3 Days (3 page)

Once I was out the door, I had to make a conscious effort not to run, although my legs were eager to keep up with the pace of my rapidly beating heart. Blaine only lived three houses down the street, but it felt more like three miles. It was difficult for me to focus on one thought. In the sixty seconds that it took to walk to his house, I had bounced around from one thought to another:

Is it too early? He did say “as soon as you get this.” Maybe I should have waited. Is he going to think I am too eager? Maybe he regrets kissing me last night. Maybe I should just play it cool until he brings it up. Oh great, I am sure Crystal will have the whole school buzzing by Monday morning about last night. I wonder how fast she could text if I broke her thumbs…

It was at the last thought that I had as I rounded the edge of Blaine’s driveway and glided to the door.

Raising my hand up to ring the doorbell, I was just about to push the button when the door opened. Blaine was standing behind the glass, circles under his eyes, but with a look of relief at the sight of me. Without a word, he let me into the house, took my hand, and dragged me past the kitchen (where his parents were reading the paper) and into the family room. Just as I was starting to get a little motion sickness from the quick run to the other room, he swung me around the end of the couch and plopped me down while he remained standing directly in front of me.

“Um, hi,” I mumbled, half smiling.

Blaine avoided eye contact with me. This was not good. “Oh, yeah. Sorry. Hi.” He spat the words while staring at his shoes, the coffee table, and pretty much any other object that wasn’t attached to me. “Listen, let me start out by saying I am sorry for freaking out on you last night. I just didn’t expect us to do that, and what I saw kind of threw me for a loop, ya know?”

“Oh…kay…” I stated slowly. I felt like I was trying to talk a jumper off of a ledge. One false move or wrong word might send him free falling into a cement oblivion.

Barely acknowledging my comment, he continued, “I have wanted to kiss you for such a long time. You have no idea. I just never knew if you felt the same, and I was afraid you would take it wrong, and it would change everything. I mean, I know that is sort of a stupid way of thinking, but how was I supposed to know it would happen like that. You were so close and you smelled so good…”
So did you,
I thought. “…and if I was wrong in thinking that you would kiss me back, I’m sorry. I just thought you felt the same way and—”

“You’re right,” I interrupted.

“—then I pushed you away and embarrassed you by freaking…” he stopped in mid-sentence to look at my face.
Finally,
my mind was screaming. “Wait, what?” His eyes went from sorrowful to relieved and, for a brief moment, I thought I saw desire in them.

“I do feel the same way,” I said slowly. Sitting on the sofa, looking up toward him, I couldn’t stand being more than two inches away from him now. He was right, everything was changing. We weren’t just friends anymore, and we would never be that way again. Sure, if everything went back to the way it was before we kissed, we could carry on the same way. But we both would always have the memory of when we took our friendship just one step further.

Blaine’s worried expression fused to a smile and then almost instantly back again. He was battling with something in his mind and didn’t know how to put it into words. He opened his mouth in an attempt and said, “You’re gonna think I’m crazy.”

Knowing that nobody could be as crazy as I felt, I grinned with my reply, “Try me.”

We swapped descriptions of what we saw during our kiss. Something about each of our versions was slightly different, but the main details were almost identical. We were both in the woods, camping, Jared was there, and there were two dogs. However, in Blaine’s version, there wasn’t a creek, and it was during the night. The scene in his vision gave off a more negative tone. Nobody was smiling, and each person sat staring off into the distance in anticipation of something that might hurt them.

“It was like we were afraid of something that wasn’t there. I couldn’t see you, but I felt like I knew you were sitting beside me,” he whispered.

Listening to Blaine’s version sent a shiver up my spine. Mine was so light and friendly, with the sun shining and the creek sparkling. It reminded me of being on vacation.

“But what does it mean? We have never been camping together before. So I know this isn’t something that has already happened.” I was trying to wrap my head around the entire thing. In less than twenty-four hours, I had kissed Blaine and seen something beyond explanation.

After comparisons, we came to the conclusion that, although we couldn’t figure out why, we had some kind of strong connection that caused us to have similar visions. Neither one of us had ever shown signs of telepathy, but for some reason we could communicate on a subconscious level. And that connection was strongest when we kissed. Beyond that, it was going to take some research and a lot of trials. I blushed at the thought.

What we couldn’t understand was why there were some discrepancies between the two visions. Mine was so safe and bright, while his was so frightening and dark.

Chapter 5

Later that night, while my mom was at her book club meeting, I decided to do a little research online. Bringing up my browser window I typed
telepathy between two people
in the search box. What I found out wasn’t much different than what I had heard in stories or on TV, but there was one site that had a different point of view on the subject. After clicking the link, it read:

When two people experience a strong spiritual connection, it is said that they can communicate with each other through feelings, images, and desires. This can be done by touch in many circumstances, but without touch when the mind is open and unyielding.

It went on to describe how some people were born with the gift of clairvoyance and never unlocked it until later in life when something in their spiritual beings aligned and set it free.

So, where did this stand with me and Blaine? Our spiritual selves were connected somehow, and only when our souls connected could we see similar visions. But the article was saying we were clairvoyant. Like psychic? That was way more than
just friends
.

I immediately dug out my phone and texted Blaine:

DID SOME RESEARCH ONLINE. 2 MUCH TO XPLANE. MEET ME @ LINGO’S 2MRW @ 1PM.

Impatiently, I stared at my phone, waiting for a response.

K. CAN’T WAIT.

The next morning was the longest morning of my life. I had not seen Blaine since the day before, early in the morning. Even then, we were both in such a state of shock, and we hardly had time to talk about the two of us as a couple. At least, I thought we were a couple. We both expressed feelings for the other, but after our talk, we made no effort to kiss goodbye or even hug.

I decided to wait for Blaine inside Lingo’s and get a table. Lingo’s was a little burger station in the strip mall across the street from our Walmart. Everyone around would tell you that Lingo’s had the best burgers in town, and their crowded dining room served as proof. It was a family-owned restaurant, and the owner was nostalgic. In the past, people asked him if he would ever consider moving to a bigger restaurant, and his reply was “Why? It’s difficult to ignore someone when there’s little space between you and them. Think of me as a matchmaker!’

He’s right. After all, it took a tiny closet and a game of ‘sardines’ to get Blaine to make a move. I felt my face get flush at the memory just as the bell chimed in the front door. I immediately stood up and waved to him over the crowd of people waiting at the take-out counter. He slowly made his way through the crowd, excusing himself as he bumped and wedged through a group of tweens.

Once he was free of the throng of kids, he pulled me in for a hug.
He smells so good.

“I made it! I thought I was going to lose a limb there for a second,” he laughed. Clearly his mood was much improved since the day before.

Looking back toward the crowd, I couldn’t help but laugh in reply. “Yeah, I thought we were going to need the jaws of life to pry you out from between Team Edward and Team Jacob!” We both burst into more laughter and sat down. It took me a minute to realize that Blaine had not let go of my hand yet. He was softly stroking the backs of my knuckles with his thumb, side to side. I couldn’t help but stare at our hands sitting atop the Lingo’s menu. He caught my gaze and pulled his hand away. “Oh sorry, are we not to that point yet?”

I hadn’t realized it, but his touch had made me feel safe, happy. When he took his hand away, it felt as if I were swimming against the current of a stream, pushing and pushing against the heavy water forcing me back. My heart dropped in my chest, almost as if I was plummeting thirty stories to my death. As my throat became dry, I swallowed hard and forced a reply, “Um, please put your hand back.”

He must not have heard the distress in my voice, and I was relieved. He probably assumed I was just giving him permission to hold my hand. But it was much more than that. Ever since that kiss a couple of nights ago, my bond to Blaine was becoming even stronger. When he wasn’t with me, I longed for his company. And when he
was
with me, I couldn’t stand being without his touch. Eventually, just being in the same room as him would not be enough. If I felt that horrible when he let go of my hand, I didn’t want to ever
think
about what I would feel if anything ever happened to him.

Clinging to Blaine’s hand, I gathered my composure before speaking again. I told him about what I had found online and the possible reasons behind our visions. He was skeptical at first, but then recalled a time when he was a child where his mom had been hurt while he was at school, and he had kept telling the teacher he hurt his knee. The teacher, seeing nothing wrong with his knee, continued to ignore his story and carried on with class. Later that day, Blaine’s dad picked him up from school because his mother had fallen down the stairs at work and broke her knee.

When Blaine finished telling his story, a chill ran down my back. What we saw in our visions could very well be the future. And the realization of that fact sent us both into a shiver.

Chapter 6

After lunch, we walked out to Blaine’s car. Since Crystal had dropped me off at Lingo’s, I was going to need a ride home. When we got into the truck, Blaine put his keys into the ignition and just sat there, frozen, staring at the steering wheel.

Worried, I prodded, “Hey, are you okay?”

Waiting for his reply, I sat cautiously, not taking my eyes off of him. In a split second and all in one motion, Blaine had reached toward me, wrapped his hand around the back of my head, his other hand around my waist, and kissed me hard on the lips. At first, I flinched back, starting to resist. But then my desire took over and I laced my fingers into his hair while I retaliated. Closing my eyes, I was relieved that I had not seen any visions yet, so I retreated entirely to moment.

Opening my eyes, I was staring straight at a shelf of canned green beans. My thoughts were swimming,
oh not again!
From what I could gather, I was at a grocery store. There were canned goods, bread, and boxed foods strewn all over the shelves and floor. The sun gleamed brightly through two shattered glass panels at the front of the store, behind the registers. I was glad there was sun because, looking up at the ceiling, I could tell the power was out. And the smell! Oh it was a horrible smell. A quick look around told me why. All the frozen foods, meat, and dairy had been sitting in their coolers thawing. The power must have been off for a month, based on the rancid stench that was permeating through the store.

I couldn’t hear anything, but I could see Jared, again. This time he was standing at the end of the aisle shouting something behind me, laughing. I turned around to see who he was shouting at, and it was Blaine. They were tossing a loaf of bread over me in a twisted game of “monkey in the middle.” Blaine threw the bread over my head, to Jared, and walked over to me. With sympathy in his eyes, he held my face in his hands. It wasn’t until he swept this thumb under my eye that I realized I was crying. He was saying something to me, but it was muted. Why couldn’t I hear anything? I didn’t care. I was with Blaine. I felt safe and warm with him. Like nothing was important but the very moment we were in right then. And it was then that he tipped my head up and kissed my forehead.

We were back in Blaine’s truck. After we pulled apart, breathing heavy, my heart was racing so fast I could hardly catch my breath. Looking around, I acclimated myself back to reality. The windows were fogged up and in a muffled tone, I heard one of the kids in the parking lot laugh and holler, “Get a room!” I was having trouble getting my bearings. The vision was so real, the things I saw, the things I touched. I ran my hands along Blaine’s truck seats. They felt real enough. Patting my hands on my chest and arms, I felt the softness of my cotton shirt. Touching my chin, then my cheek, something wasn’t right. My cheek was wet, and my eyes burned with fresh tears. “Are you crying?” Blaine’s voice pulled me back into reality. Unable to respond with words, I leaped across the seat and latched onto him in an embrace so close a pencil would not fit between us. He wrapped his arms around me, and I buried my head into his chest, sobbing.

When I was finished blubbering like an idiot, I released my clutch on Blaine. Laying his hand on my shoulder, he whispered, “You okay?” Finally making eye contact, I could see he was pained. It wasn’t until I had finished convulsing in sobs that I noticed his hands were shaking.

I had no idea what gave me the urge to cry like that. In the moment, a feeling washed over me like the tide on a rocky beach. I hadn’t seen anything that would make me cry. I mean, the scene in my vision wasn’t a carnival, but what I was experiencing didn’t put me in a mood to sob. Then I remembered myself in the vision. There was a tear running down my cheek while Blaine held me in the aisle. But why was I crying? The guys were teasing me, but that was nothing new. And just like that, it occurred to me. Blaine and Jared were trying to cheer me up. So the biggest question was why did I need cheering up?