Lifting my head, I glared at him. He looked like Spock, though his hair didn’t have the perfect straight cut bangs and he lacked the pointy eyebrows and ears. Okay, so he didn’t actually look like Spock anymore. He looked…normal. Maybe even a little cute, but in a nerdy kind of way.
“I do know that,” I said.
“Just checking. I wasn’t sure if you were ignorant of facts, or ignorant of-”
“Do you enjoy the view from the top of your soap box?” I asked, cutting him off.
“I do.” He gave a half smile I instantly hated for its cocky attitude and the way it made me forget that I didn’t really like him.
“Well, you should know that when you do that, everyone can see up your nose.”
“Good to know. However, as it’s a worthy platform I am willing to risk a look or two of disgust.”
“And I didn’t lie. I wanted a moment of peace and quiet before checking my book out. Now thanks to your annoying self, I’ve missed my opportunity. So if you don’t mind...”
His smirk faded and I felt like crap. He spun around and walked away. I was being totally rude to the guy. Even if he was a bit, okay completely, odd I shouldn’t be so mean. If I kept going down that snarky path, I’d end up like Phoebe’s friend Tonya, and it would be a lot harder to keep track of his future if he started avoiding me.
“Bastian!” I stage whispered as I went after him. He turned back and I stopped in front of him. “I’m sorry. I’ve been kind of snotty to you the past couple weeks. I’ve been stressed about some stuff and I took it out on you.”
His eyes squinted as he considered my apology, probably trying to determine if it was authentic or not.
“Accepted,” he said with a nod.
The guilt vanished, well not entirely, but I could live with the lingering knowledge that I’d really only apologized because I needed him close enough to check up on.
Chapter 11
I looked at the two little girls curled up on my bed, playing on with my iPad. It amazed me how the chaos they created could be corralled so easily by the sound of a Disney song.
Ella and Emma had been here for almost two hours, and I was already exhausted. I was counting down the one hundred eight minutes until Uncle Silas and Aunt Lena picked them up.
“Yo, brats.” Phoebe and Bianca barged through the door and flopped onto the bed with the girls destroying any semblance of peace and quiet. A tickle session ensued and I watched from the safety of my desk.
“Enough!” Phoebe exclaimed collapsing on her back. She ignored their aws of disappointment and turned the iPad back on, immediately pacifying them.
“I still can’t believe I’m missing roller derby for some lame party.” Bianca sat on the bean bag chair in the corner of my room.
“Come on, don’t you think this is more interesting?” Phoebe asked. “I mean changing the future is a pretty big thing.”
“What are you talking about?” Bianca looked at me as the pillow I flung at Phoebe bounced off her and onto Bianca’s lap.
“Oh, just the whole stop Andrew and Nadine from,” she tilted her head at the twins then back at Bianca, “you know.”
“Okay, what?!” Surprise widened Bianca’s eyes.
“She didn’t tell you?” Phoebe glanced at me. “You didn’t tell her?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”Bianca turned accusing eyes on me.
“I didn’t want a bunch of people to know about.” Telling her made it even more real.
Bianca huffed and slumped back in her seat. “So, why did you want Owen there?”
“Nothing else seemed to work,” I told her. “Even getting Owen to go hasn’t changed it yet.”
“Great, so now I’m missing roller derby for nothing which is worse, although only mildly, than for a lame party. So, nothing’s changed?”
“Only minor details.”
Her lips scrunched to the side and one of her eyes squinted closed. “What’ve you tried?”
“Well, the first was me going and Andrew picking me up. I convinced Travis to cancel his shift at the theater, so Andrew could pick it up. I tried to get him to take the shift. I tried to get both him and Nadine grounded.”
“Which, if you’d asked me for advice, would have worked,” Phoebe interjected.
I ignored her. “I got you and Owen to go along with everyone else not going.”
“Almost everyone,” Bianca said.
“Who?” I asked.
“Sebastian. Don’t you remember? He told us he wasn’t going and Owen tried to use that as a reason to flake out.”
“How could Bastian change anything? I’m not even friends with the guy. Neither are Nadine or Andrew.”
“What did I tell you?” Phoebe said. “You need to make every possible little thing different.”
“Well, it’s too late now.”
“No, it’s not. We’ll call him and tell him he has to go.”
“Who’s going to call? I barely know the guy, and I’m sure Nathan would be really impressed to find out you’re asking another guy to go to a party with you.”
My sister and I glared at each other, and then in sync we turned toward Bianca.
“Oh, come on you guys.” She groaned and slumped forward. “I convinced Owen to go, and do I need to remind you that I’m missing-”
“Roller derby,” Phoebe and I said together.
“Exactly.”
Phoebe smiled with over the top sweetness. “We love you.”
While that might have been enough for Lily, Bianca simply ignored the comment.
“I’ll call,” she held up a finger to stop us from interrupting, “if one of you gives me a ride to school every day until winter break. I’m sick of taking the bus.”
“I will,” I said, even as Phoebe hesitated. Asking her to get up early was like asking for a miracle. Besides, I was the one who would benefit if this worked.
It didn’t take long for Bianca to get Sebastian to agree to go. Apparently, the show he planned on watching wasn’t on and he had nothing else to do.
When Bianca ended the call, Phoebe turned to me. “So? Anything?”
“I’m not checking now. I need to get the girls’ dinner.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see if anything changed, but I was just tired of the disappointment.
After the girls were seated at the table munching on grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, I sat across from them my fingers play with the charm bracelet Nadine gave me for my birthday.
My vision blurred and I sank into my future. I expected images of the party and everything else I’d been seeing for the past few months. What I didn’t expect was the heavy gray cloud that was between them and me, blurring my view nearly to the point of obscurity.
I pulled back, my heart racing. I did it. Or Bianca and Bastian had. Almost. Getting Sebastian to the party made a greater impact on the future than anything else. It made absolutely no sense, but I’d take it.
Phoebe hovered, trying to get me to tell her what I saw, but I used Emma and Ella as a buffer. Hope was warring with the realistic side of me. Yes, the vision became blurry, but it had still been there, buried under the darkness.
Eventually, she gave up and I spent the next hour playing Barbies until my aunt and uncle came for their girls. Once they left, I frantically started getting ready, knowing Andrew would be there soon.
The doorbell rang and I yelled at Phoebe to answer it. Most people would do so automatically. Phoebe, however, lacked either the common sense or decency to do so without being asked. I was more inclined to say it was the decency factor.
I headed upstairs and around to the front door. The sight greeting me was not what I expected. Andrew and Phoebe stood chatting, surrounded by a dense haze. It was the same shade as the one in my vision of the party. My mouth went dry as a horrible feeling filled my stomach.
“Hey, you look hot.” Andrew stepped closer to me. I let him pull me in for a kiss and as I slipped into his future, I saw everythi
ng I always had only as if through someone else’s reading glasses.
When things cleared, Phoebe was making weird motions with her head and eyebrows, a not so subtle attempt at getting me to tell her about my visions.
“Let's go.” I ignored her and dragged Andrew from the house.
“Running from Phoebe?” he asked, laughing.
“Of course.”
Thoughts of my sister disappeared once we reached Nadine’s. Instead, all I could think about was what was going to happen. I constantly searched for Nadine while keeping track of Andrew. Neither was the easy to do. I didn’t want to become the clingy girlfriend or the annoying, hovering friend.
Dancing cleared my mind a bit, but being so close to Andrew led me down the slippery slope of checking in on his future. Each time I did, it was the same as it had been after Bianca called Sebastian - cloudy, but still there. He showed up, but it hadn’t made anything clearer, so I was still at a loss as to what the cloudiness meant.
“You’re quiet tonight.” Andrew dipped his head to press his lips to my ear as the music changed pace.
“I’m hot.”
“I know, I already told you.”
Laughing, I rolled my eyes. “You’re so cheesy.”
“Yeah, but that’s why you love me. Come on, let’s go outside.”
We went out to the back porch, leaving the blaring music and cramped confines behind. Javier’s yard was massive. In the center was a heated pool with a sunken hot tub and behind the pool was a fire pit, where a roaring fire burned.
“I want to talk to Travis about switching shifts with me on New Year’s. I’ll be back in a minute.”
I sat on a bench in a gazebo off to the side of the yard and watched him join his friends milling around the fire pit. For the first time that evening, I relaxed. Nadine was inside with Owen and Andrew was right where I could see him. Misery defined the last hour. Constantly checking the future, minute-to-minute, trying to change anything and everything, but nothing made a difference.
“Having fun?” Bastian appeared at the bottom of the gazebo steps and leaned against the post, hands shoved deep into his jean pockets. I considered telling him the siding chipped easily. Blue-gray specks of paint would cover his shirt, but I figured he wouldn’t care.
“Tons.”
“You don’t seem very happy.”
I shrugged. “Sorry, I’m not in a good mood tonight is all.”
He shook his head. “No, I mean you never seem happy. Ever.”
That was so strange to hear. I used to be the happy Matlin sister, Phoebe the sarcastic one, and Lily tragically sad. I’d been happy before, but what was I now?
“You’re like Manchester United when they walk off the field after being defeated by Real Madrid,” he said.
That was a first. “I’ve never been compared to a men’s soccer team before.”
“Football. It’s football, not soccer.”
“Doesn’t really help your point.”
“If, in fact, you ever watched football, the analogy would make complete sense to you.” He shifted his stance so he could look out across the yard. “Phoebe once told me you were always the bubbly one. Happy and satisfied with your life because you knew exactly what it was going to give you. I think you are simply a good actress.”
“An actress? All because I’m not as bubbly a person as Phoebe described?”
“You wear a façade whenever your friends come around.”
“Have you considered I enjoy being around some people more than others?”
He shook his head. “You try too hard with them.”
I took a deep breath and attempted to remember why I needed to talk to him. Somehow, Sebastian was the closest to the chink in my future’s armor. Why it had to be him was driving me up the wall, and I was determined to figure out why.
“Do you ever stop and think about what you’re saying?” I asked.
“Do you?”
“All the time.”
“Then you worry too much,” he said. “That’s probably why you’re never happy.”
“You keep saying that, but you don’t know me.”
“I think you’d be surprised by how well I know you, and despite how that sounded I do not have an unhealthy obsession with you.”
I gave a huffy laugh, feeling self-conscious as he stared at me. “We’ve spoken how many times over the past few months? Maybe ten? And you think that qualifies you as knowing me?”
“You love your sisters, but Phoebe drives you crazy.”
“Too easy. That could be just about any set of sisters, particularly triplets.”
His eyes narrowed. “Your future is completely mapped out, right down to the two point five kids and the eggshell white picket fence. Although, I’m sure you’ll opt for three children named Ashlyn, Jacob, and Beth because three is more, therefore better. Andrew, of course, will serve his purpose as both sperm and financial donor as you write the next great novel.”
I gritted my teeth. “Ha. Nowhere near what my future will be like.”
“No?”
“No.” It wasn’t the future ahead for me, but if I had a choice? He knew me. Somehow, this tall, odd boy had managed to figure out what I would dream of if I dared to.
“If you could have the future you dream of, what would it be?” I asked him, watching his expression soften.
“A job with NASA and I always wanted a DeLorean, identical to the one from Back to the Future with a flux capacitor.”
“That’s it? What about love?”
“I’ve never seen any good come from love,” he said with a shrug and it was easy to believe he didn’t care.
“Children are a product of their parents’ love.”
“You and your sisters maybe, but I’m a product of a one night stand, and my brother is the result of my mother’s half a decade long relationship with a total douche that lasted five years too long.”
“It couldn’t have been that bad if Jayden came from it.”
“I suppose one could argue the point. However, you fail to realize my mother and father, or Jayden’s father never loved each other. Thus children are not always a product of love.”
“Okay, but you love your brother, your mother loves you, and that’s not bad.”
“You’re speaking of a different kind of love. The love of your family is not the same as the idea of love between those who choose. Loving those you choose is asking to suffer.”
I thought of my sisters’ futures. They both experienced the type of love I could only dream of. It wasn’t perfect or easy, but never would they regret loving.
“I’ve seen love,” I said. “I know the power it has.”
“You’ve seen it, but not felt it?” He said the words as if they proved his point, but he was wrong. I loved Andrew and while nothing good would come of it, I made the choice to love him during the time I had with him.
“I have.”
“You don’t sound as if it was all daisies and puppy dog tails.” He folded his arms across his chest.
Loving Andrew would tear me apart, probably within a few hours. I never thought I had a choice. Would I have still loved him if the future hadn’t already been determined?
“It doesn’t always need to be a happy experience to be worth loving someone,” I said. “Sometimes it’s enough to love them for a little while. To know that for even a short time, they meant the world to you and you would have done anything for their happiness.”
“And when it’s over?”
“When it’s over, it’s okay to let them go.”
Bastian didn’t say anything for a long moment, staring at me. His head tipped to the side with audible cracks. When he finally spoke, the seriousness disappeared, and he was back to the Bastian who could annoy me in a single sentence.
“Such a scenario seems to be fairly depressing and, while you may be able to find a few exceptions, it further exemplifies my point that nothing good comes from love.”
“There’s some
thing seriously wrong with you,” I said, tired of whatever game he seemed to be playing.
“You judge me as odd because I expect to get something in return for loving someone? Shouldn’t you expect something back? Love? Happiness?”
“Love doesn’t guarantee happiness. If you truly love someone giving them happiness should be enough.”
“I find your continued arguing to be very revealing. I wonder if you would feel such conviction if this love you believed in failed to live up to your expectations. Would you still believe in its worth?”
His words pierced me. I would always believe. For Phoebe and Lily and our dad. For all of my friends and the people around me, I knew they would love and it would always be worth the pain they felt.
But for me, love would end and when it did, I wouldn't let myself love again. What did that say about my convictions? How could I continue arguing with him if deep down I knew I would never open my heart again?
“Shall I take your silence for acquiescence?”
“I find it sad that not only have you never experienced love, but that you never wish to. Or maybe it’s that you’re just some robot who is incapable of feeling love.”
He stared at me with eyes gone hard. “I didn’t say I’d never felt love, only that I don’t dream of it being in my future. Perhaps the real issue is I’m not capable of being loved.”
Chapter 12
Bastian walked away, his back poker straight. Okay, so I’d been a little rough on him. Why had I bothered to argue with him again? Other than frustrating me, it never got me anywhere with him, yet for some reason I couldn’t help myself. We just rubbed each other the wrong way.
“Bastian!” I called as I followed him through the house. I caught up to him right at the front door, grabbing his hand to pull him to a stop. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed…”
“You’re correct. You shouldn’t have assumed I ended the conversation because of your harsh examination of my loveless future. I simply decided to see if Daniela is here yet.”
“Who’s Daniela?”
“The girl you plowed down as you stalked me through the halls the other day. Much like you are now.”
Watch Me: Teen Paranormal Romance (A Touched Trilogy Book 3) Page 10