I nod, unable to speak. The other man approaches me and stands a few feet behind the other.
“Zach, I am CIA agent Harris and this is agent Brooks. How are you doing this evening?”
“Uh—ok—uh…” I stammer.
Agent Harris pulls out a wallet and shows me a badge; Brooks does the same. My legs are wobbly beneath me and I think I might faint.
“Would you come with us please?”
“Why? I mean, are you arresting me? I need to call my mom—”
Harris takes me by the arm. “Nothing to worry about son. Your mother has already been notified.”
Notified? Of what?
“What’s this about?” I ask, though I already know the answer. I pat my cell phone in my pocket, thinking I should call 911. But then, these guys are probably a little higher on the food chain than the local authorities. In fact, they’ve probably already notified them, too. My stomach churns and I think I might throw up.
I lean over to heave.
“It’s ok, we just have a few questions for you…” Agent Harris says, leading me to the car. I sit down willingly, mainly to keep myself from falling over. The door shuts.
As we pull from the parking lot, I see another car pull in beside mine. A girl gets out and in my distraught fog of confusion, it takes me a few seconds to realize that it’s Tess as the headlights flash briefly on her face. And even though I am scared out of my mind at the moment, inside my heart flips with joy. She came. She glances at us as we drive past. I press my hand to the glass, knowing she can’t see me through the tinted windows. But hoping she can feel my gesture in her heart.
Tess
I feel like a blast of wicked air has pummeled me. I am out of my car, but my feet cannot move. My heart pounds with panic, thinking I should really get in my car and get the heck out of here. But I am frozen and my mind is skipping like an old record. Zach in a car, strange people driving, away. Who are these people and what is going on? I fall against the door of my car and confusion and fear wells up inside me, seizing my throat like gloved hand as I watch the taillights fade and feather out into nothing. I look at the sky, the moon intermittently appearing among the darkening clouds. In the distance, a flicker. Soon, a storm will come. The lightning will rise up and consume the sky. Rain will blur everything and yet, one thing will be washed clean and surface. The truth.
Nothing in this world as we know it is ever permanent, save what happens above and beyond time. Love. Love is permanent. Love is ours.
When these words appear in my mind—words that are not really mine, yet familiar—I hear Zach’s voice—the comforting, beautiful sound of the one who has been by my side every minute of my life, it seems. This, I know, will never change.
And I get in my car and drive away. The dream—our dream—you see, is real, and someday, through time and space, we will live it.
About the Author:
Melissa Green Dereberry is an award-winning author whose work has appeared in Common Boundary, American Literary Realism, The Quest, Midwest Poetry Review, and Writer’s Journal. She is the author of an instructional guide on the novel The Outsiders. Her first novel, Somewhere Like Here, a literary mystery, was published in 2012. Her awards include the Springfield Writer’s Guild Grand Prize (1998), the Johnson Memorial Grand Prize Award—League of Minnesota Poets (2003), the William Stafford Award—Washington Poets Association (2009), and the Writer’s Journal poetry contest (2011). She is currently a lecturer in the English and Technical Communication Department at Missouri University of Science & Technology.
Surfacing (Spark Saga) Page 17