Chapter 12 - A Million Rainbows

On Monday, when the bell rang at the end of study hall, Mrs. Patterson still hadn’t texted me about Charlie.

She sometimes forgot. And when she forgot, she would wait until she got to work. So unless she was to stop for gas, I would have to wait another twenty minutes before I heard from her. If she remembered at all.

I waited outside Mr. Lord’s class till the very last minute, my hand, rather suspiciously, tucked into my backpack as I checked for her message.

I was shaking from nerves and fear, knowing that if a teacher walked by, they would confiscate my phone, cutting off my lifeline to Charlie for the day.

“Dammit,” I muttered, closing my bag with a kick to the locker in front of me.

Kyle had already sat down in class, but he was at the door a moment later, finding me down the hall. “Bree, what’s going on?”

That was the first thing he’d said to me at school in weeks. The sound of his voice in the quiet hall was nice and calmed my nerves a little.

“Mrs. Patterson hasn’t called,” I said, not really sure how much about my homelife I wanted to divulge, but I was too nervous about Charlie to be nervous about Kyle. “She brings Charlie to school. She usually texts by now.”

“Do you think there’s a problem? Should we call her school?”

“No, I think she just forgot. She forgets sometimes. It’s probably fine, but we have that test. And I won’t be able to focus.” I shook my hands out nervously. “I think it’ll be okay, though.” I was trying to talk myself into turning around and walking into class, but my feet were stuck to the floor.

Kyle put out his hand. “Give me your phone. I’ll take it to the bathroom. It’ll give her another ten minutes to call.”

“What about you?”

“I’m going to the bathroom.” He held up his hall pass, which in Mr. Lord’s class was an oversized pencil with Mr. Lord’s name painted down the front.

“But the test?”

“Yeah, I don’t care about this class. Not like you do. And Mr. Lord and I are buddies. It’ll be fine. Trust me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m sure.” His fingers were wiggling, trying to coax the phone from me.

I slid it from my bag and into his hand. “How will you let me know? If she does text?”

“I’ll give you a thumbs up.”

My gut plummeted two stories. “Shit, no. Don’t give me a thumbs up.” I was imagining that scene in front of the class with Lyndsay and everyone else watching.

Oh god.

Kyle laughed. “What about a pinky?”

That sounded reasonable. “Okay, yeah, a pinky. Not too obvious, though.”

He laughed again. “All right. Pinky means text, and she’s okay.” He held up his little finger, pulling it back down. “No pinky. No text. Okay?”

“Yeah, Okay.” I blew out a breath, trying to settle my nerves. “Thanks, Kyle.”

“Yeah, no problem. And hey, relax. I’m sure she’s fine.”

“Yeah,” I said, allowing myself to breathe a little as I turned to go to class.

“Hey Bree,” said Kyle, twisting me back around.

“Yeah?”

“Meet me in the library before lunch so I can give it back.” He tapped my phone in his pocket.

“Okay,” I said, the erratic rhythm in my heart torn over that plan.

Kyle was back ten minutes later, lifting a pinky.

Many happy emotions flooded through me, most about Charlie.

The rest were about Kyle and how much I was really starting to like him—making it so very difficult to concentrate on the test.

I was hiding in the back of the library, as far from the door as I could get, pretending to scan the shelves for a book.

“Dover,” said Kyle, coming around a corner and scaring the shit out of me. He was laughing. “I thought I was going to have to send a search party. You do know it’s not illegal for us to talk?”

He settled beside me in the quiet library with no one around. The aisles were narrow, but not so narrow as to require Kyle to stand as close as he was.

He brushed up against my arm, leaning in to whisper, “And you do realize this looks more suspicious, us hiding back here, right?” He stole a covert glance over his shoulder.

“Yeah, I know,” I said, having, with lots of overwhelming anxiety, already thought of that.

“Let’s make it a quickie, then,” he said, shooting me a mischievous wink that I was not prepared for.

My mouth fell open.

Kyle laughed at me, reaching along my arm and sliding my phone into my hand. There was something with it.

I slipped my phone into my bag but took out the card he had handed me. “Where did you get this?” It was a twenty-dollar prepaid card to refill the minutes on my phone. There was a number etched in pen on the front.

“I got it at the gas station this morning.”

“You bought me minutes?”

“Yeah, I did.” He was bobbing his head, waiting for me to say something. “Is that okay?”

“I don’t know. Yeah, I guess. Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me. This is for me. Well, not all of it. You can use whatever minutes you need. But I expect a phone call.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. How else am I going to talk to you? I’m not telepathic like Charlie. And if we can’t talk here at school …” He shrugged.

“I don’t think she’s telepathic.”

Kyle laughed. “So you’re going to call me?” He tapped the number on the card.

“You want me to call you?” I asked, thinking I’d rather it be the other way around. How was I supposed to summon the nerve to make that call? It wasn’t going to happen.

“Yes, I want you to call me.”

“When?”

“Whenever you want to. Whenever you can. I know you’re busy.”

I took a panicked breath. “No, Kyle. That won’t work. Just tell me when.” It was too vague, too up in the air, leaving too many opportunities for me to back out.

“Tonight. Call me tonight.”

I nodded. “Okay. Tonight.”

“Good.” Kyle stared at me, chewing his lip, a thought lingering behind his eyes. “So I guess I’ll go to lunch now and keep pretending you don’t exist?” He reached between us and drew circles in the dust on the bookshelf. “Because you could just sit with me.”

I swallowed nervously, too loudly. He was too close. “No, I can’t. Sorry. It’s—”

“Yeah, okay. Never mind.” Kyle wiped his hands on his jeans. “That was a bad idea. Just call me,” he said, then he was gone.

There’s something special about the sun after endless days of rolling rain clouds. The way it peeks from behind the puffy cloud curtains like it’s making its debut. The new sun always seems so much brighter, clearer, cleaner—bringing hope, somehow. And today, even amid autumn, it brought a touch of warmth.

The playground was wet from all the rain. Mud puddles sat under every swing and slide. It was too wet for most people and the park was empty. It was also too wet for the little psychic, Charlie, to sit on the grass, so she was just being a kid today.

I brushed along the top of a swing, pushing the small pool of water that had formed, wiping across the hard plastic with the flat of my palm until it was dry.

Charlie was on the swing beside me, making me a little nervous. I had helped her onto it, avoiding the large puddle that loomed underneath. If she were to fall, she’d land right in that big puddle.

She wasn’t worried about it, though. We were both clinging to the chains, our heads back, breathing in the last warm day we would have for a while. It was past four, and the sun was low on the horizon, piercing through the red autumn treetops, bathing us in beams of sunset gold.

“Do you want to see who can swing the highest?” I asked.

Charlie squinted her eyes open and gave me a big, cheerful grin.

“Okay. But hang on. I don’t want you to fall.”

“I’m not gonna fall,” she whined, annoyed by my overbearing sisterly worry.

But her comment made me wonder. “Do you know that?” I asked. “Can you see that you’re not going to fall?”

She shook her head. “It’s too small.”

“What do you mean?”

She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter if I fall or not.”

I laughed. “Yeah, I guess not. In the grand scheme of things, right?”

She nodded.

“Okay. Start swinging, then. I’m gonna beat you.”

I pushed on the chains, not putting much effort into it. Charlie still struggled to pump on her own, and I didn’t feel the need to crush the soul of a seven-year-old today. Plus, I worried that if she went too high, she really might fall and get hurt. But, I guess, according to Charlie, that wouldn’t matter all too much.

It was tempting to use Charlie as my own personal magic eight ball. I’d have so many questions for her if I didn’t fear the answers so much.

She told me things that were important to her, like the stuff with Mom. And every once in a while, she’d give me a tiny morsel about my own life. But I figured since I didn’t have her gift, then I wasn’t meant to know more, and I was supposed to eat this pie we called life one slice at a time like everyone else.

My conclusion was that life was meant to be a mystery. It was why this gift of Charlie’s was so unique. Most people couldn’t handle their ominous futures. And knowing me and my overthinking brain, overanalyzing everything, I’d ruin it before it even started.

It was stupid. It really was. Because I had so many other things that I could worry about. But the only question I had on my mind for Charlie was about how my phone call to Kyle was going to go tonight.

It was so small, in the grand scheme of things, that I thought asking might be okay. But I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know for sure that it would be so small.

Because despite knowing better, I was starting to hope Kyle would make a bigger dent in my life.