Touched (4 page)

“Something with the staircase,” Mom said. “Right?”

I nodded. I’d seen that, and something with blood. But I didn’t want to say it. “But what?”

“I don’t know. I need time to sort it out. Are you on script?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s strong. A strong, bad feeling.”

I agreed. Blood was rarely a good thing to see in a vision. “Do you want me to go off?”

“Maybe. You have track tryouts tonight?”

“I wasn’t going to go. I don’t think I’m going to make the team. And too much has happened.” I knew what she was thinking even without consulting the script. “You think I should go?”

“Well, it might help change things.”

“All right.”

She took the magazine in her hands and began to page through it. “What’s for dinner?”

It was a running joke between us, asking each other questions we already knew the answer to. When I was a kid I used to spend hours trying to come up with really disgusting answers to the “What’s for dinner?” question, like sautéed horse guts and fried iguana feet, but now I barely smirked. It had been a long time since I’d found it funny.

Sometimes I wish I lived in the Heights. A guy like me could get lost there.

Though it’s just to the south of the Heights, my town, Seaside Park, is like the less popular, more boring twin of Seaside Heights. Both towns are on the barrier islands of New Jersey, a small strip of land surrounded by water. But that’s where the similarities end. Nan calls the Heights the Devil’s Playground. There are bars and amusements and all kinds of riffraff hanging around the Heights. MTV loves the place. People drink and party and go wild there. Freaks are welcome there. They prosper there. A guy who could see his future would not, by any means, be the weirdest thing that town has ever seen.

The Park is a complete one-eighty. It likes the quiet, and prefers to be called family-friendly. The people who planned the town of Seaside Park had very little imagination. For example, it’s split down the center by Central Avenue. One block to the west, you have the Bay, barely a mile wide, and across that, you can see mainland New Jersey. One block to the east, you have the Atlantic Ocean. There is a road that stretches down the bay side called Bayview Avenue, and a road that runs along the ocean called—big shocker—Ocean Avenue. And all the cross streets are either numbered or lettered, so it’s pretty hard to get lost here. Unfortunately. It’s a vacation town, so during the summer, the hotels and apartments fill up and the roads swell with people, but starting in October, the place empties out and tumbleweeds blow through. Then it’s just us regulars, and everyone knows everybody else, and everybody else’s business. Unfortunately.

My high school is on the mainland, in Toms River. But Coach Garner, who has been in the position for forty years, lives on the island, and is about as athletic as a bar of soap, can’t be bothered to go the nine miles inland to the high school to hold tryouts, so every year he holds them on the boardwalk. There are mile markers, but running on boards can be challenging. Still, the view is nice, so people don’t complain.

When I got to Fourteenth Avenue, at the southern terminus of the boardwalk, people I recognized from school were milling about in their singlets and shorts, stretching against the pilings and fence, looking serious. The You Wills told me to go home, to go anywhere but here, but I ignored them and the dull ache they were causing in my head.

The first person I saw when I climbed the ramp was Evan Sphincter. His real name was Evan Spitzer, but when he opened his mouth you knew a bunch of foul crap was going to come out, so I used the other. Not to his face, though.

It took me a minute to recognize him because he looked different, and not in a way that I’d have liked. Maybe it was the tan. No, it was more than that. He’d never been ugly, but he’d never been a movie star, either. His face had always been kind of round, but now his jaw was chiseled. Once upon a time, he’d been kind of thick around the middle, with doughy arms and legs. Now he had muscles. More than muscles. He looked like the spokesperson for home gym equipment. Unreal.

“Hey, Crazy Cross,” he said, reaching down like he was going to help hoist me up onto the boardwalk. But it was all an act. The second I’d reach for his hand, he would pull his away and run it coolly through his highlighted hair. I didn’t have to pay attention to the You Wills to know that. And—highlights? What kind of dude got platinum highlights?

I just said, “Hey,” and pretended I didn’t see him wiggling his fingers at me. His forearm muscles were bigger than my biceps. When the hell had that happened? He’d been a jerkwad since fourth grade, but now he was a built jerkwad. Fantastic.

Sphincter jogged across the boards to his dad, who had a terminally serious face. The guy never smiled. He was holding a stopwatch and looking at it like he wanted to kill it.

Runners will make a path for you as you walk to the other side of the boardwalk
.

Yep, they parted like the Red Sea. When I turned back toward Sphincter, he was already surrounded by a bunch of hot girls. They swarmed around him like flies. Just completing his journey toward being a total one-eighty from me, I guess. Not that I was jealous or anything. Okay, yeah, I was.

Some guys I recognized from school stretched along the fence, refusing to make eye contact with me and instead checking out the fresh meat. There were a few cute girls, ones I’d never seen before, who might not yet have been aware of Crazy Cross protocol. I was wondering how long it would be before they kept their distance, too, when another memory bubbled through.

You will stretch your quads and hamstrings and then you will hear …

I was just starting to relax and stretch my muscles when a tiny redhead’s words floated over on the breeze. “Hear about the little girl who died on Seventh today?”

A guy was with her. He said something about an ambulance.

Then she said, “One of the lifeguards went completely nuts. They had to drag him away in a straitjacket.”

I wanted to slither between the boardwalk planks. “Hey, wait,” the girl said. I turned away but from the corner of my eye saw her pointing in my direction. Whispers were exchanged. “Him?” the guy asked. Then they both laughed. The guy said something that sounded like “Figures.”

Great. At this rate, I’d be lucky to make it out of high school without the words “Crazy Cross” printed under my yearbook picture.

I turned back toward Sphincter and saw him breaking away from the throngs of girls. He strutted right on over to … Oh, perfect. The angel was here. Had she seen the rest of the runners avoiding me like the plague? She was wearing the same thing she’d had on when I saw her earlier today—shorts, a tight tank, and running shoes. Duh, of course she was here, she was a runner. Did she go to my school? How had I never seen her before?

I watched Sphincter put the moves on her. He said something—a joke, probably, by the way he raised his eyebrows and laughed like he was the wittiest scumbag on the planet—and she looked at him and smiled, but politely, not like she wanted him or anything. I was impressed. Most girls would have taken one look at those muscles and jumped in his arms. He said something else and she just kind of shook her head, still smiling graciously, then walked away and started to stretch against the chain-link fence.

No goal, Sphinctie.

Two seconds later I realized I was staring at her with this admiring grin on my face and wiped it off. Had to concentrate on my running.

Concentrate. Right.

A few minutes later the tryouts began. Sphincter’s group went first. He bopped and hopped at the starting line on the boardwalk, cracking his neck, all ego, Mr. Showman. Every part of his body screamed,
Watch me, watch me
. His dad was standing behind the fence, on the beach, in prime position to see every move. They gave each other a thumbs-up, which looked so fake, like the final scene from some cheesy sports movie. I couldn’t believe we’d ever had anything in common. Then, as he lined up among the other runners doing the 100 meter, something came to me.

He’s rotting from the inside
.

It was a bit of a conversation, but it was so strong I knew it couldn’t be my imagination. I’d never heard it before, so it had to be in the future. And whenever I looked at Sphincter, I felt it so strongly that it had to have been about him. Rotting from the inside? He was the poster child for healthy living. The starting gun went off and he pulled to an easy lead right away, pumping his long legs and smirking the whole while. Rotting from the inside. Yeah.

But then I heard the voice again.

You shouldn’t be jealous of that. There’s more to him than you know
.

The voice was familiar. It was one I hadn’t heard much of, and yet it was easily recognizable.

The angel. So we’d talk again? She’d want to talk to me after what happened today?

I turned toward her. She was sitting on a bench, not watching the race like everyone else. She was more interested in her fingernails. She inspected her thumbnail, then brought it to her mouth and ripped the top of it off in a sort of savage way. Somehow she made that look cute.

There’s more to him than you know
.

Well, I knew Sphincter’s life wasn’t a picture postcard. For one, everyone in school talked about his dad. Yeah, it was nice that the guy came to support his son during tryouts, but he was entirely too serious about everything. In most circles, Mr. Spitzer was known as The Sergeant. I don’t think he’d ever been in the armed forces, but it was well circulated how he’d show up at all the meets and give Sphincter hell if he came in second. He’d bring along his stopwatch and argue with the officials and all that good stuff. I’m sure he was just as hard on Sphincter as he was with everything else in his life. So yeah, I wasn’t jealous of that.

Just then, the angel looked up and her eyes found mine. She quickly lowered her hand and the remains of her ragged fingernail, blushing, as I tried to look like I was checking out something behind her. There was nothing but a pile of sand beyond her, though, so as you can imagine, it came off really smooth.

The race ended and Sphincter set a new school record. I was sure he’d done The Sergeant proud. But he’s rotting from the inside, I told myself.

Didn’t really help make me feel better.

If you have this uncanny ability to see your own future, it’s not a good idea to let other people in on it.

After Carrie Weldon moved away, the Crazy Cross thing calmed down. I was nine when I met my first, and only, best friend. He liked me despite my everyday weirdness. Or at least, he tolerated it.

So say you’re nine, and your best friend tells you that he’s going to Disney World with his family and suddenly you realize that if he gets in that station wagon, he’ll never be the same. He’s so excited, parading around in his mouse ears and talking about the Tower of Terror like it’s his life’s purpose, but you just know something bad is going to happen. You can see the vigil at the elementary school, and you know that your grandmother will try, and fail, to hide the newspaper from you, the one with the article about the horrific ten-car pileup on Interstate 95. So you warn him. You scream at him that he can’t go. You even go to his house late at night and let the air out of the tires of his parents’ station wagon.

Of course, doing that means they have to get the wagon towed to the gas station so the tires can be inflated again, and when they do leave, two hours later than planned thanks to some stupid prankster, they arrive in Orlando safe and sound. They have a lovely trip and return home with a slew of pictures and one former best friend who thinks that you are a complete nutcase and never comes within ten feet of you again.

Well, unless it’s to pretend to offer you his hand to hoist you onto the boardwalk.

Evan Sphincter and I used to be best friends. A lifetime ago. Back when he didn’t have rippling muscles that made all the girls line up for him. And okay, maybe it wasn’t just that one incident that forced us apart. There were probably a thousand and one incidents where I acted weird or said something weird or looked weird, and each one drove that wedge between us deeper and deeper.

I tried to be normal. I tried to blend in, to not make waves. But this thing affected me every moment of every day. So I learned not to get too involved with anyone. Every year it got easier. Over time, pretty much everyone had discovered Crazy Cross was not someone to associate with.

I don’t really know why I wanted to go out for track that year. I loved running, and I was damn good at it, but I’d always shied away from organized sports. I guess I thought it was something normal people would do. Like lifeguarding. I think I’d gotten cocky, managing to keep that same future intact for three whole months. Managing to be not just a lifeguard but also a good one. I’d surprised myself this summer. When I’d penciled my name on the sign-up sheet for tryouts, I had this new, invincible feeling, like, I can do this. I thought all that Crazy Cross stuff was finally behind me.

Wrong.

I tried not to think of Emma as I started the mile, but of course I did. I couldn’t shake the vision of her small limbs sprawled on the sand, lifeless.

Normal. Yeah.

Anyway, I was a good runner. If I’d been normal, I bet I could have been a great one. I ran steadily, navigating around the few late-day beachgoers with umbrellas and chairs. The other runners lagged behind me; even with the headache from hell, I was on track for a record. I wasn’t even out of breath. A couple of hot girls in bikinis grinned at me. I’m not bad-looking; I’m tall, with thick black hair and an okay build, maybe not as good as Sphincter’s, but I always got looks from girls. After a minute or so, though, my charm wore off. I’d develop a tic or nervously go off in one direction or another, blowing it. This accounted for me being seventeen and never having gotten to second base with a girl. Even my first base was on account of an error; I’d been running on the boardwalk late one night, which I sometimes did to calm my mind, and when I stopped at the fountain to get a drink, a drunk girl must have thought I was her boyfriend because she grabbed me and kissed me.

Kissing soft lips, blond curls in my eyes

The image lit a fire under me. My pace quickened even more. It was the second time this afternoon that I’d had that memory. How could that be real? The picture was so strong I got lost in it. I forgot everything, even the simple rhythm of my legs pumping and my feet pounding on the boards. But when I passed the entrance for the Seventh Avenue beach, everything changed. I lost the rhythm. My lungs constricted and burned. The last image I saw was that of the little girl, lying dead on the sand.

You killed our Emma

Suddenly, I fell forward, onto my knees, so unexpectedly that I didn’t have time to put my hands out to stop the fall. I smashed my face against the boardwalk. Then I rolled off, onto the sand, gasping and choking.

Coach Garner was a guy who perpetually smelled like Bengay and probably clicked on his stopwatch buttons in his sleep. He’d never run, even if something with large teeth was chasing him. When he stood over me, his beer gut blocked out the sun. “Wow. Just wow.”

I hoped he was talking about how masterfully I’d run that first nine-tenths of a mile.

“That was the most pathetic fall I’ve ever seen.”

Eh. I rolled over and propped myself up on one elbow. Across the way, a bunch a girls giggled at me, but I wasn’t sure if they were part of the regular group of people who giggled at me, or new ones, because my vision was blurred. I looked down and saw blood soaking into my white tech shirt. My knees were dotted with blood and sand and little black splinters.

“So, um, does that mean I didn’t make the team?”

Coach Garner laughed long and loud, like Santa Claus with a sadistic streak, then turned and ambled away without bothering to help me up. I scrambled to my feet, still feeling woozy. Then I tilted my head back and shuffled over to a bench, squeezing my nose, which by this time was seriously gushing. I think bits of major organs were leaking out. Every runner in school was staring at me, and most were laughing their asses off.

“Good one, Crazy Cross,” Sphincter called across the fence to me, flashing me a thumbs-up. He was standing with The Sergeant, who was giving him the ol’ New School Record shoulder rub and watching me like I was a glob of gum in danger of getting on his son’s running shoe.

Rotting from the inside
, I repeated to myself, over and over so that it drowned out the next You Will. Screw them.

Before I could sit down, someone came up beside me. At that moment, I knew who it was. My stomach lurched even before I heard her say, “That looks bad.”

I looked up for only a second. She was wearing the same exact expression she’d worn earlier today—a horrified kind of confusion. Was I doomed to always see her every time my head was exploding, or about to? Yeah, that totally explained why she would be kissing me. Maybe that wasn’t part of my future. I’d probably wanted it so bad that I’d just been hallucinating.

“Nah … too … bah,” I said, trying to act casual but feeling the blood course over my upper lip with every word.

She sat down on the bench beside me and handed me a crumpled tissue. I clamped it over my nose, but it was soaked in a matter of seconds.

“You should go to the hospital.”

I waved her away with my free hand. “Naw. I gef nofbleehs all de time.”

“Your knees are bleeding, too,” she pointed out. “And your forehead. And your elbows. Well, just one of them.”

I lowered my head slowly, still covering my nose, and inspected my knees as if that news didn’t completely freak me out. Sure enough, blood was running down my knees, pooling at the cuffs of my socks. Rocky had had it better after his fight with that Russian dude. I pointed to the lifeguard stand. “Well, in that caif, I gueff I’ll go and geh a few Band-Aids.”

She stood up. “I’ll go with you.”

I knew she would offer to come, and that I would protest. By that time, the pain in my joints was getting unbearable. Not wanting to look like a total wimp in front of her was the only thing keeping me from weeping. “Nof nefeffary.”

“Sure it is. You might have a concussion.”

“Naw, I’m fine.”

“That’s what my uncle said after he was rear-ended. And then two days later he nearly dropped dead.”

“Uh …” The last time I’d met her, I’d also told her to leave me alone so she wouldn’t have to witness my breakdown. The script had me accepting her offer and her holding on to my good arm as we limped down the beach. The script had me … Oh, hell. The script had me crying in front of her because it hurt so bad. That kiss had to have been a hallucination. There was no way she’d want to get with me voluntarily after this.

When we stood up, my nose had stopped bleeding, so I didn’t have to squeeze it shut. As we passed some girls, they stared after us. I thought they were just gawking at the dumbass who’d performed his own facial reconstruction, but then a short girl with a pixie haircut called out, “We’ll wait for you by the car if you’re not back by four, okay?”

The girl was looking right at us and there was no one else around, so I guessed they were her friends. She had cute friends, ones I had never seen before. She had to be a freshman, and considering the number of hot girls in that group, a popular one. But the weird thing was, instead of answering, she just kept on walking toward the lifeguard stand.

“Hey, Tar! We’ll wait for you! By the car! Okay?” Pixie called out, a little louder, her voice an octave higher with desperation.

The angel just swung her head back and called over her shoulder, “Fine!” then muttered under her breath, “Whatever.”

Okay. Didn’t know what the hell that was about. They seemed nice enough; some of the other kids nearby reenacted my trip as I walked past them, but one of her “friends,” a tall girl with crazy black hair, called after me, “Take care of yourself.” I really couldn’t think about it, though, because I was beginning to feel light-headed. I blinked a few times, hoping I didn’t lose consciousness from the blood loss.

“Don’t feel bad. I’m a little bit of a klutz myself,” the angel said brightly. I knew she was just saying that to be nice, since her every movement was done with the grace of a ballet dancer. Even when I’d pulled her out of the way of that truck, she’d looked good. I noticed some of my blood had gotten on her bare shoulder, but I felt awkward rubbing it off. In my half-assed state I probably would have grabbed her boob. Sadly enough, that would have been, like, the most action I’d ever gotten from a girl. “And who needs cross-country anyway?”

The script had me completely mute, trying to think of something to say. Finally, I put a sentence together. “You know, you don’t have to be nice to me.”

“What do you mean?” I noticed she had a little accent, one I couldn’t place. Not the annoying kind, but the kind that melts hearts.

“I mean, just because I helped you today. It’s okay.”

“Oh, I know.”

“So, what? Is it Be Nice to Dorks Day or something?”

She laughed. “Are you a dork? You’re not a dork.”

I nodded. “I am. Ask anyone. I don’t have a single friend at the school.”

“That’s not true. You have me.”

“You can have any friends you want. You already have a lot of them. Don’t think you need me. Go be with them. I’ll be fine.”

“Oh, yeah … those guys.” She motioned to the cute girls on the boardwalk and screwed up her face. “Fake, fake, fake. They want things from me. I try to get away from them and they just follow me. It makes me so sick. You don’t, though.”

I tried to figure out what she meant. Just what did people want from her? She seemed to like hearing me tell her to get the hell away. I’d heard girls liked it when guys treated them like crud, something which boggled my mind. I didn’t want to find out that she was one of those stupid girls, so I just said: “It depends on what you have. I accept monetary donations.”

She laughed. Whoa. I’d never said anything that made a girl laugh before. “Do you live around here?” she asked.

“Um. Yeah. Seventh.”

“Oh. I’m in the Heights.”

The Heights was about two or three miles away from Seventh. “That was a long run you were taking this afternoon,” I said.

She shrugged. “Five miles or so.” I was just trying to understand what lunatic would run that far, before tryouts, at the hottest time of the day, when it was over ninety degrees, when she said, “I run because it helps me think. I kind of have a lot to think about.”

I nodded. Couldn’t argue with that.

We reached the lifeguard stand, and I hadn’t cried yet. I was silently congratulating myself for that accomplishment when she said, “You know, you are really brave. I’d be crying.”

I smirked. Actually, she’d taken the edge off the pain, made it tolerable. I realized I wouldn’t be able to shake her; she was planning on coming in with me and watching the lifeguard bandage me up. This girl was harder to avoid than the flu. And there was something about her. Something that just seemed … right. It was all adding up to one thrilling and terrifying realization:

I had a chance with this girl.

Geoff, a lifeguard, ushered me into his seat on the stand when he saw me. He didn’t have the gentle, female nurse’s touch my hormones would have really liked, so when he started to swab up my knee, I winced.

And this girl, this angel, stayed with me the whole time.