Touched - By Cyn Balog Page 0,74

that I would run in the other direction if I ever saw her, the visions of us in her Jeep didn’t change. It was useless to tell myself it was over, because I didn’t mean it. After all, school was coming up. I wouldn’t be able to avoid her there.

And then it was the first day of school. I realized that it was also Taryn’s birthday. She was seventeen. I had what I thought was a vision of buying her a cake and singing happy birthday to her on the beach, but then I realized it was just my imagination. We were not together. We could never be together.

But why did it seem, in my muddled mind filled with future and past and everything in between, like we were? It was as if every day without her was killing every happy vision of the future I’d ever had, over and over again, slicing through them until only shredded, faded remains.

I woke up late. Actually, I hadn’t slept much, but I couldn’t manage to get myself out of bed. I didn’t want to think of facing the day. Of facing school.

I threw on the first T-shirt I could find, my favorite blue one with the words DON’T BOTHER ME on the front. Totally appropriate. Then I trudged down the stairs, where Nan had put my backpack and lunch. She was so prepared; even with the broken arm, she’d managed to go through the normal routine. Nan always made a big fuss over the first day of school, so I slipped out the door before she could ask me if I wanted breakfast.

I felt bad as soon as I left. I saw the smiley face in ketchup on my eggs, which she’d been doing since I was four to psych me up for “big days” like the first day of school. I hated school completely. The academic part was downright painful, since I could barely concentrate on anything with the script in my head. And as bad as that was, it was no match for my social life, or lack thereof. I pretty much kept to myself. I was the one who sat in the back of the classroom, alone. People didn’t mess with Crazy Cross.

When the bus dropped me off and I walked toward the front doors, thinking of too much perfume, Bill Runyon’s Land Rover, silver butterfly, I saw the piece-of-crap vehicle I had so many memories of dying in parked in the first spot in the nearest lot, taunting me. She’d peeled all the bumper stickers off; all that was left was their white, flaking remains. I wasn’t really surprised to see Taryn’s Jeep. Of course, without me to interfere, her life was going fine. She’d performed the Touch, and now all was right with the world.

I tried to convince myself it didn’t matter. What she did was her own business. It had nothing to do with me.

The problem was, I couldn’t not think of her. I had nothing else that was interesting enough to fill the void.

When you get to the twelfth grade, the first day of school is numbing. You don’t even get that nervous feeling in your stomach; you just have that sense of exhaustion that overpowers you when you’ve run most of a ten-mile race and know the finish line is coming but can’t see it anywhere. I got my schedule and locker combination and made it to homeroom, where I was told I needed to see the guidance counselor, Mrs. Gross, which was a misleading name because she was really pretty. The only thing was that she tried too hard to look young and like “one of us.” She was wearing ripped jeans and a T-shirt, and had pulled one knee up to her chin as she studied some papers on her desk. I didn’t buy it. I knew that somewhere in her closet were pearl earrings or a sweater set or mom jeans or whatever it was that old people wore.

“Oh, Nick!” she said, coming around to give me a hug. She was totally touchy-feely, too, and even more so with me, probably because she thought I was one of the mental ones who needed her. “It is so good to see you. Have a nice summer?”

I thought about Emma. “Wonderful,” I muttered as she embraced me. She smelled like stale coffee and too much perfume.

It was weird to be summoned here on the first day of school. I’d spoken to Mrs. Gross