Touched (21 page)

Lightning lit the sky far away, but the thunder didn’t come as an answer. As I walked Taryn outside, there was no noise at all—no crickets, no humming of the streetlights—as if the entire town was holding its breath for what was to come. The Park was between storms, so the clouds had parted like a curtain, revealing the silver-dollar moon and thousands of pinpoint stars. Now, everything seemed hushed, the way the Park liked. As I held Taryn’s hand, even the You Wills were gone, leaving a silence that was almost too silent. It was unnatural. Foreboding.

“Can we talk somewhere else?” Taryn asked.

I nodded and followed her down the gravel driveway, but when we were walking together, still holding hands, she did very little talking. It seemed like she was afraid to say something. The air was so humid you could almost taste it. We ambled slowly to the corner in the darkness, then kept right on going to the playground on the Fifth Avenue bay.

Tiny pools of water glistened on the seats of the swings. Taryn’s skirt was still damp from before, so she didn’t bother to wipe the swing dry before she sat on it. I sat down on the swing next to hers.

“I’ve known a lot of guys,” she said, digging her bare toes into the sand. “They all wanted something from me. But not you. You’re different. You’re like my angel.”

I laughed. “Are you crazy? I am not your angel. I ruined your life in a thousand ways, remember?”

“Why are you so nice to me, then?” she said.

I snorted. “I’m not nice to you.”

“You let me give Bryce that Touch. You risked your life—the lives of your family—for me. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yes, I did,” I said. “You would have died if I didn’t.”

“I could have found someone else, maybe,” she said. “You felt guilty? Is that what it is?”

“No. Look. You’re as important to me as my family. In my life, I’ve known hundreds—thousands of girls, maybe. I’ve married them, had kids with them, grown old with them, loved them. But you are … I can’t explain it. Every time you even walk away from me, I feel like there’s a hole in my chest. I think I would die if anything happened to you. Literally. The pain would kill me.”

She didn’t say anything for a while, just sat there watching the lights of the bridge dancing on the smooth ripples of the dark bay. Finally, she said, “Wow.”

I wasn’t sure if she meant “Wow, that’s amazing” or “Wow, you freak,” but when she turned to me, there were tears in her eyes. So I inched forward in my swing and kissed her again. She exhaled sweetly, the way girls do, and I put my hand through her hair, wanting more of her, wanting to pull her closer. But it snagged on something, and when I rubbed my thumb to my fingers it was gummy and thick, like she’d used too much hair gel. I pulled my hand out.

“What the …” I looked at my hand. Sniffed. Oh, hell.

“What is that smell?” She stared at my hands. “Is that … peanut butter?”

“Ugh. Kid who sat on this swing before must have been eating peanut butter,” I said, inspecting the chains. I couldn’t tell much in the dark, but now I could smell nothing but peanut butter. It made me want to retch. “Ugh.”

“Calm down, it’s okay,” she said, laughing. She took her shawl off and gently wiped my hands.

“You don’t understand. I hate peanut butter.” I pouted like a kid, but then suddenly

Glass raining down, shadows swirling in the headlights

I straightened. She just kept swabbing at my hands, oblivious to the things rushing through my head. “There. Better?”

I nodded, shaking the thought away. “Yeah. I think we better get back. I need to check on my family.”

We walked back, and I held her hand. With the hand that wasn’t still sticky with peanut butter. Peanut butter. Crap. Why was everything good always mixed with bad? I didn’t want to think about it anymore. I was burned out, thinking of the bad all the time. And in this moment, all I wanted to concentrate on was Taryn. How right she felt. Comfortable. It was chilly, and we were both still damp from the rain, so she leaned in close to me, her hair ticking my chin. I smelled the cinnamon apples. With her hand in mine, my mind calmed and all I could think of was how, if I could pick one moment in my life and freeze it forever, it would be this one. There was all this craziness threatening, but I don’t think I’d ever been happier. I knew it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t. But for that second, everything was perfect.

It started to drizzle by the time we reached my block, and when we came to her car, she said, “There’s something else I have to tell you,” just as the skies opened up and it began to pour.

I tugged on her sleeve, trying to get her to go into my house, but she pulled me toward her Jeep. “Are you crazy? I’m not getting in there,” I said.

She laughed. “Don’t be nuts. We’re not going anywhere. I won’t even put the keys in the ignition.” She dangled them in front of me, then dropped them in my hand. “Here, take them.”

I held them in my palm, staring at them like they were diseased. Okay. We wouldn’t leave the driveway. That we could do. Besides, her Jeep was closer, and maybe the thing she had to tell me was something private, that she (and I) didn’t want my family to hear. So I went with her. We piled into the passenger-side door as the clouds threw rain down upon us. But the second I slammed the car door, I had the weirdest and most uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu, like I’d just made the biggest and gravest mistake of my life. Suddenly the back of my neck prickled with the sensation I got whenever something big was coming. The cabin was humid and dark and dark and smelled of peanut butter. Water poured on the roof like a marching army and splashed on the windshield in long clear sheets. The dream catcher dangling from her rearview mirror swayed gently from side to side.

And we were going to die.

But no no no, I thought. In my vision I’m driving. I’m at the steering wheel. I’m—

But I realized too late that the trivial things didn’t matter. That what mattered was the horrible, irreparable end result.

“Taryn,” I said. “This isn’t right. This is—”

“Shhh,” she said, grabbing my hand. “Listen. It’s okay.”

“No, you don’t get it.” I reached for the door handle. But I couldn’t find it.

“Nick, no worries,” she said, holding her arms over the steering wheel as if to say, “Look, Ma, no hands!” but I grabbed the one closest to me and held it. It was so warm and my hand was dead in contrast. I lunged for the lock. I clawed at the door handle, trying to figure out how to get it open. I pulled on the door, pushed buttons, but nothing happened. All I could feel was something tightening around my neck, my pulse thudding in my ears, the stench of peanut butter making it impossible to breathe, and the cabin closing in on itself, on me. Finally she said, “Nick. Just relax, we’re not going anywhere.”

“No. No. NO! Tar, watch ou—” I shouted, but by then it was too late. She was facing me, away from the headlights as they came on us at warp speed. It was a truck, and a big one, judging from the eardrum-bursting squeal of the air brakes. The entire cabin lit up for one brilliant second before the impact. Her face contorted into a terrified mask and her lips curved into an almost smile, yet her body was rigid, all points and right angles as it was propelled toward me. I grabbed hold of her at one of those awkward, wrong places, trying to pull her to me, to protect her, but my hands tangled in locks of her sticky wet hair. There was the shriek of shattering glass and the sting of it spraying on my skin. We began to careen into a mind-scattering tailspin where earth and sky and everything in between seemed like the pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle thrown into the air. When everything settled, I knew only one image would be left, the same image I’d already lived a hundred times: holding her blood-soaked head in my lap and screaming, screaming, screaming as the glass rained down upon us.

I guess everything after the glass shattering around us was too much. The last thing I could remember was screaming endlessly as I held her head in my lap, feeling her hair, slick and gummy with blood.

The rest of Taryn’s death was too much to get through my brain.

She was the one destined to die in the Jeep, in the horrible accident she’d feared most. I wasn’t supposed to die then. Soon, but not then. After her death, though, I didn’t care. I wanted it.

The rest of that week was like gazing at snapshots from an old camera. Disjointed and distant. Me at the funeral. Me lying in bed. Me banging my head against the wall, delirious, wishing I would go next. I didn’t, couldn’t think about Nan or my mom, or the danger they were in. The hole in my chest opened to a chasm. It ached so bad sometimes I scratched and clawed at it, trying to get whatever poison was in there out. I green-elephanted constantly. I don’t think I ate, but maybe I did. I know I didn’t sleep. I don’t remember doing any of the things the living are supposed to do. No wonder I couldn’t see any of that in my visions. It all seemed so surreal, so vague. Like watching someone else’s life.

The next thing I remembered with perfect clarity was sitting on the lumpy sofa in front of Pat Sajak, staring at the dull brown shag carpet, feeling Nan’s heavy eyes on me. She asked me a question, probably something stupid, like whether I wanted more iced tea, but I didn’t hear her, didn’t answer, just watched the giant wheel tick to a stop on the big black Bankrupt.

“We’re all going to die,” I muttered.

She pursed her lips, then said, “Oh, honey bunny, you don’t—”

“I do!” I growled at her in an almost animal voice I didn’t know I had. “The Touch is already working. It’s going to kill my family. Everyone. It knew. Taryn was my family. In the future. I would have married her, grown old with her. It got her first. You’ll be next. Or Mom. It won’t stop until we’re all dead.”

She sat teetering on the very edge of the recliner, looking small, like she was ready to fall off. “It’s sinful. And two wrongs don’t make—”

I jumped to my feet. “Don’t talk in clichés! You know it. It’s the only way we can stop it.” I knelt beside her. By that time a picture of Taryn, looking alive and beautiful, appeared in my head and I began to sob. “Please. I don’t want you to die because of me, too.”

She took my hand. Hers was trembling. “What is it called again?”

I raised my head to look in her eyes. She’d sucked in her bottom lip, something she only did when she was thinking hard. Hope flooded me. “Flight of Song,” I said. “She’ll be there today at five. We can go together.”

She shook her head. “I think your mother is coming down with something. She’s not right. Someone has to stay with her.”

“What?”

“She was coughing blood. She didn’t want you to see, but—”

I swallowed. Oh, no. “Nan. She’s dying, don’t you see?”

She nodded. “Yes. I see. What do I have to do?”

She had her arm propped up on the velour pillow. I motioned to it. “Can you drive?”

“I will. It’s not far. Now, tell me. What is it I have to do?”

“All you have to do is go in and tell her you want it. I have extra money from lifeguarding upstairs. Give it all to her. Tell her it can’t wait. Make sure she does it right away. Bryce Reese spends most of his nights at the Sawmill. Once you get the Touch, you need to go there and tell him to withdraw the curse on my family. He’ll have to listen. Flight of Song makes people do exactly what you say.”

She nodded. “All right,” she said. “Tonight.”

I went upstairs as Nan got ready to go out. I could smell the perfume she always wore and knew she was probably changing out of her cooking-grease-stained clothes so that she could head to the boardwalk. I knew she would do it; once she said she’d go ahead with something, she never went back. I just hoped it would work. In theory, it should have worked. For them, not for me. It was too late for me. I felt as good as dead. As if death would feel better.

“Nick?” a voice called to me in the darkness of the hallway.

“Yeah, Mom,” I said, turning into her room. I’d planned on going in there anyway. I hadn’t been inside her room in a while. She was propped against the headboard, paler and smaller than her usual pale and small. I’d never known a time when she looked right, but now something was especially wrong. “You okay? Can I get you anything?”

She shook her head and placed a hand on mine. “I know what has been happening,” she said, her voice weak.

“Well, you can see the future.” I started the joke I’d told her a hundred times, wondering how much she knew. I’d kept a lot from her. “So that doesn’t make you Einstein.”

She smiled a small, sad smile. “The funeral I saw … that girl? She was your girlfriend. I’m sorry we couldn’t … do something.”

I shrugged. It was once in a long line of times that this gift or curse or whatever it was had let me down in an epic way. But it really didn’t matter. Eventually, we’d all go. And maybe it was better that way. The world would probably be a better place without the two of us.

“And I know that we are going to die,” she said.

“We all die,” I said quickly, and then realized that she was saying she knew about the Touch. She knew we were going to die soon. “Did you have a vision?”

She shook her head and picked up the water glass next to her bed. “Did you know that if you put this to the floor, you can hear everything downstairs? I was listening when you, Nan, and your girlfriend were talking about it.”

I just stood there, startled. Mom usually lived in her own little world up here. She didn’t want to know anything that was going on outside, but it always invaded her space, anyway.

“What was her name? She seemed very nice.”

My tongue lolled in my mouth, almost like it didn’t want to form the word. “Taryn. And she was.”

She sighed. “I ruined that for you. Oh, my dear, how many things have I ruined for you?” she said, burying her face in her hands. “I don’t blame you for hating me.”

“I don’t hate you,” I said.

“Yes, you do.”

I started to argue again, to say no, no I didn’t, when in fact I did, just a little, but it didn’t matter because she was still my mom, and as much as I hated her, I loved her more. But suddenly she threw her shoulders forward and began to cough so violently it seemed her whole body would break apart. It reminded me so much of Taryn that I cringed and took a step back. Then I patted her back and helped her bring the straw in her water glass to her lips. She swallowed with a loud gulp and rubbed her temples. “The cycling is bad today.”

I hadn’t noticed. Every part of me ached with a brilliant, crushing pain. Especially my chest.

“You were always better at handling the pain. What was that thing you used to say?”

“Green elephant,” I said as she began coughing again. She brought a tissue to her mouth, and the bright crimson was a shock against the doughy white of her skin and everything else around her. I motioned to my neck. “Because of that necklace you used to wear.”

She coughed more, then reached behind her neck and pulled out a white string. It had blended with her shirt so, that I’d never seen it before. As she lifted the string she freed the green elephant from underneath her shirt. The black cord was gone and the white string she put in its place was longer, allowing the necklace to hide lower on her chest, which is why I hadn’t seen it. I stared at it. It was larger than I remembered. The trunk was gone, broken off. “I thought you …,” I began. And here I’d convinced myself a mother who couldn’t bring herself to make me breakfast, go to school concerts, or take me to the beach couldn’t care about me. “The trunk is gone. That’s bad luck.”

She smiled. “Nick. I have enough good-luck charms around. Little good they do me.” She fingered the green elephant before dropping it back to her chest. “This was never a symbol of luck to me.”

I put my hands in the pockets of my shorts and studied the dresser mirror, decorated with dozens of fortune-cookie papers. I wondered if any of them had come true. When I turned back, I noticed her face had gotten darker. “What’s wrong?”

“I was just thinking. What is yours?” she asked.

“My what?”

“What death do you fear the most?” she asked.

“Mom,” I protested. She’d always loved the morbid. “I wouldn’t tell you if I knew. But I really have no idea.”

She gave me an “I’m your mom and I know better” look. “Like your grandmother said, everyone has one.”

“Oh, really?” I thought for a second. “Well, it’s whatever would be most painful, I guess. The wood chipper would kind of suck. And being drawn and quartered doesn’t sound very fun, either.” My stomach started to churn. I really hoped that by saying it I wasn’t sealing my fate with the wood chipper. “I don’t want to talk about—”

“It’s not what would hurt the most. It’s what you’re most afraid of. Those are two different things,” she said, reaching over and placing a lock of my hair back over my forehead. “And I’m your mother. Even though I’ve spent most of my time up here, I know what you are most afraid of, Nick.”

“Come on. How can you know, when I don’t even—”

“Nick,” she said softly.

I stared at her, and at that moment I knew. I thought of the crowds watching me at tryouts, of how they parted to avoid me. I thought of Sphincter, calling me Crazy Cross in front of everyone in the busy hallway at school. The way they’d stared at me, eyes narrowed, faces wrinkled in disgust, as if I was an infection, a disease, the absolute embodiment of everything they didn’t want to be. I’d convinced myself it didn’t matter, that I didn’t care. I’d convinced myself I was used to it, but can anyone get used to treatment like that? Each time, there was a chink in my armor, a dent in my wall. It was only a matter of time before everything came crumbling down.

“I don’t want to die in a way where everyone would think I was a freak,” I choked out.

She nodded, and a tear trickled down her cheek. “Another one of your quirks I’m responsible for, I’m afraid.”

I didn’t want to think what kind of death that meant I was in for. I didn’t want to know. Maybe it would be a public death. Maybe something pathetic, like a suicide. I thought of what I’d said to Nan. My life is already over. Suicide had never entered my mind before, but now, I wanted death more than anything. I wanted to be with Taryn. Now, it seemed like a definite option. In school the next day, people would whisper and raise eyebrows and some would say, “Well, what did you expect? Cross was a freak.” I would cement my status as Crazy Cross, in capital letters, until the world decided to forget about me, which wouldn’t take very long. Well, they would forget about me, but not the way I died. Years from now, at reunions, they’d say, “Remember that kid from our class who died? The freak? What was his name?” And everyone would know the sad, morbid details of the event, but nobody would recall anything else about me.

“Well,” I finally said, swallowing the lump in my throat. “What’s yours, then?”

A slow smile spread on her face. “What do you think?”

I shrugged.

She said, “Do you ever wonder about how things might have been? Without the Touch?”

I nodded. I’d thought about that often. I wondered what kind of mother she’d have been. Would she be more like Nan? I wondered what kind of person I’d be. Would I like myself? Would I be normal? Or would I find other things to obsess about? But it was useless. “What’s done is done. I know you never wanted this.”

“You were my perfect baby. Even before you were born. I wanted so many things for you.” At that moment I knew what she wanted to do. She picked a lock of hair out of my eye and swept it back. She started to say it, but I didn’t have to hear it to know.

“I know you’re sorry, Mom. And I forgive you.”

She squeezed my hand harder, and I saw everything in my head. I moved against the headboard and she didn’t say a word, just laid her head on my shoulder. We sat there for a long time, until she settled down into the covers and fell asleep. Afterward, as the minutes and hours ticked by, I sat in the vinyl chair across from her, watching her chest rise and fall. When the sea breeze picked up, I wrapped an afghan over her and thought about the irony of it all.

But I stayed. I stayed there as if glued to that uncomfortable vinyl chair. I stayed until my legs fell asleep and the sound of cars whizzing by on Central Avenue faded to the sad song of the crickets. Because I knew.

Hers was the reason she’d gotten the Touch in the first place. The scariest thing to her was losing her fiancé, or being left to raise a child on her own. That was what she’d always been most afraid of.

She didn’t want to be alone, and she didn’t want to die that way, either.

That night, I thought of death. I had visions of me being strung out in front of the world, of people laughing and screaming “freak!” as they paraded by my mutilated body. I saw children crying at the hideous sight of me. I saw people who once acted friendly to me recoiling in horror as they passed. No, they weren’t visions of the future—they couldn’t be. I knew that. But the knowledge didn’t stop me from tossing back and forth on my old, creaky mattress, as if trying to shake the thoughts out of bed with me.