Touched - By Cyn Balog Page 0,63

would eventually pry it out of her. She wanted to ask me to meet her tonight. At the boardwalk. Yes!

Before she could answer, I found my lips spreading into “yes.”

Her surprise melted into a smile. “You mean it? You can?”

“Sure. What time?”

“Like, six?” She bit her lip again. “I can’t stop myself from shaking. I need to start now. I should have done the last one, but I bailed.”

I squinted at her. What? What had I just agreed to? “So you’re …”

“I don’t really think I’m ready, but I’ve put it off long enough. Too long. So you will?”

Wait … wait. Suddenly it all became clear, all of it. Everything I’d agreed to. And the answer was no. No thanks, never. By that time I felt too stupid to change my reply, to tell her I’d just agreed to it because she had the most amazing … the most amazing everything and it wasn’t possible for me to turn her down. “Sure.”

“Great. I’m a little nervous. Actually, really nervous.”

I nodded. I would be, too. She was going to perform her first Touch tonight. For whatever reason, she wanted me to be nearby for it. I didn’t know how I could do that. Be in the same room with someone as his life was ruined. As Taryn ruined his life. I opened my mouth to speak and a bunch of nonsensical syllables streamed out before I finally managed, “You, like, want me to wait outside?”

She nodded.

“Um. Why?”

“It’s not easy,” she whispered, and her eyes got all glassy. “Just … can you?”

I shrugged. “All right. I’ll wait in the arcade next door, and you come out when you’re—”

“Actually, I thought maybe you could hide in that place I showed you? That way you can watch it.”

“I don’t know how that will help. But okay,” I said, digging my hands into the pockets of my shorts. “But I won’t get … uh …” “Hurt” was the word I said in the You Wills, but I couldn’t push it past my lips. It made me sound like a gutless wonder.

“Oh, no way. You’ll be behind the curtain. And besides, you can’t be Touched twice.”

“Really?”

She flinched at my surprise. “Why, did you want to get another one?”

“Why would I want that? The good is always accompanied by bad.”

She shook her head. “Not always. Sometimes it’s all good. Bad things happen a lot. But sometimes it just does what people want.”

I snorted. Just my luck. “But now it makes sense why your grandmother isn’t too concerned with providing stellar customer service. No repeat customers.”

She wasn’t paying attention, though. She had wandered over to a display of little wire figurines, made to illustrate different professions. “Look,” she said, picking one up. “A fortune-teller. Looks just like my grandmother.”

I stared at the figure, hunched over the table with a deck of tarot cards in front of her. “No it doesn’t. She’s smiling.”

She turned it over, checking the price. “I think Grandma would get a kick out of this.”

I eyed it, doubtful. “She gets kicks out of things?”

She sighed and put the figurine down. “You’re right. So, um, today? At six? You’ll be there?”

I dug my hands deeper into my pockets, rubbing the grains of sand that always seemed permanently buried in the seams of all my clothing against my palms. “Yeah.”

“And you won’t blow me off again?” she asked, nudging me.

She came in so close I could smell the apples in her hair, and it made me wonder how I was ever Superman enough to find the will to blow her off the first time. “Promise,” I mumbled.

We followed the crowds of shoppers out of the green and she waved goodbye, then headed across Central Avenue, in the direction of her grandmother’s house. And as usual, the second she left, I missed her.

I didn’t want to go home again, but I did. I had a lot of time to kill before six, and after Taryn left me, I realized I looked like a slob. I wanted to brush my teeth, wash my face, and change out of my holey gym shorts and T-shirt so I could look halfway presentable. I opened and closed the screen door carefully, then quietly climbed the stairs and did all I needed to without my mother noticing. Well, maybe she did know I was there, since she could see the future and all, but if she did, she didn’t come out of her room or call to me, and I was glad for