touch (17 page)

I stood staring after him appalled by my mother’s rudeness.

“He’s standing outside in the snow, mom.  How could you do
that?  You didn’t even ask him if he’d be cold!”

Gran and Aunt Grace drifted from the room.  No doubt, they
sensed a battle brewing.

“Will he be?” she asked as took plates from the cabinet to
set the table.

I thought back to when I touched him.  He’d felt nicely warm
to my chilled touch despite the temperature of the house.  No, he probably
wouldn’t be cold…  “That’s beside the point!  You were rude.”

“I didn’t want to argue in front of him.”  She didn’t look
at me, but focused on counting out the forks we needed from the drawer.

“Argue about what?  All I did was ask where you were.”

“And you tried to tell me you’re going to a party tonight.”

I didn’t like her use of the word tried.  “Tried?”

“You’re not going.”  She said it casually, taking glasses
from the drying rack next to the sink to place on the table.

What happened to her prior attitude?  She’d been fine with
the idea of my going out at night the day before.  Since this was the first
time I even spoke with her today, I didn’t think her current snit related to me
even though I felt the brunt of it.

“You’ve set one too many settings,” I said quietly watching
her.

She looked up surprised, probably because I wasn’t yelling,
but mostly because I contradicted her.

“You don’t want me to choose Morik, but when I’m invited to
a party, where there’ll be enough drinking that no one will notice the weird
girl discreetly touching an arm here or a hand there, you want me to stay
home.  So what you’re telling me is that you don’t want me to choose at all?” 
I looked over at Aunt Danielle for a moment.  She sat quietly in her chair, her
eyes closed, but I knew she listened.  Turning back to my mom, I said what
needed saying.  “How’d that work out for Aunt Danielle again?”

Mom paled and her eyes grew watery.  “I don’t want you to
get hurt.”

“Then you shouldn’t have had me,” I said sadly, the words
harsher than my tone.  “Our choices are limited, but they’re still there. 
Don’t limit mine further.  This is hard enough.”

She set the plates on the table in a stack and walked out of
the room without looking at me.  I stared after her for a moment, feeling like
crying myself.

“Don’t cry girl,” Aunt Danielle said from beside me making
me jump a little.  “The truth can be as hard to say as it is to hear, but it’s
always important.

I nodded and got my jacket.  Before opening the door, I
looked back at Aunt Danielle.  “Remind her I love her, okay?”

“I will honey.”

Stepping out the door quickly to avoid letting in too much
cold air, I paused on the step and looked up at the indigo sky.  I hated
arguing with my mom.  Knowingly saying something that hurt her sucked.  But she
was being unreasonable.  Nothing in this whole deal was easy or simple.  So
far, I’d been voluntarily touching boys I felt even the slightest interest.  As
in Brian and Clavin’s cases, it wasn’t always voluntary.  Regardless, I had
been selective up until this point.  Knowing that I’d die if I didn’t choose
soon helped lower my standards a bit to… oh, anyone being a possibility.  I
didn’t want to go to a drinking party.  There’d be risks just being underage at
one.  But I’d spoken the truth.  The possible benefits outweighed the risks.

With a sigh, I stepped off the stoop and headed toward
Morik.  He stood next to his motorcycle waiting, my helmet tucked under his
arm.

I didn’t want to think about fighting with mom anymore and
seeing him distracted me from my musings.  “Why do you bother with a motorcycle
if you can pop in and out of places?”

“Popping freaks people out.  It draws too much attention.” 
He handed me the helmet.

“So does riding a motorcycle in the snow,” I mumbled making
him laugh as I settled it on my head.  “Are you sure you won’t come to the
party with me?”

“I’m sure,” he said getting onto the motorcycle and starting
it.

I climbed on behind him and wrapped my arms around him
without his prompting.  Shouting her address to him through the helmet and over
the noise, I wondered how long I’d last before my legs went numb.

Five minutes.  Piercing needles of pain danced over my
thighs.  Carefully, I removed one arm from his waist and laid it over my right
leg for additional protection.  It didn’t help.

Morik took his hand from the throttle and reached back.  I
thought he was going to pull my arm around him again.  Instead, he laid his
hand on the coldest part of my leg.  Warmth seeped through the denim
immediately.  When he slowed too much, he switched hands to the other leg.  I
couldn’t believe he rode without gloves and still had warm hands.

Warmed, I rode the final few minutes in relative comfort.

Beatriz stood waiting at the door when we pulled up to the
two-story sprawling home.  Several cars already lined the driveway and music
pumped from the house.  Since she lived outside of town, there weren’t any
nearby neighbors to complain.

Unstrapping the helmet, I handed it back to him.

“If you change your mind, just come in.  Looks like the door
will be open.”

He nodded and waited until I stood back before pulling away.

“No!” Beatriz called playfully from the door.  “Tell hottie
to come back.  He’s way cuter than anything we’ll see inside.”

Turning, I smiled at Beatriz.  She’d changed the color of
her peek-a-boos now sporting a fluorescent orange.  “You’re only saying that
because you’re related to one of them.”

“Maybe,” she grinned back.  “Come on.  I’ll show you
around.”

I felt the heat escaping the house as I approached the
door.  It warmed my cheeks so I wore a blush when I stepped inside.  Beatriz
didn’t bother closing the door.  Behind us, outside, I heard another car pull
up.

“People will be coming and going all night,” she noted
leading me from the entryway piled with discarded shoes.  I quickly kicked off
my own before following her.

She showed me the kitchen with the well-laden snack counter,
then down to the rec room.  There, her brother stood behind a fully stocked bar
making drinks with a smile.  The resemblance was unmistakable.

When he saw his sister, he motioned her through the crowd. 
Between the conversation and the music, I couldn’t hear all they said, but did
hear Beatriz shout my name and the name ‘Brad’ by way of introduction.  I
noticed a basket behind the bar containing several set of keys.

“He wants to know if you drove.”  Beatriz leaned in close so
I could hear her.  “If you did and wanted a drink, you’d have to hand over your
keys.”

“Very responsible,” I commented.  “But I don’t plan on
drinking anyway.”

She offered to get me a soda and I agreed.  Moving away from
the bar, I explored the rest of their rec room that stretched the length of
their basement.  With the bar, pool table and air hockey table to the right of
the stairs, most of the crowd congregated there.  To the left of the stairs, I
found a quieter sitting area with a huge screen.  A comedy played without
sound.  Turning to go back, I spotted a bathroom tucked under the stairs.

Beatriz, carrying my soda, found me looking around.

“You have the perfect setup down here,” I commented.

“Yeah, but don’t use this bathroom.  By the end of the
night, they will have it gross.  Best bet is the one all the way upstairs. 
Come on, I’ll show you my room while this party winds up.”

Her room on the second floor had its own immaculately clean
bathroom.  We stayed up there sitting on her bed talking for close to an hour. 
Every now and again, we’d hear another car pull up followed by shouting from
the entryway.  I enjoyed her company, feeling as if I’d found a friend. 
Briefly, I wondered what would happen when my deal with Morik expired, but
didn’t dwell on it.

“Ready to head down there again?” she asked standing.  “It
will be way more crowded, but they’re all nice.  Especially to us because we’re
younger and Brad will kick them out if they’re not.”

I didn’t really want to go back.  The volume had increased
and the party now sounded a little on the wild side.  Since Morik wasn’t here
to focus my attention on finding him someone, I had to focus on finding someone
for myself.  And that meant I had to go where all the drunken sounding men were
and start touching them.

Thinking of how I’d left mom, I stood with my empty cup and
nodded.  I owed it to us all to make an effort.

In the packed basement, I enjoyed a certain freedom of
touching people without them even noticing thanks to Brad’s generosity at the
bar.  Several visions later, I grew bored and thirsty.  Beatriz had caught
sight of one of her brother’s close friends and pulled him to the area between
pool and air hockey tables.

I approached the bar on my own.  Brad spotted me, smiled and
handed me a cup with pink liquid.  I tried asking what it was, but all I got
from his explanation was the word punch.  The rest blended with the noise of
the room.

The fruity punch set my head spinning by the time I drank
half of it.  I should have known better.  Warm and needing a drink of plain
water, I wove my way through the crowd making my way upstairs to the kitchen. 
People lingered by the snack table munching and talking.

Dumping the rest of my drink in the sink, I ran the tap
looking out the kitchen window while waiting for the water to turn cold.  Stars
lined the sky.  I’d never get tired of looking at them.

Away from the house, I caught a brief flicker of a green
glow.  Leaning toward the window, I scanned the dark.  Had those been Morik’s
eyes?  Was he out there waiting for me?

“Didn’t like it?”

The voice right beside me startled me into yelping and
jumping a little.  With a hand over my wildly beating heart, I turned toward an
amused Brad.

“The drink,” he clarified, nodding toward the pink remains
in the sink.  “Didn’t like it?”

“It was fine.  I just have to work tomorrow morning.”

“So do half the people here,” he said with a laugh leaning
against the counter.

It looked like he was settling in for a conversation.  “Who’s
behind the bar if you’re up here?”

“Beatriz.  She serves very good watered-down versions of
drinks.  Keeps the party from getting out of hand.”  He reached back and
grabbed a few chips to munch.  He held out his handful of chips to share.  “I
noticed you wandering around the room down there.  You had a sort of lost look
in your eyes.  Not having fun?”

Crap.  He’d been watching me?  I’d bombarded myself with as
many visions as I could in a short time just in case Beatriz called for my
attention again.  While envisioning the future, I probably did look a little
lost.  It was hard to process one future after another like that.

A few down there had been decent enough, but when I came to
and actually looked at whom I touched, I felt nothing.  I wanted a spark, or my
heart to skip a beat.  Some kind of indication of an actual attraction on my
part.  Mean, I know, since they would die because of me, but I couldn’t imagine
making babies without some kind of affection.  Instead, each time, there’d been
nothing.

“No, not fun in the sense that they’re having fun,” I waved
at a drunk pair laughing uproariously over spilt beer.  “But fun in my own
way.  Educational for sure.”  For example, I now had a ‘top ten reasons not to
drink’ list.  But I kept that to myself.

“Beatriz said you just moved here.  You don’t talk to anyone
except her, you don’t date, and you don’t even hang out after school.  But you
do have a job.  What do you do?” he asked.

His keen observation below and secondhand knowledge of me
unnerved me.  “I just help out at the Coffee Shop on the weekends.”

From the basement, shouting erupted.  Brad moved fast
dashing down the stairs.  A clipped blast of an air horn sounded then an eerie
quiet descended.  I stayed where I was by the sink wondering what had happened.

“Tess!  Get the doors there!” Brad yelled from below.  The
noise picked up again.

Looking around, I spotted the French doors off the dining
room.  Warm from the drink, I didn’t mind yanking them open.  Behind me, I
heard thumping coming up the steps with muffled cursing.

Five guys carried another up from the party below,
struggling up the steps.  The one they carried fought against them the entire
time, cursing against the sock they’d stuffed in his mouth.

Maneuvering him outside, Brad pulled out the gag as the rest
set him down.  He came up swinging.  Two guys caught his arms and Brad started
fast-talking.  The guy could calm down outside, drink some water and stay or
Brad would call the guy a ride.  Angry, but defeated, the guy slumped onto a
snow-covered chair.  I cringed, but he didn’t seem to notice the cold.

Everyone except Brad and the guy in the chair came back in. 
I closed the doors behind them.  It looked like Brad would be staying out there
with him.

Beatriz sprinted up the stairs just then.  “Liquor is locked
up,” she showed me a little golden key, “and water is being served.”  She
looked out the window at her brother.  “Can you go to the closet by the front
door and grab him a jacket while I get Tommy some water?”

Figuring Tommy was the drunk in the chair, I nodded.  The
front door no longer stood open, which explained why it felt warmer inside. 
Stepping over the randomly placed shoes, and nudged the closet door open enough
to pull out a worn canvas jacket.

Beatriz brought both the jacket and the water outside.  I
watched through the window as Brad smiled his thanks.  He took the water from
her and offered it to Tommy.  Tommy didn’t appreciate the effort and started
swearing again.  With a dark look at Tommy, Brad sent Beatriz back in.

“He’s going to be in for it in the morning,” she commented
as she closed the doors.