Gravity (25 page)

As we walked away from the river, everyone else was thankfully preoccupied, giving me the space I needed to stay completely lost in thought.  Somehow, despite the innumerable questions that undoubtedly cluttered her mind, Lacey managed to hold her tongue.  And, strangely, the boys talked about football.  After everything that had happened recently, after everything we’d been through and learned and seen, they were talking about sports.  I couldn’t really be mad.  I was just thankful that it seemed their impasse was over.  At least temporarily.  That or Brady had a sense that things had changed between Trace and me and he had nothing left to fear.  I would much rather it have been the former, but I had the sinking feeling that it was the latter.

“All right, man, we’ll talk tomorrow,” Trace promised veering off to walk between the Jeep and his truck.  “Later,” he added, hopping in behind the steering wheel and quickly shutting the door.  And with that—without a single private word or indication that he’d ever harbored deep feelings for me—he was gone.

I felt the sting of bitter tears bite at the backs of my eyes as well as at the bottom of my heart.  How could something so amazing happen so quickly and then disappear without a trace?  As I stood watching him go, I realized with a nearly-unbearable heaviness that it was because it hadn’t been real.  That’s how he could so easily and so blithely walk away.  Our love had been some form of ancient magic—unfathomable and irretrievable—not anything based in reality.

But if that was true, why did it hurt so badly? 

“P, you coming?” Brady asked.  

My head whipped toward him guiltily.  He was standing in the V of the door, holding the driver’s side seat up so I could climb in the back. Lacey was already seated in the front passenger seat. I swallowed the lump of emotion that had formed in my throat.  “Yep, I’m coming.”

He waited for me to reach him, but rather than stepping aside so I could climb into the back, he curled his forearm around my neck and pulled me in for one of his rare brotherly hugs.  He said nothing, only gave me a light squeeze, but I knew exactly what the gesture meant.  Brady was an excellent non-verbal communicator.  He was telling me that he was sorry things were over between Trace and me. 

And so was I.

On the short drive home, I listened as Brady confessed his secret to Lacey and Lacey pretended to be surprised.  Bravely, she ended up telling him about her second nature, which she expressed was a concern to her until she learned from Shawn that none of us could really hurt each other until we were fully mature and away from Two Lakes.  I think she reiterated it as much for Brady’s benefit as her own.  I could tell she was relieved and I was happy for her. 

All this played as a hum-like background noise to the other myriad thoughts in my head, most of which pertained to Trace.  After their big revelations, Brady tried to draw me out with some teasing.  His mood was light and I knew he was trying to cheer me up.  I could tell.  Little did he know, it was no use.  Some integral piece of my heart, of my soul, of
me,
was missing and no amount of joking or small talk would numb the pain of it being torn away.

We were nearly home when the familiar whispering began.  As I struggled to make sense of it, Brady took notice of my expression in the rearview mirror.  When I could finally hear past the voices in my head, I realized he was calling to me.

“Peyton, answer me!  What’s wrong?”

I gasped when I realized what “they,” the voices, were trying to tell me, what it all meant.  “It’s Trace.  He’s in trouble.”

“How could you possibly know that?  Is this about you wanting to—”

“Brady, I’m serious,” I interrupted.  “And no, this has nothing to do with me or my feelings.  I just learned something very important, something that makes a huge difference.”

“And what’s that?” he asked skeptically.

“Witches are bound by their powers to do no harm.  It’s part of their gifting.  They have no choice in the matter.  They
can’t
use their magic for bad.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“It means that Rebekah was never trying to hurt Trace.  She’s not the bad guy here.”

“All right, so she’s not what Shawn thought.  What’s the big deal?”

“But that’s the thing, Brady.  Think about it. If she didn’t use her magic to mislead Trace like Shawn said, then what really happened? ”

“What are you getting at?  Who is the bad guy then?”

I sighed in exasperation.  “To be so smart, you can be incredibly dense at times,” I grumbled.  “It means that Trace’s dad is not who we think he is.  He’s not the good guy trying to rescue his son.”

“What?  Yes, he is.  He helped Trace.”

“I should’ve paid attention to my gut,” I mumbled.  “I knew something didn’t feel right about him.”

“Peyton, you sound like a friggin’ lunatic.  The guy is just trying to save his son from this…this…from this freak show.”

I looked at Brady, dead in the eye, my gaze never wavering.  “No, he’s not, Brady.  He is up to something and I promise you it’s no good.”

Brady flung his hands in annoyance.  “Peyton, there’s no way you could know that.”

“Yes, there is!  I can know this the same way I’ve known about all this other stuff.  Whatever is happening to me hasn’t failed me yet.  I’ve known what’s going on before anyone else.  It helps me
understand,
Brady.  How can you doubt it now?”

“Dude,” Lacey said from the passenger seat, finally piping up.  “Trust her.  She knows what she’s talking about.”

Brady eyed Lacey before growling in frustration.

“Why don’t you want to believe me?”

Brady looked back at me, his eyes flashing angrily.  “Because I was hoping that he could help get us out of here, away from all this.  I was hoping to avoid growing up into some sort of mutant, ya know?  Is that so wrong?”

For a moment, I actually felt sorry for Brady. So much had happened recently, he’d learned and seen so many disturbing things, it was no wonder he was wigging out a little.  He had yet to have a meltdown, which I felt sure all of us deserved at some point.  He’d come to terms with his condition and he wanted out.  And no one, least of all me, could blame him.

“It’s not wrong, Brady, but it’s not gonna happen.  At least not this way.  Right now, we have to tell Trace.  And he’s not gonna like it.”

“Now?  It’s the middle of the night.”

“Brady, just go!”

With a huff, Brady slowed to a stop and took the next left to circle back around and head toward Trace’s house.  I felt a nervousness that I hadn’t felt before.  I knew Trace wouldn’t like what I had to say, and I was afraid he’d be mad at me for saying it.  The loss of our connection would only exacerbate matters, but still I would try.  I had to try.

The closer Brady got to Trace’s house, the more anxious I got.  When he turned onto their street, we were easily able to see that stealth would not be a problem.  It appeared that literally every light in the house was on.  There was not a window that did not have a brightly-shining glow behind it.

“That can’t be good,” Brady said direly as he pulled along the curb in front of Trace’s house.

“That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

He cut the engine and we sat staring at the house. 

“What should we do?” I asked.

Brady shrugged.  “I don’t know.”

“Brady!”

“Go home?”

“We can’t.”

“Then what?”

“Front door?”

“You think?”

“Why not?”

“It’s late.”

“They’re up.”

“Good point.”

“You ready?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Look.”

Through the picture window at the front of the house, we could see two shadows, presumably Trace and his mother, embracing.

“Looks like he’s not gonna be doing anything rash tonight.  Give the guy some credit, P. He’s actually pretty smart.”

“I know that, Brady.  Smart has nothing to do with it.  We’re all in over our heads.”

“True dat,” Lacey mumbled from the front seat.

“So what now?” Brady asked.

As I sat there debating, I could see lights being extinguished throughout the house, one by one, until the house was dark.  They were turning in for the night.  If I’d had a chance, it was now officially gone.

With a sigh, I leaned back in my seat.  “Let’s just go.  Maybe I can talk to him tomorrow.”

And with that, Brady drove us home.

********

All day Sunday, I consoled myself with the fact that I would see Trace and be able to tell him about his father.  That made me happy for two reasons: that I would get to tell him my important news and that I would get to see him again.  Sadly, the latter felt much more significant than the former, which was totally wrong and incredibly selfish.

Only Trace never showed.  When eight o’clock had come and gone, both Brady and I had tried many times to call him and had driven by his house as well, all to no avail.  There was simply no sign of Trace.  Anywhere.

Brady wanted to drive back out to the meadow to look for him, but I finally managed to talk him out of it.  I knew that the worst thing we could do would be to get anywhere near Shawn Kramer.  And that was an incredibly difficult decision to make, because I felt sure that I wanted to find Trace more than any of us.  But I had to think with my head, not my heart, and my head was screaming for us not to go.  So we didn’t.

Now it was Monday and the day was dragging by.  It was only the third period of the day and I felt like it was midnight.  I was that tired, yes, but more than exhaustion, I felt a darkness permeating my day, my life.  It didn’t help that I was functioning on a little over an hour’s sleep.  I had lain in bed and wallowed in my misery and worry over Trace most of the night and, as a result, was feeling more like a zombie than a human—even an “enhanced” human. 

All through the night, some part of me had held onto the last thread of hope, thinking every noise I heard was him at my window.  Only it never was.  As a result, a suffocating disappointment had plagued me ever since I’d opened my sleep-deprived eyes when my alarm had sounded.

I’d seen Trace at Brady’s locker within minutes of arriving at school, but he’d hurried away when I’d approached.  The same thing had happened when I’d seen him walking toward me in the math wing hallway before third period.  He’d turned and gone down the adjacent hall instead.

I knew that, despite his obvious reluctance to get anywhere near me, I still owed him my knowledge of what was going on.  Unfortunately, I’d gotten to the point where I dreaded talking to him more and more with each passing minute.

At lunch, I decided I’d eat outside in the sunshine by myself rather than give Trace the satisfaction of avoiding me.  I’d avoid him this time.  I even turned my back to the cafeteria so that I wouldn’t be tempted to glance in his direction, as it seemed that my eyes were drawn to him if he was anywhere within sight.

It was a struggle to push my food past the lump in my throat, but I managed to get almost half of my lunch chewed and swallowed.  It was as I was picking at the last bit of the orange on my tray that I felt a disconcerting anger making its way through me. 

Although I was a bit confused at first, it didn’t take me long to figure out that I was experiencing someone else’s emotion.  Apparently Brady had triggered another transformation.