Touched - By Cyn Balog Page 0,10

in the dark hallway, looking down the steps, screaming No! In that vision, I couldn’t catch my breath. I’d never felt that pain before. Like everything inside me was being sucked out with a straw.

Definitely not good.

After the pain subsided, I let out a string of curses. I threw the jug to the ground, and milk splattered everywhere. Then I tore at my hair until I heard it ripping at the roots, scraped at the skin on my face until it felt red and raw. I hated myself.

It was stupid to think I could hold on to one future for longer than a few months. But I’d liked that future. I’d liked the way I died in it. I couldn’t remember much after playing in the sand with my grandson; I’d just gone back to the beach house, collapsed into my favorite rocking chair, and drifted off. That memory was like a dream now. Who knew what kind of death I’d have?

I’d screwed everything up.

Nan stared at me, her eyes warm with understanding, though she really didn’t have any idea. She came over and wrapped her arms around me, squeezed me, but I didn’t squeeze back because her bones felt small, breakable, like twigs. The top of her head barely reached my chest, so she had to bend her neck all the way back to look into my eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing,” I answered. Really, it was everything, but my head was still cycling dully, which made even talking hurt.

The lucky and the brave, Bruce Willis, rotting inside.

I helped Nan clean up the stupid mess I’d made. She tried to swat me on the backside with the towel again, but this time I anticipated it and skirted away. I climbed the stairs, which were covered in worn green shag carpet. Since all she had was a measly monthly social security check, Nan hadn’t brought anything new into the house in decades, save for a bunch of crucifixes and worthless statues of saints, which she put on every available surface or wall. All the furniture was from when she was growing up here in the sixties, Formica, with shapes that looked like germs under a microscope everywhere. My sheets had dump trucks and airplanes on them, and the matching curtains were so worn, they did little to block out the morning light. Not that I cared. I didn’t have friends who’d see my room, and I never slept much, anyway.

When I reached her door, there was silence. I stood outside it longer than I had to. Going in there was never fun. I knocked and whispered, “Mom?”, then went inside.

The room was hot and dark and stank of incense and sweat. Mom was lying on her stomach on the bed in boxers and a tank. She’s young as far as moms go. I think she’d be considered a MILF if there weren’t thick dark rings around her eyes that matched the color of her waist-length hair, which was pulled up in a messy loop on top of her head. When I looked at her, I could almost see her resemblance to Nan. They have the same deep-set, fathomless eyes, the same soft, even voice. They laugh the same, boldly, though my mother’s laugh is always tinged with bitterness and irony. They have the same thin lips and I suppose they might even have the same smile, but I didn’t know my mother’s smile. I’d never seen it. I’d always wondered what else she would have in common with my grandmother, had things been different. Would she make great pancakes? Find pleasure in things like gardening and weeding? Go to church every Sunday?

Would she smile?

I kissed the top of her head as she picked up the remote beside her and turned down the volume on the ancient TV set. I looked over at it. Die Hard One or Two, I couldn’t tell which. She was a slave to action movies—they helped take the edge off her cycling.

“Bad day,” I sighed.

Her eyes drooped. “So I felt.”

“Sorry.”

“I know about the girl.”

“Well,” I muttered, “you can see the future, so that doesn’t make you Einstein.”

She sighed. “Do you feel it, too? Like things are going bad?”

I snorted. A girl was dead because of me. It was hard to imagine life going to a worse place than we were at right then, but yeah, I knew what she meant. It was an odd feeling, as if two totally different sensations were competing within me: hunger with