Walking down the length of it, he ran his hand along the siding to balance himself in case he tripped over something in the dark. Standing to the side of what he thought was Zellie’s bedroom window; he tapped his fingers on the glass.
Someone was shaking me. “Zellie, wake up!” Melody whispered, “Avery’s at the window.”
“What?” I opened my eyes. I was clutching my belly. I’d been dreaming his vision.
“Avery’s at the window, Zel. He wants to talk to you.” Melody backed away and pointed outside. Avery waved at me.
I got up and opened the window. “Hey,” I said, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. God, I must look horrible! Not to mention the fact that I was wearing my Minnie Mouse night shirt. The embarrassment, it seemed, would never end.
He stuck his head into the room and gave me a quick kiss on the mouth. “Hey, can you come with me somewhere?”
I looked at Melody sitting on her bed watching us like we were in a movie. “Right now?” I wanted nothing more than to go with him, but I was also afraid of getting grounded for the rest of my life.
Avery looked to Melody. “You’re not going to say anything, are you Mel?”
“Not if Zellie gives me her allowance for the next two weeks, I won’t.” Melody spit on her hand and stuck it out to me.
I spit on my hand and shook Melody’s. “Deal.”
The excitement of what I was about to do was thrilling. I grabbed a pair of jeans from the closet and pulled them on under my night shirt. I debated for about two seconds whether I should put a bra on, but decided I couldn’t be incognito enough to get it on with Avery standing right there. I was thankful for my nice little B-cups for once in my life. I slipped on my flip flops and then went to the window, trying to figure out the best way to climb through it without making too much noise.
Avery held the window all the way up while I stepped up onto my and Melody’s desk. I slung my leg over the sill and ducked under the window pane. He put his arms around my waist, helping me out the rest of the way.
I let the window slide closed with a soft thud and mouthed “thanks” to Melody. Avery took my hand and led me around the side of the house down the driveway to where his bike was. “I’m sorry I didn’t meet you at the lake, my dad made me help him stain the deck.”
I smiled. It was a relief to know that I wasn’t the only one whose parents forced them to do chores. I think Claire would have to look the definition of chores up in the dictionary. “Yeah, well I was in weeding hell all afternoon and couldn’t get away either.” I put my arms around his waist, hugging him to me. “You’re here now and that’s all that matters. So, where are we going?”
Avery took my hands from around his waist. “Let’s walk over to the park across the street. I have some things I need to talk to you about.” He took hold of my hand and started walking.
This couldn’t be good. Had he decided that I was a dork after all? Had he realized that I was not worth his time? Was I too freakishly tall? Melody said guys didn’t like it when you were the same height as them. Did I not know how to gauge his feelings at all? No. I knew him. I already knew him. It had to be something besides me that was getting in the way of us.
We sat down on a bench underneath a street light. I could hear the water spilling from one level to the next in the fountain behind us. If what he was going to tell me was really bad I could always go drown myself in it. Let the cherubs take me down.
Avery turned to me, still holding my hand. “My dad doesn’t want me to start seeing you. He says that it’s for my own good, to keep me safe. Do you have any idea why he would say that?”
My hands began to tremble. Before I was kinda kidding about the fountain, but now maybe not. I’d been with Avery not even two whole days and now his dad was making him break up with me? And was he going to obey him and do it? “So your dad knows about us? What did you tell him?”
“I didn’t tell him anything. He saw us both coming into church late and put two and two together I guess.” Avery scooted closer, wrapping his arms around me to quiet the trembling that was taking over my body.
I searched his eyes, he was telling the truth. Of course he was. This was something our parents were doing to us. Avery still wanted to be with me. “My mom must know too, that’s why she kept me from meeting you today. I honestly don’t know why they would be trying to keep us apart.”
He nodded. “You know they were engaged? Your mom and my dad?”
“Yeah, but for like a minute.” Could that be why? That didn’t seem fair at all and it was so long ago. I shook my head. “They were high school sweethearts. My mom said they broke up when she went away to school in St. Louis. They’ve been over for more than twenty years. You don’t think that has anything to do with us, do you?”
“I don’t know.” Avery shrugged. “It just seems like the most logical explanation.” His eyes grew wide and he loosened his grip on me just slightly. “Hey, you don’t think we’re, like, related or something?”
“No! Gross!” I slapped him on the chest. “There is no way that’s what’s going on. Yuck, I can’t believe you said that!” Okay, it had crossed my mind for like a nanosecond, but I didn’t want to have to change my firm “no” stance on incest, so I’d let it go. Too skeevy. I tried to pull away from him, but he just pulled me closer, laughing.
“Our moms were best friends too,” he said. I’ve seen a picture of them with my dad and Jason’s standing in front of your mom’s old house before their prom. Maybe it has something to do with them not being friends anymore?”
“Maybe.” I chewed my lower lip. This was something Claire and I had debated several times. “Do you know why they don’t like each other? I mean, they were as close as me and Claire and I can’t imagine us not being friends.”
Avery looked up at the street light. “I think it might have something to do with my sister.” His eyes met mine, his face somber now. “Did you know that? That I had an older sister? Her name was Erin. My family never talks about it.”
“No, I’ve never heard any mention of her.” That surprised me, not that I knew everything about Avery, but Rosedell was a pretty tight community, surely I would have heard about him having a sister? Something really bad must have happened— Oh. The now familiar smell of pine began tickling my nose. “What happened to her?” I asked, not really needing to. Images of a baby girl, sprawled out on a hospital bed, tubes running up her nose and into her arms, flashed through my mind.
“She had leukemia.” His eyes filled with tears and he looked away. “Actually, my parents partly had me because my bone marrow maybe would’ve helped her. She didn’t…she died before I was old enough for it to be harvested.”
This was the thing that Avery lived with. I was realizing his life wasn’t as perfect as I’d always thought. Of course it wasn’t. He could be beautiful, do well in school, be on every sports team, but he was born to save his sister and he thought he had failed at that.
Avery wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, facing me again. “Anyway, this one time after church? We were like, nine, I guess? I saw our moms having an argument over by the coat closet. Your mom kept trying to hug my mom, but she pushed her away. They were both crying. Then I heard my mom say Erin’s name and your mom say she was sorry.”
I turned in Avery’s embrace, resting my head against his chest. “I’m sorry that happened to you. All of it. I don’t know what my mom’s deal was. Both of her parents died when she was our age and she can’t…she probably wasn’t there for your mom like she should’ve been.”
Or she’d known what was going to happen and didn’t say anything.
Mom always had the right answer in the game. It wasn’t a parlor trick; she wasn’t reading my mind, she was checking out my vision. She was like me, or I guess, I was like her. I felt a little relieved, knowing now that at least one person would believe my secret.
Guilt stepped on the back of relief’s heels. Of course, Mom had royally screwed things up and broke he
r best friend’s heart. I couldn’t do that to Avery.
I had to get this over with and tell him. Holding back the vision from him, it was the wrong thing to do. “I have something to tell you. Kiss me first.”
Avery took my face into his hands and pressed his mouth to mine, sliding his tongue between my lips. It was the most wonderful sensation. I tried to block out all the thoughts that were scratching at my brain and let myself go, relish the moment.
That worked for about no minutes. I kissed Avery more fervently and let the thoughts in. Could I live without him? I didn’t want to, especially now that I knew what this was like. To have to stop touching him, I would go insane with need. So, then, how was I going to tell him about the vision? I had no way of proving any of it was real. Even if I was right about Mom, it wasn’t like she was going to back me up and tell Avery the truth so I could keep making out with him.
I gave us each a second to catch our breath and then went back at him. I needed more time to think, which was not the easiest thing to do with a beautiful boy’s beautiful mouth beautifully moving down…to review: Didn’t want to live without him, needed him, wanted him, had to tell him, no help from anyone. Conclusion: He was going to think I was crazy and break up with me like his dad wanted him to.
I ran my hands through his hair, concentrating, just in case I needed to remember the feel of it should I become a boyfriendless loser again. It was silky soft, tickling the spaces between my fingers.
Ugh! Stupid Mom and her stupid hereditary visions. Was Melody going to get them too? Holy Christ on a cracker, the moral implications of Mel seeing the future were frightening. And Dad, I didn’t have a clue if Dad knew anything.
I hadn’t fully thought any of this out. What if there was more to this than I knew? I needed to talk to Mom first before I say anything to Avery. It couldn’t hurt to learn from her mistakes. Right? That could also be the right thing to do.
My most dangerous and defeating thought finally wormed itself into my brain. The Avery vision wasn’t going to happen for years and years. Tonight he was a hot fifteen-year-old boy with his arms around me in an embrace I never wanted to end. I had time to figure things out, time to develop a plan. At some point in the future I could be strong. Right now, I wanted to be kissed.
Avery ended the kiss, resting his forehead against mine, his eyes closed. “What did you want to tell me?”
I brushed my lips back and forth across his. I wasn’t ready yet, I needed to find out more about the vision before I could give him up. “I wanted to tell you that no one, not my mom or your dad, can come between us. We’re just going to have to be more careful when we’re around each other.”
I kissed him hard again, longing to feel my whole body electric. He responded, lying back on the bench and pulling me on top of him, grasping the back of my neck and pushing his tongue into my mouth.
Clearing my worries from my mind, I finally let myself savor the moment. I was losing control, my body taking over and I loved it. Without hesitation I sat up, straddling him, and yanked my nightshirt off.
Avery put his hands up to say stop, but then, as if he knew he was defeated, he reached out and brought me back down to him. I kissed his neck, my hands on his chest, pausing only to help push his shirt off over his head.
Amazingly I didn’t hyperventilate; I was too busy feeling his bare skin against mine to even bother looking at him. I had wasted enough moments looking. He moved his hands down my back and grabbed my rear end.
For a second I considered stopping and telling him that I needed to go home, that I didn’t know what I was doing out here half naked on a park bench. That I was sure I was going to hell for all of the things I wanted to do to him. But it felt so good.
The headlights from a passing car flashed over us.
“Whoa!” Avery clamped his arms around me. We lie there nose to nose, looking at each other.
I totally got the giggles. “Are you trying to shield me?”
He grinned. “Um, don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you don’t have a shirt on.”
I pulled away and slapped him on the chest. “You don’t either!”
He grabbed my wrist, pulling me down. He kissed me, getting back into it, then he stopped abruptly and in a strained voice said, “We gotta go home Zel, or we’re liable to get ourselves arrested for public indecency.”
I got up, stumbling a little, and picked my nightshirt up off the ground, “I can’t believe I’m going to say this,” I said as I shook the dust from my shirt and put it on, “but it was just about to get a lot more indecent out here.”
Avery stood, putting his shirt on and pulling it down in front. “Yeah, we gotta go home right now.”
The next morning I lay in bed, getting my nerve up. I heard Mom shuffle down the hallway and go into the kitchen. Melody and Dad were still asleep. Now was my chance. I quietly got up and checked myself out in the mirror. I didn’t see any signs of hickies or puffy lips. Crud! My nightshirt was on inside out. That would not have been good. I turned it right side out. Okay. I was ready.
Mom was making coffee. I went to the fridge and got out the orange juice. “Morning,” I said.
She yawned, covering her mouth with her hand. “Morning, Zel. How’d you sleep?”
I poured a small glass of juice. “Pretty good. Although, y’know, I keep having this crazy dream about how Avery Adams is going to die.” Might as well get down to it. “Um, it takes place in the future…and I’m also pregnant in it.” I gulped down the juice and poured another glass.
Mom put her hands out, bracing herself against the countertop. She exhaled and then took a deep breath in.
I concentrated on the Last Supper magnet holding the church newsletter to the fridge. “Don’t worry though,” I assured her, “I think we’re married. So, um, the baby…” I put the orange juice back in the fridge and turned to look at her. “Please say something.”
Instead of saying anything, she went down the hall to her bedroom and came back into the kitchen holding some folded up pieces of green paper. She handed them to me. “Everything I know about this is in that letter. Quick, read it before your dad and Melody wake up.”
I sat down at the kitchen table. Mom hovered over my shoulder, reading the letter with me.
Dear Gracie,
I want to start by telling you that I’m sorry honey and I hope you can someday forgive me for what I have done.
There are many things that you do not know about me. Things that have led me to make the decision to take my own life.
Everything I’m about to tell you is true. All that I ask is that you read this letter and keep it in the back of your mind.
Growing up, I always knew that I was different. I could sense things. Sometimes silly things, like knowing what all of my Christmas presents were even though they were wrapped. Sometimes horrible things like knowing the exact night that our neighbors, the Bucks, house would burn to the ground.
I kept my feelings to myself. Many times I thought that maybe I was crazy.
After the Bucks’ house burned (I was thirteen at the time) and the whole family perished in the fire, the guilt that I could have warned them overtook me.
I vowed from that point on to trust my feelings and do whatever I could to stop any other tragedies from occurring.
One afternoon I sat on the banks of the lake for several hours. I had an overwhelming feeling that a small child was going to drown. Sure enough, around four o’clock as my eyes scanned the lake, I saw Alexander Bitman go under the water and not come back up. I alerted the lifeguard on duty, who rescued Alexander. I never doubted my abilities again.
This next part of my story you have heard bits and pieces of over the years, but this is the whole truth.
In July, the summer after I graduated from Rosedell High, I went to a party at my friend Edna’s house. Edna’s boyfriend Ron brought your dad to the party. He was a new face in town, a young lawyer from Portland that Ron had convinced to move to Rosedell and open u
p a law practice with him.
I was immediately drawn to your father. He was such a smart handsome man. That night after spending just a few hours talking to him, I knew that I would fall in love with him and marry him. For me Gracie, it was not just love at first sight like your father and I always joked about. I felt the connection between us. I knew that he was the one I was meant to be with.
About a month after we met, your dad and I were standing outside of Wechsler’s Drugstore. As he leaned in to kiss me I was overwhelmed by the smell of rain. Then I had a vision of his death. I saw it as plain as day. He was older and lying in the grass next to a red rose bush in front of a yellow house. He clutched his chest with his left hand, a gold wedding band on his ring finger. I came running from the house, older too, the screen door slamming behind me.
Although the visions were new to me, I dealt with them the same way that I did with my other abilities. I never told your father that I had seen his death. I thought that I could change the course of the future by altering little things. I made sure that we never lived in a yellow house. I never planted red rose bushes. I even acted like I thought screen doors were the most hideous things on earth! Our wedding bands are silver. But, you know the end of this story. He died anyway, lying in the front yard clutching his chest. There was nothing about that part of the vision that I could change.
The strange thing was, after I had that first vision of your father, I started having visions of things that happened to other people. I was able to save them without fail, to the point that, as you know, people grew suspicious of why I was always around when accidents were narrowly averted. I know that this embarrassed you, that folks in town thought I was a little crazy or maybe bad luck. I’m sorry for that too, Gracie, but it feels good to finally let you know that I was saving their lives.
Why then couldn’t I save your father’s life? It is a question that has plagued me these two months since his death. After much contemplation I have come to some conclusions:
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