Meant to Be (17 page)

I was touched by Sam’s speech. I knew I could
always count on my parents growing up, but I had always felt like
the odd man out around other people. My childhood was lonely,
friendless, and now for the first time, I was surrounded by three
people who made me feel like I belonged.

“Well, I don’t know about the rest of you,
but I’m hungry, and unless all of you feel like eating left over
take-out Chinese food from who knows when, we will have to go out
for breakfast.”

“Well, as much as I would like a good case of
food poising from old take-out, I opt to go out to breakfast,” Sam
piped in.

“Me too, I’m done with throwing up for a
while, let’s head out,” I said.

I waited as the others got ready to go. I
already changed back into my clothes from the day before. Mark had
thrown them into the wash while we were talking.

I needed to pick my mom’s car up from the
Boardwalk and take it home. All of us would have liked to stay
together another night, but tomorrow was a school day, and I knew,
there was no way my mom would let me stay at “Sam’s” on a school
night.

Sam did think it would be easy for her to
talk her foster parents into letting her stay over at my house
since they would be busy in court all week. The trial for their
case was finally starting, and the time they weren’t in court would
be spent at the office preparing for the next day.

I felt I could play on my mother’s sympathies
to let Sam stay over.

We swung by Sam’s on the way to breakfast so
she could pack an overnight bag. I told her to pack extra just in
case we were able to con extra nights from my mom.

I knew if I had to be separated from Mark, I
at least wanted Sam to be with me.

The Boardwalk was packed when we finally
showed up, stuffed from breakfast, to pick up my mom’s Focus. I
groaned when I saw the parking ticket sticking out from under the
windshield wiper. “Great, how will I explain this to my mom?”

I got out of Mark’s car and walked to the
front of my mother’s car. I pulled the ticket out from under the
wiper blade and looked at it in dismay.

“Seventy-five bucks!” I screeched. “You have
got to be kidding me!”

Mark came over and grabbed the ticket from
me. He folded it up and put it in his pocket.

“You don’t have to do that,” I said,
embarrassed that I made such a big deal about it.

Mark watched as color began to stain my
cheeks. He leaned forward and gave me a kiss. I forgot my train of
thought as I lost myself in his kiss. I liked that he was a
neutralizer for me; the kisses were a definite bonus.

“We’re going to work on those tricks later;”
I heard Sam mutter behind me. “He’s not going to be there every
time.”

I heard her muttering more, but I tuned her
out as I kissed Mark one last time. It would be almost twenty-four
hours until I saw him again, and my heart already ached, thinking
about the separation.

I noticed that Sam was being unusually
quiet.

I turned around to see her locked in Shawn’s
arms. I felt a twinge of guilt. Poor Sam and Shawn, they would be
separated for longer than Mark and I. At least I would get to see
Mark at school tomorrow. Sam would have to wait until after school
to see Shawn again.

Mark and I stepped away to give them a few
more minutes of privacy.

“You don’t have to pay the ticket. It was my
responsibility,” I told Mark, making a grab for the ticket.

“I want to, anyway, Shawn and I planned on
coming back to get it last night, but we forgot. Besides, I’m a
working man and you’re just a mere student,” he said teasingly.

“Mere student,” I said in mock anger. “You’re
a dirty old intern who preys on sweet innocent students,” I
teased.

“I like to prey on you,” he said, raising his
eyebrows suggestively.

He was joking, but my heart still skipped a
beat. The idea seemed a little too appealing.

Sam and Shawn finally separated, and both
looked quite flustered. Both had the same dazed look on their
faces, like they had forgotten where they were.

We got in my mom’s Focus.

Mark came over to the driver’s side window to
give me one last kiss.

“One to sleep on,” he teased. “I’ll call you
tonight.”

I had no trouble convincing my mom to let Sam
stay over. I went for broke and pitched for the whole week. Playing
on the fact that Sam’s foster parents would be working late hours
all week, and that Sam hated being alone at night.

My mom said it would be fine, but we had to
promise to go to bed at a decent time.

“Just because you’re in your last nine weeks
of high school, I don’t want you to fall off now.”

I looked at her with humor. Was she
forgetting that school was easy for me? Did she forget all those
times everyone had commented on my IQ?

She saw my look and laughed. “Okay maybe not
you, but school may not be as easy for Sam, so she needs to get
enough rest.”

Sam and I had of course kept it to ourselves
that Sam’s IQ was probably just as high as my own.

We both thought my mom’s concern was
funny.

Once we were in my room, Sam called her
foster mom to ask her permission for the entire week at my house.
Her foster mom was thrilled.

Sam told me after she hung up, that her
foster mom admitted that they had been worried about leaving her by
herself so much during the coming week.

We decided to continue surfing the web while
we listened to some music.

I ran downstairs to grab a couple of sodas
and a snack for both of us.

We ate our snack while we waited for my
computer to boot up. Once the computer was ready, I typed in the
words, “Strange links between people.”Almost at once, a ton of
options popped up. My eyes scrolled down the list and I was
surprised to see a lot of sites on twins listed. I clicked on a
random site and was amazed as I began to read.

“Listen to this,” I said. “Twins that have
been separated at birth will often suffer similar injuries in the
same location on their bodies. They have also been found to marry
similar spouses from the same backgrounds,” I read on. “This
paragraph says that twins often talk about the connections they
share. It says it doesn’t matter if they are identical twins or
fraternal twins.”

“I know none of us are twins, but we seem to
share many of the same traits as twins,” Sam mused.

I patted Feline absently on the head as he
settled onto my lap. He was mad at me for abandoning him the night
before, but couldn’t turn down the attention. I stroked his fur as
I continued to read more on twins.

“We share many similarities with the twins on
this site, but their connection comes from genetics,” Sam said as
she read over my shoulder. “Well, except these ones.” I said,
clicking onto another site that had a more paranormal spin on
it.

My first instinct was to laugh. “Give me a
break. Some of these twins act like they’re some kind of
superhero,” I said as I read how one twin was convinced that he and
his brother were put on earth to save the world and that they could
read each other’s minds. “This is like reading the National
Enquirer. I’m surprised he didn’t add that his mother was an alien
from another planet.”

“Well, we mock it, but really Krista, is it
any different than what all of us are going through? We dream about
the same guy every night, we feel a surge of electricity when any
of us touch, and not to mention; we all realized that we somehow
freakishly neutralize each other.”

She of course had a point.

We decided to call Mark to see if he and
Shawn wanted to meet us at the park by my house.

Mark answered the phone on the first ring.
“Sam and I stumbled onto something while we were searching the
web,” I said as a greeting.

“What kind of thing?” Mark asked, sounding
intrigued.

“It’s too much to explain over the phone. We
were hoping you could meet us at the park.”

“Sure we can. We’re not doing anything except
playing Xbox.”

“Fifteen minutes too soon?” I asked.

“No, that’s fine.”

I hung up. “We better get ready; they’re
going to meet us there in fifteen minutes.”

Five minutes later, we were heading down the
stairs. “Mom, we’re going for a walk,” I yelled toward the back of
the house. I heard a muffled reply and took it for an okay.

The day was pleasantly cool. I zipped my
hoodie as we headed down the walkway. The small heat wave from the
day before had lifted and there was a nice cool breeze rustling
through our hair as we walked. We discussed the possibilities as to
why we seemed to share so many similarities with sets of twins. Sam
seemed to think that our moms might have been in some kind of test
study. I was still pessimistic about the entire thing and didn’t
know which way to cast my vote. Both were crazy. I mean really,
paranormal vs. sci-fi? I probably would have believed that I was a
werewolf or a vampire easier than I seemed to be grasping this. At
least that would be a lot cooler.

The guys were waiting at our usual picnic
table at the park when we got there. We had only been apart for a
few hours, but an ache I wasn’t even aware of slowly began to
dissipate. Every time I was away from him, I felt broken and
incomplete, until we were reunited, then I felt whole again.

Chapter 10

I gave Mark a quick kiss, joining him on the
top of the picnic table. I smiled as the familiar warm feeling
began to spread through me. His kisses were becoming like a drug to
me. They had a way of reminding me of all of my favorite
things.

I pulled back to see him studying me
intently. I felt a little self conscious as he continued to look at
me.

I looked down to make sure I had nothing on
my shirt.

I didn’t see anything.

I rubbed my hand down my face, pausing at the
corner of my lips to make sure I didn’t have leftover food in the
corners.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Nothing, I’m just amazed at how right life
feels when you are with me. When we’re apart, I try to fill the
hole your absence leaves, but when I see you again, I feel
complete.”

I smiled at his words. They mimicked my exact
thoughts. We were a cliché. We completed each other.

Mark smiled as if he had reached the same
conclusion as me.

“So what did you two find out?” Mark asked,
changing the subject.

I looked at him in confusion and then
realized that he meant on the internet. His switching of gears
threw me off track.

“Um, let’s walk and we will fill you in.”

Sam and I took turns filling them in on the
things we learned about twins. We sparked their interest when we
mentioned the many links that twins shared. I told them how I read
one web site that suggested that some twins reported feeling the
pain of their twin. Some even claim that they could read each
other’s thoughts.

“One woman even wrote that she had felt her
sister’s labor pains,” Sam said.

“There was also one guy who said he knew when
his twin brother died, even though he was nowhere near him,” I
added. “We know we’re not twins, but we can’t deny, we share
similarities with them. There’s other kooky stuff out there, but
you guys would have to read it to believe it. I know it sounds
farfetched, but it seems like the kind of stuff we’ve been
searching for.”

“You have a point; maybe we should start
narrowing our search to scientific studies and anything paranormal
we can find,” Shawn said as we all digested the new
information.

Sick of all the heavy talk, I headed toward
the swings up ahead. I loved to swing. Not swinging up high of
course; I just liked the feeling of swaying back and forth. I sat
on one of the swings as Mark sat in the one beside me.

We linked hands while we watched Sam and
Shawn’s antics on the slide. Sam’s laugh was contagious as she slid
down the slide the first time. I couldn’t help smiling just
watching her.

Sam and Shawn looked carefree as they went
from one piece of playground equipment to the next. They had a
knack of being able to put the serious stuff aside and enjoying the
moment. I envied their ease, I wished I could put the troubling
thoughts on the backburner, but they were always there, butting
in.

I watched as Sam and Shawn slid down the
slide together, landing in a heap at the bottom, laughing as they
landed in a tangle. Shawn pulled Sam close and kissed her.

I looked away feeling like an intruder. I
turned to Mark and saw that he was watching me.

“Does it bother you that I’m not as carefree
as they are?” I asked, indicating Sam and Shawn as they headed back
down the slide.

Mark pulled the chains of my swing, twisting
me around toward him. I looked intently into his eyes, waiting for
his answer.

“I want you to listen to me. You seem to be
under the misconception that there is something wrong with you,
that there is nothing special about you. There is nobody else in
the whole world that I would rather be with. I could look at you
for hours and never get sick of it. I could spend every second of
everyday in your presence and I would die a happy man. You belong
with me,” he finished as he gave the chains of my swing another
tug, dragging me even closer as he kissed me.

I wound my hands around the chains of his
swing and sighed as he deepened the kiss. I felt the warmth spread
though me and wound my arms around his neck to pull him even
closer.

I finally broke the kiss to find that I was
sitting on his lap.

“How did I get here?” I asked as he
laughed.

Mark changed the subject and brought up a
point I had not thought of.

“So, I’ve been thinking, since the Dean knows
about us, I don’t see any reason why we need to keep our
relationship a secret from your mom anymore,” he said as we gently
swung back in forth.