Seeing Shadows (30 page)

I sighed. What new heights was the lunacy of my mind taking me? I glanced at the clock and saw that it was almost five in the morning. "I think that's as much sleep as I'm going to get. What do you say to pancakes?"

Sarah brightened, looking like herself. "I'm in!"

We made our way into the kitchen, turning on the hallway lights as well as the living room lights. We both seemed to want to fill the apartment with as much light as possible to chase away the shadows. I even left my bedroom light on and Sarah did the same with hers. I resisted the urge to turn on the bathroom light. Even I had my limits of irrational fear.

Sarah watched me as I pulled out the ingredients for pancakes.

"Can I help?" she asked. She gave a wry smile. "I guess a salad wouldn't really be appropriate with pancakes."

I smiled, grateful that the earlier events hadn't make us awkward. "We'll save that for another time. I'd say pancakes are the least I can do after scaring you so badly."

Sarah bit her lip before she spoke. "So what happened last night?"

I wondered how much to tell her as I measured out the flour. I decided to be totally honest with her. It had been hard enough to close myself off from Simon. I couldn't do the same with Sarah.

"That girl," I said. "The blonde that was friends with Jenny. She was the one in my vision."

Sarah inhaled and exhaled deeply. "You said as much last night. Her name is Claudia. She's in the arts and music school with Jenny. Simon too, I guess."

I ignored the part about Simon. "Did you talk to her?"

"Yeah. She seemed nice. Totally normal. Not that she wouldn't be. The people from your visions are just regular people, right? Why did you get so scared when you saw her? You said you felt like she was coming after you."

I nodded. "It was different with her. Normally when I see a person from my visions, I flash back to their vision but I just feel weird around them because it's hard to act like nothing's bothering me. I feel so bad for them in my visions, but in real life, after the shock of seeing them wears off, I just feel guilty. Guilty that my brain imagines them dying."

"It's not your fault you have these visions," Sarah protested, defending me as usual. "What did you feel when you saw Claudia?"

"I felt like she was going to hurt me. Even though she looked normal and was smiling, I felt like she was coming to kill me." I shook my head at my irrational thoughts. "I know it sounds crazy. But at that moment, it felt real. Her eyes looked at me like she was a predator. And she had found her prey. That's why I flipped out and ran. I seriously felt like I was running for my life." The pancakes were forgotten, the ingredients just sitting on the counter as I relived my fear.

"Maybe it has something to do with the visions feeling so real now," Sarah said, looking thoughtful. "You said before that it felt like you were a part of it instead of just watching, detached from it all."

I nodded slowly, feeling bad that I was burdening Sarah with my craziness but needing to talk about it. "It's worse now. I was having the vision of her again when you woke me. But this time she looked at me. She
saw
me."

Sarah sucked in a sharp breath of air, fear clouding her face. "What do you mean she saw you?"

"She looked straight at me. Not in my direction
At me.
And she asked me to help her." I shivered at the memory and saw Sarah shudder as well. I instantly regretted telling her. It wasn't fair to drag her into this mess. My mess that my mind had created.

"And then what?" she asked, her voice cracking a little.

I shook my head. "Sarah, I really think it's better if we leave it at that. It's enough to scare the crap out of me. I don't want you scared too."

Sarah pressed her lips together. "No way. You're not shutting me out. If you don't tell me, I'm just going to imagine the worst. It's better if you tell me. Besides, I think it'll help you to tell me."

I debated whether it was a good idea to share everything. I saw the determined look in Sarah's eyes and relented. Usually Sarah respected my desire for privacy when I left out details, but when she set her mind to it, she could be stubborn and steadfast in insisting I tell her everything. And she was right. I would feel better telling her. I needed someone to be a witness to my mind's lunacy.

I relented and told Sarah about how the vision had changed with the fire, and how I had seen the attacker. Something that had never happened before in any of my visions. I wasn't sure if all my visions were of murders because sometimes I was thrust in the midst of their death, unsure if it had been caused by someone. But all the visions were violent. Sarah's eyes widened when I told her the attacker had somehow been Claudia, that apparently I had seen her murder herself, as impossible as that sounded.

She hugged me after I was done, having been quiet as I explained everything. "This sucks."

I grimaced. "You can say that again."

"But what does it mean?"

"It could be nothing," I shrugged. "At this point, I don't know why my mind does the things it does. I'm just hoping it doesn't happen again."

"But it has to mean
something
," Sarah insisted.

"Maybe it means I'm crazy," I said, not sure if I was joking or not.

Sarah frowned. "Don't say that. You're not crazy." She paused. "Did you tell Simon anything earlier?"

I shook my head, feeling pain bloom in me again at the mention of his name. "No," I replied flatly. "I think I've finally succeeded in pushing him away."

"Oh, Caitlin!" Sarah said with regret. "Why would you do that? You need people in your life that care about you. And Simon definitely cares about you. Grant said Simon barely finished the song they were singing when you ran out last night. Simon just muttered something about taking a break, and jumped off the stage to run after you."

I didn't want to hear this. It made the pain more acute. But the masochistic part of me didn't interrupt her.

"Grant said he talks about you all the time, asking him so many questions about you that Grant said it gets annoying. He already told me before that Simon doesn't believe Bob exists. Last night Grant told me that he's never seen Simon act this way about a girl. And trust me, he's had plenty of girls chasing after him. Simon's dated but nothing serious. He lets the girl pursue him. He's never pursued anyone. Until you."

Sarah drew in a deep breath after her flood of words and continued, not knowing her words were battering holes in my wall that I would need to patch up later. "Simon really cares about you. I could tell by the way he took care of you last night. Even though he was so bossy about it." She smirked. "Grant said that he wasn't planning on going to Connecticut next weekend for Kendra's birthday because he has a lot of work to do for a class project, but Simon kept bugging him until he finally relented. The only reason Simon wanted Grant to go so badly is because he thought you would be more inclined to agree to go if Grant and I went too. Simon knows you well enough to realize that you would never go with him on your own."

Sarah would have continued but I held up my hand, unable to take anymore. My self-preservation finally kicked in.

"I can't, Sarah." I was desperate for her to understand. "I feel like I'm going crazy. My visions are getting stronger, more real. Simon has been in one of my visions. I'm just lucky I haven't had another one of him since I met him. But I will if I keep hanging around him all the time. I thought I could risk being friends with him, hoping that I wouldn't have another one. But now I know it would debilitate me, especially if I had a vision of him that was so real, like the one I had tonight."

"I understand," Sarah said, looking at me sadly. "I mean, I understand why you won't date Simon. And I guess I understand not wanting to be friends with him. Not after tonight. But are you just going to avoid him now?"

I shook my head. "No. I don't want to make it weird for everyone. It's inevitable that I see him. He's Grant's cousin. But I just don't want to get too involved. It's one thing to spend time with Simon in a group setting. It's another thing to spend time with him alone." I didn't add that I was planning on begging off any get-togethers that he would be a part of. I didn't tell Sarah because I knew she would protest. Besides, I knew it wasn't feasible to avoid Simon completely. I wouldn't always know beforehand when he would be around. But I could try to minimize contact with him as much as possible.

"I don't know what to say," Sarah said, looking at me sympathetically. "I'm so sorry, Caitlin. I feel so powerless. I don't know what to do."

I smiled at her gently. "There's nothing to do except hope that tonight was an anomaly. Maybe the visions will fade back to me just being a spectator. Maybe they'll lessen. I don't know. But I can handle it. Whatever my mind throws at me, I can handle it." This was a lie. I had felt something break in me earlier in my vision. I don't know if it had been my sanity or my desire to continue to live. I wasn't sure at this point and I didn't want to examine it. And the last thing I wanted was for Sarah to worry more than she already was.

"Now, let's get back to those pancakes," I said brightly, ignoring Sarah's answering frown. "Especially since I remember Jenny saying she was coming over for breakfast."

Sarah let me change the subject as I laughed about some of the costumes I had seen last night. She watched me make the pancake batter and I pretended not to see the growing concern in her eyes.

Mercifully, the rest of the day was uneventful. Jenny came over as promised, and we gorged on pancakes as we kept the conversation light. Jenny seemed to accept my explanation of having drank too much the previous night for my erratic behavior and I was grateful for that. It made it easier to ignore Sarah's occasional sidelong glances when she thought I wasn't looking.

I changed the topic every time Simon came up. Sarah knew not to bring him up, but Jenny didn't hesitate to talk about him. I couldn't tell her I wasn't planning on being friends with him anymore because there was no explanation I could give without revealing too much.

So when Jenny talked about how upset the crowd had been when Simon didn't return to the stage, even when Grant and Marcus tried to placate them with some old Henchmen tunes with Marcus trying to fill in the vocals, I asked her about her progress with Marcus. Fortunately, she sunk her teeth into the topic with relish and I wasn't required to do more than nod and make encouraging sounds.

By the time Jenny left, it was mid-afternoon. Jenny was going out to dinner with some of the girls from her dorm and Sarah and I declined her invitation to join them, claiming exhaustion which was the truth.

Sarah and I hung out in comfortable silence for the rest of the afternoon, watching one mindless TV show after another. Even though today was actually Halloween, we didn't have to worry about trick-or-treaters since the neighborhood was filled with college students. We were just discussing what to do about dinner when there was a knock at the door. I tensed, hoping it wasn't Simon, which didn't explain my disappointment when Sarah answered the door and Grant stepped in.

"Hi Grant," I said as he fell into the recliner.

"How are you feeling?" Grant asked, looking genuinely concerned. I had been afraid that he would be mad at me for taking Simon away and ruining their show.

"I'm okay," I replied with an embarrassed smile. "Sorry for wrecking things last night. I couldn't seem to convince Simon to stay."

Grant smiled gently. "That's okay. When he came back in, he pretty much told me there was no way in hell he was getting back on stage and that he was taking you home. He said you were pretty shaken up. My girls are more important than some show. I would've come too but he wouldn't let me."

I felt warmth pool inside me at his words. I knew how much the Henchmen meant to Grant, and the fact that he was so cavalier about their ruined show made me realize how much he cared about me. I felt as if I didn't deserve his affection.