We Awaken
Page 18
“How the hell do you know I was dreaming? This can’t be relevant.”
“Could be.”
“I was dreaming of her, and now I know why! I swear she’s become a recurring nightmare or something. We were talking about you, thanks a lot, on the Golden Gate Bridge, of all places. There were seagulls. It really shouldn’t be all that shocking that I dreamed of someone who was in the same goddamn room as me. Are you almost here? There’s no noise coming from down there, and it’s freaking me out.”
“Less than a minute away. I’m serious, she isn’t some sort of wild animal you have to listen up at the door for. You really can talk to her; you’ve done it before.”
Her driveway came into view, and I used the last of my energy running double time toward it. My forehead and chin were turning tacky with sweat.
“I’m gonna wait for you. She must have come in through the little windows or something.”
I made a noncommittal sound in response and told her to let me in the house, which I was standing in front of. It would be better to not wake her parents with the doorbell. Ellie hung up immediately and not two seconds later had the front door wide open.
She was wearing bright yellow pajama pants, unlike any of the dark clothes I normally saw her in, with hair flattened completely against one side of her head. Without speaking she grabbed my hand and dragged me inside toward the basement and gestured at it angrily, glaring at me as if the whole thing was my fault. Thinking back, it might have been. I unlocked the door and walked halfway down the carpeted stairs.
“Ashlinn?” I called out hopefully into the darkness.
“Victoria!”
It had been far too long since I last heard that voice in person.
She rushed over to the bottom of the stairs, and before I could even make my way down toward her outline, she raced up to me. A pair of awkwardly fitting gym shorts had been added to the sweater Ellie had already told me she was wearing, but there was no time to process her attire. Ashlinn plowed into me, making us both fall back onto the staircase and skid down a step or two.
“Oh my God,” I gasped, running my fingers over her hair, “you really are here. This is real. You are my girlfriend and you’re here and now I can tell everyone.”
It was time to get it out. I took a deep breath and looked her dead in the eyes. “I love you, Ashlinn.”
She flashed me her white teeth, unsurprised, and I felt weightless instead of empty. “Indeed. And now we can do this as much as we want,” she said, nuzzling into me. The stairs were starting to dig into my contorted back and rug burn was inevitable, but that was easily ignored until a throat was cleared above us.
“I brought you here to get her out of my house, and now you’re cuddling on the stairs. Have I missed something?”
Ellie seemed unmoved by whatever grandiose declarations had just occurred and was standing livid in the doorway, which I could see upside down when I tilted my head back. Ashlinn began climbing off me gracelessly in the small space.
“Sorry I scared you so much. Let me try to explain.”
Ellie nodded, her expression carved out of marble. “Okay, but not in this house. We’re going for a walk.”
We clambered up the stairs as Ellie left a note for her parents much like the one I’d left for mine and led us out the door. Before we even got off her property or could begin discussing the incident, Ellie asked me how I was doing. It was sweet that after the morning she had, she was still worried about how I was coping with Reeves’s passing. Maybe that would excuse one of her previous dick moves. I tried to put into words how surprisingly okay I was, and she accepted my answer with a grain of salt.
The sidewalk offered us miles of discussion space, and the three of us must have looked like quite a group. All in pajamas and some without shoes. Ellie began her well-deserved cross-examination, and I braced myself. Lying wasn’t my forte, nor Ashlinn’s or Ellie’s either.
“Why did you break into my house?”
“I was lost,” Ashlinn began, and it was an obviously rehearsed and poorly constructed fib. I wondered how long she had been in that basement. “I wanted to go to Victoria’s place but couldn’t find my way, and yours seemed like the next best bet.”
Even though her words came slowly, I couldn’t help but cheer her on in my mind. This was better than anything I could have thought up.
“How the hell do you even know where I live?”
Ashlinn looked even more tripped up but rescued her story by saying, “I saw The Hovercraft in the driveway.”
Ellie stopped walking. “So you’re trying to tell me you were walking around town naked so early in the morning it’s practically night and thought it’d be a good idea to—what? Crawl in through my tiny excuse for a window so you could use me to find your girlfriend? Does no one else realize how insane that is?”
We both stared at Ellie. She had a point.
“I wasn’t having a very good night,” Ashlinn tried, although the statement came out more like a question.
“Yeah, well neither was she I imagine,” Ellie responded, pointing in my direction but still focused on Ashlinn. “You weren’t even at the funeral. What kind of girlfriend are you?”
“Please stop.” I knew she deserved an answer but this was a bit much. “It’s okay, I promise. She wasn’t able to come, and I understand.”
“Must’ve been a hell of an excuse,” Ellie grumbled and began walking twice as fast. I ran to catch up.
“It really was.”
Stopping yet again, Ellie looked me straight on for a few moments, assessing whatever she saw there. “This has something to do with you asking me all those crazy questions about what I believe in, doesn’t it? Are you sure you’re all right?”
Returning her gaze with unwavering certainty, I said, “Absolutely. You have to trust me because I’m not positive if there’s any way I’ll ever be able to explain how I came to meet Ashlinn or what she is.”
“What she is?” Ellie asked, looking over my shoulder at the girl in question.
“It’s really, really complicated.”
“And I’m not convinced I want to get involved. Look, I’m not even going to pretend like I understand you guys. I don’t get this relationship, and I don’t know why Ashlinn was naked in my room. Hell, I barely know her, but if she makes you happy, I can’t give her all that much crap about it. For the past year, I’ve really wanted you to be happy. I guess since you’ve made your choice I’ll accept that lame-ass story about The Hovercraft.” She directed her stare toward Ashlinn and said, “Just be good to her, okay? Try not to break this one’s heart. Lord knows she deserves that much. And please don’t break into my house again, or I will call the cops. I have mace and will be sleeping with it from now on. Knock on the door next time.”
“I’ll do my best. Both with the not scaring you and with treating Victoria well.”
Ellie accepted this grimly. “I can’t ask any more of you. Keep the clothes. I’m going back home. Seems like you two could use some time alone, and I wanna get back before the parentals awaken. And don’t even bother asking me to drive you home. I’m still pissed and deserve some payback.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I assured her.
She gave a weak wave and turned her back to us, stuffing her hands into the tiny pajama pockets. The second she walked out of sight, I all but leapt on top of Ashlinn.
“Welcome to reality. Now care to explain what actually happened?”
She laughed and bent backward to try and balance us so that we wouldn’t fall into the road.
“It appears you didn’t sleep last night so I wasn’t able to sneak into your head and use your dreams to get out. Ellie’s fantasies were floating by, and I figured that was the next best thing. Not really my most intelligent decision, but impulses happen and I wanted to see you. Do you know how excited I am to actually have a life now?”
“Hopefully as excited as I am to share it with you.”
“And it’ll be a grea
t one too,” she said with an uncontrollable smile. “I may have acted on that promise to visit those admissions officers.”
“You are an absolute dream.”
Chisel this moment out of diamonds.
“Not anymore, but I’m ready to have a few of my own. Care to lead the way?”
“I’d love nothing more. I already have an idea of where to head.”
Ashlinn laced her fingers in mine as I led us across the empty street in the direction of the rising sun. “Oh, and which way it that?”
“Toward a supermarket. My intention was to take you to an ice cream shop when you first arrived, but they won’t be open this early. Instead we’re going to act like hungover average teenagers and buy a mountain of Ben and Jerry’s, or at least as much as we can get with the money left, and we’ll eat it on the curb and count the colors of cars. Later I’ll introduce you to Mother, or I can give you a bath, and we can cuddle and talk about how we’ll make this all work out, and everything will be perfect.”
She stared up at the cotton-candy sky. “It already is.”
CALISTA LYNNE is a perpetual runaway who grew up on the American East Coast and is currently studying theater in London. She is oftentimes seen screeching at Big Ben and pointing out the same landmarks on a daily basis, and is having difficulty adjusting to the lack of Oxford commas across the pond. She writes because it always seemed to make more sense than mathematics, and has superb parents who support more than just her latte addiction. If Calista Lynne could change one thing about her life, it’d probably be her lack of ability to play both of the ukuleles adorning her rainbow bookshelves.
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E-mail: officialcalista@gmail.com
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Published by
HARMONY INK PRESS
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
We Awaken
© 2016 Calista Lynne.
Cover Art
© 2016 Aaron Anderson.
aaronbydesign55@gmail.com
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Harmony Ink Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or publisher@harmonyinkpress.com.
ISBN: 978-1-63476-995-2
Digital ISBN: 978-1-63476-996-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016901422
Published July 2016
v. 1.0
Printed in the United States of America
Table of Contents
Blurb
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
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