Earthbound

“Tavia Michaels, you should not have a limp anymore,” she insists. But after months of shying away from the pain, it’s become a habit—my natural cadence even though the pain is gone.

Most days.

Pure physical therapy only gets you so far; now it’s a question of resetting my mind. So I count. A lot.

But my even pace is a little hard to maintain when my eyes are darting to the space above every building, every front door, looking for symbols.

I blink. Was that a flash? I peer harder, blink again. Nope. This time I really am just seeing things. Great.

I try not to look at the next house, but I can’t help it. My eyes wander to the door all on their own.

What the … ? I come to an abrupt halt, and a man in a jogging suit mutters as he sidesteps to keep from running into me.

It’s not a triangle this time, and it’s not glowing, either. This one looks solid and … real. I take a few steps toward it, peering at the symbol carved into the beam above the door. It’s so worn—not to mention painted over—that I can’t quite tell what it is; something round but elongated over some curvy lines. It could be anything, but it’s definitely something, and it sets my heart racing the same way the glowing triangles did.

I attempt to look casual—like I’m not some creepy voyeur—as I pull out my phone and take a quick picture. As soon as the phone clicks, I shove it in my pocket, hoping no one noticed.

I lower my chin and start counting my strides again, trying to take my mind off the symbols. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.

When I look up to gauge how far it is to the end of the block, a hint of gold flashes through gaps in the pedestrians in front of me. It’s him! Over the shoulder of the man in the jogging suit, not far past a lady with a stroller, I make out that now-familiar blond ponytail at the nape of his bronzed neck.

Apparently his long hair is real.

And it looks silky and soft.

My jaw tightens against the thought and I begin walking again, faster now, marshaling my courage. I should at least talk to him—find out what he thought he was doing last night.

I shoulder my way around a couple holding hands. Only two more people between us. My leg twinges, but I ignore it. I’ve stopped counting, too. Never mind my gait, I’m totally focused on him. I can’t yell—he’d probably run—but I’m almost close enough to grab his arm.

Almost there.

Almost.

But as I reach out to tap his shoulder, he steps around the corner into a narrow alley and is gone.

“No you don’t,” I mutter, and pivot without slowing, determined to catch him.

Pain hits me as I slam into a wall and the collision radiates down my spine, collapsing my knees and dropping me to the sidewalk. I blink and try to focus as faces enter my field of vision.

“Are you okay?”

“Someone call an ambulance.”

“She’s having a seizure!”

“Miss? Miss?”

“I’m fine,” I mutter, blood rushing to my cheeks. And despite being at a higher risk for them since the accident, I most certainly am not having a seizure. I rub a searing spot on my head and squint up at what I thought was an alley.

There is no alley there.

It’s a gray stone real estate office—a newer building, with flashy posters of available properties hung all over the windows.

But …

I want to die of humiliation as about six people help me to my feet. Their hands worry over me, touching me, violating my bubble of personal space—which has always been large, but has expanded with the isolation of the last several months. I put my arms out, nudging people away, chanting, “Thank you, I’m fine, thank you, I’m fine, thank you, I’m fine,” until they finally leave me alone, only one or two glancing after me.

“You have a scrape on your forehead,” a woman says. She looks at me so intently I wonder if she knows me. If I know her. Worse, if she knows Reese and Jay—it’s not a particularly large city—and is about to open up her cell phone and call them. What a disaster that would be. I open my mouth to speak, but before I can, she presses a Band-Aid into my hand, turns to cough politely into the crook of her arm, then walks up the street.

I watch her go, and just as I start to look away, she flickers.

What the hell?

I study her back—a spot of blue pastel among the pedestrians—willing her to flicker again, to have someone else notice, to prove to myself that I’m not crazy. But after about ten seconds of nothing weird happening, she takes a left and walks out of sight.

I brace my shoulder against the gray stone of the realty office and try to convince myself that I must have just blinked or that it was my imagination or something.

The blond guy is nowhere to be seen, which is probably a good thing since I’m not sure I could keep myself from screaming at him. He wants me to come to him; he runs away from me.

Down nonexistent alleys, no less.

Boys.

The again-milling foot traffic flows around me, but there’s something … something else making me uncomfortable. A niggling sense of—there! I catch sight of a man across the street, watching me. He’s wearing khaki cargo pants and sunglasses; pretty nondescript.

But he’s watching me. Great.

I meet his eyes—I think, stupid sunglasses—and glare, daring him to keep staring at the klutzy girl. He immediately turns his head and begins walking in the opposite direction. I hate embarrassing myself in public.

Distantly I hear the crinkle of the Band-Aid wrapper as I crumple it in my palm and my chin drops to my chest. I stride up the still-crowded boardwalk, forgetting to count as I work my way along, hoping no one looks at my bright red face too closely.

At the end of the block I turn and head to a much newer part of town, where my physical therapy center is. My mind races faster than my feet.

Who the hell is this blond guy? He could be a reporter. Seems awfully young for that, though. I got a good look last night and he can’t be much older than me. And based solely on statistics, he’s probably not a serial killer. He could be some kind of bizarre stalker, but why?

Maybe he’s just a weirdo. I mean, he grew his hair out for a reenactment costume he wears every day; he could simply be way hard core into that kind of thing. Like the old men who spend all their spare time building model trains or painting Civil War miniatures. Or this guy in my old school who was really into theater and would dress and talk like his character all day, every day whenever he was cast in a new part. It would be about three steps beyond “quirky,” but not unheard of. In fact, that might be the best explanation—for my safety, at least.

But Mr. Ponytail did try to get me to come out last night. Why would he do that? If he were so into his reenactment life, it seems like he would approach me during the day and introduce himself with some kind of overdone wave of his hat or something similarly dramatic.

And that flicker when the woman walked away … Just one more bullet point on my list of topics I really don’t want to think about.

When I arrive at the PT center, a glance in the passenger-side mirror of a random car in the parking lot shows me my injured forehead. There’s a scrape with a little line of dirt on one side. I lick my finger and try to clear the smudge away. The raw skin stings each time I touch it, but I ignore that and scrub until the grayish streak is gone. I adjust my short bangs over the shallow cut and try to convince myself no one will notice.

I’m about to head in when my phone rings. “Elizabeth?” I whisper to myself. It’s not like she never calls—she used to check up on me somewhat regularly. But it’s been a while. “Hey, Elizabeth,” I say.

“Got a second?” she asks cheerily, but I’m totally nervous anyway.

“A few,” I say, glancing at the PT center.