Insight

by Jolene Perry

  “Landon was a gentleman.” A gentleman? I lose my mind around this man, and I can’t for the life of me figure out what he’s doing out here in the woods.

  “I miss being here.” He gestures around us. “I nearly always take a walk before taking off again.”

  “Oh.” I feel like he’s lying, but it doesn’t much matter. We’re almost to his house—the music and sound of cars has gotten continually louder.

  “We’ll see you soon.” He taps me on the shoulder before walking across his driveway to the open garage door.

  The vision from him is exactly the same. The boys running, same feeling, same everything. Odd, but not unheard of. Still I stand and watch him go, afraid to trust him, but also afraid if I can’t trust him.

  If I’m with Landon, his father will know where we are. I shake my head. I’m being paranoid again. I’m sure of it. Why would it matter of Landon’s father knows where we’re sailing?

  But part of me already knows that if I’m in the Bahamas, I’m going to look into the voodoo woman more. A part of my heritage might be wrapped up in that. It’s something I need to talk to Dad about, but not over the phone. And this is my paranoia striking again. All of the old legend stuff was tossed to the side after my fight with Landon, but it feels like it might at least be a starting place to me learning more about myself.

  If nothing else, I might be able to cross it off as an impossibility, and that would at least be something.

  As I stand on the edge of the driveway, I’m practically shivering, like my hoodie is doing nothing for me.

  “Hey, Micah!” Josh jumps out of his Jeep and very politely walks to the other side to help Lisa down.

  “Hey.” I give him a small wave. And I just survived my walk through the woods.

  “Micah, I need to talk to you.” Lisa pulls up the layers of bright pink dress off the ground and walks my way.

  The light is too dim for me to read her face. What does she want? Do I want to know? “Okay.” I clear my voice, but it barely comes out.

  She steps away from Josh and loops our arms together.

  She’s packing suitcases. The room is large. Complete satisfaction.

  I wonder where she’s going. We walk slowly toward Landon’s house together.

  “Are you okay?” Her face holds honest concern.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “You looked upset. I guessed it was because Brigitte was being catty, as usual.” She rolls her eyes. “And I wanted you to know that I know she’s not pregnant.”

  “What?” It’s so far removed from what I was worried about that it takes me a moment to catch up.

  “She’s been on birth control for like three years. She and Landon hook-up once in a while, then nothing will happen for months. This last time, before he started dating you, she told me she thought it was more real. I knew better. If he really liked her, they’d do more than fool around at parties.” Lisa shrugs.

  “Why are you telling me this?” I stop and she stops with me, our arms still together.

  “Because we’ve all been friends for a while—Josh, Cameron, Brigitte and Landon, and me, and I’ve never seen him like this. It makes Brigitte a little crazy. I think she probably thought she’d get a little something fun after his birthday, you know.”

  “The money?” I can’t imagine actually, really, being after someone for money.

  “Of course the money.” Lisa laughs a little.

  “I didn’t know about it, you know. In case you thought that was why—”

  “I could tell when we were talking at Lacey’s thing. Sorry, if I haven’t been as nice as I should be. Brigitte’s been my friend for a long time. She felt jilted.” Lisa frowns in apology.

  “I get it.” And what Lisa doesn’t know is that she’s been nicer to me than anyone else. It hits me again how much I’ve missed out on by being such a loner. “Thanks.”

  “Well, I’m feeling all charitable. I’m spending the summer in Paris.” Her smile flashes widely. She looks over her shoulder. “Hey, date!” She calls to Josh. “Ready to take me inside, get me wasted and fool around?” She laughs at Josh as he starts our way.

  I must look shocked.

  “He’s kind of a jerk on the outside, but Josh is actually a pretty remarkable guy.”

  “Really?” Nothing I’ve seen from him indicates that, except maybe the kiss I saw at Lacey’s party. “Actually, he really likes you.”

  “Are you just messing with me?” Lisa stands back, narrowing her eyes. “How would you know?”

  “Uh…Landon,” I lie. “But don’t let on that you heard, okay?”

  “Thanks, Micah.” Her smile is genuine.

  “No problem.” I feel full of good deeds tonight. The breeze picks up, just slightly, and I shake again with a chill. I pull my hoodie more tightly around me.

  “You can’t possibly be cold.” She laughs. “It’s the first truly warm night all year!”

  “There you are!” Landon’s voice comes from the lawn to my right.

  “Go and enjoy him.” Lisa pushes me, and I see her and Josh this time. Not her room.

  I run toward Landon and don’t hesitate as we come together. He wraps his arms around me and picks me up off the ground.

  Small windows. Darkness. His lips on mine. Anticipation. Love.

  It takes me a moment to place where we are.

  “Plan on taking me to your boat?” I ask.

  “Yep.” He sets me down, our noses touch. He puts our lips together. “But I wanted it to be a surprise.” He chuckles. “Guess I should know better. Things must be fixed?”

  “Must be.” I’m already breathless from being picked up by Landon, from seeing what I just saw from him, and from what I’m feeling right now. His arms around me dissolve the chills and the tension. The desperation from earlier turns into something else. I bring our lips together. I can’t let him go. There will be no getting close enough, not here.

  “Wow.” He’s out of breath. “You have to come with me.” He keeps his arm tight around my side as we begin walking down the hill. We walk in silence for a few minutes, and I soak up his warmth.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he starts.

  “Yeah?”

  “Your mom. You saw without touching her, but you were touching me.”

  He’s right. “Yeah.” My eyes drift toward him, wondering where he’s going with this.

  “I think you really are going to be stuck with me,” he adds seriously.

  “Is that so?” I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be stuck.

  “Well, yeah, when you have a hold of me, you don’t see things you don’t want to see and you can see without touching. You were thinking about your mom, and you got a vision from her. That’s a big deal.” He’s trying to sound serious, but there’s almost always a hint of tease in what he says.

  And he’s right. It’s kind of huge, but I already want to be around him in a way I don’t completely understand, or that I’m only beginning to understand. This just adds to what’s already here.

  “I complete you.” He chuckles and squeezes my waist. “Like, your other half, the yin to your yang, or…however that’s supposed to go.”

  “Is that so?” I’m teasing, but also overwhelmed that he’d even want to think that.

  “Definitely.”

  “Thanks. You have to know how much I sometimes hate what I can do.” Except with Landon sitting next to me, it’s starting to become apparent that it can bring good things, too.

  He’s silent as we walk. “Micah, if you hadn’t seen what you saw, your mom could have died tomorrow, or—”

  “Or maybe not, or maybe not until next week.” It all feels so fragile.

  “Still.”

  “Does your dad always go walking before he leaves town?” I ask before thinking.

  Landon stops. “What are you talking about?”

  “Your dad walked with me down half my driveway. He said he always goes for a walk before leaving town.”

  �
�My dad left yesterday.” Landon’s brows pull down.

  “I walked with him.” My chest constricts, and I wonder if all my paranoia is deserved.

  “I believe you, Micah, but it’s kind of weird. I really did think he was gone.” Landon starts to walk again, only more slowly.

  Why did he do that?

  Another shiver of fear runs through me. I think about how his dad watched me in his library, his mentioning of talents, the exact same vision each time we touched.

  “Don’t worry.” He kisses my cheek. “I know my dad. I’ll figure out why he’s felt off lately, okay?”

  “Okay.” I trust Landon, and I know he said his dad was weird about me. He’s definitely watching.

  We step onto the dock. “I bet you take all your girls onto the boat.”

  “I’ve never taken a girl onto the boat. The boathouse, yes. But not the boat.” There’s no tease in his voice this time, and everything else about our night fades away. Is non-important.

  I’m different. It hits my chest and spreads, relaxing my body even closer to his. I slide both hands around his waist and squeeze tightly.

  “You, Micah, are finally starting to believe how much I love you. And you see us together, and feel us together, in a way I’ll never get to do.” His lips touch my forehead.

  I feel suddenly desperate to feel him close, and clutch him more tightly, kissing his neck.

  Landon chuckles. “The boat is right there. Can we make it that far?”

  “If you’re fast,” I tease.

  He scoops me up, runs down the dock and steps easily onto the boat, even with me over his shoulder. The sliding door opens, we step inside and he locks it behind us—the room is all off-white leather furniture, and warm, wood walls. And almost too perfect to be a part of.

  “I feel kind of guilty for taking you from your party.” But I can’t take my eyes off his face, his neck, his lips…

  He sets me down. “That,” he leans into me until my back is pressed against a wood-paneled wall, “is ridiculous.”

  How am I going to tell him that I’m not ready? With all the I love you’s and plans to go boating. It seems ridiculous when I think about what we’ve been through together. Maybe I just want to make sure it’s not tainted by fear, or relief, or anything but us. “Landon, I don’t think I can—”

  “I can’t believe you’re letting me in your life at all. If I was you, I’d be a complete mental case.” A corner of his mouth pulls up.

  “Were you with me tonight?” I tease. “Because there’s no way I wasn’t a complete mental case.”

  “Completely warranted, Micah.” His fingers run down the side of my face. “I think just seeing would be so hard, but feeling too? I mean. You know I can’t even imagine what it’s like to do what you do.”

  “And I don’t know how to explain it to you.” I’m not sure if he understands, but he understands me, and that’s enough.

  “You’re sharing it with me. That’s enough. And…” He smirks. “I like anchor you or something, right? That has to be good.”

  I’m not sure how to respond to the second thing he said. It still feels like a fluke. “I can’t even explain what it feels like to not carry this alone.”

  He’ll never totally understand what he’s done for me, but maybe he’ll understand part of it.

  His arms go around me. “Thank you for trusting me.”

  “I do.” My face rests on his shoulder, buried in his neck.

  “And thank you for letting me forgive myself for something that was out of my control.” He’s talking about Lacey.

  “Thank you for the same thing.”

  “My room in here is small, but I don’t want to be away from you. Not tonight. Not any night.” He kisses me again, running his hands up my sides and tracing invisible lines where my bra should be.

  Shivers continue to run through me at his touch, only they’re the kind of shivers that warm my body instead of making me cold. “Okay.” But I sort of choke on the word because his lips are on my neck.

  Suddenly I can’t imagine him being close enough. I slide my hands up under his shirt and we stumble our way to his bedroom where he suddenly takes his hands off me and rests them on the sides of the doorway as I step into the tiny room.

  “What’s wrong?” I scoot to sitting on the bed.

  “Nothing.” He takes a few more deep breaths. “Just need to calm myself for a moment.”

  Heat spreads up my neck and across my face.

  Landon takes two steps to where I’m sitting on the bed. “I love you Micah. We have as much time as we want, and I really don’t want to mess anything up.”

  His finger touches my chin, and I finally look up at him. “Okay.”

  “Okay.” His smile spreads. “So, not tonight—”

  “But soon.” I smile.

  “Yes.” He reaches forward and takes my hands in his. “Definitely soon.”

  I feel his contentment, happiness, and maybe even love. All right now.

  We kiss once, softly, and he pulls us together on the bed.

  THIRTY

  Some sort of ringing pulls me out of my dream. What’s going on? A smile fills my face as I sit up and Landon’s arm slides off of me. I love Landon sleeping. The poor guy’s still in his jeans. The ring again. My phone. I pat my hands around on the bed until I find it.

  “Micah, I got your call. What’s going on?” Dad’s voice is anxious, tense.

  “Hey, Dad. We fixed it.” Light’s peeking around the curtains covering the small, oval windows.

  “Are you sure?”

  “The pictures changed.” I lean against the wall.

  “Okay.” His voice is still hesitant.

  “What, Dad?”

  “Its decisions we make that change things. You might have just transferred or put something off.”

  I feel the tension from the night before seep into my chest again. “I think we covered it.”

  “Just, make sure. Re-check, okay?” His voice is soft and full of concern. It doesn’t give me the confirmation or comfort I want.

  “I already did.” I’m confused. “Why are you pushing this so hard?”

  “Because sometimes when we ‘fix’ things, we make them happen.”

  “But, Carol…” I’m starting to repeat the optimistic argument Landon gave me yesterday.

  “I know, Micah. But the more I think about it, you and I don’t even know if what we did made an impact. It may have only been the difference of getting her to the hospital an hour or so earlier.”

  “Or the difference between her living or dying.”

  But the truth is that we don’t know how much of an impact we had. I do know I changed something the night of the Lacey party, but how much?

  He exhales slowly. “A neighbor of mine had this little girl. I touched the mother one day and saw her daughter unconscious on the pavement with a newspaper strewn next to her. I couldn’t make out the date, of course, but the photo on the front of the paper was very distinctive. I checked the paper every morning for almost a month before I thought maybe it had gone away. She wasn’t someone I knew well, so I didn’t see how I could go check.

  “I went to work one morning and saw the picture on the paper. I panicked and called her. I had a story all worked out about how she needed to keep a special eye on her daughter because a little kid in the area had been abducted. It seemed like the easiest way to make sure her mom kept her away from the street. The little girl was hit by a car when her mom ran inside to get the phone.”

  “Oh, Dad.” My heart breaks for him. It’s something I’ve never thought about—trying to change something and ending up being the cause.

  “Just, re-check. The little girl lived, but she’s in a wheelchair and always will be.”

  “Thanks.” I don’t want this—the added weight and feeling that no matter what I know, there’s nothing I can do. “I’ll re-check.”

  “Sometimes fate can’t be changed.”

  “I don’t thi
nk I believe in fate, Dad.” Or maybe I do and that’s why I feel so helpless.

  “Hmm.” The line is silent for a moment. “I think you will.”

  “Is that intended to completely freak me out?” I try to smile, but a chill runs down my back.

  “No, sorry. Just re-check.” Dad’s voice is still quiet and calm.

  “Of course.”

  “Let me know how things are. Call me later, okay?”

  “Okay.” I can’t take my eyes of Landon’s back. When I hang up the phone, I reach out to touch him. I’m actually looking forward to it. To what I’ll see.

  Mom’s crying. My hand is in Landon’s. It’s too late. It’s too late…

  What?

  “Landon, wake up!” I’m shaken all through, every part of me. I jerk up blankets and find my jeans. I slid them off sometime in the middle of the night. A chill gets me as I try to move. Like hitting a wall of ice.

  “What’s going on?” Landon’s rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  “It’s not fixed, Landon! My mom’s okay, but something else happens!” I pull my hoodie from a pile on the floor.

  “Uh.” He looks around.

  “I gotta go.” I start out the door.

  “Wait for me!” He scrambles behind me as he pulls his jacket over his head.

  I dart out the back door of the boat and leap easily onto the dock.

  Landon’s right behind me, and when he reaches out his hand, I take it.

  Mom crying. My hand squeezes his. It’s too late. We’re too late…

  I hit the dock running and don’t slow when I get to the hill. A chill from the early morning air hits me hard.

  “You have to tell your mom, Micah.” He’s out of breath already. So am I, a mix of adrenaline and shock.

  I feel like I’ve been kicked in the gut. “She thinks that we’ve always been all honest and open with each other, Landon. What will she think if I tell her this now?” I’m breathing hard. It’s not easy running uphill.

  “We need her help, Micah. Telling her is the easiest way to get it.”

  He’s right. I know he’s right, but I feel so desperate and now I feel like I’ll break Mom’s heart on top of whatever else is happening. I’m seeing spots. I can’t breathe. The shadows in the trees seem to be moving with us. Running. Definitely more than one. Definitely with shape, like almost-people.