Текст книги "Touched"

Автор книги: Cyn Balog

Соавторы: Cyn Balog
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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

We walked through to the rear of the arcade, looking for a door. If we could get out onto Ocean Avenue, we could get around the booth and to the bicycle rack without any possibility of Old Scary Lady seeing us. “So, who is Sue?” Taryn asked.

And I’d thought maybe she’d forget. I cleared my throat. “No one. Really.” Which was the truth. Now she was no one to me.

“Old girlfriend? Current girlfriend?”

I just mumbled, “My wife. In a different lifetime.”

Her eyes widened. “What do you mean, different lifetime?”

“Like I said, every time I do something off script, I can throw things off. And once, before I met you, I had this future where I was going to marry a girl named Sue.” I had a momentary reflection back to that feeling, that feeling of safety and happiness I’d only had in that life, and cringed at the thought of losing it. Could I ever get that back? “It was a good future. A perfect one.”

“And the one you’re going to have now?”

I shrugged. It was hard to explain. That last future, I’d had time to settle into. It took a while, but eventually I learned all the ins and outs, and the more I learned, the more perfect I realized it was. I knew this new one didn’t feel right, but it was too soon to tell. All new futures felt that way. It felt like standing on the edge of a cliff. Maybe I would fly, maybe I would fall. It always took a few days or weeks to fully understand it. “I don’t know. I need time to sort it out.”

“It could be even more perfect. You don’t know.”

“I guess.” I didn’t bother to tell her I had had hundreds of futures set in my mind before. None of them was as good as the one I’d just lost. Sure, there had been okay futures, but in a good majority of them, I ended up alone. I understood that; I’d been alone most of my life so far. Nobody got me. Nobody could stand me for too long. Sue had been a miracle, even though I hadn’t met her. And Taryn … Taryn was another miracle, with a difference. She was here, in the flesh.

I looked at Taryn, filled in that moment with the urge to grab her and hold her against me and never let her go. Suddenly, she stopped and looked at me. “You look like you’re going to throw up.”

My throat was desert dry. I shook my head and started to say something to blow it off when she caught sight of something beyond me. “Oh, Skee-Ball! Let’s do just a couple of games.”

I agreed, even though I hadn’t done Skee-Ball since I was, like, five. Taryn fed all the quarters she could find in her bag into the machine and the balls fell down the chute. I did the same and then realized I was playing next to a master. One after another, she popped those suckers into the little circle in the center marked 50. I kept hitting the gutter. The You Wills kept repeating the same thing to me, like a record skipping:

You will hit the gutter, you will hit the gutter, you will hit the …

“So you’ve seen people get Touched, huh? What’s that like?” I thought maybe conversation would take the focus off my sucktastic abilities.

She straightened and threw her first gutter ball, then swallowed. “It’s … horrible. I don’t want to think about it.”

I stared at her as my brain quieted from the You Wills. “Then why would your grandmother make you watch from behind the curtain?”

She threw another ball. “Because I am the last grandchild. And in the lore, the last grandchild inherits the power.”

“Power?”

“The power to use the book. And … other things.” She looked away. “Not nice things.” She blushed a little. “I am afraid if I tell you this, you’ll think I’m a freak.”

I grinned, surprised. “Look who you’re talking to.”

“Well, I also attract certain people. People with a certain wanting or void in their lives. And people like that aren’t usually the best people to hang out with.”

“Like me?”

She finished throwing her last ball and shook her head. “You’re different. You didn’t ask for this. But I kind of lied to you about why we left Maine.”

“Your father wasn’t laid off?”

“Oh, no, he was. But it was because of me.” She bit her bottom lip. “I’m an only child and my mom and dad wanted me to be a doctor. They weren’t too keen on me growing up to be a fortune-teller.”

“Understandably.”

“Right. So when I was six, Grandma started taking me to see the Touches performed. And as I said, they were horrible. Then the nightmares started. When my parents found out what I was going through, there was a huge fight. My grandmother told them I’d never be able to escape my destiny, but they thought she was crazy. They dropped everything and moved me to Maine. And everything was okay for a while. My dad started doing really good. He was one of the top executives at the factory. Everything was great. I think my parents thought we’d escaped it. But like I said, I have these powers. The power to attract certain people. I had friends up there, or at least, I thought they were friends before I came here and realized they were just being drawn by the Touch. And you know how I am about saying no.”

“So you were a troublemaker, huh?” I said, raising an eyebrow.

“Uh-huh.”

“Seriously?” I asked. She just didn’t seem the type.

“I was! I was terrible. It started when I was thirteen or fourteen. My friends and I would stay up all night, doing things. Mostly little, stupid things that bored kids do when they have nothing better to do. Breaking into houses. Destroying property. Stuff like that. I refused to listen to my parents, and no matter what they did, I found a way around it. They barred my windows, for God’s sake. And I knew it was stupid but—”

“You couldn’t say no.”

“Right. And I couldn’t shake them. Just as they were attracted to me, I fell for them, too. They kept following me around, worshipping me, and I never realized that it was because they were attracted to what I could do for them. The Touch. I kept running away from home and my dad took all this time from work to go looking for me or deal with the trouble I’d gotten myself into. So he was fired. And we were forced to move here. The funny thing was, all those great friends I had back in Maine never emailed me, called, texted … not even once. They didn’t want me, they just wanted to be Touched.”

“That sucks.”

“Like my grandmother said, I can’t escape my destiny. I have to take over for my grandmother and perform these Touches, or else things will get bad. Really bad. My parents are finally accepting that, I guess.” Her face had paled past its normal pale, to an unnatural and deathly bluish-white. “They have no other choice.”

“What do you mean by ‘really bad’?” I asked.

She wrinkled her nose. “The worst. But I don’t want to talk about that. I get really nervous thinking about it. That’s why I like hanging out with you. I don’t think about it constantly when I’m with you.”

I ran out of balls, so I stood there and watched her throw her second gutter ball. When she threw a third one, she grimaced and massaged her arm. As soon as she started throwing again, she hit the 50.

“And that’s why I knew you were Touched. The second I felt your hand, it was like I understood everything. But it’s more than that. We’re alike. Usually, people get Touched of their own free will. But you didn’t. We’re both cursed, but it’s not our fault.”

I nodded. “When I touched your hand, I couldn’t see the future anymore. It made me almost feel normal.”

She stopped throwing balls and straightened. “I guess that makes sense.” Then she said, “Do you like it?”

“What? Touching your hand?”

She grinned. “Feeling normal.”

I smiled. It didn’t matter which question she had been asking; either way, the answer was yes. “Of course.”

She reached over and grabbed my hand. “Better?”

My mind stopped in the middle of a You Will and I just nodded. “Yeah. Much. It’s like … almost …”

She squinted. “Like what?”

“Almost too quiet. I’m used to multitasking. Doing things while seeing what’s coming next. You know, like if you have two televisions tuned to the same program, but on different signals, and one is a few seconds ahead? That’s what it’s like. I’m used to it. This is …”

“Exciting?” she said, giving me this coy smile. “For once in your life you have no idea what is coming next.”

I was going to say scary, but then I realized that made me sound like a wuss. “Um, yeah. I guess normal life can be exciting.”

Never letting go of my hand, she ripped her tickets from the dispenser and dragged me to the prize center, where she traded in her twenty-five tickets for two neon slap bracelets. She gave the blue one to me and kept the hot pink one for herself. Then we walked onto the boardwalk, away from her grandmother’s tent and toward the rides. I felt two feet taller. I’d never held hands with a girl before, much less a hot one. Other guys were checking her out, and each time I stuck my chin out farther. It felt freaking phenomenal.

“So,” she said as we walked. I guess we were walking aimlessly, because our bikes were in the other direction. I didn’t care. I could have walked all night like this. “What else do you know about me?”

I smiled. “I thought you didn’t want to know.”

“Well. I’m curious. It’s nothing bad, is it?”

Holding hands with Taryn did nothing to erase the image of that birthmark, of the curve of pale skin on her lower back, leading to her backside. It didn’t matter how many girls I cycled through; I knew that would be etched in my brain permanently. “No. It’s nothing. Really.”

“Well, I think you must know something. Your face keeps getting red every time I bring it up. Do we get really close or something?”

I swallowed, fully aware that anything I said now could totally destroy that future. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do,” she teased.

“Look,” I said under my breath. “The future isn’t set. And I don’t want to …”

“Oh, you don’t want to blow it. I get it. But you know, normal people don’t worry about these things. They just take it naturally.”

Even though the ocean air was cool, my hand was sweating in hers. How the hell did I know what normal people would do? All that confidence I had a second before drained away and I found myself wondering again why she’d want to be seen with me, the abnormal person who didn’t even know how to take things naturally, whatever that meant. “Okay,” I mumbled.

“We can go on a ride. Like the Tilt-a-Whirl? Or the haunted house?” she suggested. “What do you think?”

“Surprise me.” She was still contemplating, unaware, so I said, “Get it? Surprise me? That’s a joke.”

She gave me a look. “Oh, right, because you can’t be surprised. Funny,” she said, like it wasn’t. “Wait, can you be surprised? When you fell into the water at the pier, you were surprised.”

“Nah. I knew it would happen. But by then I couldn’t stop myself. It’s okay, though. I don’t really like surprises.”

“You don’t? Are you scared of them?” she taunted.

“No, I’m—I like to be in control as much as I can.”

“Booor-ing!” she singsonged. “You should forget about that. Live a little. What’s the worst thing that could happen?”

She didn’t get it. I could see the worst things that could happen. A lot of them would make her lock herself in her bedroom for the rest of her life. “Most surprises are bad.”

“That’s not true. There are lots of good ones, too.” She surveyed the amusements and her eyes widened. “Oh yes, the haunted house. I love it. Don’t you?”

“I—I’ve never …” I clamped my mouth shut. It was obvious I was a dork. That I led a sheltered life because of the curse. I should just take things naturally and tell her. But from the way she was looking at me, I think she already knew.

“Don’t worry. It will be fun. Lots of surprises in the haunted house.”

“Bad ones,” I answered, reluctant, as I tried to understand what about the concept of surprise could be good. Surprises sucked. It was so much better to be in control.

Taryn dragged me toward the stucco housefront at the end of the pier, with the fake wrought iron fence and cobwebs everywhere. There was a raven with a skeletal hand in its beak perched on the sign that said 6 TICKETS, but even that looked pretty pathetic. Taryn must have come here a lot because she had a book of tickets in her bag. She handed the attendant twelve and we squeezed into a car.

Then she clutched my hand tighter. “I’m scared,” she said, but in a way that I couldn’t tell if she was joking. Before I could look at her face, the car jerked forward and we careened into darkness.

It was pretty dumb. The scariest thing was how the ride twisted us around, almost dislocating my spine, and our car shook back and forth so much I was sure the whole thing was going to collapse. The squealing of the wheels on the track drowned out any scary noises we were supposed to hear. Occasionally someone in a scary mask would jump out at us, but it wasn’t dark enough to make it a complete surprise. I think Taryn was disappointed, because the first time it happened, she let out a high-pitched, deafening yelp, which dissolved into laughter, but after that she just muttered things under her breath.

When the ride found daylight again, we squinted at each other and then said “Lame” at the same time. I shrugged at her as we got off. “Oh, well. At least you paid.”

“Hey!” she began, but stopped short. She was walking in front of me, so I couldn’t see her face, but then I looked up and saw him.

Terrific. Sphincter.

He was with—of course—two girls from school with too much in the way of hair and makeup and too little in the way of clothing, the kind of girls who never gave me the time of day. They were his bookends. His smile disappeared as he took us in. “Well, hello, Taryn,” he sang in a game-show-host voice. Then he nodded at me. “Cross.”

I nodded back. Taryn gave a little wave. “Hi, Evan!” she said in her typical bubbly way, but there was something weird about how she stiffened.

“How are you doing?” he asked, not casually, but in a tone you would use if you knew a person’s close family member had just died. I knew the question was just for Taryn, because he stood so that his back, and the backs of the other girls, were to me. The perfume and cologne and whatever else they were wearing smelled worse than the incense at Babe’s tent, but the view of the girls’ asses made it tolerable. “How’s your grandmother?”

“Fine. We’re all doing good,” she said.

Both girls looked away, bored or annoyed or a little of both. One fed herself a long string of sticky blue cotton candy; the other inspected her nails. I suddenly had the feeling I was listening in on a private conversation. Like maybe Taryn knew Sphincter. Like, really knew him.

They talked a little more about school starting next week and doesn’t-it-suck-that-summer’s-almost-over? Even though it was a really generic, safe topic, the more they talked, the more my stomach churned. Sphincter moved in really close, probably just to piss me off. It was working. How did they know each other? I stared at the lame “his” slap bracelet on my wrist and silently wished Sphincter would crawl back into whatever hole he came out of. When they parted, Taryn just said, “Let’s go on this Rock n’ Roll thing. I have more tickets.”

I shrugged and we walked to the ride. I heard him mumble something about “Crazy Cross,” and the girls tittered. They headed off toward the haunted house. While Taryn reached in her bag for tickets, I turned and caught Sphincter staring.

I thought maybe I could get her to admit what they had going on. “He totally wants you,” I said as we settled into the car.

She shrugged, not impressed. “I’m sure he does.” She shifted in her seat. “They always do.”

I thought she meant guys, but I couldn’t remember when she’d last been so full of herself. So I just let out an amused “Oh, yeah?”

She nodded, biting her lip. “Yeah.” The ride started to pick up speed then, so I couldn’t be positive, but I was pretty sure there were tears in her eyes.

Meeting Sphincter was like throwing a bucket of water on whatever fire was going between us. Taryn still held my hand, which would have been a good sign if it hadn’t grown cold, stiff. I thought about asking her what was wrong, but I really didn’t want to know the answer. What about Sphincter had gotten her crying? I don’t think I could have looked at her the same if she and Sphincter had … well, if she and Sphincter had anything.

We got off the ride without a sound and stopped at the rack to get our bikes. Taryn had to let go of my hand to unlock her bike, and when she did, the You Wills began immediately. She saw the look of pain on my face and offered to hold my hand again, but it didn’t matter. I was going to have to deal with it sooner or later anyway. So we walked our bikes all the way back to her street, not talking much. By then I was feeling a little better. Still woozy, but the stabbing pain between my eyes was gone.

“So,” she said when we got to her driveway, tipping her head in the direction of the Reeses’ house. “Funeral’s tomorrow. Are you going?”

“Yeah, I think so,” I mumbled as my head pounded away. I felt that pain in my stomach again. Of course I would be there.

She narrowed her eyes. “I know it was probably traumatic for you. Are you blaming yourself?”

I didn’t want to tell her, didn’t want to talk about it at all, but I nodded. “I saw the other future. The one where I saved her.”

She put her hand on my shoulder. “Don’t beat yourself up. You did everything you could.”

I shook my head, shook her hand away. A You Will popped through immediately, wanting me to get home. Instead, I looked at my feet. “I knew Pedro was not fit to be on watch. But I did nothing. I should have said something. But I didn’t, because I wanted to stay on script. You see? It was my fault.”

Her hand found its way back to mine. The cycling stopped again. A wave of exhaustion swept over me, as if my mind was sick of starting and stopping again and again. She whispered, “It’s Pedro’s fault. Not yours.”

I nodded. I didn’t believe her, but I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. She just held my hand for a while. Then I said, “I’d better go.”

She nodded, and I dropped her hand and started to walk away. Immediately these things found their way into my head: beauty, harder to kidnap, Saint Christopher. That was when she called after me. “Have you ever been to one?”

I swallowed and, for some reason, tasted grass. I could feel the blades of grass and earth on my tongue. I brought my hand to my mouth and licked it, expecting my hand to be black, but it wasn’t. Instead, my eye began to pulsate with pain. I moved the muscle in my cheek up and down. Yeah. It felt like I’d been punched there. What the hell? When I turned back to her, she was staring at me with an expression I’d come to know so well: horrified confusion. I tried my best to cover it up. “I, um, had a hair in my mouth. Been to one of what?”

She let it slide. “A funeral.”

I started to say yes and then shrugged. I’d been to dozens, in the future. Lucky for me, none of them had worked its way into my past. The real thing was probably a lot more unpleasant than the memory. “No,” I finally said.

She laughed. “Which is it?”

“Long story,” I said, not able to say more. My head was aching so much, I felt it down to my jaw. Probably my mom was having the same feeling. Good. For the first time, I was glad. This time, I wanted her to hurt.

“Okay. You can tell me later. So want to go together?”

My heart thumped. She wanted to see me again. Yes! I hadn’t screwed everything up yet. And whatever history she had with Sphincter, it didn’t matter. But then I thought about Nan’s boat of a car, sitting in our dusty driveway. I thought of the way my hands shook on the steering wheel, of how I had trouble most times meeting the speed limit, even on residential streets. I started to sweat. “I, um, don’t … I mean, I guess I could pick you up.… Ten-thirty okay?”

“Oh, great!”

We spent another long moment standing there, outside her house. I counted four anthills in her driveway.

Here was the point when a normal guy would have gone in for the kill. Instead, I froze up. Sure, Taryn came off as innocent and angelic. But I found myself wondering what trouble she’d actually gotten into in Maine. Most likely she was a lot more experienced than me. Didn’t take much to be that way, but still. The opportunity to majorly screw up that future I’d seen of her, of us together, was right here. Right now.

And so I blew it. “See you,” I tossed over my shoulder, as if I’d been talking to just anyone. I cringed almost immediately after I pulled my bike away from the curb.

And then I went back to face the future memories that had been flapping around in my mind like wounded birds.