“You are incredible.” Costa’s eyes are wet, but this time, it’s from joy.
He puts a hand on the back of my neck and leans in, kissing my cheek. For a moment, he keeps his lips on my skin, perhaps for too long, but I don’t pull away. I should, but I don’t.
“We can do this,” he says with conviction.
“Okay.”
Costa leaps up and scurries to the coffee maker. “We need fuel. Should we wake up Sam? I’ll make breakfast. Lots of eggs. Protein, right? That seems like a good idea. Get us all ready.”
His manic energy is making me nervous.
“We should let him sleep, don’t you think?”
“Why? Let’s do this. What’s the point in waiting? If we can get Toby, then—” Costa stops himself. “Oh. Stella, I’m sorry.”
“What?” I take a seat at one of the stools. Apparently, I’m not hiding my worry very well.
“You’re going to have to trip with us if this plays out the way we hope.”
“I know,” I say softly.
“You scared? Or you want it too much?”
I’m scared because I want it too much. “It’s okay. It’ll be fine.”
“I know Sam hates the idea of you tripping, and if there were any other way…”
“There’s not. It’s a good thing that you tripped me because I’m the only one who can augment Sam’s vision while we’re under. It’s our best chance.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll make it fun for you.” He winks. The old Costa is back.
Sam’s voice echoes throughout the room. “Has Stella already told you? I don’t have a vision power. I have invisibility. Don’t kill me for being so awesome.”
He comes into the kitchen area, and I smile. His hair is sticking every which way, and he looks totally adorable.
He quickly kisses me and looks back and forth between Costa and me. He frowns. “You okay, Stella?”
“Yeah, actually, I’m good.”
“Dude, can you seriously make yourself invisible?”
Sam kisses me again, and then with his hand in mine, he grins at Costa. I didn’t see him transition the last time, so I am in absolute awe as he fades away in front of us. His body becomes just slightly sheer at first and then slowly, slowly becomes entirely see-through. Costa rounds the granite island and inches to where Sam was—or is, rather. I can still feel his hand on mine, but it’s hard to reconcile his touch with the absence of the visual.
“Wow, Sammy. You’re going to knock this vision thing out of the park.”
Sam filters himself back into being visible. It’s the most fantastic paint job I could imagine, and Costa is noticeably impressed.
Sam, still not fully awake even after that, yawns. “We tried for vision. We got invisibility.”
“Your girl here figured it out. She might be more superhero than you are.” Costa is practically giddy.
“Huh? What’s going on? Last I knew everyone was miserable and hateful.”
“Grab a seat,” Costa says, pouring Sam a cup of coffee. “We’ll fill you in.”
Costa and I detail what we know—or really what we’re guessing.
I also tell them about my call to Amy. “It didn’t go well. The only thing I learned is that my father seems to be living off the grid.”
“I don’t want his help anyway,” Costa says quickly. “We don’t need him.”
“I hope not.”
“I’m not screwing around here. I don’t ever want to see that man again. I know he’s your father, but he’s my enemy.”
I glare at him. “He’s not exactly my best friend either, CJ.”
Sam takes a sip of his coffee. “Ease up, you two. Do you still have enough pills, Costa?”
“You want to trip today? You’re ready?”
“I am. This is a good strategy, and Stella can send me into a good trip. Besides,” he says, smiling, “can’t you feel it? It’s a good day for death.”
“I SEE EVERYTHING NOW. I see everything so clearly. The tangled knots of my past have been undone, and while it is difficult, seeing without lies settles the heart. My history makes sense for the first time. With the truth laid out, I cannot hide. I can only run to it, embrace it even. Because now no demons are chasing me. There’s nothing else to run from.” This is all I say to Sam when he dies.
The pills are the most peaceful way for him to die and the easiest for me to watch, so I’m glad he chose that again. My hope is that when I’m calm and not anxious about his dying, that I can focus and send him into a productive trip.
Costa waits for me on the patio, and together, we sit without talking for the few hours it takes Sam to surface. The crash from inside makes both of us jump, and when we get to the kitchen, Sam is holding his head and fighting his surge.
“Hit my skull on the fridge,” Sam says with irritation.
We all agreed that we’ve got to find a way to control the surging. If we find Toby, we can’t all surface in states that are so not conducive to being around a child. I’ll probably have the least control, but the guys might be able to restrain themselves if necessary. Maybe.
Sam, however, has surfaced hard right now, and he’s hungry in more ways than one. Costa offers him a deli platter, but trying to thwart Sam’s surge proves useless, and Costa nearly gets yet another black eye when Sam swings at him. Costa tosses up his hands and goes down to the water, leaving Sam and me alone for a while.
I really can’t complain because, even though I’m not surging, holding him while he’s died so many times has built up a charge in me that needs a release, and I’m more than happy to work out his surge in the bedroom—or in this case, on the kitchen island.
My legs are wrapped around Sam’s waist, and he’s fully dressed with only his pants undone and lowered enough. The counter is hard underneath my back, but I like this because the solidity lets me feel everything about Sam moving inside me. I let myself get lost in him and his rhythm, and I focus solely on my physical pleasure, blocking out everything else. There’s too much to face right now, and my past and future are colliding in a way that’s verging on unmanageable. I don’t want to be here, so I let myself disappear until there is only the fluid motion of sex and my love for Sam. I need a break from being too present, so I allow myself to vanish into him. I will come back to reality though. It’s not like before.
It’s only when he stops moving and says something that I jar from my own world.
“What? Don’t stop…” I murmur. When I open my eyes, I see that he’s resting his hands on the counter and staring out the picture window.
“A rainy day at the lake is better than a sunny day anywhere else,” he says, smiling.
“Huh?”
“Swim during daylight hours only. No lifeguard on duty after six p.m.” He squints a bit. “The Joy of Cooking…The Firm…The Catcher in the Rye. Oh. A Different Blue and Ten Tiny Breaths. You read those last two, didn’t you? This summer?”
I’m pretty sure that Sam is having some kind of a horrible seizure that’s causing him to rattle off nonsense. I tap his arm. “Look at me. Are you okay? Bishop?”
“Sorry.” He grins through his surge haze. “The sex is outstanding. But I couldn’t help noticing that I can read the signs at the public beach across the lake and that I can see inside someone’s house. They have a lot of books.”
I’m flooded with disbelief. “You got it? You got vision?”
Sam looks down at me and begins moving his hips again. “I got it.” He leans over and nuzzles into my neck. “I got it.” His breath is hot on my neck, his lips and tongue wet as he starts kissing and sucking on my skin.
I lift up into him, my arousal now soaring even more. The strength of us together scares me and exhilarates me, and my body reacts to our intensity by needing more and more from him. My fingers dig into his shoulders as I work myself against him until I can barely breathe, and then my body tightens and climaxes. The groan that I release is nearly a howl, and I’m still shuddering when Sam thrusts in
to me harder and harder, soon working toward his own. Surge sex is raw and so animalistic in the base needs and sounds it creates in us. Death tripping might be addictive, but surge sex might be even more so.
After, when Sam has finished polishing off most of the deli platter, we go down to the lakeshore. Costa is a few feet from the water. It must have been torture for him to wait out Sam’s surge to find out if this worked.
Before I can tell him the news, Sam stops us twenty feet away. “Hold up your phone.”
“What?” Costa looks nervous.
“Open a web page, and hold up your phone to me.”
Costa bites his lip and controls a smile. The look he gives Sam melts my heart. He does what he’s asked to and lifts the phone. I can’t begin to see what is on the screen.
Sam, very casually and without straining at all, reads to us, “Bret Michaels was born on March fifteenth in nineteen sixty-three—Costa, seriously?” He laughs but keeps reading, “As the lead singer of the band Poison, Bret enjoyed international success in the eighties, and to date, the band has sold over forty-five million records worldwide. Bret relaunched his career with his reality dating show, Rock of Love.” Sam tosses up his hands. “Okay, I can’t take anymore!”
Costa makes a beeline for Sam and jumps into his arms, latching on to him like a koala baby, and Sam stumbles back.
“You can see, Sammy! You can see!”
Sam rolls his eyes, but he hugs his friend close.
The boys are both laughing and crying.
While I’m as happy as they are, I’m also cautious about preemptively celebrating too much. There are too many unknowns. “Sam, let’s find out if you can see in the dark.”
He sets Costa down and points to the sky. “You might not have noticed in all the excitement, but it’s still light out.”
“Funny, funny.” I pause because they’re not going to like this idea. “I think you should go into the lake, Sam. Try to see in that darkness. It’s the closest thing to being under.” Toby died here, so I hate the suggestion, but it seems necessary.
Costa is somber now, but Sam agrees instantly, “Of course. That’s good.” He takes off his shirt and heads to the water as he undoes his pants. “You coming?” he asks me. “I need you.”
I’m not much of a lake person myself, but I know I have to go in. The closer that I am to Sam, the stronger his vision will be.
“Let’s hope no one else has a bitchin’ vision power,” I say as I strip down to my bra and underwear. I glare at Costa to stop him from saying anything lewd. “It’s the same thing as a bathing suit. Shut up.”
Costa holds up his hands in surrender. “I didn’t say a word.” He crosses his arms. “Hey, I’m going to wait up at the house, if that’s okay.”
“Of course,” Sam says.
Watching us in the water here would be too hard. Without the hot summer sun, the temperature is a bit chilly, but we dunk in and swim out until we’re treading water.
“Ready?” I ask.
“Ready. Hold my hand, and we’ll go under.”
We swim for a bit, and I try opening my eyes to see what I can make out, but I can barely see Sam, and he is right next to me. The water is for sure murky, so it’s a good test. We break through the surface, and I look to Sam.
“God, it’s so easy, Stella. I can see clear across to the other side, down to every pebble on the bottom.”
I smack my hand against the water and splash him. “Show-off,” I tease.
He splashes me back, but then he gets serious. “It’s because of you, you know. You’re the only reason I can do this.”
“It’s because of us.” I tread water for a second. “If we find Toby, you’re going to lose your powers when you surface him.”
His expression sobers. “I’m not worried about that. Neither should you.”
“I know it’s a trade-off worth making, but I love your powers,” I say.
This is true. There is something so special about them because they are determined by the union of the two of us. It’s a physical manifestation of our bond.
“And without them, you won’t need me. I won’t serve a purpose.”
“Stella, don’t you dare think that. Never. Your purpose is not to be my power augmenter.”
“Why do you think I’m your power augmenter? Did I become that because we fell in love? Or…” I don’t want to say this, but the thought feels like more than I can contain. “Did we fall in love because I was…I don’t know…fated to be your power augmenter because of my dad?”
“The chicken and egg question.” Sam shakes his head. “Stella…”
“Come on, it’s a possibility. Maybe we met in the hospital years ago because we were supposed to. Because I was already your power augmenter or I became that because my father tripped your best friend. The fates knew Costa would later trip you…I don’t know. Maybe the way we feel about each other hasn’t been our choice. What if the way we feel is just a fabrication?”
“Is falling in love ever a choice?” He swims closer and touches a wet hand to my face. “I don’t think so.”
“It’s a possibility though, isn’t it?” I go on my side and start to lead us into shore. “It happened so fast between us, an instant connection even when I was only sixteen.”
“With death tripping though, doesn’t it seem to you that things happen because of how we feel and not the other way around? We affect experiences. Like, we have bad trips when our emotions are out of whack.”
This makes me feel a little better. “That’s true.”
“I know, without a doubt, that you being my power augmenter is a natural consequence of our love. Even if I have no powers to augment, you’re still going to be the absolute love of my life.” He flashes a smile. “And my death.”
It seems unimaginable, but even in the upheaval and chaos that has come with the introduction of death tripping into my life, I am more present and grounded than I’ve ever been. My heart is lighter, my head less hazy. Our love is proof that, against all odds, together, we can see in the dark.
When I can set my feet on the sand below, I stand with the water lapping gently against my chest. “We came first.”
“Yes, we came first. I can’t be tricked into loving someone. Everything that I feel for you is real. It comes from me.”
Sam Bishop, the boy who brought me Wonder Woman socks and who subsequently rocked my world into a hundred shades of clarity, kisses me and floods me with belief.
WE WAIT UNTIL NIGHTFALL TO TRIP, reasoning that maybe Toby would be asleep at night and in one location. It’s possible that he’s never been far from where the initial accident took place, but maybe Sam and Costa simply couldn’t see him.
I’m edgy and walking the length of the open living area—going back and forth from the fireplace, passing the soft couches, passing the farm table where we’ve eaten dinner together every night, stopping in front of the pictures on the wall that are lit by small showcase lamps. Gorgeous pictures of the Bishop family, all in black and white, cover this wall, and I study the prints—Sam and Kelly as kids growing up in Maine, Micah and Felicia on their wedding day, the family in front of the inn during a party.
I see only one picture that makes me pause. It’s of Sam, when he was fully grown, and I know for sure that this must have been taken after Toby died and before I met him. I can see the surly, angry person he was when I first came to Maine. It’s hard to believe now how cold and shut down he was.
I’m tempted to call Felicia, but I’m afraid that she’ll hear the emotion and nerves in my voice, and I don’t want to alarm her. We’ve been in touch via text, but I haven’t spoken to her. Once Sam, Costa, and I get through this last trip, I’ll want to hear her voice. I’m nervous and fragile now though, and her love would be too much.
We need to be careful with death tripping. That’s very obvious to me. Toby is a drastic example of what can go wrong, but there are plenty of other repercussions I don’t want to even imagine.
&nb
sp; But I’m so ready to trip. The desire in me that has been teased by all the tripping Sam’s been doing has built to such a degree that I can hardly think about anything else.
“How are we going to do it?” I ask. “The pills, right?” I turn and start walking the room again, but then I stop when I see what Costa is doing. “Oh, CJ…do you think that’s a good idea?”
He’s kneeling by the coffee table and pulling out things from a bag. I watch as he folds a fuzzy green blanket and sets it down. Then, he takes a worn teddy bear and holds it up. “Toby loves this guy. He’ll want to have him when he gets back.”
I don’t know what to say as he continues adding to the collection on the table—board books, a set of plastic blocks, some clothes. He’s included the beginnings of everything a toddler would need.
Then, he snaps his fingers and rushes to the kitchen. “Hungry. Toby’s going to be hungry.” He takes Cheerios from a cabinet. “I shouldn’t leave the yogurt out though, right? I don’t know how long we’ll be gone.”
Sam is eating dinner at the table and looks up from his book. Then, he puts a finger to his lips to tell me not to bother trying to dissuade Costa.
“What did Toby call that bear?” I ask.
Costa smiles warmly. “Ba. He called the bear Ba and a bottle baba and a nap bee. I have no idea where that word came from, but most of his words started with B.” He looks at the table. “I bought diapers and clothes in case he’s grown. I don’t know what he’s going to be like, how old. But…what else am I forgetting?”
Sam backs up his chair and goes to Costa. “We’ll figure it all out. And we can get anything else you need later, okay? One thing at a time.” He looks at me. “Did you eat?”
“Not really hungry.”
“You should try to get something in your stomach.”
“I’ll eat after. I want to do this. Now.”
“Okay. Costa, you all set there?”
He rubs his hands together and stands. “Yeah. Did you, uh…talk to Stella?”
I look between them. “Talk to me about what?”
The apologetic expression on Sam’s face scares me, and my edginess increases by a landslide. “What is it?”