Meant to Be (19 page)

Sam and I headed right to Mark’s class.

I was disappointed to find his classroom
empty. We decided to wait for him.

Sam chatted away about trivial things, trying
to take my mind off the fight I had with my mom.

I appreciated her chatter; it quieted away
the last lingering emotions. Despite everything that happened, I
was proud of myself for fighting the emotions back, and I would be
damned if I would let the emotions dictate my life ever again.

Mark was still not there as the first bell
rang. His room began to fill up with his homeroom students.

“I heard he’s in the office, something about
a parent complaining,” I heard a girl say to a friend as they
walked in the room.

I looked at Sam. She shrugged her shoulders;
neither of us knew what to think.

“Let’s head to homeroom and we’ll check back
before first period since we’ll be on this end of the building
anyways,” Sam said.

She was right. It would only make matters
worse if my mom heard I was late to class.

We left the room and bumped into the last
person I wanted to see.

“Looking for your boyfriend? I hear he’s
getting the ax. Seems some parent called complaining that an intern
was dating her daughter,” Matt said with an evil smile. “Could that
be your mom, princess?” He added in a nasty tone.

He draped his arm across my shoulders. “Why
don’t you forget about good ol’ teach and go out with me?” He said,
trying to turn on the charm.

“I wouldn’t go out with you if you were the
last guy on earth.” I said, jerking away from him.

His smile turned nasty again. “We’ll see
about that, you’re going to get lonely without your boyfriend,” he
said as he walked away.

“My mom wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t get a
person fired from their job, no matter how angry she was,” I said
to Sam in a distressed voice.

“I think she would, and I think she did. You
didn’t see her face after you left the kitchen. She looked like a
lioness protecting her cub. She thinks you’re in danger, so she’s
protecting you.”

“She can’t do this. I can’t be away from
him,” I said as the despair welled up in me. I felt the waves
rolling in.

“I know, but you have to fight back the
emotions,” Sam said, from what sounded like a long way off.
“Krista, you have to fight it.

I heard her in the distance, Sam was right. I
needed to calm myself.

Everything felt like it was spinning. I held
my breath and closed my eyes. “Go away,” I thought as I fought to
smother the waves.

Finally they receded. “I did it,” I said,
still a little shaky.

“Good job, I thought you were a goner there.
I’m so proud of you. How do you feel?”

“Not bad, just a little weak, but I’ve had
much worse,” I said, looking at my watch. “We better hurry.”

It seemed crazy to be rushing off to class
when so much was going on. I couldn’t wait until I was done with
the whole school charade.

Sam and I slid into our chairs just as the
bell rang. Neither of us missed how everyone went silent when we
walked in the room. So, I was the new gossip material. “Twice in
two weeks, that had to be a record,” I thought, sarcastically.

The rest of the day passed at a snail’s pace.
Eventually, as the day progressed, the comments of the other
students began to reach me. Surprisingly, the gossip didn’t bother
me. I had been the outsider so often, it no longer fazed me. All I
cared about was what was going on with Mark. I was anxious to get
to fifth period to see if he was there yet.

When the bell rang for fifth period, my heart
began to race. When we walked through the classroom door though, my
heart dropped like a stone.

He wasn’t there. Only the teacher was there,
and he was busy writing notes on the chalkboard. The rumors were
true.

The class started to buzz.

They fired him, how could my mom do that to
him? This was not the way she acted; usually, she was so even
tempered and willing to talk things over. I felt betrayed. The rest
of the class passed in a blur. I never opened my book and I didn’t
take a single note. I no longer cared.

The rest of the day passed much the same way.
Every once in awhile, Sam would look at me with a look of sympathy
mixed with worry. I appreciated her concern, but I could say
nothing to reassure her. Though I learned to control the sickness,
it didn’t lessen the emotions that would try to race through me. By
the end of the day, I was exhausted from fighting them back.

Feeling lethargic, I gathered my books. I
missed Mark so much that my body ached, adding to the feeling of
tiredness. Sam walked quietly by my side as we headed out the
door.

I felt Sam’s excitement as we exited the
school.

I followed her eyes, Shawn was here. I
scanned the area looking for Mark. My eyes filled with angry tears.
He wasn’t here. “Damn my mom for acting so irrational,” I thought
to myself.

Sam hurried to Shawn’s side and threw herself
in his arms. My heart ached and my insides seemed to clench inwards
as I watched them.

Sam beckoned me over. “Shawn has a message
from Mark.”

“Mark said not to worry, he doesn’t blame
your mom she was just trying to protect you. He said that you two
would find a solution. This works anyway because he and I are going
to take a short road trip.”

Sam was shocked. “You’re leaving?” she asked
anxiously.

He pulled her into his arms. “Only for a few
days, we found out where one of the others was dropped off.”

In my current dilemma, I had completely
forgotten about the others. “Where?” I asked.

“New Mexico. We think it will only take three
or four days for us to find out what happened to her.”

“A girl?” I asked. “You found one of the
cities where one of the girls had been left?” Even in my current
frame of mind, I couldn’t help feeling excited.

“Mark wants you to continue to practice with
Sam and to be careful.”

“Why, did you find something else?” Sam
asked.

“No, we just want you to be safe while we’re
gone.”

I had always been in tune with other people’s
emotions and could always sense when someone was lying. I could
tell Shawn was hiding something. I looked at Sam and could tell she
knew he was lying also.

I was just about to confront him when I heard
a car horn beep. Everyone on the front lawn turned to look. Parents
normally didn’t honk.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered,
“She is literally killing me.”

Sam stifled a laugh.

“You have to go; Mark said he will call you
later.”

“He can’t, my mom confiscated my phone,” I
said desperately.

“He’ll call you on Sam’s phone. I have to go
now anyway, our plane leaves in a couple of hours, I love you,” he
said to Sam as he pulled her into his arms for one last kiss.

I walked away to give them a chance to say
goodbye and climbed into the car without a word to my mom. Sam
caught up to me and slid in the backseat beside me. My mom didn’t
question my silent treatment. Sam, feeling uncomfortable, was
unusually silent.

After dinner, Shawn called Sam on her cell. I
sat on my bed and let Sam use the sitting room so she could have a
little privacy. After a while, she brought me the phone and quietly
walked out of the room.

The moment I heard his voice, I began to cry.
“It’s going to be okay, we will work it out,” Mark told me, trying
to calm my tears.

“I know. I just miss you so much. I don’t
like being separated from you for twenty four minutes, let alone
twenty four hours. My heart feels so empty with you gone,” I told
him.

“I know, it’s the same for me. The separation
is messing with me also. We’ve discovered it affects our bodies’
quite strangely.”

“What do you mean?” I asked him.

“I’ll explain when I get home.”

“I’m not going to let my mom keep us apart,”
I told him. “I can’t handle the separation. Either she lets me see
you, or I’m going to tell her I’m moving out. My birthday is in a
few weeks and I will be eighteen.”

“I don’t want to cause friction between you
and your mom.”

“The friction is already there. I don’t know
if I will ever be able to forgive her for getting you fired. I love
her and would miss her if it came down to that, but I can live
without her. I don’t think I could ever live without you.”

“We’ll work it out, try not to worry okay?
Remember how much I love you.”

We talked for a few more minutes and then
said good night. He promised to call again the next day at the same
time.

After the call, I was exhausted and fell
right to sleep.

I woke up the next morning confused. I sat up
and looked at Sam who was rubbing sleep out of her eyes.

Finally, Sam focused on my face.

“What’s the matter?” She asked.

“He wasn’t there last night, I didn’t dream
about the Boardwalk at all,” I said panic stricken.

Sam looked alarmed. “You didn’t dream about
him?”

I shook my head no and lay back down. I felt
light headed like I was sick or something.

“You look peaked, are your emotions getting
out of hand?” Sam asked.

I shook my head no, it wasn’t like that. I’d
gone to bed with my heart aching from missing Mark, and awoke to
find that the ache had spread throughout my whole body.

This wasn’t emotional sickness, this was
something else. Something I had never experienced before.

“Will you tell my mom that I’m too sick to go
to school?” I asked Sam.

My mom came up to verify that I was truly
sick. If I wasn’t so sick, I would have dwelled on how much our
relationship had changed over the course of thirty six hours.

My mom took one look at me and knew that I
was sick. Sam wanted to stay with me, but my mom wouldn’t let her
skip school. Mom closed the blinds and turned off my bedroom lights
after Sam left for school. I rolled over in a ball and sunk into an
uneasy sleep.

Every few hours or so, my mom would creep in
to check on me, and by the time Sam came home, she was as sick as
me. It was obvious she had a case of what I had, or so my mom
thought. We couldn’t tell my mom that we were just suffering from
separation sickness. She called Sam’s foster parents and told them
that Sam and I had picked up a bug. She assured them that Sam would
be fine where she was. “I’m here anyway,” I heard her say.

Sam and I dozed for the rest of the
afternoon, and by the time the guys called, I didn’t even have the
energy to talk, I just wanted to sleep. Sam was feeling a little
better than I was, so she talked to Shawn, but she kept it
simple.

“I think you guys need to come home. We need
you.” Shawn didn’t need any explanations, he told her that they
found what they needed and would be on the first plane home in the
morning.

Sam hung up the phone and told me. I heard
her from far away. All I wanted to do was sleep.

I woke the next morning with my mom kneeling
at my side.

“Honey you look so sick. I think I need to
take you to the hospital.”

“I just need Mark,” I whispered as I drifted
back to sleep.

I woke later to raised voices. Too weak to
move, I laid there as the voices got louder. “You just have to
trust me, but one way or another, I’m going in there.”

I was too weak to even move as Shawn and Mark
charged into the room. Shawn hurried to Sam’s side and pulled her
into his arms.

I could hear my mom trying to protest. My
eyes drifted closed before Mark even reached my side.

I woke a few seconds later to Mark’s hands on
my face. I was in his arms and was finally able to open my eyes and
keep them open.

“I don’t think I can live without you,” I
said in a weak voice.

“I know that I can’t live without you,” he
answered back.

He leaned over and kissed me. I felt the ache
that was gripping my body begin to loosen its death grip on me. I
deepened the kiss, and the familiar warmth spread though me. His
touch was the nourishment I needed.

I could hear Sam and Shawn talking quietly.
Sam had recovered quicker than me, probably because she hadn’t been
separated from Shawn as long.

Mark continued to rain light kisses across my
face and soon I began to regain my strength. I could feel my heart
began to find its normal rhythm again.

I was surprised when I finally looked up and
saw my mom was still standing uncertainly in the doorway.

“We have to tell my mom something,” I said in
a whisper.

We could skim over the sketchier parts, but
we had to give her something. I had wanted to keep her in the dark
as much as I could and spare her all the details, but she had just
witnessed my friend and I miraculously recover from a terrible
illness by a few kisses from a couple of guys. She wasn’t stupid
and she would want answers.

Mark nodded his head.

“Mom, I know you’re confused. We were too at
first, but if you let us explain, you will start to understand,” I
said in a still weakened voice.

She nodded her consent, and the five of us
headed down to the living room to talk. Sam and I were still weak,
so the guys helped us down the stairs and got us settled on the
couch.

My mom sat on one of the recliners in the
living room and Mark perched on the edge of the other recliner.
Shawn chose to lean against the wall.

I started from the beginning. I told her
about having the dreams every night, not just every once in awhile,
like I had led her to believe. I explained my first meeting with
Mark, and the familiarity I felt the first time I met him. I then
told her how he stepped out of the shadows of my dreams that first
night. I explained that I feel like I had known him my whole life
because he had always been in my dreams. I didn’t mention any
connections with Shawn and Sam except that they had similar dreams
as ours. I knew there were numerous holes in my story, but I only
wanted to give her the facts.