Run to You Part One: First Sight

by Clara Kensie

  I managed to get a third of the way around before he caught up with me again. “I’m impressed,” he said, and swiped the hat back. “If you beat me to the starting point, I’ll let you keep this.” He shot off again.

  That was all the inspiration I needed. I soared down the path, dodging the other joggers. Soon I outpaced him. Five strides later, I ran next to him. He whooped with surprise.

  I didn’t waste time grabbing the hat—that would just slow me down. We ran together. As he sped up, I matched his pace. My breath came easily. I was made for this. It was euphoric. I was flying.

  The finish line approached. With a final burst of effort, I bolted ahead, finishing a full pace ahead of Tristan.

  He’d probably slowed at the last second to let me win, but I didn’t care. I’d run faster than I’d ever run in my life. Together we collapsed to the grass, gulping in air. “It’s all the...cheeseburgers...and junk food you eat,” I gasped between breaths. “That was...your downfall.”

  He took his hat off as he caught his breath. “Your prize,” he said, and slid it on my head. He was right on top of me, gazing into my eyes, his lips inches from mine.

  I stopped breathing.

  He leaned closer, another inch.

  Yes, please.

  He stopped. Smiled. Sat up.

  “Come on, Clockwise.” He stood and pulled me up. “One more time around. Slow. We need to cool off.”

  Chapter Nine

  The clock ticked past midnight, but I was wide awake as I lay in bed that night.

  I’d almost kissed Tristan today.

  Was Tristan awake too, thinking about our almost-kiss?

  Even if he was, he’d be getting it wrong. He’d be thinking, I almost kissed Sarah today.

  That was too painful to think about, so I encased the image in a cloud of fog and locked it up, and replaced it with something else: Jillian’s new ability.

  Just as I was about to go across the hall to talk to her, she glided into my room and sat on my bed. “Pretty cool, huh? My remote vision? Aren’t you excited?”

  “Yeah.” I slid my hands in my sleeves and rubbed my thumbnails into the cuffs. “How’d you do it?”

  She glanced at my closet and directed my laundry to hang itself up. “A couple days ago I was in my room, trying to watch Mom while she was at the store. Dad was in his office. He was watching Mom at the same time I was trying to watch her, and we just...” She slid her palms together. “...connected.”

  “Oh. Cool.” I watched my socks tuck themselves away in the bottom drawer of my dresser. “What’s it like?”

  “The images are warped and the sounds are garbled. Like everything is under water. But I can still see what he’s seeing and hear what he’s hearing. It’s awesome. Mom and Dad are scared I’ll get headaches, though.”

  “Do you?”

  “Nope.” She thrust out her chin. “And I don’t care if I do. Piggybacking is a good first step, but it doesn’t help us. Not at all. I’d going to keep at it until I can do it my own. Without Dad.”

  “You really think you’ll be able to do it?” If anyone could, it would be Jillian. Through sheer force of will.

  “I have to,” she said, rotating the heart charm along her bracelet. “Ever since the car didn’t start at the grocery store, Dad’s been watching us more than ever. He used up a whole box of Kleenex this afternoon, his nose bled so much. He shouldn’t be using his remote vision at all.”

  “But he’ll never be able to stop completely,” I said. “His mobile eye only works on people he’s touched. You’ve never touched... him.”

  “No, but Mom and Dad have. And so have you.”

  The stench of cherry cigars filled my nose, and my hand fluttered to my belly. “So?”

  “So, maybe between the three of you, it’ll be enough for me to see him on my own.” She took my hand from my stomach and held it between both of hers. “Maybe, if—when—I get strong enough, touching you will transfer his touch to me.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said. “It’ll never work.”

  “It’ll work.” She tightened her jaw and her grip on my hand. “It’ll work because I want it to work.”

  Then, quietly, she added, “It’ll work because we need it to work. It’s our only chance.”

  Chapter Ten

  Logan peeked into my room. “Star?”

  I shook my head. “Waves.”

  He sighed and jotted a note in his notebook, then left to tell Jillian she was wrong again. Wiping all thoughts of Tristan’s almost-kiss from my mind, I pulled the next card from the deck and stared hard at it, not even daring to blink.

  Logan returned a minute later. “She’s positive this one is a cross.”

  I held up the card. “Circle.”

  “Try the next one.”

  The next card was a square. I stared it until my eyes dried out, and it became blurry. We’d gone through the deck three times already that night, and every night for the past week. Now that Jillian had had a breakthrough, Logan was back on board. He’d set up a training program for her, involving quiet concentration, visualization and Zener ESP flash cards.

  They didn’t ask me to help. They hadn’t even considered asking me to help.

  But I’d insisted.

  Now every night after our parents fell asleep—if they knew what we were doing, they’d put a stop to it immediately—I brought the flash cards to my room, picked one at random and stared at the symbol. Jillian would try to see the card from her room, through my eyes.

  Logan kept a detailed record of her success rate, but it didn’t take a math genius to know she was failing miserably. She was right only seventeen percent of the time. On average, non-psychic people like me scored twenty percent. Logan had tested me as the control, and I’d scored eighteen percent just by guessing.

  This time Jillian stood in my doorway. “Waves?”

  I showed her the square, and her fists clenched as she smothered a frustrated shriek. She’d never failed at anything before.

  “You’re trying too hard,” I said. “You need to relax. Open your mind.”

  The deck flew from my hand, and she snatched it from the air. “I’m not taking advice from you. Switch with Logan. I need someone who’s paranormal.”

  Her words slapped me in the face.

  “Geez, Jill, she’s just trying to help,” Logan said. But he still took the cards.

  Even with Logan concentrating on the cards and me as the go-between, Jillian was still wrong almost every time.

  * * *

  Tristan and I were so busy talking after our run Saturday morning that I didn’t realize he’d walked me all the way home until we reached my driveway.

  “What are you doing tonight?” He lifted his ankle up behind him to stretch his quad.

  It was going to be a typical Saturday night for me: I’d stealthily watch my dad for nosebleeds while Mom and I planned next week’s menu and waited for Jillian and Logan to get home, and after our parents fell asleep we’d have a clandestine training session.

  But I couldn’t tell Tristan that. “I’m going to the mall,” I said instead. “They’re having a sale on jeans.”

  Tristan switched legs. “Instead of shopping, would you like to go on a date with me?”

  My breath hitched. “We’re just friends, Tristan.”

  “We’re more than just friends,” he said. “And I want to make it official.”

  “Make what official?”

  “Us. You and me.”

  Us. You and me. My heart echoed in rhythm: Thump. Thump-th-thump.

  But I couldn’t make us into anything more than what it was now. “We’re officially friends,” I said, digging my toe in the grass and squinting up at him. “That was a big step for me
.”

  “Can’t you take just one more step?” He held up his thumb and finger an inch apart. “A tiny baby step? Everyone already thinks we’re dating.”

  “I—I don’t want people to think about me at all.”

  “I think about you all the time. Want to know what I think?”

  My answer was a whisper. “Yes.”

  “I think you’re amazing. I think you’re beautiful. And I think we should go on a date tonight.”

  Thump. Thump-th-thump.

  Saying yes meant I’d have to lie to him.

  And then one day, I’d have to leave him.

  I had to say no.

  But he was looking up at me with eyes bright and blue and full of hope. I thought about the past couple Saturday nights, how long and quiet they’d been, how I’d spent the whole time craving Tristan. If I didn’t see him tonight, I’d have to wait until tomorrow. And suddenly tomorrow was too far away.

  The word flew from my mouth without permission. “Yes.”

  Oh my goodness.

  Oh my goodness!

  “Yes?” His eyebrows rose a little in surprise. “You’ll go out with me tonight?”

  I couldn’t stop myself from giggling. “Yes!”

  He lit up from the inside out. “I’m leaving before you change your mind,” he said, and started jogging away backwards. “Pick you up at seven.”

  * * *

  My usual glass of ice water wasn’t floating by the front door, so I went to the kitchen to get it myself. Jillian sat at the chipped wooden table with an open textbook. “Where is everyone?” I asked.

  “Dad’s in his office. Logan thought he had one more saxophone reed left, but he couldn’t find it, so Mom took him to buy more.” She propped her chin in her hand and turned back to her homework.

  “He lost it?” It wasn’t like Logan to misplace things, even a saxophone reed. He was meticulous, almost to the point of OCD.

  “He probably just counted them wrong.”

  “Why are you home? I thought you had dance class.”

  “Mom and Dad grounded me for piggybacking again. I had to cancel my date with Ethan and everything.” She looked up then, her eyes glinting with mischief. “At least one of us has a date tonight.”

  I froze. “You and Dad were watching me?”

  “Just me. No psychic stuff either. I happened to open the door and saw you in the driveway with Tristan.” The textbook slammed itself shut as she clapped her hands. “I’m so proud of you, Tessa, I could burst! I can’t believe you said yes.”

  I couldn’t believe it either. “I don’t know if I can do it.”

  A chair slid out from under the table. “Sit,” she said, and I sat. With a dreamy, faraway look in her eyes, she rotated the gold chain around her wrist. “Remember Gavin, from when we lived in Nebraska?”

  Scrawny, serious and studious, Gavin was nothing like the empty-headed pretty boys Jillian had dated before or since. “He gave you that bracelet.”

  “I was so in love with him,” she sighed. “It hurt to lie to him. It physically hurt. In Nebraska, we had B names, remember? He thought my name was Brittany Billings.”

  I grimaced at the memory. I was Bethany, and Logan was Brandon.

  “I hated that Gavin would never know my real name,” she said. “I hated suppressing my PK around him. More than anything, I hated knowing the day would come when we’d have to run and I’d never see him again.”

  Jillian understood my problem after all. “So you hated everything about it.”

  “Not everything. I loved Gavin. I loved him more than I hated everything else.”

  “Do you still love him?”

  She rotated the heart charm around her chain again, then once more, before she answered. “No. I won’t let myself.”

  “Why do you wear the bracelet, then?”

  “I guess it reminds me that love is possible, even if it doesn’t last forever.”

  We stared at each other for a long time, until I had to look away.

  I had one more question, one that only my sister could answer. “I’ve never...what if Tristan wants to kiss me?”

  “Do you want him to kiss you?”

  “Yes.” Absolutely. Desperately. Yes.

  “Then let him kiss you.” She hopped up and pulled me from the chair. “Now let’s go upstairs, so I can figure out what you’re going to wear.”

  After battling with Jillian over my outfit for the evening, we compromised on dark jeans, a silk tank and black ballet-style flats. Well, compromised was the wrong word. Every time I took something from my closet, it tore itself from my hands and flew into her room, where it locked itself away.

  “No long sleeves for you tonight.” She handed me an emerald tank, the brightest thing in my closet, and until now, unworn. “I don’t want you spending all night rubbing holes in the cuffs. And the green brings out your eyes.”

  She painted my toenails Passion Pink and slid a headband in my hair, and even convinced me to wear a touch of makeup. As she painted my lips with strawberry-flavored gloss, I finally realized why Jillian wanted her privacy so much. “What about Dad? I don’t want him to watch Tristan and me kissing.”

  But instead of getting pouty and going on a rant, she just folded a tissue for me to blot my lips. “Dad doesn’t want to watch that either. So he and I have a deal. I give him a signal,” she said, crossing her fingers, middle over index. “And he stops watching. But only for five minutes. Then he checks back in to make sure I haven’t gone too far.”

  By the spark in her eye, I was sure Tristan and I could have plenty of fun in those five minutes. I laughed out loud.

  When Jillian was done, she pulled me into a hug so tight I couldn’t breathe. “This was one of my favorite days, Tessa,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to do sister things like this with you.”

  A brick appeared in my throat, and I hugged her back even tighter.

  Chapter Eleven

  When Mom got home later that afternoon, Jillian presented me to her like an art project. “Tessa has a date tonight with Tristan!” she squealed, and Mom did too. Now, one fussed over my hair and the other inspected my makeup as we waited in the living room for Tristan to pick me up.

  Mom pressed my face between her hands. “I’m so proud of you, Babydoll.” She kissed my forehead, then laughed as she scrubbed off her lipstick-print with her thumb. She was so excited, I was surprised she didn’t make the furniture dance around the room.

  My dad shuffled in from his office, black hair disheveled, hazel eyes glazed. “We’re good,” he said, meaning we were still safe from Dennis Connelly. He blinked as his eyes cleared. “What’s going on?”

  “Tessa has a date tonight.” Mom smoothed the waves in my hair, and I dodged a cloud of hairspray from the bottle hovering over my shoulder.

  “A date?” His forehead scrunched. A date was different from a Homecoming dance, where we’d be surrounded by others, including my protective brother and sister. A date was...a date. “Is she old enough for that?”

  Jillian growled. “She’s sixteen, Dad.”

  Her eyes glittering, Mom gave him a patient nod. “She’s ready for this.”

  “I told her about the signal,” Jillian said, holding up her hand with her fingers crossed, mortifying both Dad and me. “So you’d better give her privacy if she uses it. When she uses it. Five minutes, just like me.”

  Jillian was excited, and Mom was ecstatic, but not me. My hands were shaking, and I was pretty sure one or both of them were using their PK to freeze my feet to the floor so I couldn’t run and hide in my room.

  But a few seconds later when the doorbell rang, I didn’t need them to freeze me anymore. My nerves were doing that for them.

  They glanced around the room, and the hair
supplies and cosmetics zipped upstairs. My dad’s face melted into an expression of worry and loss as an invisible push propelled me to the door. The knob twisted itself in my hand, and the door swung itself open.

  Any apprehension I’d had dissipated into mist at the sight of Tristan, tall and gorgeous in a collared navy shirt, smelling of soap and strength and safety. We gazed at each other for a long moment.

  Behind me, my dad cleared his throat.

  “Oh. Yeah. Tristan, this is my dad, An—” I stopped as my heart stumbled over a beat. I’d almost introduced him as Andrew Carson, his real name. I looked at him with wide eyes, unable to remember his alias.

  He provided it for me. “Charles Spencer.” He approached Tristan, hand extended.

  Holding my breath, I watched as Tristan slid his hand into my father’s.

  There. That was it. A single touch was all it took. Now Dad would be able to watch Tristan, whenever he wanted, for the rest of his life. Guilt sliced through me like a knife.

  “Nice to meet you, sir,” Tristan said.

  “This is my wife, Olivia,” Dad replied, and Tristan gave my mother a charming smile. She returned it with one of her own—a smile of admiration and gratitude.

  Jillian had moved to the stairway, probably to block it in case I decided to run. “Hey, Tristan.” She flipped her hair behind her shoulders. “How’d you do on the Physics test?”

  “Got an A. How about you?”

  “Ninety-eight percent,” she said. From the corner of my eye, I saw my mother frown.

  “Nice,” Tristan said. “You beat me by two percent.”

  “I just got lucky.” She batted her eyelashes innocently. “I don’t understand physics at all.” That was a lie. She understood every subject. Science was her favorite, especially biology. She wanted to be a heart surgeon, if she lived long enough. But physics was a joke to Jillian because many of its rules didn’t apply to her.