Laid 2 Rest Two Halves of a Whole (8 page)

“Tyce,” I said aloud, more to myself than to her while savoring the sound of his name as it rolled off my tongue. I knew somehow that he wasn’t the reason for this little jump back in time, but that didn’t mean that he never would be. Yeah right!

Sorry people, but I am not that lucky
.

I saved Jay and that should be enough. Tyce was safe while left in the dark. If the truth about us ever came to light… how would he react, I wonder.

“Oh hell, Maya… I don’t know why I’m here. I’m coming up blank; I am thirty-five you know. I can’t remember things as well as I used to. I purposely blocked out a lot of my past for a bunch of different reasons.”

“Look, let’s go back inside, grandma. Who knows, maybe something in there will jog your Alzheimer’s,” she joked, wrapping her arm lightly through mines.

We walked back inside the carnival arm-in-arm. We cased the joint and found no sign of Leslie or Garrett anywhere. What I did manage to find however, was far more disturbing.

There standing only ten feet away from me was a boy named Tannon. Close to three inches shorter than me, light-skinned, with a smooth baby face, he was all decked out in tinted sunglasses (at night) and dressed in dark blue from his hat, all the way down to his shoes. He wore his jeans so baggy that I could not even image what kept them from falling to the pavement.

Tannon was completely focused on one of those ridged games where you had to get a softball inside the hole of a big metal milk jug. My breath caught in my throat as I watched him throw his last ball at the narrow opening. I whirled around quickly while the ball was still in midair because all kinds of red flags started going up, prompting me to flee the area.

I didn’t stick around to see what happened next. I didn’t need too, I already knew.

He would make that last shot to win a huge stuffed white tiger and I would know best because that same tiger ended up going home with
me
tonight after I convinced him to let me have it.

Boys just seemed to give me whatever I wanted back then… no questions asked.

Maya had to run to catch up with me, but I didn’t stop and kept right on speed walking until I reached the parking lot. It took us a while to locate my truck since I had no idea where my younger self had parked it, but once we did, we hopped in and took off.

I was semi aware that Maya kept saying something to me, but I couldn’t quiet my mind down enough to hear her words because the voices in my head were screaming at me to get the hell out of there.

We pulled up outside of her home, cut the engine, and just sat there in the dark. After a minute or so, Maya asked, “Are you going to tell me what in the world that was all about?”

“I just had to get away from there is all.”

“Did you get a bad vibe?”

“Something like that. I saw someone I knew. Someone that wasn’t meant to see me in return, I guess.” I said, shutting my eyes before slumping forward to rest my forehead against the middle of the steering wheel after my head suddenly took on the weight of a large-sized boulder.

Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep.

What the hell is that noise, Maya?

Sitting straight up, I glanced around, dazed. I was utterly annoyed when I finally figured out that it was my blasted alarm clock that had lost its damn mind making all that racket. Reaching over, I switched it off, grabbed the phone, and dialed without thinking. “Hello,” a hoarse voice groaned back at me.

“Did I wake you? Sorry, I wasn’t even thinking about the time difference or how early it is over there right now. Go back to sleep and call me back when you can.”

A little embarrassed, I hung up the phone. I would be lucky if I heard back from her at all, I thought to myself a half a second later. Maya really wasn’t a morning person. Besides, I had the distinct feeling that she would be nursing a hangover when she got up and would probably forget that I even called. I guess I was on my own for the moment.

Checking my appointment book, I was psyched to see that no one was scheduled for a massage until 10:00am, giving me plenty of time to make sense out of what happened last night.

Planting myself at my desk, I grabbed my favorite purple pen, a pad of paper, and jotted down the following:

1. Gone no more than two hours

2. Carnival in Panorama City, California

3. Saw Leslie, Garrett, Maya and Tannon

4. Warned Maya not to sleep with Garrett

5. NEVER meet Tannon

Tannon has to be the key this time or maybe Maya was. By running away and never meeting Tannon that night, I could only dream up one meaning... one possible outcome. That I would never know him. Not right then at least or maybe not ever. Was it better to never meet?

Then again, maybe my goal was to protect Maya from Garrett and that crazy little situation she had gotten herself mixed up in.

Man, this time traveling stuff needs to come with some blasted instructions!

After wracking my brain for several more hours, my first appointment of the day arrived, causing my immediate transformation into business mode. The day flew by and by 3:30 pm my last appointment walked out my front door.

I checked my answering machine. No messages. I tried my cell phone. However, I found no messages left there either. I should have known that Maya would not call me back so I moved onto e-mails instead. A big smile spread across my face, raising my spirits instantly the moment I found an e-mail from Jay.

Before I could click it open, a message appeared at the bottom of the screen.
Dang woman. It’s about time!
It read.

Hello to you too!!!!
I replied with attitude.

Where have you been all day?

Working, I just finished up. Why?
He must have called a few times while I was in with my clients. I had forgotten to check the phones for any MISSED calls.

I got that weird feeling again like last time. Remember a couple of weeks ago when I sensed that you needed me? Do you remember that? I’ve been out of my mind with worry.

Of course, I remember that. I’m sorry if I alarmed you, but as you can see, I’m just fine.

You sure? I can fly out there. You know it won’t be a problem. I’m positive I can get a flight leaving sometime tonight.

I’m okay, stay right where you are. Gees… you’re so over protective these days.

I just can’t let anything happen to you! I have to keep you out of harms way. I’m sorry, but I really don’t know how else to explain it. I’ll call you tomorrow to see if you’ve changed your mind. Stay safe love.

And just like that, he was gone.

Allllllrighty then!

Let me get this straight. Both times, I revisited my past; Jay has somehow been able to notice it. How could he sense that I wasn’t here? It was as if my connection to him was severed each time I traveled back in time.

My body must remain behind in the present as far as I know or else my husband would have noticed and informed the police by now. This only leads me to believe that it has to be my spirit or soul out traveling thru time, popping in and out of the bodies of my former younger self like it was bored and had nothing else to do.

How could he know that I was gone? I had more questions than ever now, but no one to answer them for me. Is this going to keep on happening to me?

I tried calling Maya again, not really sure how she was going to help me, but I needed someone to talk to. She has to be home from work by now. “Hello,” she answered.

“Were you
not
going to call me back?” I asked her in my most bitchy tone.

“I didn’t forget. I was getting around to it. I’ve had a rough day, alright.”

“Well, stop having so much fun the night before then! Hey, let me ask you something real quick. Do you recall a night at a carnival back in high school when I forbid you to sleep with a guy named Garrett?”

“I think I should be the one asking you that question,” she replied, stone walling me.

“Be serious and tell me what you remember!”

“Fine. There’s no need to jump down my throat and could you please lower your volume a notch. I remember something about a STD and a pregnancy scare… why do you ask?”

“Good, now forget about Garrett and I’m the one asking the questions right now. So, tell me what else you remember about that night?”

“That was a long time ago, Jazz. However, I do recall that you were scared of someone or something and then you took off like a crazed speed demon. Oh and then you couldn’t figure out how we got from point A to point B. I tried to get you to tell me more about my future, but you got really mad at me and said how were you supposed to know, that you weren’t some damn fortune-teller!”

“Soooooooo, I wasn’t able to remember any of it?”

“Nope. Why is this important now? It happened years ago.”

“Not for me it didn’t. For me, it happened last night and I’m trying to sort through the fog. None of my blanks have filled in yet and I’m a little concerned.”

“Do you even know who you had to get away from that evening?”

“Of course. That was the night I meet Tannon,” I said plainly back to her.

“Well, since I’ve never heard you mention anyone named Tannon in my lifetime, my guess would be that you’ve never met him either since I knew everyone you knew or dated back then. You must have changed it.
You two never met
. Who was he anyways?”

I filled her in on all the fine details that I could still remember, like him giving me the stuffed tiger and about hanging out a couple of times after that night. How things couldn’t really get serious between us because he was from the wrong neighborhood and I was afraid of being shot if we were ever seen together.

Tannon just so happened to be a Crip instead of a Blood like the rest of our ruff-neck friends which automatically explained everything to her (
Red and blue gangbangers rarely play nice together if you didn’t know that, people
), but he had become so infatuated with me in such a short amount of time, that he said he would have gotten jumped out of that lifestyle if I were to agree to stand by his side. He had given me a promise ring and everything and declared his profound love for me when he insisted on signing my yearbook that year.

I just couldn’t do it though… it was not safe for me or for him to be together at that time. Not to mention that I didn’t care for him like that…
I was still in love with Tyce for God’s sake
. “A couple of months later you called to tell me that you had heard he had been shot in the face and killed in his own front yard,” I said sadly, remembering her dreary phone call to me.

“Not to sound cruel or anything, but maybe it was for the best that you two never met because that could have been you with a bullet in ya!”

By the time I hung up the phone, I had a new outlook on things. I always wondered if I could have helped him turn his life around. If I had been selfish for not even trying to set him on the right path before cutting him loose.

The memories of him were already starting to cloud over and fade from my memory bank, so I quickly headed straight for the garage and started rummaging thru a tattered box filled with my old high school memorabilia to retrieve my 11th grade yearbook. Flipping to the back inside cover, I watched as Tannon’s beautiful handwriting disappeared right before my very own eyes forever.

“Goodbye Tannon, I wish you well. I am so sorry that I let you down... that I wasn’t there for you as I should have been. For not being strong enough and giving into peer pressure as easily as I did. Please forgive me for not even giving you a real or fair chance.” I said aloud, running my fingers over the newly formed blank page, void of his loving words.

CHAPTER FOUR

A
FTER
T
ANNON WAS MURDERED, IT
took me a long time to understand and to come to terms with that fact. I always wondered if I could have stopped or prevented that tragedy somehow. I guess I had been carrying around more guilt than I even realized, but once again, that burden was lifted away from me as my memories of him began to fade. I had no idea what had become of him or if he was even alive for that matter, but I seemed to be at peace with that and knew that in a matter of time, he would be nothing more than a mere stranger to me.

Still having no clue on why this was happening to me of all people, my mind was crammed with endless questions. What triggered the time traveling? How many times could I rewind to the past before I did something major to screw up my present?

However, I couldn’t complain too much because broken parts of me were being repaired little by little, bit by bit and I wasn’t one to look a gift-horse in the mouth. One day, if I am really lucky, maybe the universe will reveal its master plan to me.

“You all set to come out?” My brother Joel asked me.

“Yup, I’ll be there in the morning.”

“You sure you don’t need me to pick you up from the airport?”

“No, Jay’s coming to get me and then he’ll bring me over to the cemetery. I’ll just meet you guys there, alright.”