The Saving Angels Series: Books 1-3 (7 page)

“Hey give yourself a break, first days are always tough. Take it from me; I’ve had plenty of first days.” Sam said, even though she seemed to sense there was more to it than first day jitters.

“Did you ever read that note he passed you?”

So, Sam had seen him pass me the note.

“No, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to.”

“Why not?”

“Because, you saw what happened in there, he’s an intern. I don’t know what came over me. I don’t check out guys, and I don’t act like he’s the only person in the world in front of a bunch of people I’ve never met.”

“Well, you may not, but it’s hard to deny that something happened in there. We may have just met today, but I could tell you felt something in there. I think you should read the note, he obviously felt it too. He looked like he had been hit by a truck when he first saw you.”

I thought about Sam’s words, she was right. I should at least read his note. It had been burning a hole in my pocket the whole afternoon.

With shaking fingers, I pulled the note out of my pocket and stopped walking to read it. Sam stepped discreetly away, sensing that I needed a moment by myself to read it.

I smoothed out the creases of the note before I read it, dragging out the procedure while I mentally prepared myself. My heart skipped a beat at the words written on the paper.

We need to talk. I know you’re confused, I can explain everything, meet me at the park after school.

Love always M.R

My heart started racing. What could he explain? What did he know that I didn’t?

“Are you going meet him after school?” asked Sam, reading the note over my shoulder.

“I don’t think so.”

“Seriously?
Why not?”

“Because I’m confused, I don’t know what to make of all of this.”

“Can I come over to your house?” Sam asked suddenly.

“Sure.” I said surprised. “My mom won’t be home until later, she wanted to drive to some art supply store she heard about. She left me pizza money; you can eat over if you want?”

“Sure,” said Sam. “Your mom’s an artist?”

“Well, no, but she’s going to try her hand in it. She’s taking a year off from work to dabble in it. My dad left us enough money for her to try new things.”

“That sounds great,” said Sam with just a tinge of envy in her voice. “It sounds like you two are close.”

“They were there for me when I needed them the most. Once the judge had officially cut all the red tape after I was found, and allowed them to adopt me, they were ecstatic. They officially adopted me the day I turned six, and it was a great birthday present.”

Sam’s face took on a shocked expression.

“You were abandoned?”

I could have kicked myself, after years of keeping my abandonment a secret from everyone, I had let it slip out with someone I had just met. Of course, I felt a kinship with Sam, but I still couldn’t believe I had let my guard down.

“I was found at a rest stop when I was two,” I answered uncomfortably.

“I was put in foster care when I was two,” Sam said in a voice laced with surprise.

“You were?” I asked, not quite believing her. Was Sam some kind of freak that made things up to make herself seem more interesting?

I felt myself freaking out. I couldn’t help feeling like someone was playing some kind of joke on me, first with Mark and now Sam. I would have believed that this was their idea of a good way to torment me if Sam didn’t look as surprised as I felt.

Sam must have felt the same, because she looked at me to see if I was pulling her leg. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“No, I wish I was. All of this is wigging me out,” I replied.

“Well to tell you the truth, I’m relieved. We can be freaks together,” Sam said, trying to lighten the mood.

I smiled a half smile. It was hard not to respond to Sam’s positive attitude. I had always been the glass half empty kind of person, but Sam was obviously a glass half full person.

We walked the rest of the way to my house in silence, both of us lost in the thoughts that were circling around in our heads.

By the time we reached my house, we both were sweating slightly from the short walk. I pulled open the fridge and grabbed two waters and two chocolate bars. My mom bought chocolate candy in bulk for me. I often joked that a candy bar a day, kept the doctor away. My mom had given up years ago, and as long as I brushed my teeth twice a day, she kept me stocked with chocolate.

I handed one of the bars to Sam, who was studying all the family pictures around our small house.

“My mom loves to take pictures,” I explained. “She hates photo albums though, so most of our pictures wind up in a frame, or get thrown into a box.”

“That’s me right after they found me,” I said, when I noticed Sam studying a picture of me where I was crying. My mom had told me that all I wanted to do was sleep. I never had to ask why, I already knew, he had been in my dreams, even then.

“I’m hungry,” I said, changing the subject. “Let’s order the pizza now, and listen to music upstairs while we wait for it.”

After ordering the pizza, we headed upstairs to my domain, which was more like a loft than a full upstairs. It was narrower than the space below, and consisted of my room, a bathroom, and a small sitting room between the bathroom and my room. The only other door upstairs of course, led to the hall closet that I kept mistaking as the bathroom.

“This is pretty,” Sam commented, as we settled into the chairs in the sitting area.

“Thanks. My mom and I wanted to make it a comfortable, soothing space.”

We had worked hard to create just the right look. We painted the walls a nice warm taupe that glowed when the sunlight hit them and placed bookshelves from floor to ceiling around the room for the many books we had both read over the years. In between the bookshelves we placed framed posters of some of our favorite books. The frames were made from the same tasteful wood as the bookshelves. We searched high and low for the two comfortable lazy boys that sat in the middle of the room. Both of us could read for hours, so we wanted to be comfortable. The last touch was a sturdy table to sit between the two chairs. We liked to snack while we read, so having a durable table to hold our drinks was a must.

“I’ll put some music on,” I said. “Do you have any preference?”

“No. Anything is fine.”

We listened to the music and talked until we heard the doorbell ring. After paying the delivery guy, I grabbed a couple sodas, and some paper plates and napkins.

We ate in silence, enjoying the cheesy pizza with its hearty sauce. Finally after dinner, Sam looked at me with a serious look on her face. “I’ve been putting off mentioning this, but I think we should make a list of things we have in common,” she told me. “That way, we’ll have a better idea of what we’re dealing with.”

I had to agree with her. I had been trying to ignore it all day, but it had become glaringly obvious that Sam and I shared some kind of link. I grabbed a notebook and started taking notes on our commonalities. Sam filled in the ones I had forgotten, making a point to mention our common defective “emotions,” as she liked to put it, of course I still didn’t believe that her emotional “madness” was the same as mine. Finally, I set the pencil down. “I think that’s it.”

“You forgot the biggest one,” Sam said quietly.

“What’s that?” I asked, looking up in surprise, I thought we had them all.

“You forgot to write down the dreams,” Sam said in the same quiet voice.

“What dreams?” I asked, suddenly starting to feel panicked.

“The dreams we have about the guys?”

“How do you know about that?” I asked, standing up abruptly, suddenly very angry. The notebook slid off my lap and landed on the floor at my feet. I gave it no notice, as I felt the emotional wave approaching.

“I think you should leave,” I told Sam, trying to fight down the nausea. I didn’t know what kind of game Sam was playing, but I wanted no part of it. The anger began to engulf me; I knew I was on the verge of getting sick.

I rushed into my bathroom and threw-up immediately. It had been a long time since my emotions had made me sick enough to throw up. The retching finally ended as the waves receded. I rested my forehead weakly against the cool porcelain on the side of the tub.

I felt a cool cloth being placed on the nap of my sweaty neck. I wasn’t surprised that Sam had stuck around. Though I tried to convince myself that she was playing some kind of game, I knew we had far too much in common to be just a coincidence. I didn’t know what was going on, but I did know, it wasn’t Sam’s fault.

Sam handed me a glass of water. I looked up to see her studying me.

“I’ll teach you how to fight the sickness back,” she promised.

I just nodded my head weakly, not surprised that Sam somehow knew how to fight it off; she seemed so much stronger than me. She helped pull me into a standing position. My legs felt like cooked spaghetti, but I thought I could make it to one of the chairs. Sam took my arm and helped me settle into the chair.

“I know about your dreams because I have the same ones,” Sam said, with tears in her eyes. “I didn’t mean to make you sick.”

“How did you know that I had the dreams?”

“I didn’t know when I first met you. I suspected it after I saw your reaction in class today, but I knew for sure after I read the note.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, more confused than ever. “What happened in class for you to suspect it, and why did the note convince you?”

“Because, I’ve been in your shoes before, I have the same dreams as you, and I felt the same way when I met the boy that had shared my dreams my entire life. Through all my crummy foster homes, he was always there for me, and when I met him it was like I had been hit by lighting.”

“You’ve met your dream guy?” I asked surprised, not because she had dreams like mine (which was crazy), but because she made it seem like our dream guys were flesh and blood.

“You’ve met yours too. Surely you knew as soon as you saw him today, that he was the one?”

I shook my head in denial. “I’ve never seen his face though, how can you be so sure it’s Mark?”

“Have you ever reacted like that with anyone else?” she asked, incredulous.

“Well no, but how do I know it’s not just a normal reaction? He is attractive. You saw how all the other girls were ogling him,” I said, trying to take just an ounce of crazy out of this situation.

Sam sighed, “Krista, come on, do you really believe that? If I’m right, that’s what Mark meant in his note. He can explain. He already knows who you are. That’s what I think, and he knows it. Think about what he wrote in the note. He’s your dream guy.”

Dream guy
. I rolled the words around in my head. I had always hoped the dreams meant something, that I would someday meet the guy of my dreams. Could all of this be real? I shook my head. I just couldn’t believe it. We weren’t some characters in some B-rated Sci-Fi movie.

“Are you feeling better?” Sam asked, interrupting my thoughts.

“Yes.”

“I’m going to call my foster dad to come get me so you can rest,” Sam said. “I really am sorry, I know how badly you’re feeling. I just didn’t know how to bring it up. I know it’s freaky, but I am glad that I’m not alone.”

“It all just seems so strange, that all of us would meet on the same day,” I mused, almost to myself.

“It is strange, but to add more craziness to this whole mixture, when I woke this morning, I had the strangest feeling that something was going to happen today.”

“What do you mean you felt something?”

“I don’t know, I just felt an odd sense of anticipation I guess, like a premonition or something,” Sam said as she dialed her foster dad’s number. She rattled off the directions to my house for him and then hung up. “He’ll be here in fifteen minutes,” she said, perching on the on the edge of the other chair to wait.

While we waited, we discussed our common bond a little bit more, but didn’t mention “dream guys” again. My emotions were a wreck and I needed time to allow them to recover.

Our conversation was interrupted by a knock on the door.

I was feeling a little better, so I walked Sam downstairs.

I opened the door to a distinguished looking gentleman. He was of medium height, but seemed taller by the well cut suit he was wearing. With just a few gray streaks through his hair, I would guess him to be about my mom’s age.

“Hi. I’m Tom Harrison. You must be Krista. My wife Karen and I were thrilled when Sam asked if she could come over to your house today. We’ve been concerned that Sam hasn’t made any friends since she moved in with us.”

I heard Sam groan, obviously wishing he wouldn’t have added that last part, the pained look on her face made that clear. I smiled; I could relate.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay,” Sam said, giving me a quick hug.

I locked the front doors behind them and headed up to take a quick shower before bed. I paused by a table at the foot of the stairs to scrawl a quick note to my mom.

Mom had a great day at school. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow morning. Love Ya.