Touched - By Cyn Balog Page 0,59

hospital. You saw it, didn’t you? That’s why you were upset.”

“Yeah. I think it will kill me. Me and a girl. The girl I …”

“Oh. The one who was outside just now?”

Nan had probably been listening in on the whole thing. For someone who didn’t want to know the future, she sure was nosy. “Yeah.”

“She’s cute. Is she the one you’re in love with?”

I cringed. “No. I mean, yeah. I mean, I think I could be. But I have to stay away from her.” I pressed my lips closed.

“But?”

“Well … my life is one disaster after another. But being with her makes me almost happy. It makes me feel normal.”

Nan looked at me for a long time. Then she put a hand on my cheek. “Well, why do you need to stay away from her, then? You said it was a car accident. Stay away from cars, honey bunny.”

“I know. But what if it’s just meant to happen, and messing with it just means it will happen some other way? Why should I take chances?”

“You said it yourself. Because she makes you happy. That makes it worth it.”

I sighed. “Okay. If I just say there’s no way I’m going to get into a car with her again, it won’t happen. Right?”

Nan nodded.

Just as my spirits started to pick up, I thought about her driving away in Sphincter’s Mustang. “But she’s with Sphinc—Spitzer now. I think they might be together.”

She shook her head. “Evan Spitzer? Oh, Nicky, you’re every bit as worthy as he is.”

Sure, in her warped world, a world where bifocals were a necessity and everyone who breathed was “good,” I was. That’s what I got for discussing my love life with my grandmother. Some things were better kept to myself. “Right.” It was better just to agree with her.

“You deserve to be happy.” She reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out a hard butterscotch candy. “Want one?”

I took two and unwrapped them, one for me and one for her.

“School’s Tuesday,” she said. “And your underwear is in a sorry state. Thought I’d go and pick up some new ones for you.”

I muttered a thanks. I didn’t want to think of underwear any more than I had today.

“Oh, and pens and notebooks.” She ruffled my hair. “You need a haircut, too. You look scruffy.”

I nodded like I’d take that into consideration, even though I knew there was no way I’d get a haircut before school. I didn’t feel like it. I liked scruffy, anyway.

“Anything else you need?” she asked.

“A million dollars.”

Nan launched into the same speech I’d heard a thousand times before, so I muttered, “I know, root of all evil, blah blah blah.” By then, I was already out the door of the kitchen, headed upstairs. The last thing I wanted to think about was school, where my life would suck even more if Sphincter and Taryn were a couple. In my head, I could see them walking down the hall together, pinkies intertwined, then stopping at her locker to have a massive PDA. It seemed pretty vivid. Could have been the future. Now, the thought of her and me together was faded out, like an inactive menu option on a computer screen. “Whatever,” I said.

As I climbed the stairs, my head ached. Things were cycling again, because I’d been ignoring the You Wills. Once it quieted, I tried to see my future. After all, if Taryn and Sphincter were a couple, there was no way we’d die in a car crash together, right? I tried to call up my graduation, but again, my mind just went blank. As soon as I got up to my room, though, I saw the image, felt the darkness and humidity in the Jeep. It would be raining. Steel folding in on us. Glass showering down.

What the … how could that be?

My stomach flopped. The walls of the house, like the steel walls of Taryn’s Jeep, seemed to press in on me. I needed air.

I ran back downstairs. “Nan, I’ll go get those things,” I said, huffing like I’d run a marathon. “You should sit. Rest your arm.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah, just need something to do.” She tried to hand me a twenty, but I waved her away. “I’ve got it.”

As I crossed the street, following the You Wills, I noticed the cars were packed against one another like sardines, up and down the block. People were everywhere. When I came to Central, I realized why. The Labor Day weekend arts