Embody (16 page)

“No, no,” he said over my scream. He stopped
my hands from constantly brushing off my chest, then pulled me to
him and held me as tight as he could. I slowly sat back down.
Landen’s arms loosened as he sat on the table in front of me.

“I’m sorry, Willow, I didn’t even know I was
sleeping,” he said, rubbing my hands.

“It’s not your fault. I saw you sleeping,
and I should’ve woken you up. I should’ve focused, but I let myself
drift.”

“Come on,” Landen said, standing

“Where are we going?” I asked, refusing to
stand – knowing his intent was to run.

“Home. I’m not going to risk this,” he said,
furious now with Drake.

“We are not running away. We know what we
did wrong; we’ll be more careful,” I said, pulling his arm so he’d
sit down.

He gave in to my request and sat on the
table in front of me. He let his elbows rest on his knees and
buried his face in his hands; I don’t know if he could see my
intent or if he were afraid that if he denied my request he’d lose
me, as Pelhan had warned. I leaned forward and kissed the hand that
wore my matching ring. Landen rose up and looked at me, then at his
ring.

“The ring is what woke me up,” he said in
awe. “I felt it burning my hand. When I woke up, I saw you asleep,
breathless.”

“The rings kept me safe, too,” I said,
smiling as I felt Landen’s fears dwindle.

“Did you help anyone?” he asked, looking for
something positive to come out of this.

I sighed. “There was no one for me to help
this time,” I said, looking away from Landen.

From my composure, he knew I didn’t want to
elaborate, and he wasn’t going to force me. I reached up to the
charm on my neck and traced the crescent moon with my fingertips,
and silence came with a peace that we gave in to. Moments later, we
felt the others approaching, full of energy and anticipation. The
door opened, and as their pink Auras filled the room, it was easy
to see the companionship they all felt with one another.

“Look here, guys, the king and queen have
decided to grace us with their presence,” Chrispin mocked.

Landen rolled his eyes, and Chrispin
received a sharp jab in the ribs from Olivia.

“Hey, I’m only teasing,” Chrispin said,
wrapping his arm around Olivia, then smiling at me and Landen.

Olivia and Clarissa had handfuls of bags
from a full day of shopping. I was glad I’d missed that occasion;
shopping was my least favorite thing to do. Clarissa handed Dane a
few bags.

“We got you guys some clothes. No black
tonight,” Clarissa said, walking over to me. “You come with us,
young lady,” she said, pulling me up from my comfort zone.

Landen stood and stretched. “Does that mean
we get to dress Landen?” Dane said in a teasing manner.

“I think I can handle dressing myself,”
Landen said, playfully punching Dane in the arm. Before we knew it
Landen, Dane, and Chrispin were in a full wrestling match.

Clarissa shook her head and pulled me to the
double doorway on the left side of the room.

“Don’t break anything,” she yelled as she
closed the door.

All we could hear was a roar of laughter.
“Mom told me boys never really grow up,” she said, sitting the bags
on the large bed that centered the room.

Olivia started to pull all the outfits out
of the bags, and my mouth dropped when I saw all the bright colors.
“Don’t worry, Willow, we got you a deep blue dress to wear,” Olivia
said, smiling back at me.

“So how was it? That dimension? Does Pelhan
look as old as he is?” Clarissa asked as she plugged in curling
irons and laid out cosmetics all over the counter.

“They don’t look any older than Rose,” I
said, sitting on the edge of the bed and staring at Olivia,
wondering how I was going to teach her to do anything that I could
do.

“They?” Clarissa questioned

“Aora – Pelhan’s soul mate; she’s the same
age,” I explained.

“I’ve never heard of her. Is she just as
deep as Pelhan?” Clarissa asked me.

I nodded. “Maybe even deeper,” I said under
my breath.

I felt the tension rise in the room.
Clarissa and Olivia looked at one another, then back to me; I knew
they were thinking of the photo of me and Drake. “Well, how about
we put all the philosophy behind us for a few hours and enjoy
ourselves? Worry is never good for the skin,” Clarissa said,
pulling me into the bathroom. I sat in front of the vanity and
looked at my reflection. I could see the worry in my eyes; it was
aging me. I let out a deep breath and smiled at Clarissa’s
reflection above me. “We are not leaving this room until we are so
gorgeous that we stop traffic,” she said, feeling sure of herself.
I nodded and let Olivia and Clarissa use me as their Barbie
doll.

An hour later, Dane knocked on the door.
“Just as a reminder, we do have reservations, and we’re almost an
hour away with traffic,” he said through the door.

“Hold your horses...good things come to
those who wait,” Clarissa yelled back.

All three of us staring at our reflection in
the mirror. It was hard to believe we were the same girls that
walked into this room. Our hair was pulled back perfectly, with
long baby curls stretching down our backs. I don’t think I’d ever
seen any of us wear this much make-up. It looked natural on us, but
at the same time it enhanced the features we were known for. The
dresses they had bought framed us perfectly; in fact, they seemed
to make our small frames even more detailed. Also, the heels we
were wearing sculpted our calves.

“We should really do this more often,”
Olivia said, looking across at mine and Carissa’s reflections.

“I don’t feel like myself,” I said, leaning
close and looking into my emerald eyes, which were framed in black
liner.

“Good, then I did my good deed for today,”
Clarissa said, giggling.

“They’re impatient; we better go,” I said,
taking in a deep breath.

I felt nervous, like I did at my
celebration. I was eager to see Landen’s reaction to the way I
looked, eager to see all of their Auras.

“Let’s go,” Olivia said, grabbing her small
purse.

Clarissa put her hands on the double doors,
then looked back at me and winked. She pulled the doors open, and
the three of us stood there. The guys were lost in conversation on
the couch. Landen looked up first; his eyes met mine, and I felt
butterflies in my stomach as a smile came across his face and a
blush of red spread through his Aura. The three guys were all
tie-less and wearing light suits, and Landen had on a baby blue
shirt that seemed to call his eyes out even more than usual. He
stood slowly. Dane and Chrispin turned to see us standing in the
doorway; they were wordless, and the entire room filled with a
blush of red.

“Um...we could always order in,” Dane said,
smiling at Clarissa.

“Not a chance,” Clarissa said, walking to
his side.

I stood frozen, locked in a stare with
Landen. He then crossed the room to me, and everyone else
disappeared. When he reached me, he cradled my face with his hands.
I could feel his love and passion; it was beautiful.
“Each time
I think it’s impossible for you to be more beautiful, you prove me
wrong,”
he thought, kissing me softly.

“Come on, guys,” Olivia said, pulling my
arm.

When the elevator doors opened on the first
floor, an elegant lobby came into view. It was full of people
passing in and out of large spinning doors that lined the front of
the building. As we stepped off the elevator, the entire room of
people seemed to turn and look in our direction. I felt their envy
as we passed through the lobby.

“I don’t know about traffic, but I see heads
turning,” Clarissa whispered to me.

Landen heard her, and his grin widened. He
wrapped his arm around me. Dane walked to the doorman to tell him
we were ready to leave. A moment later, a long white limo pulled up
in front of the building.

“Is this really necessary?” I whispered to
Landen.

“
I think we’ve earned a few hours away
from all of this,”
he thought as he led me through the moving
door.

Once on the open street, a rush of every
emotion of every kind came through me, and I grew stiff as I tried
to block them all out. Landen could feel them, too, but he seemed
to handle them better than I did. He all but carried me to the
limo, hoping once inside we’d be able to find some kind of relief.
The others followed us. As the limo drove away, Dane looked over to
me and Landen. “Are you guys OK?” he asked.

It still amazed me how observant he was.
Landen nodded.

“The place we’re going to is as private as
you can get in New York. I don’t think it’ll bother either of you
too much,” Dane continued. “We made the reservations the night I
met Clarissa; that’s how long it takes to get a table there.”

Landen nodded and looked down at me to make
sure I was OK. As the limo drove through the busy streets, I stared
out the window. It was easy to see without any insight those who
were angry or weak; those emotions seemed to be like a vacuum that
took all their color. I noticed the awkward shapes and dark spots
in person after person, and I doubted they ever truly realized just
how valuable their energy was.

“
I talked to Chrispin and Dane about
meditation,”
Landen thought.

I looked up at him.
“And?”

“
They want to try it when we get
back.”

“
Chrispin, too?”

Landen nodded and smiled in Chrispin’s
direction.

“
Did you tell him about
Livingston?”

“
I told him that if he found peace, the
grief wouldn’t hurt anymore. That seemed to be enough for
now.”

As the limo made its way through the city
streets, I noticed that we were leaving the heart of the city.

“Are we going the right way?” Landen asked,
noticing the stillness in the streets.

Dane nodded yes. “This restaurant is in the
middle of a city block, underground. From the outside, it looks
like another apartment building.”

“How did you find it?” I asked.

Dane looked at Clarissa, and they both began
to laugh.

“I met Clarissa around 8 AM. We started to
walk, just talking, and eight hours later we found ourselves in
this neighborhood. It started to rain, so we followed someone in
and sat on the stairs, waiting for the rain to pass. We kept
noticing people dressed really nice coming in and going down the
stairs, and we thought it was odd, so we followed a couple down and
found this restaurant. It’s supposedly one of the best kept secrets
in New York,” Dane explained.

The limo stopped, and I looked out through
the window and saw a very ordinary city neighborhood; tall brick
buildings with wide stoops in front of them. There were people
pushing strollers, walking dogs, jogging. I looked at Landen and
raised my eyebrows. We both felt over dressed. Dane was right,
though: the emotions were way more calm here than they were in the
heart of the city.

The door to the limo opened, and we all
climbed out. Dane and Clarissa led us up the wide stoop in front of
us. Once inside, we walked down one flight of stairs. There were
two large oak doors at the base of the stairs, and a man in a tux
was standing in front of them. He must have remembered Dane because
he smiled when he saw him and opened the door for us.

Inside, I could hear a low hum of
conversation and music playing softly. There was artwork along the
walls, and sculptures and modern art displayed erratically
throughout the open room. The back wall was a vast aquarium with
exotic fish gliding through deep blue water.

A woman approached us, and Dane gave her our
name. She then led us around the aquarium to where tables were
nestled against the wall, all private from one another. In the
center of the room, a violinist and pianist were playing softly,
and couples were dancing slowly around them. The woman led us to a
large round booth on the left side of the room. Behind the booth
was a small square window that viewed the street level.

“You can see out, but they cannot see in,”
the woman said, tilting her head to the window and smiling at all
of us. Landen and I took the seat across from the window, Dane and
Clarissa slid to the middle, and Olivia and Chrispin sat across
from us.

I didn’t pay attention to the anything else
the lady said; I was too busy staring out the window and watching
all the people and colors. Even here, I could see the couples that
were soulmates; the white line connected them, connected their
children.

“You guys are something else. We’re in this
beautiful place, and the two of you just stare out the window,”
Clarissa said, waving her hand in front of my face.

I snapped out of my stare and looked up at
Landen. I hadn’t realized that he’d been lost in the colors just as
I was. We both grinned at each other.

Chrispin turned around to look out the
window. “You see colors here, too?” he asked.

“What colors?” Olivia asked, turning around.
Dane and Clarissa looked out the window as well.

“They’re going to teach us to meditate so we
can see energy the way they do,” Chrispin said to Olivia.

“Hey, what about us?” argued Clarissa.

“Us, too,” Dane said, pulling Clarissa to
him.

“I already know how to meditate. Remember,
Willow, we took that class with Jessica?” Olivia said, looking at
me.

I shook my head no. “I don’t think we
grasped it then.”

“Is it hard?” asked Clarissa

“You just dream, but you’re awake,” Landen
said, still staring out the window.

“That makes a lot of sense,” Clarissa
mocked. “So what did you do - flip some kind of switch and now you
see colors all the time?”

Landen shrugged his shoulders.

“Can you feel the energy?” Olivia asked in a
low tone, leaning forward.