Falling (25 page)

“Sorry. I didn’t realise that she was coming.” Sara just rolls her eyes at my tone.

“Well, have something to eat Reid and I’ll give you some money so you can go shopping when you get back to school.”

“You don’t have to do that. I really don’t need anything.” I didn’t want to go shopping, I just wanted something extra to wear today.

“Eat.” She says before disappearing back into her room.

“You sure we have to leave now?” I ask Sara.

“Stop whining, have something to eat so we can go. Trust me, you want to be back early.” She says with wide eyes, trying to convey some message to me.

“Whatever then.” I mumble sitting at the breakfast bar, picking at my own croissant.

Sara laughs loudly. “You’re going to love me so much.” She sings at me.

“I doubt it. I just want to go back to bed.” I moan.

“Hurry up and eat you whiner.”

I do as I’m told and in less than half an hour I’m standing on the door step saying goodbye to everyone, Sara is already in the car waiting for me. She quickly said thanks for breakfast, but couldn’t stand still waiting for me to slowly leave the house.

I don’t see why I should go any faster when she won’t tell me why she’s dragging me back to school before I absolutely have to be there.

“Call when you get there.” Aunt Kelly says for the hundredth time. Charlotte hugs me tightly, and uncle Rod slips some extra money into my hand as he hugs me.

“We’re here if you need us.” He says quietly.

“Thanks you guys. It’s been great.” I don’t know how else to say that. It didn’t matter what they did, it was going to be an awful weekend, at least they left me alone to process everything by myself.

I turn around and Sara’s hand is inching closer to the horn. “I better get going.”

“Be safe.” Aunt Kelly calls out as I reach the car.

“I will.” I give them one last fake smile before we drive away.

“Reid. Reid. Reid. Oh my goodness, wake up Reid.” The car decelerates dramatically, matching Sara’s high pitched frantic voice.

“What’s wrong?” I ask alarmed. “Are we back already?” I feel so groggy. I wasn’t really asleep, just drifting in and out of consciousness.

She lifts her hand and mine moves with it. Oh no.

The car stops still half on the road. “What is that?” She shrieks.

“Um, I. Um.” I stutter.

“You know what this is?” She screams. This really is the most horrible weekend I could ever have imagined having. Now I’m going to lose my one friend.

“Yeah.” I say slowly.

“Your hand is inside of mine.” She screams even louder.

“Yeah.” I bite the side of my lip.

“Why?” She keeps our hands up between us and I slip my hand away from hers, which just makes her eyes grow bigger and rounder. “What did you just do?”

“I moved my hand.”

“Yes I know you moved your hand. You took your hand out of mine.”

“Yeah.”

“Why was it in there in the first place?”

“I don’t know.” At least I can answer that part honestly.

“It can’t be the first time, otherwise you’d be freaking out too.”

“True.”

“Stop with the one word answers.” She gets the car off the road properly. “Tell me what happened.”

“I must have fallen asleep, and your hand must have touched mine.”

“That doesn’t really explain why your hand was inside of mine.”

“I don’t know why it does it, I just know it does.”

“That’s so weird.” She watches her hand, wriggling her fingers. “Do it again.” She holds out her hand.

“No.” I shout, and whip my hand away.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s weird and you’ll hate me.”

“I won’t hate you, loser.” She pauses. “Please, just once more. I won’t scream like a baby this time. It just gave me a fright. At first I thought your hand had fallen off.” She bursts out laughing, but not nervously. She genuinely thinks it was funny.

“I wish.” I mutter.

“Oh my goodness, it gave me such a fright.” She laughs, holding her hand over her heart. “Come on, do it.” She holds her hand just above mine.

“Stop it Sara. And I can’t just do it.” I lie. “It does it itself. Kind of.”

“Kind of?”

“It’s hard to explain.” I don’t really want to tell her anything else, it didn’t go all that well last time I told someone.

“I am very smart. Very. So you should just tell me.”

“I don’t really want to.”

She looks insulted. “What I’m not good enough?”

“No, I just don’t want to… I just want to be able to be your friend longer than the ride back to school.”

“You think I wouldn’t be your friend just because you can make your hand disappear inside of mine.” She stops looking out the window. “This makes a whole lot of sense now.” She laughs and shakes her head.

“What? What does?”

“I’ll tell you when we get back.”

“Then so will I.”

“No, you will thank me for not telling you now. You will like this so much better if I don’t say anything. Please trust me, okay. You will think I am the best friend in the world for not telling you now.” She grabs my hand, even though I try to yank it out the way. “And seeing as I am such a good friend, you should make you hand disappear again to show me how much you appreciate it.”

“I can’t. I just can’t Sara, it’s nothing against you. But once I say it, once you see it, you can’t take it back. I can’t take it back. I can’t take that image out of your head and you will never look at me the same again.” She looks serious, like she’s taking in what I’m saying. “Please don’t make me.”

“I won’t make you, but you’re underestimating me. I just saw your hand inside of mine.”

“And you screamed like I’d chopped your arm off.”

“I thought your arm had been chopped off and I couldn’t figure out where all the blood was.” She laughs and makes her arm go limp, and flicks it around like it’s only just hanging on to the rest of her body. “Listen to your arm, it wanted me to know.”

“I can jump inside of people’s bodies.” I say really quickly. “And you have to take me all the way back to school before you decide you can’t stand the sight of me.”

“I’m not going to make you walk.” She rolls her eyes at me. “What do you mean you can jump inside of people’s bodies?”

“Sometimes it’s not jumping, it’s falling. It just happens. You saw that.” I motion to her limp arm. “Sometimes I do it because I want it to happen. Sometimes I have to.” I cringe admitting the last part, that’s the part that I hate. I hate it that it has a portion of control over me that I can’t figure out how to stop.

“What happens when you fall into someone?” Why do people always want to know about things that I don’t want to tell them?

“I just look at them, and it happens. It doesn’t happen very often though.”

“Okay.” She nods her head, not in any rush to get driving again. “What about when you want to?”

“Have you ever walked behind someone and heard them talking and wondered where they were going, or why they are buying something?”

“Yeah, I guess. I’ve never really thought about it.”

“That’s it. I see someone, and I think yeah, I’d like to go see what they’re seeing, and I jump into them.”

“Like you jump on top of them?”

“No, I just have to be moving toward them, once I touch them it happens almost instantly. I don’t think people even feel me touch them.”

“I didn’t feel it. If I hadn’t looked down, I would never have noticed, if you had moved before I looked down I never would have noticed.” Then she leans back into her seat. “How long have you been able to do this?” She asks through narrowed eyes.

“Since before I met you.”

“And you never told me.” She crosses her arms across her chest.

“What was I supposed to say? Hi my name is Reid, my parents died in a car accident, but on the plus side, I can climb into people’s bodies without them knowing.” She laughs, but I can see on her face what she’s thinking. “And no, I’m not going to.”

“Oh come on. I haven’t even asked yet. Please.” She whines when I shake my head.

“Not gonna happen.”

“You can’t tell me this and not show me. Come on Reid.”

“You’re a terrible friend.”

“It’s okay, I don’t mind, just show me.”

“Nooo.” I whine.

“Okay. What about when you have to, what did you mean?”

Like this is any better than showing her. “I don’t know how to explain it.”

“Just tell me.”

“Thanks, that helps lots.”

“I am only here to help you.” She uses her I’m-a-doctor-you-should-tell-me-everything voice.

“Yeah thanks.”

“Seriously, just tell me how ever you can.”

“I don’t know if I can. It’s weird. Weirder than all of this. I don’t do anything. It just happens. I hate it. I’ll just be standing there thinking about a math test and all of a sudden my body just moves me. I can’t do anything. I’ve tried. I’ve tried holding on to things, running away, but my legs just turn around and I move toward them faster than I was before.”

“Sounds freaky.”

“Something like that.”

“I’m not judging.” She raises her hands like she’s surrendering. “It just sounds really freaky.”

“It’s weird, like I said. It’s…”

“Weird?”

“Yeah. Sorry, I need to find a more descriptive word. It takes over everything. I have only been able to stop it once, but I could feel it coming, and I went away from them before it became too strong, because once it gets to that I can’t stop it. I can’t even think about anything else. My body knows what it wants to do, and I just have to follow. I hate it.” I spit out.

“That sounds crazy. Does it hurt you at all?”

“No.” I’d never thought of that before. “I don’t feel anything. I can’t feel anything from the person.”

“What about reading their minds?”

“Nope. I wouldn’t mind that one though.”

“That would be pretty cool. But you can jump into people’s bodies. Please show me. Please do it to me.”

“You don’t want me to do that. Think about how you will feel when I step out of your chest.”

“I think it will be cool.” She looks at me sideways out of the corners of her eyes. “If you were me and I just told you all of this, what would you want me to do?”

“Fine.” I sigh.

“Yay.” She claps her hands. “Do it.”

“I can’t in here.”

“Why not? Your hand was in there just a minute ago.”

“That was a tiny part of me, you are asking me to stick the whole of me inside of the whole of you. How do I jump at you?”

“No problem.” She opens her door and has one foot out before I can react. “I can’t do it on the side of the road where anyone can see. They lock you up for this kind of stuff. I’m not keen on something cutting me open to find out why I can do it either.”

“Here I’ll lie down.” She ducks down and is lying in the still damp grass on the side of the road.

“Gross Sara, don’t lie in that. People throw all kinds of things out their windows.”

“Hurry up will you.”

“I don’t know how to do it while you’re down there.” I stand at the end of her feet like I am surveying her body. “I don’t want to jump and just land on you. People have always been standing up.”

“Then just walk toward me like you would if you just found me lying here and do your thing.”

“Okay, but if I end up with my shoe in your stomach, I warned you. So don’t blame me when you start puking.”

“Yip, fair warning and all that.” She says quickly. “Just do it.”

“Fine.” I say sourly. I can’t believe I am going to show her this. “Sorry if I miss.” I stall.

“Reid.” She calls out.

I look at her like I have just seen her body and walk swiftly toward her, closing my eyes just before I reach her body so I can’t see my foot going in, or worse squashing the top of her head.

“Reid?” She whispers.

“Yes.”

“Oh my goodness I can hear you! Did you know people can hear you?” She asks really loud.

“Yes. And you don’t have to shout I am right here.”

“Oh sorry. You sound kind of far away.”

“Can you hear your heart beating loudly?”

“No.”

“Well that’s where I am.” I speak louder.

“This is so cool.” She squeals.

“I’m glad you think so.” I laugh. I stretch my fingers out. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I feel so strange, calm but at the same time completely wired. I didn’t think anyone would be able to accept this.

“Reid, where are you?” She pretends to look for me. “Where have you gone?” She laughs.

A car pulls up behind ours. A police car.

“Are you all right miss?” An officer asks getting out of his car.

“Yes.” She stands up straight.

“Have you lost something?”

“Yes.” She blurts out.

“Shut up.” I say. “No you haven’t.”

“No I haven’t.” She says.

“Don’t say what I’m saying. Just make something up. Quick talk.”

“I thought I dropped a candy bar out the window.” She says quickly. “I wanted to see if I could find it before someone ran it over. I don’t want to litter.”

“Have you been drinking miss?”

“No.” Then she bursts out laughing.

“Seriously? You laugh after he asks you if you’ve been drinking. I don’t think that’s going to convince him that you haven’t been.”

“Shut up.” She says to me.

“I’m sorry?” He asks, turning back from his car where he is getting out a breath tester.

“That wasn’t at you. I wouldn’t tell you to shut up. I was just thinking. Out loud.”

“I’m going to stop talking. You just think and say what you mean.” I hold my mouth closed trying not to laugh.

“I’m going to need you to blow into this miss. Take a big breath in and blow until I say stop.”

“Sure thing officer.” She blows until the little machine beeps and she is out of breath.

“That’s fine. You really should get moving though, wandering around the side of the road really isn’t safe.

“Not a problem. I’ll get going now.”

“No you won’t.” I shout. “I am still in here. Don’t drive away without letting me out.” She ignores me, smiling at the policeman in her rear view mirror instead, and pulls back onto the road.