Finding Me (31 page)

“What?” I said. “I’d make an excellent superhero. I’m athletic…sort of. I’m smart...um, I’m um...I can’t think of more now, but I would.”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to offend,” Emily said, “but let’s be real “ neither of us nor you, Melissa, could ever be superheroes or the villain, for that matter. We’re just too dainty, too girly. Give me the damsel in distress role any day. I’d rather do that anyway. It’s not as much work.”

“Speak for yourself,” Melissa said, “I’d be an excellent villain or hero.”

“It was a joke,” I said, snickering “A joke.”

The parking lot of the ballroom entrance to the hotel was already full when we arrived.

Once I stepped inside, my breath caught. My mother had created a fairytale. She knew me better than I gave her credit for.

The room sparkled from the brilliantly hung gleaming white miniature lights strung across the ceiling and walls. Positioned on either side of the ballroom were round tables that seated four and were adorned with red silk tablecloths. Beautiful red roses in crystal vases and floating votive candles sent flickering sparks across everyone’s faces. A large stage embellished with a red velvet curtain with large oversized tiebacks completed the look. I stood with my mouth agape at the beauty my mother created for me. It proved one thing – even if this was only decorations, she listened.

I strolled back and forth mingling with everyone. My mind, however, was on my parents’ and Matt. I would introduce them to Chris once the party was in full swing. Chris had been coaxing me all night to calm down.
Yeah, right.

“Don’t make too much of tonight. I’m just a regular boyfriend. We’re not telling your parents we’re about to get married.” He laughed softly in my head while I talked to Jennifer and Sharon from school.

“Excuse me for just a sec,” I’d said, interrupting Melissa. She’d asked me again about “the big hottie with dark hair”. She tried to talk with him and he’d brushed her off. I attempted a number of times to clarify that he had a girlfriend, but she didn’t care. Joseph barely noticed her. He continually looked for Sam. I kept carting Sam off with me, or Melissa would run off with her. That connection had been a surprise but they instantly clicked, like Raja and Emily.

Headed toward Chris, I noticed my parents and Matt walking toward me. I changed direction. Before I knew it, two of my classmates were asking me about the band Mother had hired to play for us.

“Who are they? They’re great,” said the girl I recognized from my fifth period class but didn’t personally know. Em and Tee took some liberty with the invitations – I had no idea who some of these people were. “Can I get their contact info so I can ask them to play at my party?”

“Um, yeah sure. I’ll have my mom give you the info. She just arrived, excuse me,” I said, pointing in her direction.

When the two girls moved, my parents and Matt stood where I’d seen them earlier, but Chris had joined them.
Why?
My abdomen rumbled. I prepared myself for the introduction Chris was obviously starting already.

What would Mother think of Chris? What would my father say to him? Would Matt have anything negative to say? Would Mother simply brush him off because he was not in our same social sphere?

So many questions, so little time to ponder them all. I swallowed hard as I made my approach to meet them. Chris turned and smiled at me as I stepped up to greet them.

“Chris!” I exclaimed. I smiled on the outside. On the inside, however, I was confused.
Why didn’t you wait for me
?

“Hey, beautiful,” he said with a mischievous grin.

“You do look beautiful, sweetheart,” Mother said. She pulled me into her arms for a long embrace. He’s gorgeous. What does his parents do for a living?” she whispered as we embraced.

I pulled back slightly, “Mother. He’s handsome, charming, smart…”

She chuckled softly, “Okay. Okay, we’ll see. He is quite charming. I’d still like to know what his parents -” She smiled down at me not finishing her statement. “If you are happy for now that is all I need to know.”

I threw my arms around her neck. “Thank you,” I whispered.

She pulled me into her arms, “Take it slow. I cannot explain it, but I believe I pushed you to date Zack. He was a good kid, but he was not right for you. I think you tried to tell me that, but I would not listen. I’m listening now. Remember that if you need to talk about anything.”

“Bops, do you think I could sneak in a quick dance?” Chris asked. He and my father had walked over and were standing behind us. My father had an arm draped across Chris’s shoulder.

“Oh, Dad. You didn’t tell him about ‘Bops’, did you?” I shook my head and rolled my eyes.

“It’s weird though, maybe it doesn’t suit you now. I guess you’re not a little girl anymore,” he said. He pulled me into his arms.

“I’ll always be your little girl, Dad.” I nearly choked on the lump tugging at my throat.

Once I was away from my parents and headed to the dance floor with Chris, using his inner voice, he said, “That wasn’t hard at all. They loved me. Of course, I knew they would and you did also, but you worry about everything… you couldn’t see.”

I didn’t say anything. Once I was in his arms moving with the beat of the music and listening to his heart, I only focused on his touch.

“What did you say to my dad? He seemed rather fond of you,” I asked, smiling up at him.

“I told him that we’d been dating for a few weeks and I wanted to formally introduce myself.” He bore his eyes into mine. “I told him my name was Christopher and I had every intention of marrying his daughter.”

“You said…what?” I pulled away, ready to find my father and explain the joke was on him. Chris drew me back and laughed softly in my ear.

“Are you crazy?” I asked.
Calm down, Carmichael.
“Did you really say that to him?”

“Yes, I said that eventually I wanted to marry you. And yes, I am crazy. Crazy in love with you. Love makes you crazy sometimes. Haven’t you heard?” His smile was riveting. My smile. He was mine.

“This is surreal.” I shook my head, trying to navigate the feelings crashing around inside me. “If you asked, I think I’d marry you today.” He closed his eyes, then opened them slowly. “That scares me, Chris. How can I feel this way for you? We’re still kids.”

“You’re not a child and neither am I. You’re much older than the people you call parents. You know that. You feel it, you’ve always felt it but shied away from the feelings...you try too hard to fit in. Don’t try so hard. It’ll happen. The only thing I need you to do is love me. You do that…everything else will be okay.”

“I wish I could communicate what I feel. That’s all…except words don’t properly convey my feelings. I just want to be sure you understand how I feel. Because I was so unsure before.”

Chris laughed. “Don’t worry about if I understand how you feel. I understand you more than you do yourself. But if you insist on an actual display…you can show me right now by kissing me,” he whispered. He looked deep into my eyes and my heart beat fast and slow. A beat only the two of us could hear.

I was finally, fully, in love.

Chapter 25

“We made an egregious error,” I said. I bolted upright in bed, sweat dripping from my brow. I glanced over at the clock on my nightstand. It was six in the morning on Sunday, and everyone had left the party late last night. I tried to calm myself. It was too early to call them.

“You okay, love?” Chris asked, stretching and yawning next to me.

I jumped at the sound of his voice. “You stayed all night?” I smiled, surprised but excited. He’d never stayed all night before. We had talked for some time, but I’d assumed he would leave once I’d fallen asleep, like most other nights.

He reached for me and pulled me back to the bed with him. He wrapped his arms around me and whispered in my ear. “What did you say just now? When you woke up?”

What had I said? What did I dream about?
Was it a dream?
“We need to do something. I saw it in my dream. I–I need the others, Chris.” I pulled away from the warmth of his embrace and sat up in bed again.

“Okay. You have to call them,” he said, smiling up at me, still wrapped in my blanket.

I closed my eyes and concentrated. They didn’t arrive spontaneously, like when Chris did this at my coming out party. But one by one, they appeared. Sam first. She immediately curled up on the end of my king size bed with a pillow she had brought. Then Raja arrived and pushed Chris over. She grabbed a pillow and propped herself up against the headboard.

Joseph came next. He sat on the floor up against the bed with his head and arms against Sam’s back and the edge of the bed, looking sleepily at us. Phillip arrived and sat next to Raja with his head in her lap.

Jill and Scott arrived at the same time, occupying the small space left on the corner of the bed, and similar to everyone else, Jill sat up with her legs crossed. Scott, who brought a pillow with him, laid his head in her lap. I watched as she ran her fingers through his hair.

I looked at everyone – how they interacted with one another. You could feel the love that radiated through the room. No one complained upon entry. They held to their partners and waited for me to start.

Gulp
. I took a deep breath. “We have to go back to Tierra,” I announced.

“No, we do not. There is nothing in Tierra,” Raja said. “We have to focus our time and energy here on Earth. Chloe, honestly, we don’t have time for this.” She threw her hands up, exasperated with me. Phillip reached over and caressed her chin gently.

“Raja, hear me out. We missed something. You taught me to trust my own intuition. If I feel something strong enough, then I should act upon those feelings. That’s what I need to do now. I don’t think I can do this without you, but if no one wants to come with me, then I’ll go by myself.”

“Chloe, I’m not saying you have to do that. We can act on your feelings after we follow up on Sam’s vision.”

“Wait.” I lifted a finger, deep in thought. “Raja, you, Jill, and Joseph come with me to Tierra and everyone else stay here–”

“I can’t leave Sam,” Joseph said immediately. Sam and Jill exchanged a smile but didn’t say anything.

“Oh, I’m sorry Joseph, I...um, okay. Well, Chris would you come with me to Tierra?”

“What do you think?” he whispered into my ear. He drew my head to his. His eyes lingered by mine before he grasped my head between both his hands and pulled my lips to his. He kissed me long and hard. Electricity lanced through me and I shivered.
I can’t believe he did that in front of everyone.

When he released me, I couldn’t think straight.
They must think I’m pathetic, how I react when he touches me.
His touch, his kisses, lingered – touching even those secret places no one could see. “They understand. Don’t be self-conscious,” he whispered in my ear. “Continue, please.”

“Raja, you’re right.”
Shit. I sound all breathy.
I cleared my throat, then continued. “We shouldn’t exhaust all our efforts in Tierra. You guys stay and follow up on Sam’s vision here on Earth. The rest of us will follow the leads on Tierra. We have to keep communication open between each group. You know, in case we discover something that the other needs to hear immediately. But I feel strongly that we missed something important in Tierra. What do you all think?” I said, taking a deep breath.

“That’s a better idea. What do we need to do?” Raja asked, her mouth drawn up into a tight smile.

“Since I only went to my previous home, that’s where we have to go. I assume since Sam’s vision saw the ENO close, then maybe everyone else should go to the high school, umm…my high school. It’s Sunday so you’ll have free reign over student records. Search the teacher files also. We don’t know who we’re up against – anyone can be a suspect.”

“I’m so proud of you, Chloe. This feels like old times. You used to call meetings like this all the time. Your visions are different from mine. They’re usually in the form of dreams or glimpses. No matter what time you woke from a vivid dream, you’d call for us,” Sam said. “We looked forward to our two a.m. sessions in your bedroom…sometimes you’d even have snacks ready for us…that’s when we knew it’d be a long meeting.”

“Happy to see you back. Everything feels…right now. Balanced. Like everything is going to be okay. We’re a family again,” Jill said, smiling with a tear in her eye.

I sat back on the bed and smiled. It felt good to finally do something right.

“You do a lot right. Give yourself some credit,” Sam said, sitting up at the end of my bed, responding to my unspoken words.

“Okay, let’s do this thingy,” Raja said. “We all need to get changed and ready to go.” Everyone sat up and stretched. “Good job,” Raja said in my head. “I knew you could do it.”

~ ~ ~

Once we were in my old room on Tierra, I didn’t know what to do next. I stood in the middle of the room looking around at everything. No one else said anything. They watched me. Jill continually scoped the room as if someone might pop out and attack us at any moment. “It’s something about our surroundings,” I said aloud. Everyone stopped and looked at each other.

“What does that mean?” Chris asked.

“I don’t know. I think it was a warning from my dream.” I flicked the light on with a twist of my hand. Honestly, I didn’t know what I meant by “our surroundings”. My eyes scanned the room one more time to see if anything spoke to me but nothing did. A feeling of defeat saturated me. Maybe this was a wasted trip, but I’d been confident we’d find something. I hadn’t thought what that something could be.

As I turned, ready to tell everyone what I was certain they could hear in my thoughts, I caught sight of the wall of pictures. I stepped over to the wall. Maybe the something tugging at me lay in one of the photos.

Upon my closer inspection of the photos, I discovered something I hadn’t noticed before. The other people in the photos were people I knew on Earth. Not just the Great Eight. Some of the people I knew on Earth cropped up in the pictures. Melissa, Amber, and Casey were all in a couple of them. I stared blankly at the photos, my head spinning.