Schasm (Schasm Series) (15 page)

“Sugar." I got it, don’t worry,” he says as his grin widens, reminding me of his hidden dimples.

It was only his thumb against my lips.

My feelings erupt into a puddle of mush. I feel as if I was standing at the edge of a cliff waiting to dive off, but instead I was pulled back to safety. Maybe he doesn’t want to kiss me. Maybe he feels too sorry for me now.

“Chloe, are you okay?” he asks, his mood deflating. “You don’t look right.”

“I’m fine. Why?” I ask.

His arms fall around my shoulders, nudging me to start walking. “I think we need to get going.” He says it urgently.

I pull away from him. “Really. I’m fine,” I say again.

I don’t want this night to end. But he takes my arm within his grip and tugs me down the grassy parking lot back to his car.

He keeps the gas pedal pressed to the floor. The ride reminds me of the one I had with my mother when she was running away from that man the other day.

I place my hands on the dashboard for support and look over to him. “Alex, what’s the rush?” I’m starting to panic.

He glances down to the speedometer and then looks back to the road. “I just think we need to make sure you’re okay. Now will be better than later for that.” There’s still urgency in his voice.

“How are we going to do that?” I ask, feeling a panic rise within me.

He looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “Just hang tight. Okay?”

Our quick car ride leads us right to his long, spiraling driveway. He pulls the nose of the car just a few inches away from one of their three garage doors.

He races around to my door and lifts me up, cradling me in his arms, and runs us both inside. I’m not sure why he thinks I can’t walk all of the sudden. This is getting a little out of hand. I feel fine.

He yanks on the doorknob and kicks the door open. “Mom?” he yells from the main entryway.

I’m fully unsettled now. Celia runs downstairs as fast as her feet will carry her. She cups her hand over her mouth when she sees me.

“What is going on? What are you looking at?” My breath comes in short bursts.

Celia takes my hand and leads me to their full-length mirror. It looks as if all of the blood has been drained from my body, accentuating hundreds of green and blue veins on my forehead. My skin is ghostly white.

I run my fingers up the sides of my cheeks, tracing the lines. “What’s happening?” I plead for an answer. “Please…tell me.”

“You need to take her, Alex, now,” Celia stresses.

“Take me where? Alex, where are we going?” I’m begging.

Neither of them will answer me.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

C’EST LA VIE

“CLOSE YOUR EYES,"
Alex hushes in my ear. "Everything is white, there are bright lights blinding you, and the sound of your panicked parents’ voices are deafening your ears.” He slides the back of his hand up and down the side of my face, soothing some of my fears.

“Don’t leave me, Alex,” I plead, sniffing back tears.

I flutter my eyes a few times until everything becomes clearer. I see a lot of white, except for the yellow tint of a bright light shining over my face. I’m standing next to a hospital bed, a bed that my lifeless body occupies. A prickling sensation takes over and fear pours through me. I’m trying to put all of these pieces together, but I can’t. How is this possible?

I feel a warm hand engulf mine.

“How am I in two places at once?” I ask, feeling my chest tighten.

“You’ve always had the ability to do this…it’s just not an ideal situation. It’s almost as if you have a crack in your brain, and your mind is being split between two opposing forces.” He stares down at my frail body.

“What am I supposed to do now?” I’m holding back sobs.

He moves to the other side of me, trying to get closer to the monitors that I'm hooked up to. “I’m not sure just yet. I need to see how the doctors are treating your condition first.” He studies one of the machines.

He removes his hand from around my arm and grips the back of his neck with both of his hands.

I try to ignore his expression and instead continue looking at my frail body lying on the hospital bed with uncombed and frizzy hair. My face has a greenish hue, and there are a dozen wires attached to different areas of my body. Then I look at the monitor that Alex was just looking at, the one connected to the patches on my forehead. It doesn’t appear to be picking up any activity. The heart monitor is beeping at its normal pace.

I’m half-alive.

My breath hitches when I'm hit with realization. “Alex… has my brain stopped functioning?”

He wraps his arms around my waist, his hands landing at the small of my back as he pulls me into him. “We’re going to get you better, Chloe. I promise.” He sounds determined. But I don’t know how he’s going to fix this.

I’m crying now. I can’t help it. I’ve never seen myself like this. He sweeps his hand over my cheek and lifts my chin, forcing me to look into his eyes instead of my body lying in a bed of machinery.

“Chloe, I
know
you will be okay,” he reassures me as he leans down. His cheek brushes against the sensitive skin under my ear. His lips brush across my face, trailing near the corner of my lips. “I promise you.” The words are whispered from his mouth into mine.

The unexpected tease courses through every cell in my body. My heart leaps.

The earsplitting alarm on the heart monitor tells us I may have enjoyed this little moment a bit too much.

Doctors and nurses charge through the doors to check on me. My parents rush in behind them. They all look at each other, trying to determine what could have triggered this.

“What’s happening?” my mother asks.

The doctor’s eyes bounce back and forth between the monitors.

“Her heart is good, but she still has no brain activity.” My parents look relieved to know that at least something is still working. “We have a few tests scheduled for tomorrow…we’re going to see if we can stimulate any sort of definitive neurological reaction.”

Reaction? The words coming out of the doctor’s mouth scare me.

I pull Alex’s collar, tugging him closer to me. “What does that mean—reaction?”

Alex is looking over the doctor's shoulder, reading the notes on his clipboard. “I’m not sure, but we might want to find a way for you to get your brain to function on your own before they try anything drastic.”

“Drastic…” I remove my hand from his shirt, and smooth out the wrinkles I created.

Alex clamps my shoulders. “I have an idea.” His eyes are wild, and I’m not keeping up. “But I need to take you somewhere and to someone who should have some answers for us.” He’s my only hope now. I have to trust him.

“Okay,” I tell him.

He sweeps my hair off of my neck and kisses my temple. “I want you to imagine a small pastry plate with a buttery croissant and a cup of fresh hot cocoa,” he begins. “At the same time, imagine what it would be like to visit Paris in the nineteen forties.” His words soften to a soothing whisper. “Visualize the clothing, the architecture, your surroundings.”

I close my eyes, trying to imagine my favorite foods, and the light of the room turns to gray behind my eyelids before becoming black.

My sense of smell kicks in first, and the scent of fresh coffee and lavender waft through my nose. After a minute or so, my eyes open and my vision refocuses on my bistro table at the French café. A bubbly, petite girl with a black bobbed haircut bounces over to me.

“Bonjour,” she chirps. “Voulez-vous de café, mademoiselle?” she asks, handing me a pastry dish with a croissant.

“Chocolat chaud,” I say, my mouth watering at the thought of hot chocolate. “Merci.”

But my mouth is quick to dry up when I realize Alex isn’t here with me. I search the café, but he’s nowhere to be seen. A hand clenches my shoulder from behind, startling me. I spin on my heels, relieved to see him standing behind me.

He’s now in entirely different attire: a pair of brown, freshly-creased dress pants, a white button-down shirt, brown suspenders, a fedora, and brown and white suede shoes. Somehow, I’m still clad in the modern-day attire Celia bought for me.

I tug on his arm, forcing him to lean his ear toward my lips. “Where did you get those clothes?” I ask under my breath.

The corner of his lip curls into a crooked grin. “The same place I got these.” He hands me a white paper bag and gestures to the ladies’ room in the corner.

I make my way over to the restroom, holding the bag in front of me to prevent anyone from becoming suspicious. I push the old wooden door of the bathroom open and enter into a white tiled room with two white baseless sinks emerging from the wall and a large smoky piece of reflective glass being used as a mirror. The bathroom smells like Ivory soap, thought it looks aged and grimy. There’s a watercolor painting on the wall, a scene of a beautiful Parisian woman dressed in a stunning black dress. She’s standing in the middle of a park staring up at the Eiffel Tower. I’m mesmerized by this painting. I wish I could dissolve into the artwork. I reach inside of the bag and pull out a beautiful red daytime dress covered in black lace and small black polka dots. I also find a pair of satin black gloves and a black velvet-trimmed hat with a red rose attached to the brim.

In this, I’ll at least look like I belong in the painting.

I slip on my new wardrobe, in a rush to rejoin my
monsieur
. I smooth the last wrinkle out of my dress, and spin in front of the mirror, hoping I look as good as I feel. I push the bathroom door open, focused on Alex's back. Alex reaches out to me and lifts my hand up to his mouth and sweeps his lips over my knuckles, murmuring, “
Mademoiselle,"
as his eyes gaze up through his long dark eyelashes. The breeze of his whisper causes my knees to feel weak.

“Shall we?” he asks me in a soft voice, guiding me back over to our table.

He pulls my chair out for me. We both take a seat at the small round table. He gazes into my eyes. “Chloe," he begins. His tone is grave. "I need you to keep an open mind with what’s about to take place.”

I nod my head. I already feel so far out of my element. I can't imagine how much wider my mind could stretch. “I’m open to everything at this point, Alex. Have you looked around us? We’re here in Paris, in the nineteen forties,” I say, raising my eyebrows.

He nods. “There is a reason you keep ending up in this French café, during this era. Do you remember ever seeing me here?”

“Yes." I look over to the cash register where I saw him. "I saw you last week, working as a cashier.”

He smiles unexpectedly. “You did see me.” It seems to make him happy. “I’m here almost every weekend. I come to visit my great-grandfather who lives here, in Paris.” He glances out the window that's next to us as if he’s looking for someone.

I shake my head. “Your great-grandfather lives
here
—in your drift?”

“You’re catching on now.” He winks. “I visit many of my older relatives here, but mostly my great-grandfather. He’s taught me everything I need to know about controlling my drift. He’s taken me under his wing, you could say. He’s taught me the good rather than the bad of what I’m capable of.”

I lean back, feeling a sudden sense of clarity. “I’m jealous, Alex.”

“Of me?”

“Yes…you have so many people support your abilities. All anyone in my family does is persecute me for what I can do, for what I am. They treat it like a disease. I wish I had someone who could understand it…understand
me
.”

“You have me now.” He’s so sincere.

“It’s not the same thing. I think you know that.”

He nods and grips the back of his neck, while squinting one eye half shut. “So here’s the part where I need you to have an even more open mind than you already have." He peers down and clears his throat while fidgeting with the handle of his coffee cup. "Your great-grandfather, Marius, and my great-grandfather are very close friends." He looks back up at me. "It’s no coincidence that I’ve been watching you for so long…he’s the one who asked me to look after you always. He made sure to remind me every time I saw him. He’s aware of your abilities.” I can hardly comprehend this. “He’s also aware of the lack of understanding your mother has for you. He knows how you’ve been treated, and it’s always been a great concern of his.” He can see my discomfort. He takes my hand back into his.

My eyes narrow suspiciously. “Then why hasn’t he approached me during any of my visits here?” I grill him.

 “You’ve always been too fragile to approach during your thirty second visits. I promised him that when the time was right, I would bring you here myself.” He looks uneasy now.

I look around, feeling as though someone is watching us. “He’s here right now, isn’t he?” I ask with a forceful edge in my voice. “
Isn’t he,
Alex?” There’s only one suitable answer.

The legs of his chair scrape against the floor as he pushes his chair out. “Give me two seconds, and I’ll give you an answer.” Then he walks out of the front door while I sit gazing at every strange face in the café, wondering if they’re all part of my family, too.

I keep my focus fixed on the entrance of the café, drumming my fingers heavily against the table. It’s been more than two seconds already. In fact, it feels like it’s been an eternity. Finally, Alex reappears in the entry. He makes his way over to me, followed by two gentlemen who look to be in their forties. One of them is the creepy man who had noticed me here in the café a couple of weeks ago. He’s wearing a black pinstripe suit; he focuses his attention more on Alex than me.

The other gentleman next to him is wearing an almost identical suit, but in gray. He bows toward me and removes his fedora before he takes a step closer to me. He reaches for my hand, lifts it to his mustache and kisses my knuckles. When he lifts his head, I recognize his emerald-green eyes, light-brown hair, and short pointy nose. He looks like my mother.

He looks like…me.

His eyes fill with tears. His lip quivers as he takes a deep breath. Finally, he pulls me to my feet and wraps his arms around me, whispering, “
Ma cherie.
” He holds my arms. “Let me take a look at you, sweetheart." His eyes soften as he takes me in. "Lovely. Just like your great-grandmother was.”