Seers (12 page)

My boyfriend didn’t seem to notice our audience of one, or even my blushing discomfort. Judging by his aura, he was still completely immersed in happiness over our date last night. “Hey, you didn’t answer any of my texts this morning.” I forced a smile. “Yeah, I’ve been busy. Sorry.”

“No worries. So, I was thinking, maybe you want to do something tonight? Last night was great, by the way.” Internally I was grimacing that Patrick was hearing all of this.

I hardly knew anything about him, and he was overhearing everything about me. It didn’t seem fair.

“Um, I don’t really know what’s going on tonight,” I hedged.

“I’ll call you after I know.”

“Let me guess, your grandparents are getting upset with me for stealing you every night.” He winced, partly coming down from his cloud of exuberance. “Yeah, guess I didn’t think about that. Your parents were always okay with me, so I just assumed . . .

We could always just hang out at your house if they don’t want you going out again.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I said, with barely any enthusiasm at all.

Apparently it was enough to fool him, though, because he was instantly back to grinning.

“Okay, sounds good. We didn’t have another chapter to read, did we? Because I totally haven’t touched this book since Monday’s assignment . . .”

I hate to admit that I tuned him out, but I did. I had too many other things on my mind.

I didn’t hear a thing all through class. I was only aware of the 88 K • • •

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guy next to me—the one that wasn’t my boyfriend. I couldn’t keep from stealing looks at him, even after he caught me once. Our eyes met, held for a second too long—but not long enough—and then he looked away.

My heart was beating with an urgency I hadn’t felt since my first crush, years ago. It was stupid, but undeniable. And it was getting harder and harder to keep my eyes off of him.

I told myself it was only because I was intensely curious. I had so many questions, and Patrick had the answers. That’s what fascinated me. It wasn’t his appearance, or his voice, or the way he looked at me that kept me from looking away. It was the mystery around him that captivated, not his laugh, or the way he sat with his shoulders hunched, like he was keeping a deep secret.

In short, I wasn’t attracted to him. The only reason I kept looking at him was to assure myself that he was real. That he was different. That he was here, sitting next to me. There was no other reason. And to prove it to myself, when class was over, I initiated the kiss with my boyfriend, and it was with Aaron that I walked out of the room, forcing myself to keep my eyes forward and not look back to see if Patrick was watching us, or following me.

I managed to stay ahead of him, and I was equally relieved and sad when he seemed to take my hint and he sat on the opposite side of the room for second period.

I saved a seat next to me for Lee, who came in a minute late.

Still, she beat the teacher, so it wasn’t that big a deal. A minute later class started, and I tried to focus on taking notes.

When history finally ended, Lee led the way toward the door.

I followed, keeping my eyes trained safely forward. I refused to be caught staring at Patrick again—I’d managed to make it all through class without him catching me, and I intended to keep it that way.

So, naturally, he sidled right up next to me without my realizing it, and he was discreetly slipping a folded piece of paper into my hand in seemingly the same second. Before I could look up

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and potentially get lost in his eyes, he was turning away. I watched his back as he retreated down the crowded hallway. I knew he was going the wrong way, because we had every class together, but I wasn’t going to say anything.

I pushed my way to my next class, my fingers curling around the small piece of stiff paper. My fingers teased the sharp corners, and it took all my self-control not to open it right then and there.

Somehow I held off until I was settled in the back corner of third period, and for the moment I was alone. I took advantage of the moment of privacy, and with trembling fingers I pulled back the folds until I was clutching an entire sheet of paper.

There was a ridiculously small amount of writing on the note, but seeing his neat handwriting caused my stomach to flip. I was such a girl.

I shook my head at myself, frowning as I scanned the words.

Kate,

I’m sorry for scaring you. Call me when you’re ready. Until then, I will keep my distance. Promise me that you’ll call if you see anything unusual. Please don’t tell anyone about this. Be careful.

Patrick

At the bottom was a phone number. It was an area code I didn’t recognize, but considering everything else about Patrick, an obscure area code wasn’t the weirdest thing about him. Like the fact that he could go invisible, and that he had an invisible friend. (I still sort of wished I’d gotten that answer this morning, but time had been limited. Little things like how he managed to become invisible hadn’t seemed that important, comparatively.) I quickly refolded the note and shoved it into my pocket. But even though I wasn’t looking at the words, I still saw them.

The more I learned about Patrick O’Donnell, the weirder he got. Honestly, this whole experience was starting to seem like a surreal dream.

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A part of me was upset that he’d given me his number, because now if I called him today, I was going to look desperate. But I wanted my answers. If I didn’t solve this puzzle soon, I was going to go insane. (Unless I already was insane, and that was the reason I was going through all of this.) The rest of the day I was distracted. I never saw Patrick again, so I suppose he wasn’t lying when he said he was going to keep his distance. But that didn’t mean I didn’t keep an eye out for him.

During the rest of my classes, and countless times during lunch I found myself craning my head around, hoping to catch a glimpse of him.

For really the first time, I began to wonder what Patrick was.

I’d assumed that he was human—perhaps a psychic like me. But suddenly I found myself wondering . . . what if he wasn’t? What if he was something else? I mean, I trusted him when he told me I would be safe with him, but what did I know about him, really?

Practically nothing. And his apparent friendship with Toni, the Invisible Man, was equally disconcerting. Whatever Patrick was, Toni was. That thought alone caused me more worry than almost anything else. True, the conversation I’d overheard at Lee’s party hadn’t been exactly ominous, but just the fact that it had taken place was strange enough. I didn’t like to think that they were on the same side, because Toni had been haunting me and scaring me out of my mind since the first moment I’d seen him, standing in front of my car.

Needless to say, my day was both long and maddening. The second the bell rang I left the choir room, swinging by the band room to drag Lee away from any potential distractions.

“Whoa, hold your horses!” Lee snorted at my impatience, as she lazily cleaned her beat up clarinet. “What’s the rush?”

“I don’t feel well,” I told her, knowing it wasn’t really a lie.

Lee finished dismembering her clarinet, and then hurried to stash it in the instrument room. I could feel Lee’s stare on my face as we walked silently out of the room and into the hall. She didn’t

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speak until we were in sight of the exit.

“Kate, you’ve been acting really weird since Saturday.”

“You make that sound like a long time—It’s only Tuesday.”

“Still.”

I reached the doors a step before her, and pushed one open.

Lee was right behind me, and once we’d descended the few steps and were following the sidewalk, she drew even with me again.

“Look, a friend can be worried, okay? Do you want to talk about it?”

I thought about Patrick’s note, and his plea to not tell anyone.

But it wasn’t that that stopped me from telling Lee—it was my desire to keep at least one area of my life sane. “I’d rather not,” I told her, my eyes trained forward.

Lee shook her head next to me. “Look, I don’t want to be one of those friends that get all annoying or anything, but maybe you should just end it.”

I looked up at her, my eyes confused. “End what?” Lee shrugged, her eyes defensive. “I mean, yeah, he’s a great guy, and you guys have been together for a long time, but if he’s driving you crazy . . . Maybe you just need to dump him.”

“Aaron?”

“Sure. You’re not happy, are you?” She asked, turning on me.

Now it was my turn to be defensive. “Well, things haven’t quite gotten back to normal, but . . .”

“Kate, honestly—can you look at me and tell me you’re happy?”

I didn’t even bother to waste the energy it would take to look at her—I just kept walking toward my car. “I know it hasn’t been easy, but things are getting better.”

“You can’t lie to me, girl. I know you too well. And I thought you knew you could tell me anything. Since when have you tried lying to me instead of spilling?” I unlocked her door, since it was closest, then I walked around to my door. She’d gotten in and unlocked mine before I 92 K • • •

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was completely around the car, and so I just opened the door and climbed in. I lifted my keys, but she snatched them away from me before I could set them in the ignition.

“Lee,” I protested, letting my hand fall to smack my knee.

“Nope, we aren’t going anywhere until you fess up.” She had her elbow resting near the window, the keys dangling from her fingers, mocking me.

I groaned and thrust my head back against my seat, wincing when the impact was a bit more than I’d bargained for. “Look.

I know you’re trying to help, but I’m just . . . All right.” I leaned forward, grasping the wheel as I turned my head to look at her. “I don’t know that I was actually thinking about ending the relationship or anything, but I was having my doubts. And then Saturday night, Aaron and I . . .”

“You had another fight?” She asked.

I shook my head slowly. “No, the opposite—we kissed. I mean, seriously kissed, for the first time since everything happened.”

“And . . . ?”

“And it was wonderful,” I sighed, the frustration evident in the sound.

“And that’s bad because . . .?”

“Because I thought things were making sense. And now I’m all confused again. Because everything else feels the same as it did before, but now I know that I still really care about him. I know that it’s me holding us back.”

“I thought you’d admitted to that before.”

“No, I know it was me—I just . . . now it’s undeniable.”

“And you feel like you’re not being fair to him?” She guessed slowly.

I nodded glumly, sliding my fingers over the wheel, tracing invisible patterns. My eyes followed my movements, and I felt Lee’s eyes on them too.

“So,” she said at last. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted in a whisper.

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“Maybe you should talk to Aaron about this. Let him know you’re confused. Let him know that you’re worried about you being unfair to him. I bet he can clear everything up.”

“You’re right. I know that. I just . . . ”

“Easier said then done,” Lee finished for me.

I cracked a smile. “Yeah. Something like that.” She gave me a smile in return, and not for the first time I was amazed by what a wonderful friend I had. The brown threads that colored her aura were pain—pain she felt for me. There was something comforting about that—actually seeing her empathy.

She suddenly handed me the keys, and I started the car. As we put on our seat-belts, she leaned back in her seat and added jokingly,

“Maybe it’s time to tell him about your psychic-ness, eh?”

“No, no,” I laughed. “Not even close.” She laughed with me, but I knew from her aura—the sudden uneasy green that was slowly invading her usual yellow and blue mix—that she hadn’t been completely joking.

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Twelve

I decided not to call Patrick that night. I didn’t want to seem desperate. He already thought I was a crazy, scared young woman—I didn’t want to make my image any worse in his eyes. Not that I cared much about what he thought of me. It was more because I wanted to remain a calm, powerful, and collected psychic when I finally got my answers from him.

He wasn’t in school Wednesday, but I should have known he wouldn’t be. His note had been clear. I didn’t see Toni either, but because I hadn’t seen him since the party, that wasn’t too shocking.

Surprisingly, my short conversation with Lee had made me feel a lot better. True, we hadn’t broached the subject that was really bothering me, but even just talking about Aaron had helped make me feel more like the old me. As opposed to yesterday, or even since school began, I was able to concentrate on something other that Patrick O’Donnell. It felt good.

So good, that I put off calling him again. And again. Before I knew it, it was Friday afternoon, and I still hadn’t called him, or seen him.

Lee’s mom was out of town again this weekend, and so I was planning to spend a couple nights with Lee. As I was packing a small overnight bag, I saw his note, sitting on my desk where I’d left it days ago. I stared at the neatly folded paper for a long time, knowing that I should call him now and set up a time to meet.

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I should get it over with—just get my answers, demand that he leave me alone, and then go back to my somewhat normal life.

I went so far as to unfold the note, take out my phone, but I couldn’t make myself dial. In the end, I just typed his name and number into my phone, saving Patrick O’Donnell as a contact.

Then I refolded the note and shoved it into one of my desk drawers. I shouldn’t be the one sweating—let him wonder what was keeping me.

Besides, I should be able to have one fun weekend with my best friend. I’d face Patrick O’Donnell next week.