“It looked like a… speakeasy. You know, those illegal bars in the twenties?” She nods, looking more frightened with my every word. “It was you and me talking about-”
“Tristan and someone named Adrian. Yup, got that. Seriously, what are you? Some kind of psychic? I had a dream just like this. Last night, I dreamt that you and Tristan were sitting at an old kitchen table- with me- eating corn. What the hell?! That is not a coincidence!” she cries, tears forming in her eyes.
I climb to my feet, carefully avoiding smacking my head on the sink. “Sorren, don’t. We’re obviously supposed to work it out together-”
“How do you know? If you’re supposedly just as confused as I am, how do you know this isn’t some sort of freaky ghost telepathic thing…” she cuts herself off, looking aggravated.
Just then, a girl walks into the bathroom. I catch her eye and she smiles, mouth full of red rubber bands. It’s the smiling girl from my English class, from the back row. I smile back, but it’s contrived and she knows it. A look of confusion passes over her face as she looks at Sorren’s crying form and my shaking hands. Without a word, she walks back into the hallway, sending me a silent “hope everything’s okay” look with her eyes.
“Look, this obviously isn’t the place to chat about this. Why don’t we get together after school and talk then?”
She scoffs. “You’re seriously going to walk through the halls and act like none of that even happened? Do you not feel anything? I’m legit about to piss myself right now!”
That caught me off guard. I’ve never thought of myself as unfeeling. It’s sort of ironic, actually.
“Do you want me to take you to the nurse? Maybe she’ll send you home?” I ask, attempting to act like I wasn’t seriously shocked by her accusation.
“Hell no, I’m not going anywhere without you. Right now, I know you’re as crazy as me. So either you ditch with me willingly or I will rip this mirror off the wall, smash it and we’ll both get in school suspension. Either way, you’re explaining this. Now,” she says, trying to look rough and tough but the tears flowing from her eyes admit how afraid she still is.
“Okay. We just walk out?” I ask, unsure of how to proceed. I don’t want to make a bad impression with my semi-new teachers, and ditching barely a month into their classes is a horrible idea. But I want to know what’s going on as much, if not more so, than Sorren does.
“If you want, call your parents and have them give their permission to let you leave. The principal will let you do that, if you say you’re not feeling well. And that wouldn’t be a hard lie to pull off, ‘cause you’re kind of green, Kath,” she says.
The nickname surprises me, and apparently her, too. But I take her advice and call Rachel, telling her I don’t really feel well and that I’m coming home after fourth period. I feel bad about lying to her, because I’m really leaving right now, barely second period, but there’s more important matters on my hands.
We get in Sorren’s car and I send a quick message to Tristan, my fingers fumbling with the keys. I hate text messaging.
Skipping rest of day. I’m fine. Call me when you’re out of your last class.
I figure he’ll check his phone during the class change, so I plop it back in my pocket, not wanting to be tempted to ask him to skip with us. School is important to him and skipping would dig at his conscience. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself. Part of me knows this vision ends badly, although I don’t know how. And I want Sorren and me to figure it out before we involve Tristan.
“Okay, so what do you know that you’re not telling me?” Sorren asks after she orders two coffees from the Starbucks drive-through window. I had asked her why bother stopping for coffee, and she said she needs some extra energy.
I debate telling her about my encounter with God, but honestly, feel very protective of it. I don’t even know this girl, but my heart is telling me I can trust her. However, my stomach is churning.
“I’m going to keep this brief, because it isn’t something I share with strangers, okay? I need you to believe me when I tell you that I’m not lying. This won’t make any sense to you if you don’t trust me,” I say, voice taking on a serious tone.
“I’m pretty sure I’ll believe anything at this point, Kath,” she says, laughing once.
So I tell her the very basics of my story, hoping it will be enough to calm her a bit.
“Let me make sure I got everything: you died, you somehow came back to life. But what does Tristan have to do with that?” she asks the one question I don’t want to answer.
“Tristan and I… have a history together,” which isn’t all together untrue. It’s very vague, yes, but not untrue.
She scoffs. “I’ve known that boy since we were in diapers and he’s never said a word about you before. I’ve been in New York for the past two weeks, I come home and here you are, staple gunned to his side and he’s nothing like he was before he left. I don’t know exactly what there is between you two, but I think you need to tell me.”
I feel a surge of defiance and the words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. “Look, I don’t need to tell you anything I don’t want to tell you. You think I have your answers but I don’t have them all, and some you have no right knowing!”
Sorren looks somewhat impressed. “I took you as the pushover type, Kath. Looks like nothing is impossible,” she laughs to herself.
“So you think God had something to do with what we saw today?” Sorren continues, sounding skeptical.
“Well… yeah. He has something to do with everything, but what we saw gave me the same feeling that I had when I”- I was going to say “when I saw Tristan in my vision,” but I caught myself.
“When you what?”
“When I came back to life,” I fill in, absentmindedly touching my wrists. Remembering.
“I’ll be honest here, sweetheart, I’m not feelin’ it,” she says, sipping her iced coffee.
“You don’t believe me? Or you don’t believe in God?” I ask, feeling uncomfortable.
“I don’t know what I believe in anymore. But I can’t deny that our little vision thing freaked me the hell out.”
“Do you think it was real? Like Him showing us something that happened to us in the past? Maybe they were our relatives or something,” I say, my inquisitive side becoming frustrated and even more curious.
“Now I’m second guessing if you saw what I did. If you think for a second that it wasn’t us in that vision, you’re insane. They’d have to be our twins,” she says, pulling onto the somewhat busy street.
“I’m just taking a shot in the dark here, Sorren! What do you think it was?” I exclaim, exasperated.
“How the hell should I know? You’re the friggin’ prodigy over there!”
I roll my eyes, but strangely feel the urge to laugh. Really laugh. I feel calm about the entire situation, which leads me to believe that God is telling me not to fret over it. But why would he show us that if we weren’t meant to figure it out? Maybe the answer is right in front of us, and we just don’t see it. Maybe we’re too blind to know what and who we truly are, which is a major fault of humanity. Divine intervention opened my eyes, but we should all be able to see our true potential on our own.
“Hello? You awake over there?” a sarcastic voice asks, shocked to see that we were parked in front of Rachel’s house.
“How did you know where I live?” I ask, shocked.
She winks. “I have my ways. But gossip gets around and believe me when I say the rumor mill spun when it heard that Miss. Rachel was gettin’ a kid.”
I felt the sudden temptation to ask her to come in, to hang out like any normal teenagers skipping school would. Sure, Rachel might be pissed if she found out, but then again she may be happy to see me “adjusting.”
“Do you want to come inside?” I ask, my voice hitching at the end, embarrassingly enough.
“It depends if you have a bathroom, because I really need to use one,” she laughs
.
I roll my eyes jokingly. “No, Sorren. We pee in the woods.”
She laughs, snorting as she does so. “I think you and I are gonna be great friends,” she says, slamming the car door behind her.
Chapter 11
Sorren and I spent the rest of the day chatting in the living room about seemingly insignificant things. However, our conversation was anything but. It was like I could feel my wounds being sewed together again; the veins that were ripped apart by betrayal and abuse had already been patched up thanks to Tristan and Aunt Rachel, in an astounding amount of time. But with Sorren, I had the one thing I’ve always dreamed of but never been good enough to have. A friend.
Sure, lots of therapists and doctors have used the word to cajole me into a happier state of mind, but I’ve never known the meaning of the word until today. It’s as if our souls are connected, helping us bond and forget about everything but petty teenage drama. I never in a million years thought that my scars and wounds could be healed so quickly, but it goes to show you that anything is possible when you’re surrounded by people who so obviously care about you.
When my phone chimes at twelve o’clock, just after the fourth period bell would have rang, I would have ignored it if not for the contact name on the little glowing screen.
“Hi,” I say, wiping the tears from underneath my eyes. We had been laughing at a story Sorren told, but my tears are filled with many different emotions, all of which are just as they should be.
“Katie, where are you? Are you alright?” Tristan asked, sounding disturbed.
I frown, the bubble of ignorance that had surrounded me popping. It was nice to ignore my problems for one afternoon, but a mystery still remains and it’s as haunting as ever.
“Tristan, I’m fine. Sorren and I are at my house, just talking. I think that, maybe, you should come over instead of me having to explain this over the phone,” I say, headache ensuing.
“Your house with Sorren?” He says, sounding baffled.
I smile, but when I remember that he can’t see me, I stop, feeling stupid. “Yeah, she’s right next to me.”
He took that as a cue to not say anything deprecating, and instead of asking further questions like I predicted he would, he informs me that he’ll be over in ten minutes.
“You ever heard of the word ‘codependent?’” Sorren asks, dead serious.
“Yeah, and it doesn’t apply to Tristan and I so don’t even say so,” I refute.
“You two are the talk of the school right now. How you never go anywhere without the other, how you spend every second of every day together, yadda yadda yadda,” she makes hand gestures as she speaks, trying to prove her point.
“First of all, basically the entire student body has been overseas for the entire time I’ve known Tristan. How would they know how we act outside of school? Which, by the way, we aren’t with each other ‘every second of every day,’” I say, which is true. Minus the past few days, we’ve only ever seen one another in school.
“Okay. I believe you over those gossiping lemmings I’ve had to tolerate for almost my entire life. I have a question, though. How did you meet him?”
That’s an easy one. “The first day of school. I didn’t see you that day.”
She nods, seemingly thinking about something. “You met the first day of school and you’re already this serious about him?” she asks, raising one pierced eyebrow. “Do you even know about his life? What he’s been through?”
This makes my temper flare, which is ridiculous because there’s no way she could possibly understand our situation. “Our relationship isn’t serious. I don’t even know what to call it; we haven’t put a name to what we are. And yes, I do know about his life, actually. Where have you been for the past two years?” I ask the last question carefully, with just enough venom to let her know I want a serious, legit answer.
“Yeah, Sorren. Where have you been for the past two years?” asks a beautiful voice from behind me.
The atmosphere seems to buzz with electricity, but not the awkward kind. Not the normal kind you’d feel in a situation like this. It’s a whirring that you can almost physically see rippling across the stale air of the air conditioned house, and it feels almost supernatural.
Sorren’s eyes widen before she regains her composure. “Where should I have been, Trist? You weren’t you anymore,” she says, voice devoid of any hostility or anger. In fact, she sounds desperate.
“If you had answered my letters you’d have known that I was myself again!” he exclaims, and it’s the first time I’ve ever heard him raise his voice.
I sit on the couch, sinking into the cushions as they stare at one another, each one refusing to break the heavy silence. I’m about to draw attention to the buzzing atmosphere when suddenly, Sorren stands up and runs across the tiny room to Tristan, hugging him the way a little girl would hug her father after a bad day at school.
Tristan looks directly into my eyes before returning the hug. I look at my hands, playing with my fingers in my lap, tracing the ugly scars on my wrists that seem to fade a little more each day. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I feel a twinge of jealousy and subtle defensiveness towards Sorren for so blatantly embracing Tristan, but I shake off the ridiculous feeling.
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry I wasn’t there for you. You were just so… mean,” Sorren says, and I realize she’s crying. She’s a thick-skinned person, not the crying type; for her to break down twice in one day must be a record.
“I’m sorry. I told you that in every letter I sent you, but I just stopped writing after a while. I feel like everything I did, everything I said, never happened,” he says in a quiet voice.
“Well it did. And you were a dick for a long time,” Sorren says, pulling away. “But I miss you. You, not that other guy who wigged out before disappearing for two years.”
“Why didn’t you open my letters? You were that angry with me?” he asks.
Sorren wipes her nose, and I stand before walking down the hallway into the bathroom. I feel like I was seriously encroaching on a heart-to-heart conversation between two long lost friends, and I used any excuse I could to leave the room. Dampening a cloth with cool water, I take it and a handful of tissues to Sorren, handing them to her before going into the kitchen. Everything seems to be moving in slow motion.
Tristan grabs my hand as I pass, preventing me from leaving. He must see something in my expression, because his face turns shocked.
“Katherine? Katherine?” he says, shaking my shoulders gently but firmly.
My head starts swaying, and the buzzing in the atmosphere becomes annoyingly loud. My vision blurs and I can tell I’m about to lose consciousness. Tristan scoops me up with ease and carries me over to the couch, laying my head in his lap, pushing my hair back and pressing the damp cloth I had gotten for Sorren to my forehead. She stands over me with a frightened expression.
“Shit, is she gonna pass out?” Sorren asks, her voice echoing in my head like she yelled her words into the Grand Canyon.
“She better not. Can you grab her some water?” the words reverberate, crashing against my skull in a painful cadence.
“Sweetheart, look at me. Do you want me to take you to the hospital?” Tristan asks, dabbing cool water on my face with his hands.
My eyes flutter and I think I hear a voice and see faces but I’m not sure because everything is swaying and all I can think is “I’m scared.” Tristan presses his lips to my forehead and the pain and fear and dizzying blurriness halts immediately.
“Woah, that was beyond strange,” I say, blinking repeatedly as Tristan leans back, giving me space to breathe. I go to sit up, but he pushes me down.
“Katie, I think you should lie down. I don’t mind being your pillow,” he smiles sweetly, but I can see the worry in his blue eyes.
“I think she’s had her full of craziness today, Tristan. Why don’t we let her stay here and you and I can go outside. I’ll explain everything to him, Kath,” S
orren says, patting my knee.
“You really think leaving her alone right now is a good idea?” Tristan asks rhetorically.
“No, I feel fine now. Honestly, Tristan. I wouldn’t lie to you,” I say, sitting up. Instead of lingering pain or fatigue, I’m refreshed and more awake than I was before this dramatic little episode. “Can you explain everything, Sorren? I’m going to go… wash my face.” My excuse is silly, but I know that with Tristan here I won’t be able to hold in my speculations about the vision with Sorren.
“Do you need help walking there? I can stay with you,” Tristan offers, helping me up by taking both of my hands in a steady grip.
“No, I’m alright. Really, Tristan, don’t worry about me,” I smile, squeezing his hands.
“I’ll always worry about you,” he says, and I get locked in his gaze like some cliché heroin in a romance novel.
Sorren clears her throat theatrically loud and I pull my hands away from Tristan’s, heading to the bathroom. I hear them walk out the front door and I splash my face with cool water and stare at my reflection.
Two months ago, I’d have cringed. I would’ve stared at the blonde-haired green-eyed girl in the mirror and thought, “Who are you?” I would’ve despised my few freckles dotting my nose, which my old boyfriend made fun of so often. My eyes would’ve welled up with tears thinking of the taunts from the girls at school about my slightly crooked bottom teeth and tiny spots of acne.
A lot can happen in two months. As I look in the mirror, I still think “Who are you?” but I think it with curiosity. Inquisitiveness as to who I will become, and what I am capable of. Bouts of insecurity and fear and loneliness and regret still harbor places in my mending heart, but today, my green eyes brighten with the knowledge that I’m not alone anymore.
A figure moves behind me in the mirror, and I see the heavenly blue eyes I was blessed to have sent to me. His arms wrap around my waist and his chin rests on my shoulder, cheek touching mine. The stance and embrace is intimate, but instead of being seductive, it’s comforting and innocent.
Pieces of a Mending Heart Page 12