Earthbound e-1

by Aprilynne Pike

  Two. Three, if you count the one that disappeared.

  I feel myself losing control and have to force a few breaths into my lungs as an awful thought occurs to me. With my hands almost numb in fear, I reach into my pocket again.

  At first I feel nothing. But I dig deeper, into the bottom corner where the pocket lint tends to accumulate.

  And pull out another tube.

  Benson was right; it’s always in my pocket when I can’t find it.

  I hold the three tubes out to Benson and he instinctively lifts his hands to take them.

  I drop them into his palm. Benson has to see.

  If Benson sees them, I’m not crazy.

  Or at least I’m not hallucinating.

  I reach into my pocket again and meet Benson’s eyes as I pull out another tube of ChapStick and place it with the other three already cradled in his hands.

  Four. I reach again.

  Five.

  Six.

  I don’t want them to cut open my brain again.

  “You’re weirding me out,” Benson says, his eyes boring into mine.

  “Ssh!” I hold my finger up to my lips. “Watch.”

  “Tave—”

  “Just. Watch,” I insist.

  The seriousness in my voice finally gets through to him and he keeps his eyes on my half-dozen lip balms with a skeptical look like he’s waiting for me to pounce on him and yell “Gotcha!”

  I wish.

  I wish it were that simple.

  A few minutes have passed, and my eyes are already weary from glaring at the tubes. Benson takes a breath and I can practically feel him getting ready to say something when the middle tube pops out of sight.

  Benson gasps as he drops the rest of the ChapSticks. He scrambles out of the way—almost knocking me over—and they scatter across the carpet. “Holy mother of Max!”

  “Ssssshhh!” I whisper-command, putting my hand over his mouth and stepping right up close to him.

  Right against him.

  I look up, our faces only a few inches apart, and my chest freezes. My hand lowers slowly, his lips soft against my fingertips, until only one finger rests on his bottom lip. A distant part of me hears Benson’s breath, unsteady as it speeds up, his eyes burning into mine.

  I’m not sure who reaches out first or how it happens amid everything going on, but in an instant my fingers are grasping at his hair, pulling his face down to me, his hand behind my neck, pulling me up, tilting my mouth to his. His lips are desperate on mine, seeking, demanding, taking.

  But how can they take what I’m savagely giving?

  His whole body trembles as he steps forward, pressing against me, trapping me between the bookshelf and the warmth of him. The corners of books dig into my back as our bodies meet, push, wrap. I grasp at the soft fabric of Benson’s sweater-vest, and my fingers dig into his ribs just beneath. His hands are still behind my neck, my head—fingers weaving through my hair as he brings my mouth harder against his—but the length of his body rocked snugly against mine feels like its own kind of embrace.

  I rip my mouth away to gulp for air but return immediately to his lips, needing more of him. Tiny groans vibrate in his throat and they make me want to hold him tighter, kiss him deeper. I don’t know how long it lasts—forever and yet not nearly long enough—before Benson throws his head back and lets out a long sigh. His hands frame my face and he lets his forehead rest against mine as we both struggle for air. His breath is hot on my lips and when I breathe, it smells like him.

  And something in me knows that everything is different now.

  Better? I hope so.

  “Is this the part where I’m supposed to apologize?” Benson asks, and his voice is so low, so weak, it makes me want to cry all over again.

  “Are you sorry?” I whisper. And I don’t know what I want to hear.

  “Never,” he says, his whisper barely audible.

  A strange joy fills me and this time it’s not overwhelming. It’s calm. Peaceful almost. “Then don’t apologize.”

  But he stands up, his hands sliding away from me to take a new stance on his hips, and he looks at the bookshelf just to my left. “The timing, it was bad, you were crying, and I … I should have, no, I shouldn’t have—”

  “Benson,” I interrupt. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay, I didn’t mean—”

  “Benson,” I say, more firmly. I step forward and slide my hands down his arms, forcing his fists off his hips and sliding my fingers between his. “It’s okay.” I don’t want to ask, but I know I have to. “Is this why you dislike Quinn so much?”

  Benson swallows hard before he speaks. “He has a name now?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s one of the reasons,” he finally admits. “But the others are just as valid.”

  My mind is having a seriously hard time thinking rationally. “What about Dana McCraven?”

  Benson’s face flushes so red it’s almost maroon. “I made her up,” he admits. “I didn’t want you to see how puppy sick I was.”

  “Really?” I ask, genuinely shocked.

  And pleased.

  “You asked one day and I just … came up with a name. It wasn’t supposed to become such a big lie. It was supposed to help me keep my distance,” he mumbles. Then his eyes dart up to mine for just an instant and the emotion I see makes my heart pound. “Didn’t work, I guess.”

  “Well, I was convinced,” I say with a giggle.

  “Dana McCraven can’t hold a candle to you,” Benson murmurs, grinning.

  “Why didn’t you tell me before?” We could have been kissing like this for months! I want to shout.

  “I didn’t want to lose what we had,” he mumbles. “I really liked you coming in every day.”

  I start to grin like a sappy idiot.

  Benson likes me.

  Me!

  He always did.

  It’s a tiny spark of goodness in a world that has become so confusing lately that I feel like I’ve forgotten what to do with good news.

  But, of course, my eyes choose that moment to catch sight of the ChapStick on the floor. “Benson!” I gasp, my hands tightening and probably hurting his fingers. “They’re gone!”

  There’s only one lonely tube of ChapStick lying innocently on the carpet.

  My face turns back to Benson and I resist the urge to grab the front of his shirt and shake him. “You saw them, right? I’m not imagining this. There were six, right?” My voice is getting high and loud and Benson rubs his hands up and down my arms as he shushes me.

  “Yes, I saw them. They were there.” His eyes are wide again, his jaw set as he and I both stare at the carpet where the tubes all landed, as if they’ll suddenly appear again.

  Our heads jerk up as Marie’s voice fills the library via the PA system. “The library will be closing in five minutes. Please bring your books to the front for checkout. The library will be closing in five minutes.”

  “I have to go. I told Reese I’d be right back.”

  Benson’s jaw is clenched so tightly I want to run my finger along it, make him relax. But after a second he says, “We need to talk about this. Tomorrow.”

  “You work tomorrow afternoon. Should we just meet—”

  “Not here,” Benson says firmly. “Maybe my place?”

  My place—a pleasant ripple travels down my spine at the thought. But when Benson leans down to pick up the remaining ChapStick, I’m completely sober again.

  “I’ll call in sick if I have to,” Benson says, running his hands through his hair and looking off into the distance. “I can figure this out,” he says softly. Then he turns and carefully takes my hand. “We can figure this out.”

  I nod, feeding off his confidence. Mine is gone.

  “Here,” he says, handing me a random book. “Go check this out. That way Marie won’t ask questions.”

  “Okay.” I hold the book to my chest and start to walk away, then turn and look at him, desperate to kiss
him again.

  He leans ever so slightly forward.

  But somehow, it’s just not right. Without the passion of the frantic moment, it’s like there’s a barrier we can’t cross. I settle for squeezing his hand before slipping wordlessly around the corner. I force myself not to look back, as if the entire world didn’t just turn upside down behind that row of dusty old books.

  It’s only when I’m easing the car out of the library parking lot that I realize I never told Benson about Quinn. That I’ve hardly thought about Quinn since the moment Benson’s lips touched mine.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “So have you seen him again? Your mysterious, um, guy?”

  No pretense, no greeting, no small talk. Elizabeth just jumps right in.

  “Briefly,” I reply, and the words are out of my mouth before I remember it was in my aunt and uncle’s yard again. Will she tell Reese and Jay? Will she force me to call the police? She should. At least I think she should. My mind is still a frazzle of delight and confusion about Benson. About Quinn. Little details like when and where don’t seem to register.

  “In public?”

  I nod instantly, hoping she doesn’t sense the lie, the betrayal.

  “So, then,” Elizabeth begins, and she’s speaking slowly, like she’s trying to decide what to say next—giving herself those extra few seconds to make up her mind, “what is it exactly that’s attracting you to him? I mean, I’m assuming I can conclude that you’re attracted,” she says with a shade of a laugh, tapping her pen absently against her notepad.

  I force myself to leave Benson behind—to focus on Quinn. Just for a few minutes. “I—I don’t know exactly. He …” I pause, but then the feelings tumble from my lips before I even know what I’m saying. “He makes me feel like a whole new person. I know that doesn’t really make sense, but that’s how it is. He makes me happy that I … exist. At all.” I sound so lame. But even though I recognize that, the emotions pile up further—the ache inside me that I don’t realize is even there until he makes it go away, the way he seems to detach me from the ground, freeing me so I can fly.

  I gulp. Where is this all coming from? I’ve only exchanged a handful of words with him and literally just made out with Benson yesterday.

  It’s almost like I’m two people—one who can’t stop thinking of Benson … one who can’t stop thinking of Quinn. I’m quiet for a long time—minutes, I think—as Elizabeth looks at me intently, twirling her pen. Am I in love with them both? Or am I just exhibiting symptoms of that “socially inappropriate behavior” my neurologists are always going on about?

  “Tavia,” Elizabeth says after a while, setting her legal pad and ballpoint pen on the brown coffee table in front of me, “I get the feeling there’s something you’re not telling me. From the facts you’ve shared, I feel like I should be concerned for your safety. But you don’t seem to share that concern. Is there something you’d like to tell me about this guy?”

  “He’s kind of different,” I say, stalling for time.

  “Is he good-looking?” Elizabeth asks with one eyebrow raised and a girlish lilt to her voice. I can’t help but smile, and maybe blush a little, as I think of his silky blond hair, his pale green eyes.

  That perfect physique.

  Now I’m getting warm.

  I describe him to Elizabeth in general terms: tall, blond, kinda tan. But those parts don’t add up to him. He’s more. Infinitely more. My fingers trace the edges of the table, pulling the pen and legal pad closer. “He has this look to his eyes,” I say, and I barely watch my own fingers as they shape the planes of his face—those dramatic angles that are so unique to Quinn.

  I’m halfway done with the rough sketch before I realize I’m drawing.

  I’m drawing.

  My hands begin to tremble so hard I can’t put the pen back on the paper without making wavy lines. I came here thinking about Benson and now I’m drawing Quinn. Drawing, for the first time since the accident, and—

  I slam the pen down on the table.

  “Tavia.” Elizabeth’s voice is so quiet my ears barely hear her, but my mind latches onto her words like a lifeline, holding tight to stave off the panic that’s threatening to crush me. “It’s okay. It’s just a sketch. A tool to let me know what you saw.”

  I look up at her, awareness dawning in my eyes. She put down her legal pad. Close enough that I could instinctively reach for it. To make me draw without thinking. “You did that on purpose.”

  Her lips hold a ghost of a smile. Her tone is casual—as if we were discussing the decor. “Maybe. Tavia, it’s just a tool. Would you like to finish?”

  Her quiet question calms me. I look back at the rough sketch and do as she asks, though my lines aren’t as true as before. I don’t draw much more, but enough that Elizabeth could probably pick him out of a crowd—or a lineup.

  Enough that I know I can do it.

  “This is amazing, really,” Elizabeth says when I put the pen down. “You have a real gift.”

  I shrug.

  “He must be someone very special to break through your artist’s block like that,” she adds in a soft voice. “What’s his name?”

  “Quinn. Quinn Avery.” It’s the first time I’ve said his full name aloud and it echoes in my head, setting off a mass of tingles in my brain, like static electricity trying to escape.

  Elizabeth nods. “So you’ve spoken to him. That’s reassuring.”

  “There’s … there’s actually something else,” I say, suddenly desperate to not talk about Quinn anymore. Part of me wants to change the subject to Benson—to get Elizabeth’s advice about him. But how would that look? Not going there.

  “I think … I think I’m seeing things,” I force myself to say before the terror can seal my throat.

  Elizabeth leans forward. “What kind of things?”

  I meet her eyes. “Triangles.”

  Her head tilts ever so slightly to the side, but she doesn’t break eye contact. “Triangles?”

  “On his house,” I add, trying not to sound completely insane. I don’t want her to tell me that triangles are everywhere. These triangles are different. “There was a triangle over the door of the house where I first saw Quinn.”

  “Have you seen that triangle again?”

  “On another house. Down on Fifth Street—in the old section of town. I like to take walks there. I didn’t notice it at the time, but I found it later in a picture I took.”

  “Can you show me?”

  I nod and pull out my phone. When I reach the right photo, I zoom in on the white wood above the door and point. “There,” I whisper.

  Elizabeth looks, squints, looks again. She doesn’t say anything, but I can tell she doesn’t see it. My hearts slides into my stomach and I want to crumple into the couch.

  After zooming in and out a couple times, Elizabeth hands the phone back. “Why didn’t you want to tell me before?”

  “I was afraid,” I admit in a whisper.

  “Afraid of what?”

  “That you would say I was crazy. Or worse, that I needed to go back to the neurologist.” There’s a long hush, then I rush on. “After everything that’s happened, you would think that would be the least of my worries. But when it feels like nothing else in my body works, at least I’m still sane and if—if you take that away …” I can’t finish. There are no words for the darkness that losing my mind represents.

  The darkness that feels like it’s looming, waiting to devour me.

  “I don’t think you’re crazy,” Elizabeth says gently, but with a firmness that tells me she’s telling the truth. Or, at the very least, that she thinks she’s telling the truth. “You’ve made so much progress lately that I’ve actually been expecting you to start experiencing some … some changes.”

  “What do you mean, changes?” Like my pockets of infinite ChapStick? Should I tell her about that too?

  But even as I think it, I know I can’t. Seeing things? Well, that can be explained. Hallucinat
ions are an ordinary side effect of traumatic brain injury. Magic pockets are not.

  “I want to continue to explore some of these things. Quinn, the triangles,” she says, not really answering my question. “And Tavia, you might have more strange things happen. Unexplainable things. And that’s okay. Just know that you can trust me and that I’ll do my best to get your life back on track. That’s what I’m here for.”

  I nod, but I don’t mean it. It’s not that I don’t trust her; it’s just that this is too big, too impossible. Maybe after I figure it out—when I can explain myself before she has me committed.

  Or arrested.

  What do you do with people who can magically pull lip balm from their pockets?

  “Do you think maybe you’ll draw anything else before our next appointment?” Elizabeth asks, sounding light and casual; but we both know we’re walking on thin ice with my artist’s block and if she pushes too hard, it’ll break. I’ll break.

  “Maybe,” I mumble, not willing to commit to more than that.

  “Well, do you mind if I keep this picture until our next session?” Elizabeth asks, pulling me out of my thoughts.

  She holds up the drawing and a zing of jealous possession rushes through me. I suppress the urge to snatch the drawing back, take a breath, and remind myself that if I managed to draw one, I can draw another. Or ten. Or a hundred.

  Besides, it’s only a couple of days.

  So then why does my heart ache like it’s gone forever? Like he’s gone forever?

  CHAPTER TEN

  It’s pouring by the time our session is done. Elizabeth offers me a ride, but I turn it down. I have a lot to mull over—a walk in the rain is just what I need. And I managed to have the foresight to wear an actual raincoat today instead of my usual hoodie; I’ll stay dry enough. Elizabeth tries to insist—says I’ll get too cold. But she finally lets me go when I tell her I’m just heading to the library.

  When I reach the curb of the parking lot, I look up and barely catch sight of a man half hidden by a bush. He’s leaning casually against one of the buildings across the street from Elizabeth’s office plaza and doesn’t seem to have seen me yet. But he looks familiar.