Earthbound

CHAPTER FIVE

The route from the library to the physical therapy center takes me up Park Street, through an old section of town. This area is an eclectic mix of old and new: a gas station, an ancient brewery, a famous house that’s now a historic monument—beautifully restored—all amid a formless mix of office buildings, many in the shells of their original two-hundred-year-old structures. It’s a clashing of times that feels dissonant, yet reeks of awesome. I love it.

But enjoying the scenery is kind of low on my list at the moment. I’m trying to keep my pace up while walking to a steady four-count in my head. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. It’s a trick my physical therapist taught me a couple weeks ago.

“Tavia Michaels, you should not have a limp anymore,” she insists. But after months of shying away from the pain, it’s become a habit—my natural cadence even though the pain is gone.

Most days.

Pure physical therapy only gets you so far; now it’s a question of resetting my mind. So I count. A lot.

But my even pace is a little hard to maintain when my eyes are darting to the space above every building, every front door, looking for symbols.

I blink. Was that a flash? I peer harder, blink again. Nope. This time I really am just seeing things. Great.

I try not to look at the next house, but I can’t help it. My eyes wander to the door all on their own.

What the … ? I come to an abrupt halt, and a man in a jogging suit mutters as he sidesteps to keep from running into me.

It’s not a triangle this time, and it’s not glowing, either. This one looks solid and … real. I take a few steps toward it, peering at the symbol carved into the beam above the door. It’s so worn—not to mention painted over—that I can’t quite tell what it is; something round but elongated over some curvy lines. It could be anything, but it’s definitely something, and it sets my heart racing the same way the glowing triangles did.

I attempt to look casual—like I’m not some creepy voyeur—as I pull out my phone and take a quick picture. As soon as the phone clicks, I shove it in my pocket, hoping no one noticed.

I lower my chin and start counting my strides again, trying to take my mind off the symbols. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.

When I look up to gauge how far it is to the end of the block, a hint of gold flashes through gaps in the pedestrians in front of me. It’s him! Over the shoulder of the man in the jogging suit, not far past a lady with a stroller, I make out that now-familiar blond ponytail at the nape of his bronzed neck.

Apparently his long hair is real.

And it looks silky and soft.

My jaw tightens against the thought and I begin walking again, faster now, marshaling my courage. I should at least talk to him—find out what he thought he was doing last night.

I shoulder my way around a couple holding hands. Only two more people between us. My leg twinges, but I ignore it. I’ve stopped counting, too. Never mind my gait, I’m totally focused on him. I can’t yell—he’d probably run—but I’m almost close enough to grab his arm.

Almost there.

Almost.

But as I reach out to tap his shoulder, he steps around the corner into a narrow alley and is gone.

“No you don’t,” I mutter, and pivot without slowing, determined to catch him.

Pain hits me as I slam into a wall and the collision radiates down my spine, collapsing my knees and dropping me to the sidewalk. I blink and try to focus as faces enter my field of vision.

“Are you okay?”

“Someone call an ambulance.”

“She’s having a seizure!”

“Miss? Miss?”

“I’m fine,” I mutter, blood rushing to my cheeks. And despite being at a higher risk for them since the accident, I most certainly am not having a seizure. I rub a searing spot on my head and squint up at what I thought was an alley.

There is no alley there.

It’s a gray stone real estate office—a newer building, with flashy posters of available properties hung all over the windows.

But …

I want to die of humiliation as about six people help me to my feet. Their hands worry over me, touching me, violating my bubble of personal space—which has always been large, but has expanded with the isolation of the last several months. I put my arms out, nudging people away, chanting, “Thank you, I’m fine, thank you, I’m fine, thank you, I’m fine,” until they finally leave me alone, only one or two glancing after me.

“You have a scrape on your forehead,” a woman says. She looks at me so intently I wonder if she knows me. If I know her. Worse, if she knows Reese and Jay—it’s not a particularly large city—and is about to open up her cell phone and call them. What a disaster that would be. I open my mouth to speak, but before I can, she presses a Band-Aid into my hand, turns to cough politely into the crook of her arm, then walks up the street.

I watch her go, and just as I start to look away, she flickers.

What the hell?

I study her back—a spot of blue pastel among the pedestrians—willing her to flicker again, to have someone else notice, to prove to myself that I’m not crazy. But after about ten seconds of nothing weird happening, she takes a left and walks out of sight.

I brace my shoulder against the gray stone of the realty office and try to convince myself that I must have just blinked or that it was my imagination or something.

The blond guy is nowhere to be seen, which is probably a good thing since I’m not sure I could keep myself from screaming at him. He wants me to come to him; he runs away from me.

Down nonexistent alleys, no less.

Boys.

The again-milling foot traffic flows around me, but there’s something … something else making me uncomfortable. A niggling sense of—there! I catch sight of a man across the street, watching me. He’s wearing khaki cargo pants and sunglasses; pretty nondescript.

But he’s watching me. Great.

I meet his eyes—I think, stupid sunglasses—and glare, daring him to keep staring at the klutzy girl. He immediately turns his head and begins walking in the opposite direction. I hate embarrassing myself in public.

Distantly I hear the crinkle of the Band-Aid wrapper as I crumple it in my palm and my chin drops to my chest. I stride up the still-crowded boardwalk, forgetting to count as I work my way along, hoping no one looks at my bright red face too closely.

At the end of the block I turn and head to a much newer part of town, where my physical therapy center is. My mind races faster than my feet.

Who the hell is this blond guy? He could be a reporter. Seems awfully young for that, though. I got a good look last night and he can’t be much older than me. And based solely on statistics, he’s probably not a serial killer. He could be some kind of bizarre stalker, but why?

Maybe he’s just a weirdo. I mean, he grew his hair out for a reenactment costume he wears every day; he could simply be way hard core into that kind of thing. Like the old men who spend all their spare time building model trains or painting Civil War miniatures. Or this guy in my old school who was really into theater and would dress and talk like his character all day, every day whenever he was cast in a new part. It would be about three steps beyond “quirky,” but not unheard of. In fact, that might be the best explanation—for my safety, at least.

But Mr. Ponytail did try to get me to come out last night. Why would he do that? If he were so into his reenactment life, it seems like he would approach me during the day and introduce himself with some kind of overdone wave of his hat or something similarly dramatic.

And that flicker when the woman walked away … Just one more bullet point on my list of topics I really don’t want to think about.

When I arrive at the PT center, a glance in the passenger-side mirror of a random car in the parking lot shows me my injured forehead. There’s a scrape with a little line of dirt on one side. I lick my finger and try to clear the smudge away. The raw skin stings each time I touch it, but I ignore that and scrub until the grayish streak is gone. I adjust my short bangs over the shallow cut and try to convince myself no one will notice.

I’m about to head in when my phone rings. “Elizabeth?” I whisper to myself. It’s not like she never calls—she used to check up on me somewhat regularly. But it’s been a while. “Hey, Elizabeth,” I say.

“Got a second?” she asks cheerily, but I’m totally nervous anyway.

“A few,” I say, glancing at the PT center.

I hear her draw in a breath, then hesitate. “I spoke with your uncle this morning. He said you were up very early. Two o’clock early.”

My mouth drops in surprise. “Jay?” Traitor, I think, and kick the tire of the car I’m standing by.

“Don’t blame him,” Elizabeth says. “He just thought it might be important.”

Like that makes everything okay. “Well, it isn’t. I had a nightmare. That’s all.”

“About the crash?”

“Didn’t Jay tell you?” I sound petulant but can’t bring myself to care. I already feel like I’m living my life in a fishbowl; I don’t need further confirmation.

Elizabeth says nothing, but the truth is, she doesn’t have to speak; I know the words intrinsically. Tavia, you’re avoiding the issue.

“No,” I finally answer, one hand fisted on my hip. “It didn’t have anything to do with the crash—that’s why it’s not important.”

“You know, just because the dream didn’t have a plane in it doesn’t mean it isn’t related to your mind trying to deal with the crash. Many dreams—most, really—aren’t literal.”

She lets the conversation hang, waiting for me to direct it. I know her tricks.

But that doesn’t mean they don’t work.

“I was drowning,” I say, turning my back to the physical therapy center, as though someone inside could hear me. “A stereotypical dream. The kind normal people have,” I add, emphasizing the word normal and clearly leaving myself out of that category.

“Would you mind sharing?” Elizabeth asks.

I don’t want to talk about the water. Even thinking about it makes me shiver all over. So I give her as fast a version as I can, skimming over the way it made me feel.

“Were you able to get back to sleep or did this dream continue to bother you?” She uses the word dream instead of nightmare. I suspect it’s to make it sound more neutral, but I wish she’d call it what it was. Dreams don’t terrify you until you stop breathing. “I went downstairs and had a snack, and that calmed me down.”

Then silence. Elizabeth knows there’s more and she waits. Just waits. She does this in her office, too—it’s maddening.

But it works.

Almost against my will, I start to speak. “There’s …” I know that once I tell her, there’s no going back. I can hardly believe I’m doing this. My shrink. I’m taking my guy troubles to my shrink. But who else can I take them to? Not Reese or Jay. Just … no.

And Benson already told me what he thinks I should do. I think I need to talk to another woman. Maybe the romantic chromosome we all seem to have will help her understand this weird feeling.

“There’s a—a guy. I just saw him for the first time. Actually, like the third time and—” I force myself to stop and calm my nerves. I have to start from the beginning. “Yesterday, after our session, I was in the car while Reese was getting milk.”

She listens without comment—though she breathes a soft, “Oh, Tave,” when I get to the part about him being in the backyard at two A.M.—until I wrap up with the incident at the realty office. Though I fudge the details a teeny bit to make it sound like I’m not seeing fake alleys or flickering women.

“And he was just gone?” Elizabeth asks when I finish.

“Gone,” I say, and that weird sad feeling swirls in my chest again. “Benson says I should call the police,” I add when the silence makes me nervous. “But I don’t think this guy’s dangerous. And if … if I call the police, he’ll—” I cut off my own words. I don’t even want to say it.

“He’ll leave?” Elizabeth asks, and anguish drowns me, filling me so completely I can’t speak. I only make a vague noise of agreement. Part of me hates the way this guy makes me feel—it’s overwhelming and awakens emotions I don’t recognize. It’s different than the way I feel about Benson—he’s a soft, steady light, while this guy is like a firecracker—blindingly bright, but here and then gone in an instant.

But those brief moments are like liquid joy pouring over my head. That part, I like.

“You seem to be feeling some very strong emotions here.”

“I guess.” I brace myself for her to tell me that this is a side effect of my grief, or that I’m projecting unrequited love on an inappropriate target, or that it’s the brain damage talking.

I’m irrationally relieved when she doesn’t. I want to see him again, even though every shred of logic within me is shouting that it’s a bad idea.

I can’t help but wonder if this is a sign that I’m getting better or that I’m truly broken.

“Tave, I really want to make sure we talk about this more tomorrow when we can discuss it face-to-face. Is that okay with you?”

“Sure, I guess,” I say, almost hating that I told her at all now that the panic has passed. But she’s my psychiatrist—this is the kind of crazy stuff I’m supposed to tell her. Still, I feel like I just spilled someone else’s secret rather than sharing my own thoughts.

The silence stretches again, but I’m in no mood to deal with it anymore. “I gotta go,” I mumble, looking for an excuse to hang up. “I have a physical therapy appointment.” I force a sharp bark of laughter. “You know, my other therapist.”

Elizabeth chuckles and then says, “Okay. Go in and … stretch. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” I say dryly, and hang up. I walk toward the center, trying to sort through my conflicted feelings.

She didn’t tell me not to see him again. But I feel like it was too easy. Mentally, I know Benson’s reaction made more sense. Perhaps part of me wanted Elizabeth to confirm that I really should stay away from him.

But she didn’t. And I can’t help but wonder why.