All of this misery reminds me of how much I miss my father, how desperately I ached when he died. If I could get to Chloe, maybe she’d come with me and we could go see my dad?
I’m too freaked out to try it on my own. Too afraid I won’t want to come back, and who knows what I’ll end up screwing up while I’m there. I need the guidance of another Celestra, and God knows it isn’t going to be Logan.
***
Brielle picks Drake and I up right after dinner. Carly lives clear across the island. It takes a good forty minutes before we arrive at her amply lit estate which makes even the nicer homes on Paragon look like hovels.
“So what do her parents do?” I ask Bree as we head up the walk.
“Old money. They travel, sip champagne. The whole family is impossible to hate. They’re like the nicest people on the planet.”
I hate her—all of them, but I don’t let Brielle in on the fact I’ve managed to defy an impossibility. And I’m not sure how, but I like Carly even less for having nice parents. Go figure.
“Hi!” She greets us at the door before we have the chance to knock. “The guys are here.” She walks us through a cavernous entry, past a spiral staircase that seems to spin in a frenzy all the way up to eternity. We end up in an over-furnished room with a TV the size of the wall.
Logan and Gage are seated at a small round table playing cards. There’s an empty space next to Logan with the cards covered, obviously belonging to Carly.
“Nat and Kate are in the Jacuzzi,” she says.
I would have died if she were sitting on Logan’s lap in the Jacuzzi when we walked in. The possibility of drowning would have been very real for her.
“You wanna play?” Gage fans his cards in my direction.
“Sure.” I’m not entirely sure he was speaking to me, but I streamline my way over.
The room is lined with dark wood shelves filled with books everywhere you look. Not just any books, leather-bound books with gilt writing on the spines.
Once my father took us to his friend’s house, it was actually an acquaintance from work who lived in a palatial estate with a library just like this one. I remember my father thumbing through the volumes, running his fingers over the spines like they could speak to him, taking in their scents. He loved to read.
Logan gives a scowl without bothering to look at me, gets up and plops on the couch next to Carly.
“I’m really starting to hate him,” I whisper to Gage, trying to stop the tears from forming. Tonight might just be Logan’s turn to hit the bottom of the deep end by way of my fury.
Gage places his hand over mine, locks eyes with me. A warm rush cycles through my stomach. He gives the most empathetic smile while bumping his knee against mine underneath the table as though he’s letting me know it’s all going to be OK.
I let the cards scatter in front of me and move over onto his lap. I forget that everyone else is somewhere in the room, and as big as it is I don’t think it will be easily overlooked if I start bawling like a baby—so I bury my face against his chest and bite down hard on my bottom lip.
“Hey, it’s OK,” Gage creates soft tender circles with his fingers on my lower back. It radiates soothing warmth, helps quell the pain.
A rustling commotion breaks out over by the couch.
“You’re a real asshole you know that?” Brielle shouts at someone at the other end of the room. Hopefully her wrath is aimed at Logan.
The room clears out. I can feel a gush of wind as they file out of the backdoor leading to the Jacuzzi. I’m sure Carly’s already stripping down to nothing with Logan’s overeager assistance.
An impossible silence takes over. Gage nuzzles his chin over the top of my head and secures me tight.
“Sorry I’m always so mean to you,” I say, taking in his clean scent. I circle my arms tight around his waist. It feels safe like this with Gage.
“You’re not mean to me.” His head backs up a notch. He picks up the ring attached to my necklace and slides it across the chain. “You ever take this off?”
I shake my head.
“So it’s almost like we’re showering together.” His brows twitch.
“Almost.” I give a gentle laugh.
Gage presses into me with an intense gaze. His demeanor changes, it shifts into something softer.
The urge to kiss him crops up and I don’t fight it. I lean in and press my lips against his. Gage pulls me in, indulges in something deeper, more meaningful. There’s a release inside me. Something loosens. It’s almost as if I’ve been waiting for this. Maybe it’s just the attention I’ve been craving. Maybe I’m not that into Logan. How can I enjoy the hot of Gage’s mouth if I’m completely in love with Logan? I don’t bother analyzing the situation, just push myself further into Gage. I can feel him writhing beneath me, the erratic beat of his heart thumping against my chest.
“Guess she’s over it,” a tiny voice whispers from the door.
I back up quickly, still out of breath, and see Carly standing shoulder to shoulder with Logan. His arms are crossed tight against his chest. He looks good and pissed—guess he’s not that great an actor after all.
8
Going Places
Alone on my cold uncomfortable bed, I thrash my arms and legs and reflect on that dream about the boy in the water—how he filled my lungs with air from his own. I think about what I would do if I met him. Is there really love in this world? Could he love me? What about Gage? If I fully give myself to Gage would he still be interested or suddenly decide our relationship was too boring—strangulating—dangerous?
I fall through the night in a never-ending spiral. I feel like I’m floating back in time one million years. I’m so broken over Logan, how he twisted my heart and stomped all over it—watched the blood splatter all over the place without batting an eye. It disheartens me until I melt into a dreamless sleep.
An audible gasp escapes from someone next to me.
My lids fly open to find Chloe hugging the sheets up around her neck.
“Chloe?” A sense of relief washes over me. “I’ve been wanting to get back here. You remember me, right?”
“Yes.” Mild irritation crosses her face. “I’ll always know you. The impression runs both ways through my memory.” She motions over to her nightstand at the black oversized t-shirt. “Do you mind? Why are you bawling?” She pulls the shirt over her head, letting the sheet slip through her fingers exposing a very naked Chloe. I bounce to the other end of the bed in a single bound.
“Logan dumped me.” I hate the pathetic way the words crawl from my mouth.
A quiet smile plays on the edge of her lips.
“Well, he didn’t dump me. He was just here.” Her long dark hair tousles over her shoulders when she says it.
“Here, here?” I point to the bed. I know for a fact she’s slept with Logan twice in her bedroom because he told me.
She gives half a nod, and her face explodes a dark shade of crimson.
I look over to the chair across the room. Miraculously I find myself seated at the desk.
“Hey, that was cool,” I marvel.
“You can move much faster when you light drive.”
“Light drive?”
“Light drive—time travel sounds so twentieth century to me. So who’s Logan with now?”
“Some girl named Carly. She just got back from New York. And by the way, the less of Logan we discuss the better.” I can’t bare the thought of his hands on her body, wanting her the way I wish he would want me.
I rub my temples and resist the urge to chase him down and beat the crap out of him. The insanity that has become my life keeps shooting my emotions to hell. I don’t know whether to cry or kill.
“Carly Foster?” She snarls. “I hate her. Don’t buy that forever miss goody two shoes shit. I have enough dirt on her to bury her ten feet deep.” She rakes a brush through her hair. “She’s done if she sniffs around Logan while I’m around.”
“Huh.” I lean bac
k in the chair and roll gently on the casters. “You want to fill me in on anything?”
“No.” She flicks a finger in the air. “Go. You’re ruining my night. I’ve got serious things to record.” She brandishes her diary in the air.
“I want to see my dad. I want you to come with me.”
“No.” She gets down on the floor and leans against her bed. “Just go, Skyla I’ve never bothered you once—dreams don’t count.”
I hop down and take a seat next to her.
“Chloe, please. I can’t stand how much I miss him, and now with Logan pulverizing me every time I see him…” I let my words hang there. A giant egg of grief dams up my throat.
“Logan? Pulverize?” Her face contorts. “Doesn’t sound like the Logan I know.”
“He says we can’t be together because we’re both,” I shrug, “Celestra. He’s serious too. He’s been dripping all over Carly, and we had this huge fight in front of everyone. Then there was the incident of me making out with Gage.”
“You kissed Gage?” She snatches up my wrist as though I were a shoplifter.
“Yes. Gage… really seems to like me. He’s my fake boyfriend.” I say it like it should make total sense. “Anyway, he’s a good kisser and he’s never done a single thing to hurt me, so why do I still want Logan?”
“Logan,” she laughs when she says his name. “Don’t be stupid. Everyone wants Logan. And besides, how do you think I feel knowing he’s with you? Or was—whatever.
She runs her finger around the outside edge of her diary, lost in thought.
“You know what?” She starts in slow. “I think I will help you find your dad. But don’t tell Logan, he’s totally against it. He won’t even visit me.” Her forehead wrinkles, and she looks down at the floor as though she were about to drill a hole through it with the intensity.
“I’m sorry.” I’ve never thought of that. Why isn’t Logan visiting Chloe? “I know he thinks it’s predestined for you,” I don’t say the words, to die.
“Oh it is, sort of.” She nods as though she’s fully accepted this. But there are things even Logan doesn’t understand.” She gives a sharp smile. “But I do, that’s all that’s important.”
“Why would you want Logan to visit if he’s already here?”
“I want future Logan.” She stares off with a blank expression. “We have things to discuss—private things.”
“You seem to be chock full of secrets, don’t you?”
“You seem to want them all, don’t you?” She matches my tone.
“Take me to my dad, and I won’t harass you for them.”
“No, you’ll just wait to read them in my diary.” Her eyes circle over the pale blue rectangle in her hands.
I don’t say anything. She’s right, and she knows it.
“I haven’t read it yet.”
“Oh, Skyla.” She gives a devious laugh. Her eyes glint in the light, a rare shade of amber, and it’s at that moment I realize she has eyes the exact same color as Logan’s. “I know you haven’t read it yet.” Her face explodes with amusement. “And when you do, I’m sure I’ll hear about it. Now sit back down on my bed before I sucker punch you for fun.” She takes up my hands. “I’m going to take you wherever you want. Just make sure it’s the last thing you think about before you fall asleep. I don’t want to end up in Carly Foster’s bedroom with a machete.”
Now that doesn’t sound like a bad idea.
9
L.A.
I bear down on one thought in particular. A moment that I think is the crux, the turning point of my entire existence—the day my father died. It wasn’t easy thinking about one thing and one thing only. For instance, no matter how hard I tried to focus in on that one thought, my mind kept ricocheting to an unwarranted event from the past, like the time I was in ninth grade and wanted green Jell-O in the lunch line. Everybody and their mother made fun of green Jell-O. If you ate it you were logically horny, so I stayed away from green Jell-O like the plague even though I was both horny and hungry.
It would be pretty horrible to transport Chloe and I back to that majorly irrelevant point in my life. But if we happened to end up there I’d probably hoard all the green Jell-O I could get my hands on just for the hell of it.
Another random thought that floated through my head was kissing Gage. Gage has become the uninvited guest in the theatre of my mind. I marry the two thoughts, wrestle him in green Jell-O—dive in a pool filled with the green succulent slime and relive that kiss over and over.
Gage knows how to bring the intensity, make it bear down on you like heat from the sun. There’s something heartbreakingly pure about the way he kisses me. It’s like he doesn’t expect much in return, he’s just glad to be there, roaming around my mouth with his tongue. His desperation lingers long after he’s gone. He invades my dreams, flashes through my thoughts at arbitrary points of the day when I’m in the shower, riding in the car, or when I see the shadow of a bird. Any random event is capable of triggering those desperate kisses. I wonder if I came across so desperate to Logan? Maybe as much as I find it endearing in Gage, Logan can’t stand it in me.
“Where the hell are we?” Chloe whispers.
“Right here,” I marvel, mouthing the words.
My bedroom. Same configuration as my room back on Paragon, same comforter, pillow and sheets—same mess on the desk.
“We’re in L.A., my old house. What time is it?” I bolt over to the alarm clock turned on its side. “After eight. I’m already in school.” I search the far reaches of my memory. “He’s home. Stay here. I have a plan. I’ll be right back, I swear.”
“You can’t leave this house. I won’t go looking for you.” She slides open the mirrored closet door and sits half in, half out. “Hurry up. I don’t want to be up all night. It’s two a.m. for me.”
“Got it.” I wipe my palms onto my jeans. After all this time, I’m afraid to see my father. Afraid I’ll pass out at the sight of him.
The hallway is empty, quiet as a tomb. The familiar scent of our old house fills me. It drenches me in grief that I hadn’t noticed until now that our house had a scent to begin with. Mom baked cookies the night before. The air is still thick with their sweetness.
I walk downstairs gingerly. I hadn’t really thought about what I would do when and if I saw my father. I’ve always thought if I could go back I’d steal his keys. I’ve played out this scenario in my mind a thousand times, long before I knew what a Celestra was or the fact time travel was an option.
His keys shimmer in the path of a fresh morning beam streaming through the tiny window in the front door. I snap them up and stuff them deep into my pocket. It feels like an apocalyptic worthy save. A flood of relief so strong penetrates me, I feel like falling to my knees, hugging the walls and kissing them.
The rustle of paper comes from the dining room. Everything in me knows this is wrong. I shouldn’t go there, shouldn’t see him. Psychologically it could harm me. My mouth may start espousing truths he could never comprehend, but then he was a Celestra. He would know all this were possible, right? How much did he know and for how long?
I round the dining room wall. He’s there with his hand curled around a cup of coffee, his glasses pushed high into his forehead. His thick cap of hair has far more grey in it than I remember. His skin looks rougher, thicker. It’s as though his death had painted a younger version of him in my mind, taken the reality and exchanged it for perfection.
“Skyla!” He looks up surprised. “I thought Mom took you to school. You need a ride?”
His voice—that smooth as velvet deep baritone moves through my bones in a soothing rhythm. Oh, how I miss him. My heart aches and fills with unstoppable joy all at once.
“I’m sick.” I walk over and wrap my arms around his chest and take in his scent. It’s a deep luxurious hug that no matter how good it feels right now will never be enough for a lifetime.
“I gotta get moving soon. Sure you don’t need a ride? You look fine.??
? He studies my face as though it might clue him into my real intentions.
“No. I’m going to sleep. Got bad cramps. Mom gave me some medicine, so I’ll be knocked out.” I don’t know what the repercussions are going to be for the old me when I come home from school, but who cares? At least dad will be here at the end of the day—if not to greet me. And what about Paragon and all of the things that have happened? I have Chloe and the impressions I’ve made on her memory to thank for my lack of fear in that department. I may not have all the answers, but I can figure them out. Sometimes, contrary to what Logan believes, you don’t need a detailed plan.
I kiss him on the cheek.
“Good-bye, Daddy.”
I rush upstairs and close the door to my bedroom trying to stave off the tidal wave of emotion begging to stream out of me.
***
“Let’s go.” I take a seat next to Chloe on the floor. “Do we have to fall asleep?”
“Close your eyes and loosen your body.” She instructs, picking up my hands. We thread our fingers and sit there, relaxed, and I don’t feel a darn thing. Then that familiar falling sensation swirls through my body. I’m rocking and swaying even though my muscles haven’t moved an inch.
Everything ceases.
It’s so quiet and calm.
I’m all alone in my bed on Paragon.
10
Setback
I wake up to another ash grey sky, another seamless tick in the carousel of time. Not one object out of place in my bedroom, not a single hiccup as far as I can tell.