Insight (28 page)

I feel so guilty, so sorry. Now I know where his guilt comes from. Not because he did something, but because he
isn’t able to help
. Another wave of weakness comes over me, and I stumble. His hand is immediately tighter around my waist, holding me close to him, supporting me and leading me to his car. I hate this. I’m weak. We’re walking fast. I don’t have the strength to run.

“I’m sorry. I just felt it, and it hit me so hard.” I have to get to Mom. Now. It’s the only thought running through my head.

“It’s okay. Next time explain first and run later, okay?” He squeezes my side gently.

“Okay.” My dress is still making the slap, slap against my legs.

“Do you have any ideas?” His voice is quiet.

“Car accident, maybe?” My mom. Landon’s feeling of
we’re too late
. “I’m gonna be sick.” I stop, lean over the guardrail, and start to throw up.

It burns my throat and just adds to the misery and helplessness stacking up inside of me.

Landon holds my hair back.

“What do I do?” I stand up slowly
, trying to wipe my mouth with the back of my hand
. Why does my stupid body need to react this way? I have to move. Go faster. Get to her quicker. Instead I’m throwing up and shaking.

“You need to tell your mom.” He takes off his tux jacket and holds it out for me to wipe my mouth.

“I can’t.” Not the jacket or my mom. Landon just watched me puke.  Yet another reason this night is not turning out how I imagined.

“Use the damn jacket, Micah. I can get it cleaned.”

“I love you. The real kind,” I say. He has to know this.

He smiles wide.
“
I love
you.
The real kind.” He pauses long enough for me to know he means every word. “Can you keep moving?”

“Yeah.” I lean into him. Once again using his strength to support me.

We’re suddenly next to his car. He throws the door open, and I slide in, pulling the blue silk behind me. He sprints to his side, and the engine vibrates as he peels off down the road. I’m not even sure what we’re heading toward aside from Mom. But at least we’re moving forward.

TWENTY-EIGHT

“I want to help you, but you have to tell me everything you see. Can you do that?” Landon shifts down around a corner, making the tires squeal.

“I’m on the pavement, crying, sobbing. There are bits of something broken around me. There’s something wet on the pavement. It looks like water—shiny and reflecting the sun so I can’t tell if it has a color or not.
I mean, it looked white, but now I’m not sure because I didn’t realize it was reflecting.
You’re there watching. The pain is filled with guilt. It’s bad Landon. Whatever it is. It’s bad.” I’m not even trying to control my tears right now. It’s not worth the fight.

“If I hurt it’s because I want to protect you. You have to know that.” He reaches his hand toward me, but changes his mind. I’m thankful. I’m not ready to feel that again.

I’m afraid to believe him. Everything’s muddled right now.

“Wait. Reflecting the sun?”

“Yeah.” I stare at the dash, looking for details. I close my eyes, hoping the darkness will help me see something important, something that will help.

“Well, it’s dark out now. It gives us some time. Well, I guess we have no idea on timing, except that we know it hasn’t happened yet.”

Landon sounds almost as frustrated about timing as I feel. But he’s right. We have time.

The words come out in a rush of air. “Thank you.”  Time. Every moment is suddenly precious. I feel a chill run through my body. We have to do this. We have to change this.

“Can you promise to never do that to me again?” He takes his hands off the steering wheel one at a time, stretching his fingers, and then rolls his shoulders up and down, trying to relax.

“Probably not.” I’m crazy.  I can’t control any of what I see. He has to know this about me. “And I don’t know if I can actually change things, Landon.”

“But you can. You told me about Carol. You and your dad, you changed things.”

“Not everything.” I shake my head. “She still had a heart attack.”

“But it didn’t kill her.”

“We don’t even know if she died in the first vision.” Landon needs to understand that it all feels so slippery. “Maybe we changed nothing.”

I’ve never told him about Cameron and the night by the creek. The idea that I did change that night only helps a little. Right now it just means a bigger failure if I’m not able to stop whatever has me sobbing on the pavement.

“I need to touch Mom,” I say.

We sit in silence for a few moments.

“What if...” His hands grip the steering wheel, once again whitening his knuckles.

“What?” I can’t think of how it could be worse.

“What if, when you touch her, you have to watch her die or be hurt?” His hazel eyes are filled with the pain I now feel.

I clutch my stomach with both hands. He rolls my window down. I can’t do it. How will I be able to force myself to touch my mom? How will I hide my reaction when I do? I’m terrified—it rushes through me in
pounding
waves.

***

We’re at my house both too soon and not soon enough. Mom’s van is here, and Ethan’s truck is not. She’s alone. I slide out from underneath Landon’s arm, but keep his hand firmly in mine. This is going to be even harder because Mom and I haven’t even come to a real truce yet over the whole boating thing.

“You ready?” He stops on the front step.

“No.” I shake my head as I grab the doorknob.

We step through the door.

“Micah?”

“Yep.” My heart’s hammering. How am I going to be able to do this?

“You’re back early.”

“We just came so Micah can change,” Landon says.

Good one. I walk slowly into the living room. So calm, and normal. Landon’s hand is still in mine. I don’t even touch Mom, but it all hits me anyway.

She gasps. Jerks the wheel of the van. Panic. A big white truck. Broken glass. Everything’s black.

I fall back against Landon. It hits me again. The same thing. This has never happened before. I feel like I’m broken. It hits me
again
. I suck in a breath as my body feels like it’s falling apart.

Mom’s staring.

“I need to change.” I don’t know how my voice sounds, but it doesn’t sound like me. I don’t let go of Landon. I drag him toward my room.

“Micah?” Mom sits up taller on the couch.

“Be back in a sec.” I don’t know how I do it, but my voice sounds almost normal.

“Okay.” I hear her behind me. The picture from her hits me again.

Panic. Jerk the wheel of the van. Large white truck. More panic. Broken glass. Car folding. Blackness.

I collapse and sit on the edge of the bed. Hot tears slide down my cheeks in a steady stream. The vision stops.

Landon kneels in front of me, keeping our hands firmly together. “What is it?” His voice is so quiet it’s barely a whisper. He’s touching my face, my hair, stroking my arms. Like he sees how my insides are collapsing, and wants to help.

“I didn’t touch her.” Everything’s shaking. “That’s never happened before. I didn’t even touch her.” Now I’m sure I’m broken. I have panic over keeping my gift, and panic over losing it, and panic over it being so different.

“And you saw something?” His head tilts slightly as he watches me.

I nod. “Mom.” I bring a hand to my mouth. “In her car.” Tears spill over again.

“Okay, let’s keep her out of her car.” He keeps one hand clutched to mine and uses the other to wipe the tears from my face.

“Forever?”
Doesn’t he see how impossible this is?
“I need to call Dad.” I can’t believe I didn’t think of this first.

I pull my phone out of my bag and scroll to his number before hitting send. Landon’s hand moves to my leg, but he doesn’t let me go. He wipes my tears aga
in. It rings and rings until
voicemail picks up.

“Dad, I need you to call me. It’s Mom. I saw something. I need your help. I don’t care what time it is. Call me.” I hit end and send a text with the same message.

“Want to try again?” Landon asks.

“Not right now. It’s like three in the morning. He won’t call back until he wakes up.” My voice shakes. My hands shake.

“I know this is hard, but details? Can you give me anything to help out?”

I don’t want to think about details. I want to mourn and be frustrated.

“Micah?”

Crap
. He’s right. We need anything I can see. I close my eyes. His warm hands slide slowly up and down my arms. We have time. It’s okay. I need to relax. His warmth continues to seep into me, helping my shoulders let go of some tension. “She sees a large white truck.”

“What kind of truck? Like a pickup? A semi?” He keeps his voice just above a whisper.

“Something in between. Not a truck. Not a semi.” Landon’s touch calms me further.

“Okay, that’s helpful. Can you tell what’s around her?”

“No buildings. I saw some grass. A fence.” I stretch my brain to look for any and every detail I can see.

“What, is she at a farm or something?”

A wash of relief through me. “Milk pickup.” I open my eyes. Our noses are inches apart. I want to cry and kiss him at the look of love and concern in his eyes.

“What?”

“It makes perfect sense. Milk pickup. She does it some Sundays. There are a few people who trade out driving for fresh milk from the dairy in that town I can’t pronounce.”

“Puyallup?” A corner of his mouth pulls up.

“Yes. That’s the one.” I can feel a smile. How did I go from panic, to this? Will there ever be a way to tell Landon what he does for me?

“Well, why don’t we do it for her?”

“But—” I shake my head.

“Right.” He purses his lips together. “Then it’ll be us.”

“Maybe. Or maybe not. I don’t know.” I feel so helpless. Like I know just enough to torture me, but not enough to fix it. “It might be next
month
.”

“Let’s roll under the assumption that it’s going to happen now. Tomorrow. We’ll both feel better if we’re moving forward, right?”

I nod. It will feel better, even though we have no idea on timing.

“Ready to go back out there?” His thumb makes one more pass on each of my cheeks.

I look down. “I need to change first. And I can’t believe Mom let you in here when that’s what I said I was doing…”

“Well I think it’s awesome.” Landon’s face breaks out in to a smile.

I hadn’t thought of what it would be like to get dressed while he’s in my room. “Landon, I…” How do I tell him I’m a mess and can’t do this?

“I’ll turn around.”

“Can you unzip me first?” No way will I be able to reach the top of the zipper to get out of this dress.

He chuckles. “Are you really going to test me like this?”

My chest sinks. Now I just feel guilty and like I’m being a prude or something. It’s such a normal thing, that I’m actually almost grateful for the awkwardness—it’s distracting me from Mom. “Please?”

Our eyes lock and his hands slowly reach around to my back. It’s like we should kiss, but we shouldn’t, because we’re in the middle of trying to save a life. But as his fingers pull the zipper down on my dress, I’m also in the most sexual moment of my life. It makes it impossible to pull in a real breath. His fingers slide down the bare skin of my back sending shivers through my body and leaving a knot in my stomach.

“There you go.” He coughs once, drops his hands, and turns around.

We’ve broken contact. It’s like another hit to the chest.

I slide my dress down, very aware that Landon is less than four feet from where I stand. A glance over my shoulder shows him sitting facing the opposite direction. I fumble with the tank as I pull it off my dresser and quickly slide it on. “I’m decent.”

He spins back around.

“Uh…decent isn’t the word I’d use. You’re gorgeous.” His eyes travel the length of my body as I reach for my jeans.

I let my eyes meet his, not feeling as exposed as I thought I would. My vision of us
together
, together might happen sooner than I think. “You can’t touch me.”

“Not right now I can’t. Maybe you’ll let me wrap my arms around you—in a little while.” His eyes still haven’t made it back to my face.

“Definitely.” It feels like I’m leaning on him way too much. Maybe it’s just nice to have somewhere to lean. I’ve been doing this on my own for way too long.

I stand up and breathe out. My legs still feel shaky, but at least it seems like we’re working toward some sort of a solution.

“This I could get used to.” He doesn’t touch me, but his finger points to the strip of skin between the bottom of my tank and the top of my jeans.