Touched - By Cyn Balog Page 0,29
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.
Her favorite color is red. She likes to make construction paper snowflakes. She lost her favorite aunt in a car accident. Her first pet, a goldfish, was named Harry. She has a bright-red birthmark on her upper thigh. The list went on and on. I’d known there was something about her, something that crushed my chest every time she turned to walk away, and here it was. I knew her well. Better than Sue, my former wife. Better than anyone. The weight of all that knowledge that a day ago hadn’t been there pushed me down to the rotten planks. She looked at me, lying on the boards like a dead fish, and I opened my mouth to speak, but I couldn’t find the words. What could I say? Nice birthmark? The script had me fumbling around, tripping over my words again. And if I went off script, if I messed anything up, she could just become a stranger to me again.
But I had to go off script, as much as possible. I had to save Nan.
So we sat there for a moment, not saying much, while my mind was working overtime. Follow the script? Veer off a little and hope she still liked me? It wasn’t hard to follow the script; it just had me sitting there, next to her, quiet, afraid to say anything and mess things up. When I was almost dry, the script had me packing up to go home. I started to pull in my lines.
“Why don’t you just come with me?” she said, tugging on the sleeve of my T-shirt. “I want to show you something.”
There probably was nothing I wanted more than to follow her. But the thought of my grandmother kept intruding. That and the nagging suspicion that this undeniably cute girl couldn’t be so into me after all the stupid things she’d seen me do. There had to be something behind it. Maybe I’d wanted to know her so badly that I just made it all up in my head.
That was it. She was the one talking about how people always wanted things from her. Maybe she was thinking she could use me. Maybe she thought I could provide her with the winning Pick-6 numbers or tell her who was going to ask her to the homecoming dance. “Why?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Because. I might be able to help you.”
“You? Help me? Don’t you mean the other way around?”
“No. I mean, you can’t help me. No one can—”
“And the idea of picking winning lottery numbers never entered your mind?” I asked, crossing my arms.
She swallowed, looked away. She could have said something. She could have denied it. Instead, she said nothing. Her silence told me everything. The sun was so hot I was already almost dry, but because of the salt, my skin felt tight and itchy. Of course she wouldn’t be interested in me. How could I even think that? Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Something stuck in my throat, making my words come out clipped and distorted. “Your grandmother used her”—I wiggled my fingers again—“powers to learn that I can see my future. Great. The secret’s out. I can fulfill my lifelong dream of appearing on national television as America’s Biggest Freak.”
She stared at me, confused.
“Don’t you get it? I can’t help you become a millionaire. And I can’t help