Touched - By Cyn Balog Page 0,86

wiped my hands.

“You don’t understand. I hate peanut butter.” I pouted like a kid, but then suddenly

Glass raining down, shadows swirling in the headlights

I straightened. She just kept swabbing at my hands, oblivious to the things rushing through my head. “There. Better?”

I nodded, shaking the thought away. “Yeah. I think we better get back. I need to check on my family.”

We walked back, and I held her hand. With the hand that wasn’t still sticky with peanut butter. Peanut butter. Crap. Why was everything good always mixed with bad? I didn’t want to think about it anymore. I was burned out, thinking of the bad all the time. And in this moment, all I wanted to concentrate on was Taryn. How right she felt. Comfortable. It was chilly, and we were both still damp from the rain, so she leaned in close to me, her hair ticking my chin. I smelled the cinnamon apples. With her hand in mine, my mind calmed and all I could think of was how, if I could pick one moment in my life and freeze it forever, it would be this one. There was all this craziness threatening, but I don’t think I’d ever been happier. I knew it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t. But for that second, everything was perfect.

It started to drizzle by the time we reached my block, and when we came to her car, she said, “There’s something else I have to tell you,” just as the skies opened up and it began to pour.

I tugged on her sleeve, trying to get her to go into my house, but she pulled me toward her Jeep. “Are you crazy? I’m not getting in there,” I said.

She laughed. “Don’t be nuts. We’re not going anywhere. I won’t even put the keys in the ignition.” She dangled them in front of me, then dropped them in my hand. “Here, take them.”

I held them in my palm, staring at them like they were diseased. Okay. We wouldn’t leave the driveway. That we could do. Besides, her Jeep was closer, and maybe the thing she had to tell me was something private, that she (and I) didn’t want my family to hear. So I went with her. We piled into the passenger-side door as the clouds threw rain down upon us. But the second I slammed the car door, I had the weirdest and most uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu, like I’d just made the biggest and gravest mistake of my life. Suddenly the back of my neck prickled with the sensation I got whenever something big was coming. The cabin was humid and dark and dark and smelled of peanut butter. Water poured on the roof like a marching army and splashed on the windshield in long clear sheets. The dream catcher dangling from her rearview mirror swayed gently from side to side.

And we were going to die.

But no no no, I thought. In my vision I’m driving. I’m at the steering wheel. I’m—

But I realized too late that the trivial things didn’t matter. That what mattered was the horrible, irreparable end result.

“Taryn,” I said. “This isn’t right. This is—”

“Shhh,” she said, grabbing my hand. “Listen. It’s okay.”

“No, you don’t get it.” I reached for the door handle. But I couldn’t find it.

“Nick, no worries,” she said, holding her arms over the steering wheel as if to say, “Look, Ma, no hands!” but I grabbed the one closest to me and held it. It was so warm and my hand was dead in contrast. I lunged for the lock. I clawed at the door handle, trying to figure out how to get it open. I pulled on the door, pushed buttons, but nothing happened. All I could feel was something tightening around my neck, my pulse thudding in my ears, the stench of peanut butter making it impossible to breathe, and the cabin closing in on itself, on me. Finally she said, “Nick. Just relax, we’re not going anywhere.”

“No. No. NO! Tar, watch ou—” I shouted, but by then it was too late. She was facing me, away from the headlights as they came on us at warp speed. It was a truck, and a big one, judging from the eardrum-bursting squeal of the air brakes. The entire cabin lit up for one brilliant second before the impact. Her face contorted into a terrified mask and her lips curved into an almost smile, yet her body was rigid, all points and right angles as it