Watch Me: Teen Paranormal Romance (A Touched Trilogy Book 3) (16 page)

“Hey, I thought you weren’t going to come,” I said.

“Well, a certain person was pleasantly persuasive and convinced me I would indeed be missing the party of the century.” Bastian looked pointed at me. “However, I have thus far failed to witness this epic event.”

“I’m sorry Nadine’s party isn’t living up to your expectations. You could always leave and say you stayed. I doubt anyone would notice.”

“Thank you, of course for pointing out my immense lack of popularity,” he said. “Although, in this case I do believe one person would notice. Ashley.”

“Who’s Ashley?”

He gestured to the girl Ricky sat on. She looked bored and unimpressed.

“In another lifetime, she would be my paid escort, or perhaps the Cleopatra to my Mark Anthony. However, here in the early twenty-first century she is simply my date.”

“Ah. You could have just said so to begin with.”

“I suppose I could have, but think of how much less stimulating our conversation would have been if I provided such a direct answer.”

Owen had been wrong. Bastian didn’t have a thing for me. He had a date.

I had a date. I had Andrew. I gave myself a mental slap. Whether or not Bastian came with someone didn’t matter.

He slipped his thumbs under his suspender straps and rocked back on his heels as if he might break out and begin dancing the Charleston. “So, where is your gentleman caller? Assuming, of course, that you have an escort.”

“Andrew’s talking with his friends. I was grabbing us drinks and looking for Nadine. I’ve barely talked to her tonight.”

“Ah, well don’t miss out on such a stimulating opportunity. She just went into the kitchen.” He pointed to the door.

“Well, enjoy your time with your Cleopatra.”

I found her in the kitchen and after grabbing a soda for Andrew, we went back to the living room. Just as I handed him the drink, the music changed. Nadine and I looked at each other and shrieked, jumping up and down. The song was an old one from the 90’s about drinking the night away that we used during squad practice warm-ups.

We found the center of the group dance in the middle of the room, laughing and singing along with the song. A few of the other girls from the squad made their way over and I remembered how much I loved being part of the team.

“Hey!” Nadine shouted angrily. I looked over to see her pushing away from Ricky. He stumbled a little and then lurched forward.

“Do ya wan dance?” he asked, slurring his words.

She laughed as she realized how smashed the guy was. “You’re drunk, Ricky. You need to go home.”

“Jus one dance,” he said and attempted to rotate his hips.

“Sorry, but I’m dancing with my girls.” She turned around and Ricky stared sullenly at her back before stumbling away. The party faded soon after and everyone cleared out, leaving the mess for Nadine to clean. I would have stayed but Andrew worked in the morning.

The drive home was all too short. We never seemed to have much time alone together. When he pulled up to the house, we sat there a moment before he leaned over and kissed me again.

I waited for the feel of him to encompass me. It didn’t come. Our time was fading and I knew it. Despite my attempts to pretend otherwise, what was between us wasn’t enough to keep us together. An invisible clock hung over us, counting down our time.

I went inside, sadness tugged at me. I wasn’t ready to let him go yet. When I finally made it to bed, I collapsed into an exhausted sleep.

Chapter 18

The thump of a soft pillow across my face pulled me abruptly from my dreamless sleep. I jerked upright, whacking the pillow from Phoebe’s hands before she could strike again.

“What do you want?” I snapped.

“Did you know?” she asked, her voice filled with shock and a lurid sense of curiosity.

I glanced at my clock. “Phoebs, it’s like three in the morning. I don’t care if it is New Year’s. No one should ever be up at this time of the morning for anything other than-”

“Yeah, whatever.” She waved her hand through the air as she interrupted me. “Did you know?”

“Know what?” How could she expect me to think coherently in the middle of the night, or did this qualify as mid-morning? Either way, it was too early. My head dropped and my eyes began to sag.

“That Ricky was gonna kill that woman?”

That, along with the pillow Phoebe smacked me with a second time, woke me up.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, confused.

“Ricky drove home after the party and Javier said he was all over the road. He must have been completely plastered.”

“Javier got in the car with him when he was drunk?”

“No. Javier saw the whole thing happen on his walk home. Ricky t-boned a car a few blocks from Nadine’s place.”

“How do you know someone’s dead?”

“When I dropped Nathan off his dad was leaving and said something into his radio about calling the coroner.”

I wondered if Sheriff Lauer knew his son’s girlfriend was one of the biggest gossips around and that this would spread like wildfire?

“You didn’t know?” she asked.

“No. Why would I? I don’t check everyone’s futures all the time.”

She gave me a weird look. “Chloe, I saw you run into him and zone out during the party. Then you said something to him.”

Crap. She was right. I’d put it totally out of my mind, mainly because the whole thing with Bastian happened right after and distracted me.

“So? What did you see? What did you say to him?” She leaned forward, practically shoving her face in mine.

“I don’t remember. At least not the vision.”

“But you remember what you said?”

“Something like take the path. That right is right, and the left is lost or maybe loss.”

She sat back. “What the heck does that mean?”

“I don’t know. I guess it didn’t make much sense to him either since he laughed and brought up the whole freaky Matlin sisters thing.”

“Can you blame the guy?” she asked.

“For which part? For thinking I’m strange for saying weird things? No. I freak myself out on a regular basis lately. For driving drunk and killing someone? Yes.”

“I just can’t believe he did that. I mean, who does that? He lives right down the street from Nathan. I could have given him a ride if he’d asked.”

I thought of the way Ricky had stumbled around, laughing uncontrollably. There’s no way the guy would have been able to make any remotely responsible decision in that state. I might not have remembered my vision, but I knew something bad was going to happen and I hadn’t done anything. How easy would it have been for me to make sure someone was watching out for him?

Two months ago, guilt would never have entered my mind. I saw it as the future is the future. Now though, I changed things once. Could I have changed it again? If I tried harder - if I tried at all, then maybe this wouldn’t have happened.

“What do you think is gonna happen to him?” Phoebe asked.

Shrugging a shoulder, I said, “I don’t know. This is crazy.”

“I know. I just can’t even wrap my brain around it.” She shook her head. “I’ve never known someone who’s killed someone before.”

My mind raced with thoughts of Ricky and how happy he’d been, laughing at every little thing. Life as he knew it was over. Even without the legal repercussions of what he did, he’d killed someone. The future he’d dreamed of was gone.

Phoebe left as we both attempted to absorb the shock. Despite my exhaustion, sleep eluded me. Instead, everything I said to Ricky came back to me.

Take the path. Right is right, the left is loss.

The first part I understood now. He should have walked home. The rest though, made no sense.
Right is right, the left is loss.
The words played on repeat. They meant something. But what? What did going to the left have to do with loss?

I squeezed my eyes closed and watched every interaction I’d had with him run through my mind. The bump, him falling on the couch. Ashley glaring at him. Nadine shoving him and him asking her to dance. Ricky walking away, turning down the hall. To the left. To the front door.

My eyes flew open.
Left is loss
. That had been his decision to leave and drive drunk. So what had been to the right of him? The party.

There was a niggling feeling within me that said I knew the answer. Focusing on the popcorn ceiling above me, I tried to clear my mind of everything other than Ricky and every image I’d had of his future.

Nadine. One of the images from her future had been her playing tug of war over something with him. Keys.

That’s when I remembered the words I said to Nadine after I’d realized her party was actually going to happen.
Dance alone and all will lose. In a tug of war, right is right, and left is lost.
I gave her some lame explanation about shopping for a dress, not wanting to tell her about my gift.

She was dancing with the whole group of us, but Ricky asked her to dance with him. If she hadn’t said no, if she hadn’t danced alone, he wouldn’t have left. He would have stayed and later in the evening, she would have taken his keys away.

Holy crap.

They meant something, something big, and I’d brushed them off, ignoring them. Nanna always said to listen to our gifts, that we needed to figure out what we were supposed to do with them, and I’d brushed aside one of the biggest changes to my gift.

I scrambled out of bed and ran down the hall to Phoebe’s room. She glanced up from where she sat in the middle of her bed struggling to send a text message.

“I knew,” I said breathlessly.

“What?!” The cell phone dropped to her lap.

“I didn’t know, but I knew.”

“What do you mean?”

Pacing back and forth while stepping over random articles of clothing, I tried to piece things together.

“After Javier’s party, I had a vision of Nadine’s future. I said ‘Dance alone and all will lose. In a tug of war, right is right, and left is lost’.”

“What did that mean?”

“I had no clue. Last night, though, I kept having weird visions. It was like seeing all the possibilities for everyone within the span of that night. One of the images I had was her playing tug of war with Ricky over a set of keys.” My fingers dug their way through my hair. “When I bumped into him, I couldn’t remember what I saw, but I said something similar.
Take the path. Right is right, the left is loss.
”

“Okay, maybe it’s late but I still don’t see how you knew.”

“He tried to get Nadine to dance with him, but she said no.
Dance alone and all will lose.
When she said no, he left the party. He walked to the
left,
out the front door. She never had a chance to take his keys. If she had danced with him, he wouldn’t have left. She would have taken his keys.”

“This is intense, Chloe.” Her eyebrows drew down and her forehead wrinkled in concern. “And really complicated. Is it possible you’re trying to make connections out of nothing?”

“I’m not making this up, Phoebs.”

“I didn’t say you were, but seriously, what you’re saying is super complicated. How is you spouting random weird prophecies that make absolutely no sense going to help anyone?”

I threw my hands up in the air. “I don’t know, but thanks for the vote of confidence.”

She yawned in response. “It’s not that I don’t believe you. It’s…”

“What? Say it.”

“Do you think this whole thing might be some manifestation of guilt?”

“Are you implying I have something to feel guilty for? I had no idea what the words meant.”

“Not for that. I don’t think anyone could have figured that stuff out until after the fact.”

“Then what am I supposed to be feeling guilty about?”

“You told me Nathan and I were going to be at Tonya’s for New Years.”

“So? You know I changed the future and...” My words trailed off as what she was saying gradually sank in. Trembling, I sat on the edge of her bed, my body completely numb. How had I missed all of these signs?

Changing the future had been so hard. Nearly impossible to do, yet now I had, everything was changing for everyone. What had made me think that abusing my knowledge of the future for my own personal gain would have led to anything good?

“Chloe? Are you okay?”

“You’re right,” I whispered. “Oh, my God. You’re right. How did I not see this coming? If I hadn’t messed with my future, Nadine’s party never would have happened. Ricky never would have been there last night. He wouldn’t have been driving home drunk. I did this. This is my fault.”

Phoebe snorted and nudged me with her foot. “Oh, yes because you, oh Chloe, are the all powerful, all knowing, soothe seer. Get over yourself.”

Anger burned my chest and swatted at her foot, glaring at her.

“You can be a real bitch sometimes, you know that?”

“Come on, if you were looking for a sympathetic voice, you should have gone to Lily’s room.”

“She’s not home yet.”

“Whatever. The point is you know I’m right.” Phoebe said with a sigh of frustration. “Even if you hadn’t done anything and Nadine’s party had been canceled, there’s no guarantee Ricky wouldn’t have done the same thing leaving whichever party he was at. The dude drove drunk. Idiots who do things like that don’t just save it for special occasions.”

“Maybe, but at the same time, what he had before was a definite future for him, one I didn’t influence. Where all of the choices he made were set.”

“Have you considered that your gift isn’t supposed to be about you changing anything?”

“Obviously. Nothing good is coming out of it.” Only darkness and shadows.

“Nothing?”

I thought of my new future. Nothing for anyone other than me.

“As you said, I shouldn’t be trying to change things.”

“Exactly.” She smiled smugly. “Maybe what you’re supposed to do is give people choices.”

“Choices?”

“Yeah. Think about it. You did all that stuff to stop Andrew and Nadine from cheating, yet what was the one thing you didn’t do?”

“I did everything I could think of. There wasn’t anything else I could have done.”

“Did you tell Andrew? Did you give him the chance to make a different choice? What about Nadine?”

“She doesn’t even know about my ability.”

“But he does,” she said.

“He doesn’t know for sure. He only suspects.”

“Exactly. You never told him about your ability. If you had, he would have known you were telling him the truth, and he might have made the choice to not do it. But you never let him make that decision. He didn’t change his own future. You changed it for him.”

Guilt turned me defensive. “You helped me. You were the one who said I had to be the one to do it.”

“And you listened to me? This isn’t my fault.”

“So it’s mine?”

“Again, that’s not what I’m saying. Maybe it’s no one’s fault other than Ricky’s.