Forever Checking (Checked Series Book 3) (26 page)

THREE DAYS LATER

In the car. His car. With him. Leaving the grocery store parking lot. Groceries in the trunk.

Him. Holding my hand.

Driving. Driving. Driving. Turning. Turning. Turn—

Turning at the wrong pla—

Turning into a gas station.

 
But—

“Are you ready to try your Day Ten activity?”

What? Ugh. No.

“No, not really.”

He pulls into a spot next to a gas pump and looks at me. Looks at me apprehensively. “I thought we were going to try to get you through the gas station and syrup activities after a month on your med—”

My mouth opens to interrupt him. “Okay. Give me the gloves.” Because I know that he has gloves. He always has every freaking base covered. So he has gloves somewhere in this car. And I don’t want to do this without gloves. Correction. I don’t want to do this at all. But I promised. So I’ll need gloves.

Relief on his face. He reaches across me, into his glove compartment, and pulls out a box of latex gloves. He holds out the box for me. I grab two gloves and slide them onto my hands.

Don’t let there be diseases out there. Please.

One. Two. Three. I open my car door and step outside onto the gas station concrete. I walk toward the pump, toward him, as he slides his credit card through a card reader.

I look around. No one else is here right now. And it’s highly unlikely that a diseased person with malicious intentions was here within the last hour, sticking needles into gas pump handles. AND if someone did this disgusting deed longer ago than that, the disease should already have disappeared from the needle…so he says…

I glance into the little convenience store ahead of me. A young, pretty teenager stands behind a counter, looking out of the window. Looking at me, us, right now. Surely she would have noticed any sort of suspicious activity from a recent customer.

And she doesn’t look like someone who would’ve tampered with any of the pumps herself. Why would she do that? She’d probably lose her job if someone caught her doing that. Right? Doesn’t sticking diseased, contaminated needles into gas pump handles have to be a fire-worthy offense? It has to be.

And this girl probably can’t afford to be fired. She probably needs this job so she can pay for, well, whatever high school students buy. So I’m sure she doesn’t want to get fired.

AND she probably doesn’t have AIDS or hepatitis or anything like that anyway. So she probably couldn’t have—

“Ready, Callie?”

I turn to him and nod.
Yes. Yes, let’s get this over with.

He’s holding the gas tank cap. The tank is already open. So it’s time.

One. Two. Three.

I step up to the pump and place my latexed glove on the handle.

I pull up the handle. Very carefully.

Up. Up. Up.

Up so I can see into the little hole, the little space where the silver trigger is.

I look and look and look around the trigger. Cautiously.

No needles.

Okay.

Handle down down down, into the open gas tank.

I press the trigger gently, still hoping for no miniscule needles.

And gas starts to run into the tank. My fingers, latexed fingers, keep pressing on the trigger, the non-needled trigger.

Glug. Glug. Glug. Glug. Glug. Glug. Smells of gasoline and latex and his cologne fill the air.
{Technotronic’s “
Pump Up the Jam
” fills up my head.}

Glug. Glug. Glug.

CLICK.

The tank is full.

Lift. Lift. Lift. Handle back into the holder.

I peel off my gloves, starting at the bottom near my wrists and rolling them up to my fingers and off—all germs kept inside.

I throw the gloves into the big open hole trashcan beside the gas pump.

He—

He is staring at me.

Fascinated.

I guess I did okay.

I shrug my shoulders, smile, and reach out my hand. He nods with a smile, reaches into his coat pocket, and hands me a small packet, one of his super powerful hand wipes.

I quickly open the package and wipe off my hands as he finishes the payment process, pressing buttons and getting a receipt.

Then he looks at me again. Smiles at me again. “I suppose you want me to clean my hands too.”

I shrug again. “Only if you plan on touching me today.”

I walk back over to my side of his car as he pulls out a wipe for his own hands, shaking his head. And smiling.

THREE MINUTES AFTER THAT

Back in the car. Holding hands. Freshly cleaned hands. Driving back toward my—

“What do you want to talk about first? Your worst case scenario plan? Or about the odds of your worst case scenario even happening?”

I don’t really want to talk about either.

Silence, as usual, in his car.
Why can’t he just turn on the—

“Because the odds of any of your, ah, needle fears coming true at a gas station are rather similar to what your odds were at the movie theatre.” He stops at a red light. “It’s highly unlikely that a customer would’ve somehow placed a needle in the gas handle trigger, especially within an hour before we arrived there. And I really doubt that the sales clerk at the gas station would’ve done something like that because she’d be fired if—”

Oh my God.
Here he goes again. Reading every single thought—

“What is it, Callie?” He is looking over at me.

And I…I’m just now realizing that I am staring at him. Mouth slightly open in surprise. But I don’t even know why I’m surprise—

“You already thought about all of that. Didn’t you? That’s what you were thinking about when you were standing by me at the pump, staring at the clerk through the store window.”

Can I really be that transparent? Can I—

Green light. He starts driving again. And smiling. Gloaty smiling. “I’m right. Right?”

Ugh.
I shrug.
“Maybe.”

A bigger smile. “Tell me.”

You know you are right. So there is no point in me denying it.

My head nods.

Nodding. Nodding. Nodding.

Not starting the lying again. Telling him the truth. Well, nodding him the truth.

“What about your worst case scenario? What would you do if you pressed down on the trigger and a needle—”

“Stop.”
Stop. Stop.
I can’t think about that. I can’t think about that. I can’t think about that.

He glances over at me for a second. “How about this?” He pauses and puts his eyes back on the road.

Please don’t tell me what diseases I might get. Please don’t tell me what diseases I might get. Please don’t—

“Keep kissing me. Keep touching me. Keep sleeping with me.”

What?

“Just keep doing what you are doing—what we are doing. That way any diseases you have, or in reality, any diseases you think you have, will just be transferred right to me. I’ll take them too so we can just live with them together.”

My mouth drops open. “That—”

That sounds ridiculous. But it’s oddly comforting.

Not that I want to give him a disease. Not that I want to have a disease. Because having one of those super scary transmittable diseases would leave me contagious. Potentially dangerous to others. Alone.

But if he had the same thing…if he had it too, we could be contagious together. Potentially dangerous together. Alone together.

Not my dream scenario. But as a worst case scenario, not the most horrible thou—

“Not bad, huh?”

He’s smiling again. Gloating again. Reading my mind again.

So I shrug again. “Maybe not bad. A little ridiculous. Extreme.”

“I never said that your worst case scenario plan had to be practical or even rational. It just has to be something that you can think of to calm yourself down. If it calms you down, it is perfect, no matter how ridiculous it might sound.”

He pulls into my driveway and stops the car, looking at me. “So…you can go to a gas station now. Are you going to let Mandy off the hook and tell her that she doesn’t have to fill up your tank anymore?”

GRRR.
Maybe I
can
go to a gas station. That doesn’t mean that I want to do it every week or every other week. Or at all.

It’s still a dirty job. It’s still mentally challenging. And it still takes me more time to do than it would take other people.

But…it’s probably not fair to keep making Mandy do it.

Mouth open. “I don’t know. Maybe eventually.”

Maybe I can hire someone else to get gas for me. Someone clean. Or—

Or—

“Maybe you can get it for me some of the time.”

His eyebrows raise. The corners of his mouth turn up slightly.

“And what would be in it for me?”

I lean over, smashing my lips against his cheek.

And the corners of his mouth turn up even more.

THIRTY HOURS LATER

Living room television on. Blanket on top of me. Throw pillow under my head.

Class is over for the day. I have three hours until I need to get ready for Girls’ Night. And I’m going to take a nap. Why? Because I’m tired. Because this medicine makes me freaking tired. Also because I have been finding myself with more and more extra time. My routines have been getting shorter and shorter, and I am getting more and more done during the day. So I have time to nap. And it’s becoming a new favorite hobby of mine.
{AND The Beatles are singing “
Golden Slumbers
.” So they want me to nap. And I’m not going to disappoint them.}

So…eyes closed. White noise achieved. Out.

THREE WEEKS AFTER THAT

{John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Oh, and the Plastic Ono Band and the Harlem Community Choir. “
Happy Xmas (War is Over).
”}

9:00 a.m. His house.

I’m sitting beside the Christmas tree in his living room, the tree I helped him decorate a couple of weeks ago. White lights. Silver ball ornaments. Simple. Uniform. Beautiful.

I’m nervous. Picking at my nails. Holding his present. A small wrapped box. A small gift. But a big deal. A huge—

“Are you ready?” He’s standing beside me, above me, with a large box. Black paper. Silver ribbon.

He starts to hand it to—

“Let me go first.” I stop him, interrupting his gift presentation. And I hold up my gift for him.

“Okay…” He sits down beside me, places his large box on the floor, and takes the small box from me.

Here we go.

He removes the ribbon, the little gold bow I spent ten minutes perfecting last night. Then he starts to tear at the paper, smiling over at me occasionally as he works.

I smile back, but it’s not the most genuine of smiles.

Please don’t get mad. Please don’t get mad. Please don’t get mad.

Or sad.

I hold my breath. And the paper…is…off.

“An iPod. Thanks—this will be great for my car.”

Wait. What?

He leans over to kiss me on the cheek.

But—

“Hold on. You
want
to use that in your car?”

He nods. Surprised. “Was that not your intention? Did you have something else in min—”

“No. I thought it would be perfect for your car. But I wasn’t sure if you’d use it since your car is always so…”

“Silent?” He nods.

What the—

“Yes, it
has
been silent when you’ve been around since I’ve been trying to monitor your head radio, trying to watch your body movements and any signs that might reveal the beat in your head.”

Hell. What the hell? Seriously?
I look at him. Shock on my face, I know. Confusion.

 He starts to explain. “I figured from the first appointment that you had a head radio, but after that appointment, I had you on constant observation to try to figure out how often music was playing, how often the music was changing…things like that.” He pauses and shrugs his shoulders. “Having the radio on in my car would’ve completely ruined my observations.”

I shake my head slowly. “I can’t believe…”
I can’t believe that the silence is…was…all because of me. I can’t—

He nods his head. And he continues. “I also tried to create silence at the office during your appointments. Annie plays music periodically in the waiting room, so I asked her to make sure not to have it on right before, during, and right after your scheduled appointments. I also had her take the little bell off of the main office door. I removed any extra sounds that might distract you and then affect the music in your head, might affect my study of that music during the times I observed you in the waiting room.”

He stares at me, waiting for a response, I guess. I don’t have one yet.

He created the silence for me. Because of me. Not because—

Wait.

 Why did the nurses say what they did? They said that he stopped listening after his mother died, not after he met me.

My eyebrows scrunch up. “But the nurses in the hospital said that you stopped—”

“Stopped listening to music?” His eyes get serious. More serious. Sad.

CALLIE. You shouldn’t—

“I did. Right after Mom died, I did. That’s true. The nurses were right.
Were
right. Right for a period of time.” He shakes his head. “But you can’t, I couldn’t, completely avoid music. And I like music.” He smiles and now scrunches up his own eyebrows. “Wait—you thought that I
never
listened to the radio, to music? For all of these years?”

Um…yes.

I shrug. “Well, yeah. With the silence in the car and with what the nurses said and—and, wait. What about the piano?” The words just fly out.

His eyes get sadder.

I look down.
Freaking Callie.
Seriously? Bringing up the piano? You are—

“That was different.” Quiet. “Mom taught me how to play.” He pauses. He’s even more quiet now. “And it was piano music that was stuck in her head at the, at the end.” Another pause. “So I didn’t play for a long time, not until, well until you asked me to.”