“It seemed like you wanted to keep it secret.” I watched her carefully. Was it wrong for me to hope that her vision had been like mine? About her and me? Because that was what I was hoping. But I couldn’t tell anything; her eyes gave nothing away. “I guess I wanted to respect that,” I finished.
She didn’t say anything right away, so I asked what I really wanted to know. “What did you see?”
CHAPTER 20
FOR A WHILE SARAH SAID nothing. I tried to read her body language like she seemed able to read mine. She stood, walked a few steps, hands shoved into jeans pockets, which made her shoulders hunch together. She looked tiny, like a little wisp. If you saw her quickly, you might mistake her for a child, ten or twelve. Until you saw her face.
“I’m with someone,” she finally said, “a guy.” She looked back at me just long enough for me to see something in her eyes, like she was afraid to say it.
“Me?” I asked softly.
“You?” She raised her eyebrows. Her voice was amused and sad together when she said, “No, it isn’t you, Riley.”
I felt like a total idiot. “I just thought . . . the way you were saying it . . .” Oh God, could the floor swallow me up, please?
Mercifully, she continued. “I’ve never seen him before. We’re in a park, walking. There’s a dog with us. We’re holding hands. I don’t know the park or the dog, either. The guy is older.” She paused. “Maybe I am too.”
How much older? I wanted to ask. Before or after my vision, when we’re in bed together? Suddenly I didn’t want to hear any more.
“Even weirder . . . ,” she said, looking toward the window wistfully, “I’m in love with him. I don’t know how I know that, but I do.”
Something hot and sharp was in my chest. Jesus, I’m jealous. Of a guy Sarah doesn’t know, who might not even exist.
“I feel like he’s my . . . soul mate?” she said, mostly to herself. “It’s the strangest feeling.” She gave me that half-sad smile again. “The connection I feel to this guy. And now I keep wondering, what if I never meet him?”
I tried to think of something funny to say to break the mood, but I didn’t feel funny. This felt wrong and bad and not at all the way I wanted it to.
She looked down at her hands. “The worst part—” She stopped.
“What?” I prompted.
She shook her head.
“Whatever it is, Sarah, it’s between us.”
She glanced up with just her eyes, head still bowed, then sighed and looked back at her hands. “The worst part is what it’s done to how I feel about Trip. I used to think I loved him. Now I know I don’t.”
And—shitty, awful, back-stabbing friend that I am—I felt happy. She doesn’t love him.
“So I want to look again,” she said more firmly. “I need to know. If I don’t see anything, maybe I can just forget about what I saw, you know? Maybe I can believe that the binoculars are nothing. I can believe that they didn’t predict what would happen to Nat’s dad. Or you. Or me.”
“And what if you see something?” I said. “Wouldn’t you rather just not know?”
“No,” she said immediately. “Just like you wouldn’t.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
Sarah came back to the sofa, where I still held the box. She reached over and took it from me, her skin softly brushing mine. She unlatched the case, took out the binoculars, and hesitated only a second before bringing them firmly, surely to her eyes. I watched it all, powerless. Her body suddenly got still, shoulders stiff, knuckles turning white.
I knew she was seeing something, and my nerves thrummed with anxiety.
“Sarah,” I called gently. She didn’t answer at first, but then slowly she brought the binoculars away. I was scared by how she looked. Probably how I’d looked after the things I’d seen. Like she knew something much bigger than anyone should.
“Well, now I know,” she said dully.
“Did you see something? The same thing?” I pressed when she nodded, “That . . . guy?” It burned to say it.
“No. I was older,” Sarah said. “Much older. I don’t know how I know that . . .” She trailed off.
I waited. “And?” I prompted. “What did you see?”
“Houses. Cars. All of them different. Newer than anything around today,” she said thinly. “I’m looking out a window at them, at life out there, passing by. And I’m thinking.” She paused, swallowed, searched out my eyes. “I’m thinking something good. Happy. But also sad.”
“Bittersweet?”
“Yeah,” she said. “And I feel tired.”
I saw tears welling in her eyes.
“Sarah?” I reached over, gently touched her arm. “What?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. Oh my God. Just . . .” She put her hands to her face, blotting the tears, and breathed in deeply. Swallowing like she could push away the stuff she was feeling. “I could see my hands,” she said finally. “I guess that’s how I know I’m old. They’re all veiny and frail.” She looked at her smooth, delicate hands, turning them wonderingly. “I’m old in it, Riley. Really old. And I feel . . .” She hitched a breath, struggling for control. “Lonely.”
I reached for her, folded her into my arms, and she let me. I felt the shiver of her slight body, hesitated for a second, then put my hand on the back of her head. The coarseness of her hair was just like I remembered it from the binoculars.
We stayed like that for a minute. There were so many things running through me with her this close—excitement, tenderness, and worry. I was intensely conscious of where every part of her touched me, her legs pressing against my thigh, her head on my chest, breast inches from my arm. Maybe Sarah felt it, because she pulled back a little, looking up at me. Her face was serious.
I thought she was going to tell me more about what she’d seen, but instead she said, “You like me, don’t you, Riley?”
“Sure,” I said. I tried to drag my eyes away, my heart racing. “Of course.”
“No,” Sarah persisted. “Not like ‘we’re buddies.’” She held my gaze, the sound of her voice, low and raspy, raising goose bumps on my arms. “Like a boy likes a girl.”
Holy crap. I could barely think, my eyes drawn to her full lips, parted and moist. I shivered, knowing she already knew the answer. “Yes,” I answered thickly.