Touched (7 page)

I was too stunned to follow her. I just stood there, surrounded by my fishing gear, mouth hanging open.

I spent the rest of the time walking back and forth on the boardwalk, feeling like crap. This was useless. First of all, when I got out there, I realized the reason my nose had begun to sting in the sub shop. It would be fried by the time I got home, but I didn’t have enough money with me to buy sunblock. And every time I set out to cast a line, I saw the outcome of my expedition. No fish. It wasn’t that they weren’t biting. It was that my hands would be shaking too much to steadily reel in the line.

And Taryn somehow knew I could see the future.

All my life, I’d been hiding it from people, doing whatever I could to throw them off. I’d always wanted to have someone understand what was going on with me, but I knew that if I told, they’d never believe it. Or if I showed them what I could do, they’d be so freaked they’d run far away or summon men in white coats to take me to a laboratory for a lifetime of painful tests. But she believed it. She sought me out. And not only that, she acted like it made total sense.

Of course I always wondered why my mom and I were like this. There are pictures in the house of my mom when she was in high school. She was a cheerleader and on the debate team, and you could just tell that back then she was normal. She didn’t have the dark circles. She didn’t have the worry creases on her forehead. Nan said she “got it” around the same time I was born, whatever “it” was. I assumed it was me. Something about being pregnant with me. My mother would always say it had something to do with my dad, but she’d shut up whenever I tried to pry more out of her. I didn’t know who he was, but maybe he had something in his blood. Maybe he poisoned us.

But that was a long time ago. I’d never met my dad, never wanted to. And yeah, there was always something tugging at me, some hole begging to be filled. But he clearly couldn’t fill it. By the time I realized that he existed I was old enough to know that if he didn’t want to be in the picture, I didn’t want him there. I figured he probably saw me like everyone saw me. A freak.

That was my own father. So how could this girl I barely knew not see me that way?

“What is it like?” a voice said gently as I sat there, legs dangling over the side of the pier, staring at the ripples in the brown bay.

I knew she would be coming back, even after she found the fish in her “lunch.” I knew she would sit down next to me and her red toenails would glisten in the sun, against the backdrop of dark water. I knew her hair would smell like apples. “How was lunch?”

She wrinkled her nose. God, she was cute. “Great. Thanks.”

I didn’t apologize. The last time I did that, she told me to go away. I just sat there, feeling my nose baking and wondering if it was already stoplight-red. “Are you going to tell me how you knew?”

“Don’t you already know that? I mean, if you can see—”

I snorted. “You’d think.”

“So, like, do you know what’s going to happen right now?”

I shook my head. “No. Well, yeah. I knew you were going to ask that. But the further you go into the future, the more fuzzy things get. Because little things in the future change—you know, the butterfly effect. So I can see pieces of everything that could have happened, all the outcomes based on where I am at a certain moment. And at first, they all fight against each other, so I can’t tell which is real and which isn’t. After I stay on script for a while, it becomes clearer. I can figure out what’s real and what’s not. But it’s really hard to stay on script.”

She gasped. “On script? How do you—”

“You can remember best the things you just did, right? I can remember best things that are right about to happen. They’re more real to me. I call it my script. My You Wills. You know, you will start running. You will fall and smack your face against the pavement.…”

“Script? So wait. You actually see the phrase ‘You Will’ in your head, like in a real script?”

I shake my head. “No, I see myself doing those things in my head. If I stay on that script, my mind doesn’t get clogged up with lots of possibilities. It just stays on one future. But if I go off script, even a little—”

“So that day when we met, you were—”

“According to the script, I was supposed to save that girl. Emma. I saw myself saving her. Instead I met you. And my mind went haywire with all the new outcomes.”

She stared at me, uncomprehending at first. I saw the moment it made sense to her, because her breath hitched. “Oh, my God. Really?”

“Yeah. And now something’s going to happen, and I have to fix … Oh, forget it.” I’d never explained this to anyone, and it felt so foreign coming out of my mouth. Unbelievable, even to me. “Did you make the team?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

She nodded. “You?”

“Nah. Probably better if I’m not on it. I’d know when we were going to lose and just drag down team morale.” I meant it as a joke, but it came out bitter and sad.

She stared into the water for a minute. “Well, why did you even bother trying out? You must have known you were not going to make the team, right?”

I shook my head. “You would think. But it’s like this: think of the last movie you saw.”

“Okay.”

“Are you thinking of it?”

“Yeah.”

She said it so quickly and dismissively I thought there was no way she could be thinking of it. Without even realizing I was doing it, I said, “Wow,
The Little Mermaid
? Seriously?”

Her eyes grew wide for a second, then she glared at me. “I babysit a lot. How did you know that?”

“I can do it sometimes. If I have something concrete to focus on, I can just go forward into our future to where I find out what I need to know.”

Her jaw dropped. “You can do that?”

“Yeah. Sometimes. I mean, I can’t go too far into the future. A couple of minutes at most. Anyway, back to
The Little Mermaid
. Do you remember all the lines, everything that happened?”

“Yes.” When I raised my eyebrows, she smiled. “Like I said, I babysit a lot. I’ve seen the movie four hundred times.” Then she began to sing, “ ‘Look at this stuff, isn’t it neat. Wouldn’t you think my collection’s—’ ”

“All right. But with movies you’re not secretly obsessed with—”

“I’m not obsessed!” There was a small smile playing on her lips as she punched my arm. “Right. I only remember the really big things that happen.”

“Right. Or the dialogue or action or whatever that really hit home or meant something to you. Or just random things, pieces of the whole. But if you hadn’t seen the entire movie, and you just saw that random thing out of context, you’d be a little confused, right? That’s what I see. So no, I had a strong feeling, but I didn’t know for sure I wasn’t going to make the team. I guess it didn’t matter to me so much. I remember the things that matter more.”

She nodded. “Oh.”

I took a breath and suddenly I saw red velvet, like from a tent. A gypsy tent, like the ones on the boardwalk in the Heights. Taryn was standing there, beckoning me into the tent. Then, Old Scary Lady at a table, surrounded by red velvet. “Your grandmother is a fortune-teller on the boardwalk? Seriously?”

She gave me a severe look, like it was nothing to laugh about, and it was only then I realized I was kind of laughing. Because the fortune-tellers on the boardwalk were all old crackpots who were so senile they didn’t remember their own names. Only idiot tourists went to them. Of course Old Scary Lady was a fortune-teller. It totally fit.

“Well, why not?” Taryn said. “Hey, you shouldn’t knock it. She makes a good living. You could probably make a killing doing it.”

I shook my head. “I can only see my own future. And I don’t even see that very well. Like I said.”

“Oh.” She bit her lip, another one of the cutest little mannerisms I’d ever seen on a girl. “She’s not a fortune-teller, anyway. She’s a bibliomancer.”

“A what?”

“She can tell a person’s future by passages in certain books.”

“Passages in books? Sounds shady.”

“It’s an ancient practice,” Taryn said. “Dates back to medieval times, or so my grandmother says.”

I raised my eyebrows. “So, like, what does she do? Open up a book and just tell a person’s future from it? How does that work?”

“Well, it’s a little more scientific than that. Most bibliomancers use the Bible, but my grandmother has people bring in their own books. Whatever book they like best.”

I laughed. “I’m partial to Dr. Seuss. Can she do it with
Green Eggs and Ham
?”

It was like I was floating above my body, unable to stop myself. I didn’t even have to touch her to be at ease; just being near her made my mind calmer. Yeah, the script was still there, but muted, not so insistent. I was in danger of getting entirely too comfortable with her. Never had the one-liners come so easily to me, never had I felt so witty. Somehow, I was getting cocky again. She had that effect on me, I guess. But bad things had a way of happening whenever I got cocky. The script suggested politely to me to be quiet, and I agreed, stifling the laughter remaining in my throat.

She gave me a look that said she wasn’t happy with me taking it so lightly. Like she actually believed in that kind of crap. Then she picked through her beach bag. “Look, I’ll show you how it’s done. Pick a number between, say, um, one and fifty.”

“Look, I really don’t need any more help seeing my future, thanks.”

“It’s just a demonstration,” she said, producing a worn paperback.

I couldn’t see the title, but I could see a man and woman locked in an embrace, bare skin everywhere, on the cover. “Wait, you’re going to tell my future using”—I reached for the book and stared at its cover—“
Sins of Tomorrow
by Rebecca Stanhope? Epic.”

She turned a flattering shade of red. “I said, it’s just a demonstration. And it’s a very good book, despite the cheesy cover. Don’t make fun until you’ve read it.”

“Okay. Can I borrow it from you?” I said, studying the back cover. Something about a young woman who loses the love of her life in the war and then, after marrying another dude, discovers her first love is alive! He has amnesia and has no idea who she is, but “can her undying love rekindle the flame of their passion?” That’s what it said on the back cover. Definitely epic.

“When I’m done.” She stood and said, more insistent this time, “Pick a number.”

“Okay. Twelve.”

She closed her eyes and threw the book into the air. It landed on the boards on its back cover. “Wait.” She ran to it, picked it up, and did it again, with the same result. Then she did it again. It landed on its front cover this time. She sighed. “It’s easier with a hardcover. It’s supposed to land on an open page. Oh, well, let’s just pretend it landed on page … um …”

“Two-ninety-three?” I offered.

“Yes. Great.” She flipped the book open. “And starting with line twelve, it says, ‘ “Oh, Holden,” she murmured, as her kisses trailed down to …’ ” Taryn stopped and looked up, her face redder than ever.

“So what does that mean?” I asked, trying to keep a straight face. “Am I going to get it on with some guy named Holden?”

She stomped her feet on the boardwalk, but because she was so tiny and wearing rubber-soled flip-flops, it didn’t have any effect. “It. Is. Just. A. Demonstration!” She threw the book down again and this time it skittered toward the edge of the pier. I lunged to the side as it was happening and it landed in my waiting hands. “Saw that, did you?” she began, astonished by my foresight, and for a second, I felt proud of myself. Maybe even a little cocky. But it only lasted a second. The next thing I knew, I saw what was going to happen, clear as day.

You will lose your balance and fall backward into the water
.

Damn. I couldn’t steady myself in time. I tried to save her book as I splashed into the bay, but it was no good. The water was over my head.

The water was slimy and gross, and fingers of seaweed entwined themselves around my toes. I surfaced, hair over my eyes, spitting out a mouthful of salty green water, then stroked as quickly as I could toward the rickety wooden ladder. Crabs that had been feasting on my bait were probably now looking at my ankles. “Are you okay?” I heard Taryn ask. When I wiped the veil of hair away, she was bending over the side of the pier, looking worried, either for my safety or for her reputation, being seen with such a spaz.

Did I say I felt cocky? Suddenly I felt like a spider must, trying to scurry up the side of the toilet bowl before it’s finally flushed.

When I climbed up, she laughed. “So, you
didn’t
see that one coming?”

“Um, sort of,” I said, water dripping off the end of my nose. “Too late, though.”

“Anyway, that passage might mean you’re going to have a whirlwind romance. Or something,” she said, blushing, as she waved the book in the air to dry it. The damage had been done, though. The pages were already starting to ripple. “Thanks for rescuing my book.”

“No problem,” I said, thinking how ironic it was. I might not be any good at saving toddlers, but dime-store paperbacks, I could handle. As I looked at the cover, with those two entwined semi-naked bodies, I was hit with a feeling that nearly knocked me back into the bay.