“I don’t care if they wake up.” I fell back atop my bed in sobs.
Jackson moved over beside me and softly brushed my hair back, over and over again. “I am so sorry, darling. I know how hard all of this is. I wish there was something I could do to make this easier.”
I looked up at his blurry face through my tears. “Do have any idea how absurd this all sounds?”
Jackson smiled slightly and nodded.
“How am I supposed to believe something like this?”
“You have to trust me. Trust your faith in us. You will know that I am being honest with you.” His eyes were imploring me, but I simply couldn’t wrap my brain around this concept.
I inhaled deeply and ran my fingers through my hair in exasperation.
Jackson pulled me closer to him and wrapped him arms securely around me. I rested my head against his shoulder and waited anxiously to hear everything he had to say.
For the next two hours I listened intently while he explained the whole sordid truth about having a dual conscious, the barrier between them disintegrating, my life there, our relationship, his life in Boston, my Uncle Monte approaching him after our engagement announcement and him returning to High School in Chicago in order to get closer to me. His story sounded like something closer to some fairytale that Mimi had told me as a child rather than something that was actually happening to me.
I gently pulled back away from him in order to better see his face. “So are you telling me now that since both of my consciousnesses are aware of one another that this barrier between them is now broken down completely?”
“That will take some time. Right now you are seeing glimpses of your other life in each period but not in any chronological order. Some memories are more current while others are from your childhoods. It could still be some time before the wall is completely down between the two. Maybe a month or so, perhaps longer, maybe shorter. I really do not know. Everyone is different.”
I laughed inwardly to myself thinking that he should write all this down because no one would ever believe that something like this was actually possible.
I stared at him numbly shaking my head. “This is unbelievable. You realize that, right?” I halfheartedly laughed. “I cannot believe that you went searching for me and actually returned to high school to get closer to me. And to think that everything I have seen was real. The family, the school, the people.” The images of all the bizarre objects and things clouded my memory.
“Very real. I know that it all seems impossible. Strange. Unimaginable. But I can assure you that it is all very real. And you know, you have a very good life there. You are very happy. You have a wonderful family, friends, you are an outstanding athlete and student. It was rather a shock to see you in such a setting. It is like you are the person you wished you had the opportunity to be here.”
His words brought back all those feelings of jealousy that I had felt for that girl’s life and it was beyond weird to think it was truly me. Not someone else.
“So I’m happy there?” Somehow I already knew the answer before the words even fell off my lips.
“Yes. Very.”
“And we are together?”
“Yes. And planning on getting married after graduation before we go off to the university in Boston next fall. I am going to continue studying for my law degree,” he smiled. “I am afraid it is a little more in-depth there than here and takes somewhat longer. And you are going to start your undergraduate studies.”
“Really?” It was amazing to think that I was preparing to go off to college like my brothers.
“What am I planning on studying?”
Curiosity was overwhelming me. This was all my dreams come true. Jackson in my life and the opportunity to attend college.
“You haven’t decided on a major yet, but I know it is…”
“Something in the sciences,” I interrupted. “I remember Indiana University and telling my parents that I was considering my options within the sciences. The woman,” I snorted unexpectedly, blushing red. “I mean my mother there, she wants me to be a physician like her. It is so strange to think that I have a mother who is so educated and has a career of her own. To think that she has her own life and that it does not revolve around her house, the servants, and a house full of children.”
Jackson looked at me with stunned disbelief. “I believe I truly underestimated your desire to further your education.” Then he let out something that sounded like a cough. “I believe you have more of your mother, Amy, in you than I had previously estimated.”
“I have always wanted to further my education. You know that.”
“Yes, only I did not realize how strong of a drive you had for it.” He reached out and pulled me closer engulfing me in his strong arms.
Long after the sun had finally risen, Jackson and I sat huddled on my bed discussing all the strange and wonderful aspects of 2009. The glimpses that I had seen apparently did not do justice to all the amazing things that had changed in the world over the vast distance of time between my two eras. He explained to me the horrific tragedies and wars that in my mind were still yet to come. He talked about flying machines, horseless carriages, computers, and cell phones. My imagination had never conceived of such possibilities. Jackson spoke of televisions, movies, stereos, iPods, and various oddities. If his expression hadn’t been so serious, I would have been positive he was making this stuff up. The wondrous progress that had been made completely baffled me. He even told me that a man named Neil Armstrong took a spacecraft to the moon, landed on it, and even walked on it in the summer of 1969! How absurd.
I sat there totally dumbfounded as I listened intently to something that was in some aspects, part of my history, but in another, a future that was slowly beginning to unfold before me.
By nine o’clock, he had retreated downstairs to have breakfast with my family while I quickly got myself dressed to go over to his house. My fingers trembled with nervousness as I fumbled with Mimi trying to get my corset tied and dress fastened. I could hardly sit still long enough for her to fix my hair. I had a million questions stirring within me and I was ready to explode with anticipation.
***
His parents were sitting quietly by the hearth when we arrived. Robert was consumed by piles of papers from his legal practice while Emily was writing next to the fire. They appeared the same as always as we sat down across from them, exactly like they always did on any other typical Saturday morning.
All I could think was, what had they been doing in 2009 when I was upstairs struggling to find a good night’s rest? Did they see me, talk to me, my family? Did they drive around in one of those horseless carriages that Jackson described to me or were they playing games on some rectangular box that appeared on the moving picture screen? Had they eaten food prepared in a microwave or picked it up, what Jackson had referred to as fast food?
I couldn’t stop my mind from feeling muffled and obscured. I wish I could remember fully the life that I had there. It seemed so unreal to me, just out of my grasp. I wanted desperately to reach out and hold onto it, but it kept slipping through my fingers like running water.
“Good morning, you two.” Emily was the first to welcome us. “Are you feeling better this morning, Miss Jocelyn?”
“Yes. Thank you,” I replied with a shaky harsh voice.
“Mother, Father, we have some news to share with you both,” Jackson started. Both his parents stopped what they were working on and turned towards us. “Last night, Jocelyn woke up screaming again. After I finally got her calmed down, I explained everything to her about EVE.”
Robert’s eyes widened. “Really?”
I nodded.
“And how do you feel?” Emily asked sweetly in a motherly tone.
“I am not sure to be honest.”
“I would imagine so. It is a lot to take in and very hard to imagine, let alone believe.” Robert got up and crossed the room to refresh his cup of coffee. “I remember how hard it
was when Jackson found out. He came unhinged.”
“Don’t exaggerate,” Jackson blushed and shifted uncomfortably.
“I wish I was.” Robert couldn’t stifle his laugh as he sat back down next to his pile of papers.
“Anyway,” Emily said calmly. “Jocelyn is the focus here, not Jackson. There is plenty of time later for retelling horror stories.”
Their casualness and laughter regarding such a bizarre topic immediately put me at ease. I felt like an intruder overhearing an intimate conversation between two lovers. Yet somehow I knew I was a part of the insider group, a part of something so much bigger than myself. This amazing gift that I apparently received from my Uncle Monte seemed so commonplace and familiar to them, like nothing out of the ordinary to these people.
“All right,” Robert composed himself. “A story for another time then. I am sure that all of this is quite confusing and you must have a million questions.”
“Yes, about that many,” I laughed. “I do not even know where to start.”
Robert started off by explaining the more current effects of our industrial revolution and expanding up to the turn of the century. I had no idea how complicated it all was. I wanted to write it all down for myself just to attempt to keep things straight, but all three of them strongly advised me never to do such a thing. Apparently Nostradamus, a name I was vaguely familiar with, had made the mistake of keeping journals of the history between his two lives. Robert explained that despite the fact that he tried to write in code, numerous scholars have spent centuries trying to decipher the meanings behind his writings. Emily added that most people with EVE figured that he wrote the majority of his journals while the wall between his two consciousnesses was coming down and he was attempting to keep it all straight by creating some sort of timeline.
“The extreme distance between his two worlds was astounding, by any standards. The amount of history that took place had to be a hundred times more difficult to explain and comprehend than I could even begin to imagine. However, the fact that he left all his writings behind has caused so much speculation about the future that it scares people,” Robert explained.
“I believe I have heard the name somewhere before,” I stated more to myself than anyone else, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember the context in which I had.
“Nostradamus was known as a great prophet that predicted future events, supposedly by astronomy. His journals, called The Centuries, have been interpreted as foreseeing upcoming events such as the coming of three Anti-Christ’s as well as other major events. Many scholars believe that the first was Napoleon, the second, a horrible German Nazi dictator named Adolf Hitler that was single-handedly responsible for the second World War at the end of the 1930s, and the third one has yet to be revealed, at least to our current knowledge in 2009. There has been some controversy over whether a man named Saddam Hussein was the third, but I personally doubt it. The other two were much worse, it is hard to imagine that he is the one Nostradamus was referring to, but I could be wrong. Some even say that Osama Bin Laden is the third because of some images of a burning tower found among Nostradamus’ journals. Still, others speculate the picture predicts the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, but I do not believe that either.” Robert shrugged his shoulders. “Who really knows? I personally do not believe it was either of them because they did not have the army, navy or in Hitler’s case, Air Force size that the other two had during their reign. Plus, the part of the world where they reside is such an unstable region and is more of a religious war than the gaining of land and power like the other two.”
I crinkled my eyebrows at him with complete confusion. I had no clue who Hitler was, or the other two men he was referring to. Let alone the words like Air Force, Twin Towers, or German Nazi dictator. I had certainly heard of Germany. I knew it was a country on the other side of the world, but that was all I knew of it.
“I know who Napoleon was but who were Hitler and the other two men?”
Robert glanced over as Emily who nodded slightly.
“They were horrible men who did terrible things. Saddam ruled in the Middle East and is already dead in 2009, but Bin Laden is still evading capture. I am not sure how, but he is.”
Robert chuckled uncharacteristically and his action was bizarre to me. “And Hitler, well Adolf Hitler was an evil dictator who started World War II and killed over six million Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and disabled individuals in Europe in the 1940s, men, women, and children alike.”
“There are so many events that happen within the hundred-plus years or so between your current states that it would be best if we explain it to you step by step so you can better understand it all,” Emily explained softly.
I spent the rest of the day over at the Chandler’s home getting the ins and outs of this EVE thing and a more in-depth look at the world as it slowly unfolded into my other existence in 2009. There were so many amazing differences between my two lives that the vast structures and core of my existence were not even parallel. I was warned about the struggles I would encounter once I had full awareness of both worlds, informed that it could get complicated and they reinforced to me the foreign world in which I was similar to myself yet, in many ways, drastically different. All of which was overwhelming.
CHAPTER 13
Saturday, November 14, 2009
I RODE HOME FROM PRACTICE with Jenna, Ethan, and Jackson. I leaned against Jackson in the backseat listening to the other three rambling on about practice and our upcoming opening games. I was barely listening to their conversation as the short drive put me closer to our dreaded home. I had successfully avoided being alone with my parents for almost a week, ever since my tantrum. Luckily, my mother had not addressed the subject of Jackson or BU with me again and thankfully, my dad hadn’t mentioned anything either.
But I knew that my mother was not on-call this weekend either so she would be hanging around the house. I was positive my dad had heard everything by now and I was certain that I was headed for an ambush.
We pulled into Jenna’s driveway where Kyle was waiting for her. He opened the door even before she had the chance to put her car in park.
“Hello, beautiful. How was practice?” he greeted her.
“Long. As always.” He pulled her up into his arms and kissed her lightly on the lips. “Kyle, stop.” She pulled away from him. “I’m all hot and sweaty and dying to take a shower.”
“Cool. I’ll join you,” he teased.
“Yeah, right. No problem. Of course my parents won’t mind that.” Jenna couldn’t stop from smiling. She turned back to the three of us. “I’ll catch up with you all later. Give me a call this afternoon.” She turned with Kyle and headed up her drive.
“Sure.” I waved as the rest of us headed over towards my house.
Jackson and I paused on the walkway. He pulled me close in his arms while I struggled to free myself. “Jackson, don’t. I’m all nasty!”
“I do not care,” he smiled and kissed me passionately.
I relented, pulling his body closer to mine. I could taste the sweet salty sweat from his practice on his luscious lips and it only made me want him more. I twisted my fingers through the back of his hair crushing his mouth onto mine. I could never get enough of him. I wanted him so badly my body physically ached for him.
“Come over after you shower. I have a big surprise for you,” he gave me a devilish grin.
“What are you up to?”
“You will see. Just hurry.”
“You realize I hate it when you do this.”
“I know,” he leaned over and quickly kissed me on the cheek. “See you soon.” And before I could reply, he sprinted across the street and disappeared into his house.
“Great,” I muttered to myself, walking up to the porch where Ethan stood waiting for me.
“So what’s going on with you two?” he asked opening the front door.
“I don’t know. He’s up to something,” I shru
gged, following him into the house. “He said he has a surprise for me.”
“Good luck with that,” he laughed. Ethan knew how much I hated surprises. “I’m going to get something to eat before I shower so if you’re going take one, make it quick and don’t use up all the hot water.”
“Sure. No problem,” I hollered, already heading up the stairs.
***
I was sitting at my vanity table blow-drying my hair when someone knocked on my door.
“Jocelyn? You decent?” my dad hollered.
A chill of panic rushed down my spine. I placed the brush back on the table and turned towards the door. “Sure. Come in.”
My door slowly opened. He hardly ever visited my room unless he really had to, which meant that Mom had sent him. He crossed over and took a seat on the edge of my bed. He looked even more uncomfortable than I felt.
“I understand that you had an intense conversation with your mother last weekend.” He fidgeted with his hands, glancing slightly over at me. I only nodded, hoping it was a safe response since I didn’t trust my voice.
“She also told me you applied to BU next fall.”
Again, I only nodded.
“Do you really think that is such a good idea?”
“Yes,” I squeaked.
“I know you really like Jackson. I understand that. It’s just that….well, Jocelyn. You’re so young,” he mumbled.
“I’m eighteen, Daddy. I know you both think I’m too young to know what love is, but I’m not. I honestly love him and BU is a great school. I don’t understand why it would be so terrible for me to go there with him next fall.”
“You’re right, BU is a great school and you would get an excellent education there. That’s not what concerns us.” He was still looking more at the floor than me.
“I’m not stupid, Daddy. I’m not going to get pregnant and drop out of school. I promise. That is not why I want to be with him,” I tried to explain.
“Most pregnancies are not planned, honey. You know that,” he shook his head. “I don’t want to see something like that happen to you.”
Enlightened Page 13
