes? Absolutely.

  If you step on some mouse droppings, will you throw out your shoes? Absolutely.

  Will you go to see another movie with me at some point soon?

  Hmm…I haven’t really thought much about movies since our Gone With the Wind gum debacle. But everything was okay other than the cell phone ringing and the purse dropping and the gum touching. I can probably just be more careful next time…and not bring my cell phone (obviously).

  Will you go to see another movie with me at some point soon? Probably.

  Will you go to sleep without turning on the television? Probably not.

  If he’s cooking me to sleep again, I can handle that.

  If you are driving somewhere and you realize that you are almost out of gas, would you be able to pump gas at a gas station?

  Is there a needle in the gas pump handle? He knows that I read that scary article. You’d think he’d be more specific about the whole needle situation in his hypothetic scenario.

  What does “almost out of gas” mean? Can I get to my desired location? Is Mandy nearby?

  Where am I? Am I somewhere scary where someone will murder me if I run out of gas and am stuck in my car?

  These questions just aren’t detailed enough. Not nearly detailed enough.

  If you are driving somewhere and you realize that you are almost out of gas, would you be able to pump gas at a gas station? Possibly.

  Will you go to a salon for a haircut at some point in the next six to ten months? Probably.

  I made it through my therapy haircut okay. I can do it again. I just have to pick a clean-looking stylist.

  Will you go to a salon for a manicure or pedicure in the next few months?

  Ugh.

  I know that the odds are good that I won’t bump into an open bottle of nail polish remover again, but still, this seems like an unnecessary risk. I’m just going to pick the nail polish off anyway.

  Will you go to a salon for a manicure or pedicure in the next few months? Probably not.

  Will you ride the party bus again with me? Probably not.

  If he really wants to, I’d probably try a different mode of public transportation, one not carrying a bunch of drunk people.

  Hmm…I don’t think I’m even allowed to ride the party bus again. If the same guy as before is driving, I don’t think he’ll let me on the bus.

  Do you want me to buy you more “celebrity nonsense” magazines? Possibly.

  I already bought one earlier this week. But having more of them wouldn’t be so bad. They’ll help me fill some of my extra time…

  Do you want to play another game of Words with Friends with me? Absolutely.

  With him, definitely. I can beat him. With Melanie, there really isn’t a point in trying. Unless maybe I consider myself a winner if she beats me by less than two hundred points…

  Will you plant a flower with me again? Probably.

  If he really wants to…

  Will you make me dinner? :) Probably not.

  Haha. I’d probably end up accidentally poisoning him.

  If you really had to go to the bathroom, would you use a seemingly clean nearby public restroom instead of driving ten miles to get to your house and your own bathroom? Not a chance.

  “Seemingly clean” again. EW.

  Will you stay in a hotel again someday? Probably.

  If it’s immaculate. And if he’s there too.

  Him. In a hotel bed. Waiting for me. I’m definitely up for that.

  Do you want me to come over tonight? Absolutely.

  Phew. Done.

  SEND.

  Chapter 21

  thirty-three moments after

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER

  My doorbell is ringing. He’s here.

  THIRTY SECONDS LATER

  His lips burning against mine. Bodies entangled. Arms and hands and fingers everywhere. Legs moving, moving, moving. To the staircase. Up the stairs. To my bedroom. To my bedroom. To my bedroom.

  {Jason Derulo. “Trumpets.” Louder and louder and louder.}

  THREE HUNDRED SECONDS LATER

  Hair strewn about a pillow. Cool sheets beneath my bare back. Hot, scorching skin pressed against my chest.

  Him. All over.

  {“Trumpets.” Louder yet. Thunderous.}

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER

  Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

  Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

  Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

  Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

  Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

  Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

  {“Trumpets.” Blasting. Vibrating. Bouncing all around.}

  THREE HOURS LATER

  Almost asleep. His arms around me. My head on his naked chest. His heart beating in my ear. A young baker on television making a lemon meringue pie. {Damien singing his song.}

  THREE DAYS LATER

  In the car. His car. With him. Leaving the grocery store parking lot. Groceries in the trunk.

  Him. Holding my hand.

  Driving. Driving. Driving. Turning. Turning. Turn—

  Turning at the wrong pla—

  Turning into a gas station.

  But—

  “Are you ready to try your Day Ten activity?”

  What? Ugh. No.

  “No, not really.”

  He pulls into a spot next to a gas pump and looks at me. Looks at me apprehensively. “I thought we were going to try to get you through the gas station and syrup activities after a month on your med—”

  My mouth opens to interrupt him. “Okay. Give me the gloves.” Because I know that he has gloves. He always has every freaking base covered. So he has gloves somewhere in this car. And I don’t want to do this without gloves. Correction. I don’t want to do this at all. But I promised. So I’ll need gloves.

  Relief on his face. He reaches across me, into his glove compartment, and pulls out a box of latex gloves. He holds out the box for me. I grab two gloves and slide them onto my hands.

  Don’t let there be diseases out there. Please.

  One. Two. Three. I open my car door and step outside onto the gas station concrete. I walk toward the pump, toward him, as he slides his credit card through a card reader.

  I look around. No one else is here right now. And it’s highly unlikely that a diseased person with malicious intentions was here within the last hour, sticking needles into gas pump handles. AND if someone did this disgusting deed longer ago than that, the disease should already have disappeared from the needle…so he says…

  I glance into the little convenience store ahead of me. A young, pretty teenager stands behind a counter, looking out of the window. Looking at me, us, right now. Surely she would have noticed any sort of suspicious activity from a recent customer.

  And she doesn’t look like someone who would’ve tampered with any of the pumps herself. Why would she do that? She’d probably lose her job if someone caught her doing
that. Right? Doesn’t sticking diseased, contaminated needles into gas pump handles have to be a fire-worthy offense? It has to be.

  And this girl probably can’t afford to be fired. She probably needs this job so she can pay for, well, whatever high school students buy. So I’m sure she doesn’t want to get fired.

  AND she probably doesn’t have AIDS or hepatitis or anything like that anyway. So she probably couldn’t have—

  “Ready, Callie?”

  I turn to him and nod. Yes. Yes, let’s get this over with.

  He’s holding the gas tank cap. The tank is already open. So it’s time.

  One. Two. Three.

  I step up to the pump and place my latexed glove on the handle.

  I pull up the handle. Very carefully.

  Up. Up. Up.

  Up so I can see into the little hole, the little space where the silver trigger is.

  I look and look and look around the trigger. Cautiously.

  No needles.

  Okay.

  Handle down down down, into the open gas tank.

  I press the trigger gently, still hoping for no miniscule needles.

  And gas starts to run into the tank. My fingers, latexed fingers, keep pressing on the trigger, the non-needled trigger.

  Glug. Glug. Glug. Glug. Glug. Glug. Smells of gasoline and latex and his cologne fill the air. {Technotronic’s “Pump Up the Jam” fills up my head.}

  Glug. Glug. Glug.

  CLICK.

  The tank is full.

  Lift. Lift. Lift. Handle back into the holder.

  I peel off my gloves, starting at the bottom near my wrists and rolling them up to my fingers and off—all germs kept inside.

  I throw the gloves into the big open hole trashcan beside the gas pump.

  He—

  He is staring at me.

  Fascinated.

  I guess I did okay.

  I shrug my shoulders, smile, and reach out my hand. He nods with a smile, reaches into his coat pocket, and hands me a small packet, one of his super powerful hand wipes.

  I quickly open the package and wipe off my hands as he finishes the payment process, pressing buttons and getting a receipt.

  Then he looks at me again. Smiles at me again. “I suppose you want me to clean my hands too.”

  I shrug again. “Only if you plan on touching me today.”

  I walk back over to my side of his car as he pulls out a wipe for his own hands, shaking his head. And smiling.

  THREE MINUTES AFTER THAT

  Back in the car. Holding hands. Freshly cleaned hands. Driving back toward my—

  “What do you want to talk about first? Your worst case scenario plan? Or about the odds of your worst case scenario even happening?”

  I don’t really want to talk about either.

  Silence, as usual, in his car. Why can’t he just turn on the—

  “Because the odds of any of your, ah, needle fears coming true at a gas station are rather similar to what your odds were at the movie theatre.” He stops at a red light. “It’s highly unlikely that a customer would’ve somehow placed a needle in the gas handle trigger, especially within an hour before we arrived there. And I really doubt that the sales clerk at the gas station would’ve done something like that because she’d be fired if—”

  Oh my God. Here he goes again. Reading every single thought—

  “What is it, Callie?” He is looking over at me.

  And I…I’m just now realizing that I am staring at him. Mouth slightly open in surprise. But I don’t even know why I’m surprise—

  “You already thought about all of that. Didn’t you? That’s what you were thinking about when you were standing by me at the pump, staring at the clerk through the store window.”

  Can I really be that transparent? Can I—

  Green light. He starts driving again. And smiling. Gloaty smiling. “I’m right. Right?”

  Ugh. I shrug. “Maybe.”

  A bigger smile. “Tell me.”

  You know you are right. So there is no point in me denying it.

  My head nods.

  Nodding. Nodding. Nodding.

  Not starting the lying again. Telling him the truth. Well, nodding him the truth.

  “What about your worst case scenario? What would you do if you pressed down on the trigger and a needle—”

  “Stop.” Stop. Stop. I can’t think about that. I can’t think about that. I can’t think about that.

  He glances over at me for a second. “How about this?” He pauses and puts his eyes back on the road.

  Please don’t tell me what diseases I might get. Please don’t tell me what diseases I might get. Please don’t—

  “Keep kissing me. Keep touching me. Keep sleeping with me.”

  What?

  “Just keep doing what you are doing—what we are doing. That way any diseases you have, or in reality, any diseases you think you have, will just be transferred right to me. I’ll take them too so we can just live with them together.”

  My mouth drops open. “That—”

  That sounds ridiculous. But it’s oddly comforting.

  Not that I want to give him a disease. Not that I want to have a disease. Because having one of those super scary transmittable diseases would leave me contagious. Potentially dangerous to others. Alone.

  But if he had the same thing…if he had it too, we could be contagious together. Potentially dangerous together. Alone together.

  Not my dream scenario. But as a worst case scenario, not the most horrible thou—

  “Not bad, huh?”

  He’s smiling again. Gloating again. Reading my mind again.

  So I shrug again. “Maybe not bad. A little ridiculous. Extreme.”

  “I never said that your worst case scenario plan had to be practical or even rational. It just has to be something that you can think of to calm yourself down. If it calms you down, it is perfect, no matter how ridiculous it might sound.”

  He pulls into my driveway and stops the car, looking at me. “So…you can go to a gas station now. Are you going to let Mandy off the hook and tell her that she doesn’t have to fill up your tank anymore?”

  GRRR. Maybe I can go to a gas station. That doesn’t mean that I want to do it every week or every other week. Or at all.

  It’s still a dirty job. It’s still mentally challenging. And it still takes me more time to do than it would take other people.

  But…it’s probably not fair to keep making Mandy do it.

  Mouth open. “I don’t know. Maybe eventually.”

  Maybe I can hire someone else to get gas for me. Someone clean. Or—

  Or—

  “Maybe you can get it for me some of the time.”

  His eyebrows raise. The corners of his mouth turn up slightly.

  “And what would be in it for me?”

  I lean over, smashing my lips against his cheek.

  And the corners of his mouth turn up even more.

  THIRTY HOURS LATER

  Living room television on. Blanket on top of me. Throw pillow under my head.

  Class is over for the day. I have three hours until I need to get ready for Girls’ Night. And I’m going to take a nap. Why? Because I’m tired. Because this medicine makes me freaking tired. Also because I have been finding myself with more and more extra time. My routines have been getting shorter and shorter, and I am getting more and more done during the day. So I have time to nap. And it’s becoming a new favorite hobby of mine. {AND The Beatles are singing “Golden Slumbers.” So they want me to nap. And I’m not going to disappoint them.}

  So…eyes closed. White noise achieved. Out.

  THREE WEEKS AFTER THAT

  {John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Oh, and the Plastic Ono Band and the Harlem Community Choir. “Happy Xmas (War is Over).”}

  9:00 a.m. His house.

  I’m sitting beside the Christmas tree in his living room, the tree I helped him decorate a couple of weeks ago. White lights. Si
lver ball ornaments. Simple. Uniform. Beautiful.

  I’m nervous. Picking at my nails. Holding his present. A small wrapped box. A small gift. But a big deal. A huge—

  “Are you ready?” He’s standing beside me, above me, with a large box. Black paper. Silver ribbon.

  He starts to hand it to—

  “Let me go first.” I stop him, interrupting his gift presentation. And I hold up my gift for him.

  “Okay…” He sits down beside me, places his large box on the floor, and takes the small box from me.

  Here we go.

  He removes the ribbon, the little gold bow I spent ten minutes perfecting last night. Then he starts to tear at the paper, smiling over at me occasionally as he works.

  I smile back, but it’s not the most genuine of smiles.

  Please don’t get mad. Please don’t get mad. Please don’t get mad.

  Or sad.

  I hold my breath. And the paper…is…off.

  “An iPod. Thanks—this will be great for my car.”

  Wait. What?

  He leans over to kiss me on the cheek.

  But—

  “Hold on. You want to use that in your car?”

  He nods. Surprised. “Was that not your intention? Did you have something else in min—”

  “No. I thought it would be perfect for your car. But I wasn’t sure if you’d use it since your car is always so…”

  “Silent?” He nods.

  What the—

  “Yes, it has been silent when you’ve been around since I’ve been trying to monitor your head radio, trying to watch your body movements and any signs that might reveal the beat in your head.”

  Hell. What the hell? Seriously? I look at him. Shock on my face, I know. Confusion.

  He starts to explain. “I figured from the first appointment that you had a head radio, but after that appointment, I had you on constant observation to try to figure out how often music was playing, how often the music was changing…things like that.” He pauses and shrugs his shoulders. “Having the radio on in my car would’ve completely ruined my observations.”