A Chance for Sunny Skies (5 page)

Jessica held her hateful-judge-y eyes on me while spouting insults about me to her friend. Her eyes flicked over to the woman sitting across from me. She didn't spend even a second mistaking them for my friends. It was obvious to me, heck probably even obvious to the dust bunnies I knew laid waiting under all of the furniture, that we were merely people who just happened to be alive in the same spot at the same time. Then she added, "She still doesn't have any friends. Figures."

The old familiar feelings crept up my throat and deep-down into my bones. That ache that started in my heart and radiated out to my limbs returned. There was another feeling, too. Something I hadn't felt before during a hilarinsult or a look-at-the-freak moment.

Disregard.

I didn't care.

The reason was those damn shoes. I saw Jessica. I was aware of her making fun of me, I felt the bad feelings, but I cared more about the fact her friend wore the green shoes. All I wanted to do was run over there, grab her shoes, and get out. My eyes locked onto them and I couldn't look away.

The distraction was great, at first. That's when Jessica and her friend noticed. The girls looked down toward where my gaze landed and then they looked up at each other.

"What the hell?"

"She's totally staring at you."

"Gross, she's creeping me out. You didn't tell me she was a psycho."

"I didn't know. I swear. She
was
just super weird. You never know, though. It's been almost ten years, maybe she's graduated to killing people. Maybe she wants to cut off your feet. Or she's like completely obsessed with you."

That's when the shoes-were-more-interesting bit wore off, the uncaring stopped. I was back to the seventeen year old me. Caring a lot. Feeling. A lot. Wanting to cry. Oh so much. My face heated up even more and I looked away, too late, the damage was done. The predators had sensed blood in the water, they'd found the weak one at the back of the pack, they'd (insert any clichéd predator analogy here) and they were not about to give up.

Anna and Lizzy turned to look. I could see their foreheads wrinkle in defense. I thanked them in my mind, but I knew that look. It was a look of mild frustration because they knew they
should
stand up for the victim, but didn't
actually
want to do anything about it.

I curled in on myself as much as I could. The ache had started to spread out to my limbs. Jessica and the green shoe girl continued their mockery. In the middle of the story about the time when the principal forgot my name at graduation, something I didn't expect happened. Anna and Lizzy stood up. My eyes locked onto them. They were leaving me? I knew the stories Jessica was telling were embarrassing, but I hadn't expected these zen yoga chicks to be so affected that they would leave me alone. Or maybe they were leaving because I hadn't said anything yet, like barely a complete word.

My heart ached. I knew they weren't friends, but they had been nice. For a few moments, at least. I looked at my brown, scuffed shoes. My too tight pants. My failed life.

"Are you girls really that tact-less?"

The voice brought me back into my body, brought my eyes up. Anna's hip swung out to the side as Lizzy leaned forward, flexing every muscle in her sculpted yogi neck.

Jessica and her friend rolled their eyes and giggled at each other. "Excuse us. We're having a private conversation." Jessica leaned back a bit. I don't think she'd ever been called on her bitchy-ness in all of my high school experience and probably not since.

Anna wasn't letting go. "You need to leave. Now."

Jessica scoffed and her friend folded her arms over her chest. "Psh! Who are you? The owner?" They held their heads and bodies in a who-do-you-think-you-are position.

"No, but I am and you
will
get out." Rainy stood in the doorway to the kitchen holding a steaming teapot. Her face reddened and she walked forward slowly. Hot water sloshed out all over her hand with each stilted step, but her eyes stayed focused on Jessica. "You will leave this establishment at once or I will call the police." Her voice shook. I saw her eyes dart to the pot in her trembling hand. I'm still not sure whether she looked at it because her hand was burning or if she was contemplating pouring the hot water on the terrible girls.

In the few hours I'd spent with Rainy at that point, I'd come to the conclusion that she had the kindest face, voice, laugh of anyone I'd ever met. But in that moment, her freckles darkened, her eyes narrowed, and I think if I'd have been those girls I would have gone running out of there. Especially with Lizzy and Anna looking just as angry and just as strong. Jessica and her friend just rolled their eyes, scoffed, and let a string of insults fly as they grabbed their things and got up to leave.

"This place is so grotty anyway."

"Totally, I think I saw a mouse."

Halfway to the door, Jessica turned around and waved at me. "Bye, Sammy. So good to see you." She frowned and tipped her head to the side. "Or was it Sandy?" She laughed and pivoted with attitude. In the moment she turned around, the old man who had been reading silently at the small table by the door stuck out his foot and Jessica went flying forward right onto her face.

He didn't even look up as she screamed and scrambled to her feet. He simply cleared his throat and turned to the next page in his bent and yellowed paperback.

Once the bitches were gone, Rainy, Lizzy, and Anna turned to look at me. I can't even guess what my face looked like, but I do know what it looked like a second later, because while being made fun of made a sadness burrow deep into my bones, having people come to my rescue was something new. Apparently that made all of it rush to the surface.

I collapsed back into the chair, hugged my knees, and cried. Hard. I could feel the women surround me as I sobbed. I think I even felt a craggy, worn, old-man-hand land on my shoulder for a minute. When I opened my eyes again, while the old man was gone, the women were still right next to me.

They had stood up for me. I'd never had that before.

My heart froze. It felt open and vulnerable and suddenly all I wanted to do was hide it away where it couldn't be hurt.

So I launched myself out of the chair and ran out the door.

"Wait!" Rainy called after me as I slammed through the screen door and trampled down the steps.

The sun sat low in the sky, close to setting, and there was a hazy darkness outside, as if someone had changed everything to the sepia setting on a camera. The darkness plus my watery eyes turned out to be a hazardous combination and I tripped on the last step, flying forward into the grass, and staining my stupid khakis. My body still ached from my near-drowning the other day and, well, I didn't have the strength past that to pick myself up. So I stayed down, grass-stained, and puddle-y.

Gentle footsteps padded down the stairs behind me.

"Sunny? Are you okay?" It was the quietest I'd heard Rainbow talk since I'd met her.

I felt her rest her hand on my back as she sank down into the grass next to me. I squeezed my eyes shut in an effort to rid them of the blurriness of tears. I turned to her and slowly shook my head.

I'm sure snot streamed down my chin as I choked out, "I've never had..." I couldn't finish it, so I just motioned in between us and said, "this." How did you tell someone you just totally freaked out because you couldn't remember the last friend you had? That, up until a few days ago, you had managed to live a mostly-hermit-like existence? And you'd realized that you wanted something different so very much, but now you didn't know how to find your way back?

Rainbow's dark brown eyes swept over me, like a bird trying to find a place to land on a bobbing buoy. "You've never had friends?" she finally asked.

My breath caught in my throat. I gulped and shook my head. I wanted to tell her about my anxiety, about my childhood, about my mother being distant and my nanny leaving, and all of it. Besides the fact that it would've taken a lot of talking (and we all know how I would've done with that) I also didn't want to be defined by all of that anymore. I watched her for a second, then I said this instead, "and I almost drowned..."

Rainy's head shot back. "What? When?"

I sniffed some of the snot back in my nose and wiped my face. "Few days ago."

Rainy hit me on the shoulder. "Why didn't you tell--?" She stopped herself and pressed her lips together as she must have remembered what a mostly-mute weirdo I was.

I'm not sure if it's because this girl was practically reading my thoughts, or the fact that she still sat by my side, but something about the situation made what I said next seem like a good idea.

"Stuff flashed before my eyes."

Rainbow nodded. "Your life." She shook her head like she was trying to take it all in.

"No." I looked at her. "Pictures. Your fence." I pointed.

In the dusk, when Rainy's eyes narrowed, a shadow fell over her face. I cringed, waiting for her to call me a loony and walk away, but she didn't. (I bet you knew she wouldn't. Congratulations. You're very smart.) She flopped her legs forward, settling in.

"So that's why you're so into my fence." Rainy sat back and looked at the darkening sky as she thought. "You saw my fence when you were about to die. Anything else?"

"Lizzy's yoga bag and a green shoe." I grimaced.

Rainy's face lit up as she realized why I'd been staring at that terrible girl's shoes. Then I listed the other images. Rainy sat quietly while she listened. When I finished, we stayed put until the sepia seemed to turn to black and white.

"You think I'm crazy don't you?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "I think we're all a little crazy. I also think that a lot of what seems to be the universe might actually be our subconscious trying to help us out and, honestly, who am I to question what you saw or experienced? People think they see all kinds of shit. This doesn't seem any weirder than that."

I sighed, she had a point. It could be God, it could be my own damn brain trying to figure crap out. Who knew and who needed to know right now? The vision of the fence had brought me my first friend in years (I really felt like I could call her a friend, too). A shiver ruffled me up like a bird shaking its feathers. Rainy jumped up next to me.

"Let's get you inside." She wrapped her arm around me and I complied, following her back into the warm little house.

Anna and Liz were still on the couch. I stopped and wrapped my arms around myself when I saw them, but Rainy just held me tighter and led me to my chair. They watched us carefully.

"Everything okay?" Anna asked, her voice lower, but still drenched in kindness like Rainbow's.

Rainy scrunched up her face and waved a hand at her friend. "Oh, we got this. Sun's totally good."

I sniffled and nodded. The girls smiled and let their faces relax a little more. Lizzy leaned forward and filled my mug with tea they must've brewed while we were outside. I wrapped my hands around it just as Rainy had wrapped her arm around me. We sat and talked while the sky grew darker and the warm lights inside glowed yellow. (Well, they talked, I listened.) After a while, Lizzy stood up and Anna followed.

"Welp, we should get going," Lizzy said. "Early classes tomorrow." She leaned forward and clasped her hand over mine. "Nice to meet you, Sunny."

Anna walked over and wrapped her arms around me in a side-hug. "Keep your chin up, girl."

They turned to leave. Rainbow stood up to walk with them. I could hear them chatting at the door, but didn't want to be nosey, so I tried looking around the room instead of listening in. When Rainbow returned, her dark eyes seemed to smile and her freckles were pink and light as she watched me.

"What?" I asked.

She sat down and looked down at her dress, playing with the hem. "I just told them I would get you to come to class with me tomorrow." She grinned. She'd remembered me saying the yoga bag was one of my visions. Her smile filled with hope, hope I didn't want to be responsible for ruining.

My heart almost hurt out of fear. Being in a small room with a lot of people dressed in workout gear was definitely high up on my things-that-make-me-super-anxious list, but I breathed through the tightness and repeated the vision in my head. I needed to do this. I needed to follow these pictures. I needed to get my butt into a yoga class. "How early?" I asked, cringing as I thought about waking up at dawn.

Rainy shook her head. "Not early; we're going to do the lunch class. It's for beginners."

I took a deep breath in and let it sit in my lungs as if it were a friend helping me decide. Then I let it out slowly. And nodded.

That's how I ended up three blocks down from my office at 11:35 the next morning. I walked quickly to the address Rainy gave me last night before I left. A bag of workout clothes bounced at my side, stuffed to the brim with my doubts, fears, anxieties, and questions. But I was going. Making different choices than I normally would have. The fence had gotten me Rainy and now Anna and Lizzy.

I repeated the positive phrases Tim had given me. I visualized myself doing cool yoga poses (and pushed the visions of me falling on my face aside). I didn't want to mess this up. So uncomfortable or not, muffin top or not, un-bendable body or not, I followed that purple bag to Lizzy's class.

I couldn't help but wonder about the green shoe vision, though. It hadn't been just one shoe, like my vision, but maybe these were more suggestions instead of snapshots. The yoga picture came before the shoe, too, so it made sense. I mean, terrible as it had been, the green shoe girl and Jessica incident had helped me see I had people who would stand up for me, friends even. So, maybe that was the reasoning behind it.

Despite the calm I felt about the whole situation while talking with Rainy last night (not needing to figure it out, just needing to follow it), I couldn't help the thought, or question, that kept popping into my head today. Why? Why was this happening to me? The acceptance was wearing off, quick. If these images were good, if they were helping me change my life, what was the universe getting out of this? The thoughts swirled through my brain, making it ache.

A cacophony of honking horns and people shouting in the street next to me pulled my attention back to reality. I turned to see what was going on.

And saw another green shoe. The green shoe. This time it was just like I had seen in my mind and I right-away knew that the similar footwear from last night had been a terrible coincidence. This shoe sat alone in the middle of the road. Cars were swerving, but not just to avoid hitting the shoe, but to avoid the man walking through the street toward the shoe. The shoe pointed right at him, like an arrow.

He looked to be in his late twenties, he wore khakis and a striped button up shirt. Large black-rimmed glasses rocked precariously on the tip of his nose as he hopped. Oh, yeah, he was hopping because he wore only one green shoe. His other foot was clad in a white sock. The sock was super white, like he had just bleached it, bright. That must've been why he wouldn't put his foot down on the ground. He hopped through traffic toward his other green shoe. Another guy stood behind him on the curb, doing equal parts laughing and cringing as he watched the man navigate through the busy street.

My mind reeled. Green shoe. Green shoe! The green shoe. Not on anyone's terrible feet this time. Not two, just the one. In the road! What was I supposed to do? I looked to my left and right. Cars were zooming by. The honking and yelling continued. The fence discovery had been mostly quiet, as had the yoga bag, but this. Yeesh.

My heart hammered and my head felt hot, but I needed to get to that shoe. I couldn't pass up one of my visions. Plus, this looked to be a case of severe adult bullying. As a victim who always wished people would come to my aid, as someone who had, just last night, had people save her, I felt it was my duty to help this guy out.

I made my decision and ran into the street. The honking and yelling turned its attention toward me and grew even angrier. I ducked my head, held my bag tight, and scooted as fast as I could toward the shoe. Luckily, since I was using both of my feet to travel, I got to it quickly. The guy didn't see me right away, because he was focused on not being run over. I picked up his shoe and ran to him.

He looked up as the car moved on and his face relaxed as he saw me. I jerked my head back toward the sidewalk and he smiled, turning his hopping in the other direction. He made it just seconds after me (he really hadn't gotten all that far on one leg) and he grasped a street sign to balance as I handed him the shoe.

"Thank... you... so... much." He panted. Beads of sweat collected on his forehead and his face almost matched the color of my hair. He took a moment to punch the other guy in the shoulder before he untied the shoe to put it on. His friend tried to wipe the smile from his face. He rubbed his shoulder.

I could've cared less about the stupid, smiling friend. I couldn't take my eyes of Green Shoe Guy. He was cute. I smiled. I felt woozy. My heart raced faster than the cars speeding past us on the street, now that there weren't any people impeding them.

"You're welcome," I said, finally. There was a slight catch to my voice. He looked up at me with his blue eyes and let go of the sign, wiping his hand on his pants.
Different!
my brain yelled at me. I cleared my throat and said, "How? Um -- Why?" Shit. I couldn't be different. I couldn't talk. My face started to match his in color and I looked away.

"How'd my shoe get in the middle of the street?" he finished for me, glaring at his friend. He ran a hand over his messy brown hair and shook his head. "This guy thought it would be hilarious to use it as a football." At the word "hilarious" he put both his hands in the air and shook them about. His friend burst into another fit of laughter.

"Dude! I didn't think it would go into the road!" He chuckled. "It would've been fine if you'd just get your damn sock dirty." He coughed and said, "Neat freak" at the same time.

Green Shoe Guy started to laugh a little, too. He wasn't really mad.

My breath caught in my throat. My heart ached. This wasn't a case of bullying. He was normal. He had friends. He was out of my league. I knew I should talk to him, ask him questions, even ask him to lunch. He
was
attached to one of my visions. Just thinking those thoughts made my stomach curl in on itself. Plus, his friend stood there, slapping him on the shoulder between laughs and reminding him they needed to go.

My skin grew hot and clammy. No. No way could I talk to him. This was just like lunch with my coworkers the other day. I wasn't ready for this. I hadn't planned or practiced. My neck tingled and my feet itched to move. All I wanted was to get out of there before I did something embarrassing.

His eyes locked onto mine and he smiled. It was the type of smile that pulled at the corner of his mouth and turned his blue eyes into tiny arcs. Stubble covered his chin and moved down his neck. I swallowed. He was super cute. He was cute and he was attached to my change-your-life-visions. Was he going to be my friend, too? The first had brought me Rainy.

Oh no! Rainy! The yoga bag vision. What happened when two of the visions overlapped? Clashed?

I backed away. "Sorry. I -- This --" I pointed to my bag.

His dark eyebrows popped up and he took a step toward me. I didn't see anything past that because I turned and ran. Fast. If I had been in a race, I would have beat the skin-tight pants off even the fastest runner. If friendship made me anxious, boys made me downright catatonic.