Hourglass (16 page)

Chapter 33

I
don’t
want
anything!”

The three of us had relocated to the kitchen. Michael peered into the fridge, trying to find something Kaleb would eat. Kaleb responded by putting his face down on the table and covering his head with his arms, only peeking out occasionally to look at me and smile. He definitely had charm.

In spades.

“I’m sure Nate wouldn’t mind sharing a half dozen or so of his eggs. Oh yum, you know what would settle your stomach? Baaaacon.” Michael drew the word out as he opened the package and waved it in our direction, smiling widely.

Kaleb let out a groan as the scent wafted over to the table. Michael winked at me as if I were his coconspirator. I envied the level of comfort between the two of them, especially after a fight that almost came to blows.

I realized that I was comfortable here, too. I looked at Michael, still digging around in the fridge, and at Kaleb beside me. It felt right. They felt right. I hadn’t come here expecting to find a place to belong.

Team Freak. Wonder if we could get jerseys.

The warm feeling of camaraderie faded a little bit when I reflected on the truth. Michael didn’t know everything, not really. If he discovered what my life was like four years ago … it hadn’t been a life. It had barely been an existence.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and Ava swung around the corner into the kitchen, her stilettos hitting the hardwood like tiny hammers tapping the floor. She made brief eye contact with me, offering a tight smile before she turned her attention elsewhere.

“Michael?” Ava asked impatiently.

He jumped before pulling his head out of the refrigerator. “Ava. How are you this morning?”

“We need to firm up our Thanksgiving plans.” She’d yet to acknowledge Kaleb. “I want to book our flight to L.A. Assuming you’re going to accept my invitation?”

Michael looked as nervous as a deer caught in the headlights of a semitruck hauling hazardous waste. “We already talked about that.”

“No, we didn’t.” She frowned, looking genuinely confused.

“It was a couple of days ago. I told you I don’t—”

“Just come upstairs, and we’ll look at flight schedules. If you’re done with”—she waved her hand in the general direction of the table—“that.”

Kaleb smirked. “Oh, if you need him, Ava, I’m sure he’s ‘all done’ with me. Michael, make sure you wash your hands before you spread any of my cooties to the Sh—Ava.”

Ava cut her eyes around to Kaleb, tilting her head in a challenge. “Drunk,” she said.

“Shrew,” he replied.

“Kids!” Michael held up his hands in a T shape. “Time out.”

Ava shot Kaleb a dirty look and left the kitchen. Michael followed.

He didn’t look back.

“Why don’t you tell her how you really feel?” I asked Kaleb when they were gone.

“I have from the beginning.” Kaleb put his arms on the table and propped his chin on his fist, gazing at me. “Kind of like I’m about to tell you that I might be in love with you.”

“Really?” I laughed. “Because of all of our deep conversations and the quality time we’ve spent together? Or was it just love at first sight?”

“Something like that,” he said, teasing.

I thought.

I lost myself in his eyes for a second. When I realized he was waiting for me to say something, I cleared my throat. “So do you have nicknames for everyone? Shorty, Mike … the Shining?”

“I guess Mike told you the backstory on that one?”

I nodded, and his grin spread across his face slowly, like honey dripping from a comb. I bet he was used to girls staring. I wonder if he always enjoyed it as much as he appeared to be right now.

“I have nicknames for the people I love and the ones I love to hate.”

I wondered if there was some deep, hidden significance to “Shorty.” “And Ava’s on the hate list.”

“We’ve never gotten along.” Kaleb’s smile disappeared. He slid his arms across the table and leaned his head toward mine. “Maybe because something inside her seems off, and I can’t get past it. She doesn’t even know how she feels half the time.”

“You’d know, right?” I returned. “I hope you don’t mind. Michael told me. About your ability.”

“I don’t mind. I know all about you. It’s only fair you should know about me, I guess.” He sat up, the moment of intimacy broken. “No big.”

“You don’t know everything about me.”

“I’d love to hear it all,” he said, playing our conversation off as casual, flirty. I didn’t bite.

“I don’t know about that. The road to where I am now was … rough. But I’ll give you the details. If you’re interested.”

Uncertainty clouded Kaleb’s eyes as the mood shifted. Staring out the window over the kitchen sink, he said, “I’m listening.”

“My parents died in an accident right after I started seeing rips. I was committed to an institution because I let it slip to a grief counselor that I thought I was seeing dead people. Oh, and also because I lost it so completely in the school cafeteria that my best friend had to carry me to the nurse.” I gauged his reaction, wondering how much I could tell him. “No one knew what to do with me, so they drugged me into oblivion.”

“How did you … get better?” He stared at me intently, searching for an answer I couldn’t give him, no matter how much I wished I could.

“All those drugs in my system stopped me from seeing the rips. Eventually, the doctors lightened my dosage, and I learned to keep my mouth shut about what I saw. I stopped taking my meds last Christmas. Meeting Michael … has made it all easier.”

“Did he tell you how my parents met?”

“No,” I said. “But Cat told me a little bit about their relationship.”

Kaleb leaned back in his chair, propping the sole of one sneaker against the edge of the table. “My dad is … was such a typical scientist. Crazy hair, clothes that never matched. My mom always had it together. She used to be an actress. They met when he was a technical adviser on a sci-fi movie she was in.”

“What’s your mom’s name?”

“Grace. Her stage name was Grace—”

“Walker.” I interrupted as the resemblance struck me. “You look exactly like her.”

“Lucky for me.” He grinned. “They married six weeks after they met.”

“That’s amazing.”

“Their connection was unreal, deep. My dad saw rips his whole life, but it didn’t start for my mom until they met.”

“Did it terrify her?”

“She had my dad.”

I wondered if it had really been that simple for her. “How did the empathy thing happen for you?”

“As far as we know, I was born with it. I cried a lot as a baby, but not because of colic. Once my parents figured it out, my mom quit taking acting jobs so she could be home with me all the time, act as a buffer. My mom made my life bearable.” He paused, staring down at the floor. I thought I caught a glimpse of moisture on his dark lashes. “I miss her. I miss them both.”

“Kaleb, you don’t have to—”

“No, it’s fine.” He looked up at me, his eyes clear. Maybe I’d been wrong. “Anyway, as I got older, I discovered other things that helped, like how quiet it got for me, mentally, when I was underwater. That I could close out a lot if I put up enough walls.”

I felt the need to lighten the moment. “Is that why you act like such a jerk?”

Kaleb granted me a grin. “Good call.”

“I blocked a lot out, too, after the accident, even after the hospital,” I confessed. “Kept my head down. I learned things—self-defense, sarcasm—all designed to keep people out, keep them away.”

“Did it work?”

“For a while.” I smiled. “It’s getting easier to let people in. You should try it.”

“I’ll let you know how that works out,” he said, laughing. Then his face turned serious again. “No one knows this except for Michael, but my dad found a way to isolate the properties of certain drugs to help me filter the feelings, keep me from absorbing everything from everybody. He manufactured a supply for me right before he died.”

He took a flat silver coin out of his pocket and began flipping it over and under his knuckles, concentrating on the movement for a moment before fisting it in his hand. “I know what you’ve agreed to do for my dad.”

Directly meeting the blue eyes that matched those of his famous mother, I said, “For your dad. And for you and your mom. No one should have to go through the things we have. If I can change the outcome, make life better, it’s like making it right for the whole world.”

“My dad gave me this when I turned sixteen. I’d finally accepted who I was. Decided to learn how to use it instead of running from it.” Kaleb held the coin out between two fingers so I could see it. It wasn’t a coin at all, but a silver circle with a word engraved on it. I leaned closer to read it.

“Hope.”

He put the circle back in his pocket and reached out to take my hand. I gave it to him. His was strong, a little rough, and warm. I didn’t feel the electricity I felt when I touched Michael, but something else.

Comfort.

“Thank you,” he said.

I nodded.

Michael walked into the kitchen alone. I took my hand from Kaleb, but not before Michael saw it. I watched it register.

He didn’t like it.

“Did you get your ticket booked?” Kaleb asked with saccharine sweetness, all the cockiness back full force. “Are you traveling first class?”

I spoke up before he and Kaleb could start fighting again.

“Speaking of travel, when are
we
going to travel?” I asked. Meeting Kaleb had only made me more certain I was doing the right thing. There was a face attached to the problem now, making it more real somehow.

“Soon, I hope,” Michael answered. “We’ll have to fill Cat in, of course, and make sure she’s on board.”

“What are we waiting for?” I stood up. “Let’s go.”

“Hold it. Isn’t it a little soon?” Kaleb asked. “You just learned about your ability. Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

I looked at him. “The sooner we travel, the sooner you can get your dad back.”

Kaleb stared back at me. I knew he was trying to read me, probably looking for fear.

He wasn’t going to find any.

Chapter 34

I
followed Michael and Kaleb in Dru’s car as we drove through the college campus and parked in front of the science department. Thomas had studied the classical architecture of the well-preserved stone and brick buildings when he’d decided which direction to take the downtown area of Ivy Springs. Like downtown, the buildings felt stoic, solid, comfortable. And old.

Old and I never meshed well.

A wide staircase led us up to the second floor. The smell of book bindings and chalk permeated the hallways. A deep monotone voice carried from a classroom into the hallway, lecturing about the properties of metals. Papers fluttered as we blew past bulletin boards advertising who knows what. I kept my eyes trained on Kaleb’s broad back.

Cat’s exclamation of surprise at our appearance broke my concentration. We’d entered some sort of laboratory with tubes and beakers and burners and a whiteboard full of equations. She ushered us in and shut the door.

“Kaleb, after last night I’m shocked to see you among the living. I was quite sure you’d be under the weather until tomorrow at least.” Her eyes held a mixture of worry and relief behind a pair of rhinestone reading glasses. I wondered if they were hers, or if she borrowed them from a much older professor, one with blue hair and wrinkles to rival a shar-pei.

“Yeah, sorry about that.” Kaleb rubbed the back of his neck as two bright spots of color appeared on his cheeks. “I’m not sure what happened.”

She gave him a tight smile that promised more discussion later and turned her attention to Michael and me. “What brings you to the hallowed halls of academia? Did you have some more questions, Emerson?”

“She didn’t.” Michael stepped in to rescue me. “I have something I need to confess. It couldn’t wait.”

Cat slid the reading glasses from her nose and leaned back against the lab table. “Confess?”

My heart sped up in anticipation. So much hinged on Cat’s acceptance of Michael’s plan. He began to explain and I mentally crossed my fingers.

“A couple of months ago, I received a voice mail from someone I didn’t recognize requesting a meeting at Riverbend Park.” He shot me a sidelong glance. “Just off the main path, in a grove of trees. It was Em. Well, the Em from ten years from now. She told me how and when to contact Thomas to offer my services, as well as what I’d need to know to convince her I was legit. She also told me to research the Novikov Principle.”

“What?” Cat breathed the word out, lifting her hands to brace herself against the table behind her. I studied Michael’s face, intrigued by his revelation.

“No travel rules were broken,” he explained hurriedly to Cat, avoiding my eyes. He said the next words deliberately. “She told me the two of us were a pair. She could help me do
what no one else could
.”

Cat pushed away from the table, causing it to shake violently. Glass rattled and liquid splashed, hissing as it ran into the flame of the burner. “You want to save Liam.”

Michael nodded, but didn’t speak. The seconds ticked past, and Cat’s breathing grew more labored.

“No. You know there’s no possibility. You can’t interfere with time properties that way. They’ll never let …” She stopped, shaking her head before continuing. “Slowing down and speeding up for our purposes causes enough trouble, but going back, resurrecting the dead? No.”

“You’re not thinking about the possibilities,” Michael persuaded, taking a hesitant step closer to her. “Have you even considered the Novikov Principle?”

“I won’t consider any principle, Michael. It’s a no.” She slid her body across the edge of the table, taking a quick step back to put the bulk of it between them. “A solid, irreversible no.”

Kaleb, standing beside me and listening to the conversation, had remained silent up until this point. I felt his words more than I heard them, the sound of his barely contained rage pushing against my eardrums. “Why? Why the hell won’t you help save my dad?”

I put my hand on his arm, even though it was foolish to think I had any hope of holding him back if he decided to go after Cat. His bicep tensed under my fingers, and I expected him to shake me off. He didn’t.

Cat looked around the room as if she was seeking the closest exit. “It’s not about saving your father. It’s about the rules, the things we can and can’t do.”

Kaleb’s long stride devoured the floor space between him and Cat. When he reached her, he pounded his fist against the stainless steel tabletop, emphasizing each of his words. “Screw the rules.”

“Kaleb, please,” Michael said, his voice strained. Kaleb didn’t move.

The only sound in the room was the hiss of the Bunsen burners and liquid bubbling in a suspended tube. After what seemed like a lifetime, Cat spoke.

“Emerson’s never traveled before,” she said, looking from Kaleb to Michael. “Are you telling me that you’re willing to risk her safety, her life, to have her go back and save someone she’s never even met?”

Michael tried to defend himself. “It’s not danger—”

“Yes, it is,” Cat cut him off. “Michael, you know how Liam died. The timing of what you’re proposing would have to be precise—down to the millisecond—to have any chance of being successful.”

“We could do it,” he argued. “It would take some research—”

“Research? Think about what you’re proposing. One false move, and you and Emerson could both be killed, burned to an unidentifiable pile of bones just like Liam. Is that what you want?”

Kaleb hissed through his teeth, stepping back to put himself between Cat and me.

Her words hit me like a physical blow. I wrapped my arms around my waist, my stomach aching with the need to be far away from the building and the conversation. I turned and left without looking back, weaving my way through the banter of chattering students now flooding the hallway. Dodging backpacks and people, I shot out the double doors and down the steps to ground level. Once I reached the sidewalk, I looked over my shoulder to make sure no one had followed me.

Mistake.

In front of the building, a group of young men roughhoused, passing an old-fashioned pigskin football back and forth. It wasn’t old-fashioned to them.

They wore short pants with striped socks and cleats, and I placed their uniforms in the early 1940s. I was already pushing the crazy envelope for the day, and now a whole ghostly football team stood in front of me, lining up to pose for a picture on the wide waterfall of steps leading to the second story.

In lieu of trying to stick my hand into a team of more than a dozen bulky boys, I chose to search for somewhere less populated. To my right, tucked behind the administration building, I found my sanctuary. The Whitewood Memorial Prayer Garden. Two mossy benches flanked an ancient-looking bronze sundial. Flowing willow tree branches created a lush green wall, muffling the sounds of campus life and hiding a small pond. Sinking onto one of the benches, I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, grateful for the warmth of the late afternoon sun on my face.

But as hard as I tried, I couldn’t make Cat’s words go away.

After I lost my parents, I replayed my version of the shuttle crash in my mind endlessly, imagining what it must have been like to slide down the mountainside into that crystal-clear, freezing-cold lake. I liked to think the end had been peaceful for them.

I knew the end hadn’t been peaceful for Liam Ballard.

Heavy footsteps sounded behind me and I turned, expecting to see Michael. I let out a small gasp of surprise when I looked up into Kaleb’s blue eyes.

“Michael’s chewing Cat a new one for scaring you. I thought you could use these.” He sat down, handing me a bottle of water and placing a wet paper towel on the back of my neck. It was so saturated that rivulets of water ran down the back of my shirt. “Are you okay?”

“Me? What about you? Are
you
okay? Cat compared your father to …” I trailed off, not wanting to finish the sentence. I took the dripping towel from my neck. Crumpling it into a small ball in my fist, I watched as the water squeezed out through my fingers and ran down the inside of my wrist. The sensation made me shiver.

Kaleb noticed. Placing his elbows on the back of the bench, he lowered the arm closest to me, resting it lightly on my shoulders. I resisted the urge to relax into the curve of his body.

The sun, low in the sky, filtered everything around us through a soft yellow lens. The garden looked like it belonged in a storybook, not like the kind of place in which to have a conversation about death. Pain.

“Kaleb, how could she say something like that in front of you?”

“She didn’t mean it,” he answered, his expression carefully blank. “Her intention was to make a point, and I’m guessing by your reaction she did.”

“I reacted because of you. I’m guessing the two of you are close. I caught the look she gave you after she asked you about last night.”

He turned his head away, his gaze skimming over lily pads and cattails to the far edge of the pond. A fish jumped, and tiny waves did a dance with the shoreline. “My relationship with Cat is unusual. Always has been. She’s my legal guardian.”

“But you don’t live with her.”

“I’ll have to, now that my mom’s not at the house anymore. I’m moving some of my stuff in tonight.”

“Oh.” I inwardly flinched at the pain I saw on his face. “Are you okay with that?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I love Cat, but she doesn’t know how to deal with me these days. I sure as hell don’t make it easy for her. And when I try to read her—her emotions are all over the place.” His voice sounded vulnerable, completely wrong for someone with an exterior as tough as Kaleb’s. “Fear, guilt, anger, regret. I guess over my dad, or over the fact that she’s not even thirty and now she has a ward who’s almost an adult.”

“I’m sure she doesn’t think of you as a ward,” I said reassuringly, rolling up the damp paper towel to give my hands something to do. “I think she’s genuinely worried about you. How long have you known her?”

“It feels like I’ve always known her. She’s always been there. She’s like a sister to me. But she shouldn’t have to act as my guardian. Things shouldn’t have to be this way.”

“She cares about you. A lot of people do.”

“What about you, Shorty?” He smiled down at me. “Do you think you could?”

He wasn’t talking about friendship. The water from the paper towel practically turned into steam that rose from my skin. “Kaleb, I—things are—I mean, this isn’t the right time for—”

I heard the sound of a throat clearing, and I whipped my head around. Michael stood behind us. I wondered how much he’d heard. I realized how we looked from his viewpoint, Kaleb’s arm around my shoulders, me looking up at him. I stood so quickly I almost fell over my own feet. Shoving the paper towel into my jeans pocket, I faced Michael.

“Hey!” I said, my voice too loud and too bright for the situation. “What happened with Cat?”

“She wants to think about it.” He seemed uncomfortable, looking back and forth between Kaleb and me. “We’re all supposed to meet up at the house tomorrow afternoon so she can give us her answer. And so she can apologize.”

“She agreed she’d said the wrong thing to Emerson?” Kaleb asked. He stood, too, moving to stand behind me. Close behind me.

“She agreed she said the wrong thing, period,” Michael answered, his voice tight. “To all of us.”

A cell phone started ringing, and Kaleb jostled to pull his out of his pocket. A picture of a girl with her glossy lips puckered in a seductive kiss popped up on the screen. He held up the phone and gestured awkwardly. “I probably need to take this.”

He turned his back to us and answered in a low voice, “Hey, baby.”

I wanted to know more about what Michael and Cat discussed, but suddenly all I could think about was escape.

“Okay.” I pulled out my keys and began anxiously spinning the ring around my finger. “I’m … uh … going to head out. Michael, I’ll touch base with you later about tomorrow.”

I gave half a finger wave to Kaleb’s back. Then I turned tail and ran like a coward.

At least as fast as I could run in my heels.

Michael called out, “Em, wait up.”

I kept going, still spinning my keys. I didn’t look at him when he fell into step beside me. Once again, foiled by my short legs. “What?”

“I wanted to talk to you about—”

“You don’t need to ask me if I still want to save Liam. I do. Nothing Cat said changed that. And I don’t need you doubting me,” I said, unreasonably irritated with him. We reached the car and I turned around to lean against the driver’s-side door, bracing myself for an argument. “I can make my own decisions, you know.”

“I’m sure you can.” He tapped his fist on the roof of the SUV. “But that’s not why I followed you. I wanted to ask you … how … um, experienced are you with guys?”

I froze, my spinning keys slowing to a stop and landing with a smacking thud against my hand. Tilting my head to the side, I stared at him.
“What?”

Looking at the ground, he used his hands to gesture as he fumbled for words. “I … er … don’t mean it that way, not like the physical …”

There was no way I was about to tell him the closest I’d ever come to a make-out session was my adventure with him against the wrought-iron fence. Nor did I think he’d be interested in my middle-school Spin the Bottle disasters. How was my romantic life any of his business? Realizing I still had my hand up in the air, I lowered it, willing myself not to use my key ring like a set of brass knuckles. “Are we really having this conversation?”

“All I wanted to say … I know Kaleb can be very … appealing.” Michael said the word like it was a bad taste in his mouth. “Even though we argue, he’s my best friend, but …”

“But?” I prodded.

“He’s very … When it comes to girls … he’s made some bad …” He stepped away from me, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Forget it. I don’t have any right to tell you who you should or shouldn’t see. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not
seeing
anyone. I don’t know what you thought
you saw
back there, but it was
just
a conversation.” I was torn between being pleased he cared and pissed he thought it was any of his business. “Kaleb and I have a lot in common. We were talking. That’s all.”