That night was so much fun for Astrid and Alex. Astrid had been so stressed with the constant work of trying to remember and the continual disappointment because she couldn’t that she really needed Alex’s company. Normally, she wouldn’t allow herself to be distracted from her pursuit of life. Alex was the only thing she’d put it on hold for. Although, thinking of it that way-like she was putting her life on hold for Alex-was neither accurate nor fair. She didn’t have a life to speak of except where Alex was concerned. She spent the majority of her time fiercely chasing something that was just as determinedly trying to escape her rather than living in the present where she should have been. Alex was unquestionably the best and the happiest thing about her life now. She wondered why she couldn’t endure the thought of giving up her quest for the past and just enjoying what she had now. She’d be so much happier if she could just focus on the good things the way Alex always seemed to be able to. It wasn’t like she remembered anything that she should miss so why was it so hard to let go? It was mostly just dark and cold and the little flashes she did have were useless. It was like trying to catch smoke. It should be easy to just stop chasing what was gone and savor what she had at this moment, but right now she was too exhausted to ponder much on that. I’ll think of that later, she thought faintly.
After trying hazardously to concoct something edible from the barren contents of her kitchen, she and Alex finally settled on just going out. Alex insisted on paying for everything, which Astrid would not have found mildly funny if he had taken her somewhere other than McDonald’s. Of course, she didn’t mind. She liked the dollar menu just as well as anyone else and the fact that she was with Alex was all that mattered. They had fun together no matter where they went and this was a chance for Alex to use that self-depreciating humor of his. “Now don’t go bragging about all these fancy places I take you to. Then all your friends will be jealous and wish they had a cheap bastard for a boyfriend, too.” He flashed her an irresistible grin. “At least I‘m a polite cheap bastard. I‘ll take that,” he added, while he ostentatiously pulled the tray from Astrid’s hands to carry it to their table. “A true gentleman,” she responded, with light sarcasm. In truth, Alex would have taken Astrid to any place she wanted to go no matter the cost, but he knew she would feel uncomfortable in some fancy atmosphere so he chose the cheapest place he could think of. She worried too much and he wanted her to relax.
They enjoyed their nefarious meal with a large dose of superficial banter and Astrid felt lighter and more animated than she had in what felt like ages; since the last time she’d seen Alex, which was truthfully, not that long ago. It couldn’t have been more than a week. After they got back it was like any other night one might spend with a really close friend. That’s what Alex was above everything else; her best friend. It sounded kind of cheesy to know that she was dating and had consequently, fallen in love with her best friend, but that’s really what it felt like. She had a few other friends, but Alex was the only one she felt inclined to have regular correspondence with. It’s not like she didn’t like her other friends- she did- but sometimes she felt so set apart from them that they felt like no more than mere acquaintances; on the same level with the deli guy at the grocery store. She didn’t know his real name-she just called him ‘the deli guy‘, though she spoke to him every time she went to the store. She liked to get her sandwiches fresh because if she brought anything home to eat, it would invariably spoil because she very rarely cooked there. That’s why her freezer was full of microwavable dinners rather than her fridge being full of fruits and veggies and that was the reason Alex had treated to her to a spectacular evening at La McDonald‘s.
Now, here she was in her dark living room laying on the couch with her head in Alex’s lap, who had fallen asleep about twenty minutes before the movie was over. He rested his head on his right hand while his left was still curled around Astrid’s middle. She was watching the credits roll and trying to listen to the music rather than centering her attention on the thoughts that threatened to invade her mind at this moment and always did when she did not have Alex’s presence as a welcome diversion. And sure Alex was here, but now he was sleeping. That was the thing about his talent for distracting her- it only worked when he was awake. Okay, well, maybe that wasn’t entirely true. He was too attractive for that not to draw her attention whether he was awake or not. Her favorite thing about him was his uniquely colored eyes. They were a strangely beautiful turquoise color. Not completely blue and not really green either…it was mesmerizing. The effect was even more astonishing next to his dark hair. Alex had once said the same thing about her green eyes and black hair, but she had nothing on him. Alex’s lips had to be her second favorite thing about his physical appearance. They were full, inviting and healthy looking. His were a nice natural, rosy looking color. His face had a very defined, sculpted look about it. She had a strange fascination with his jaw line--it was so strong and chiseled--”jaw porn“ is what she‘d call it. He had amazing bone structure. The kind that models would have had reconstructive surgery to achieve. He was six foot two and muscular, but not in an over-exaggerated sort of way. Anyone could tell he was a healthy, able-bodied guy just by looking at him, but the first time she saw him without a shirt she was slightly flabbergasted. She didn’t realize he was so muscled. And delicious...okay, stop right there, she told herself sternly. That was not the right trail of thought to follow at the moment. She had enough to worry about without throwing that in the mix, too. Then again, it might do her some good. Astrid Phoenix, shut up! She mentally castigated herself and traveled quickly away from that stream of thought.
Ah, and there she was again; try as she might to hold it back, the enigmatic thoughts about the missing pieces of her life would come anyway. Even if she could manage to hold them off until she went to sleep, there was still the inevitable dreams. She might as well concede and use this time to try and piece together her latest fragment of, what she assumed, was a memory. They just hit her all of a sudden--her face would go blank, eyes wide--it was like watching a black and white movie, only it was exceedingly short. Too short. She could never make sense of them. They sped by in her brain like a film strip on fast forward and she just had to catch what she could and try her best not to let any of the details slip away. That was what her life was about now. Details. So much of Astrid’s life was devoid of details that she was obsessive about keeping any tiny shards her brain could grasp.
This one came while she was doing the laundry earlier in the day. It was the reason she pulled out the box, yet again, to see if anything looked familiar. She was sitting on her couch folding towels and placing them back in the basket to carry them to the bathroom. There was an easier way to do this, but she tried not rely on that part of herself too frequently. Physically doing things herself, like the laundry, helped to make her feel more normal and it was calming to have something to do with her hands rather than using her mind for everything. She already put enough emotional strain on her brain without physically exerting it as well. Just like everything else, she didn’t know where the strange power came from and it was just another mystery to add to her ever growing pile. She was just putting the last towel on the stack in the basket when she ran her hands over it to smooth it out. She didn’t know why, it was just something she did every time after she laid a freshly folded towel down. While she was doing this, she noticed that there was a crinkle in one of the corners, making it stick up. Naturally, she pulled the folds to straighten it back out again and that’s when it happened.
The image flickered by so fast that Astrid was sure she missed something. She saw towels, hovering in mid-air, folding themselves precisely and immaculately one by one, all in the same fashion and stacking neatly in a pile on a shelf. She saw no people, but she did hear laughter and voices. They sounded far-away, almost like they were in a tunnel or maybe underwater. “You’re already exceptionally weird. Do you have to be a neat freak, too?” an earthy male tone asked. There was a smile in his voice so it was clear he was only joking. “Hey, it’s easy to be a neat freak when you don’t actually have to touch anything,” a woman’s voice responded. Her voice was sweet, but with a hint of tenacity. It sounded like a voice Astrid had heard before, but she couldn’t place it. Then it was over, just as quickly as it had come.
It all happened so swiftly that she wasn’t able to retain any of the details about the room they were in except that there was a shelf of towels there. She thought the most significant thing was the voices and the fact that she obviously had memories of someone with the same quirk she had, so she wasn’t too upset about losing the other details. She was actually a little hopeful. It could have been anyone, but Astrid reasoned that maybe it was her mother and father she had heard. Maybe what she could do was inherited. She wanted to search through her pictures again-maybe there was something there. She scanned the pictures for about an hour before she conceded that it was a useless task and abandoned them for the letters. She knew she wouldn’t find anything there either, but she always gravitated to them. She was just going over her favorite one for the millionth time when she heard Alex at the door.
Now Astrid’s thoughts had come full circle and there was nothing else to do but contemplate the conundrum her anomalies presented. She was bewildered about where they had come from in the first place and that is why she was so engrossed in the theory that they should have come from her parents. This latest memory indicated that maybe it was only her mother. If it was her mother and father she heard, it didn’t sound as if he possessed any abnormal talents. Or maybe he did- maybe part of her capabilities, the telekinesis, came from her mother and the other part, the one she couldn’t describe or define as easily, from her father. She had considered this option before now, but there was never any scrap of evidence to prove it to be true. There wasn’t any real proof now, but it was the only alternative that really made sense. Her thoughts just flowed from one thing to another in a smooth, continuous motion until she got to thinking about her parents again. Who were they? Where were they? Did they miss her? Were they looking for her? What did they think happened to her? Where they even alive? Did she have siblings? There were hundreds of unanswerable questions circling around in her brain and no good would come from dwelling on them, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. On and on she went like this until her brain slowly exhausted itself to sleep.
It was a deep sleep so she didn’t feel it at all when Alex picked her up and carried her to her bed. He had woken up at about two in the morning with Astrid’s head in his lap and even though he hated to disturb her, his left arm was dead asleep and it was annoyingly uncomfortable. He gently rolled her off of him and got up as slowly and quietly as he could. It was a relief to be able to move his arm even though the imaginary needles stabbing at his skin throbbed even more painfully than they had while Astrid was pressed up against it. He stretched his arm out, rolled his shoulder around and flexed his fingers until the prickly sensation died away. It only took a few minutes, but since Astrid hadn’t even moved since he’d gotten up, he decided she was in a deep enough sleep that he could safely move her to her room where she’d be more comfortable later. He slid her under the covers of the un-made bed and at no time did she ever stir from her deep slumber. Alex thought about laying down beside her so he could be there when she woke up in the morning, but he wasn’t about to invite himself into her bed, even if it was just for sleeping. He didn’t think she’d be upset about it if he did, but he was waiting for her invitation as it would have a much more significant meaning.
He leaned down to give her a quick kiss before he left, but he stopped just before his lips touched her skin. She shifted and started to turn over. Alex thought she would settle down and drift back into unconsciousness again a moment later, but she only seemed to get more and more restless. He stood there, unsure of what to do, if anything, when he heard her mumble softly. At first he thought she was waking up, but closer inspection told him she was still asleep, perhaps just dreaming. She spoke again, slightly clearer this time. It was just a tiny whisper; barely even a breath, but he heard it. “Jacob.” She said Jacob. Astrid never called Alex by his first name. There was only one person in the world who would still call him by his childhood name and to his knowledge, she no longer existed. Though he didn’t really think it was, it could have been a coincidence. It’s not like there wasn’t more than one Jacob in the world. That was the main reason Alex had decided he’d rather go by his middle name anyway. It wasn’t that he had a problem with it; there were just too many Jacob’s around. All through middle school, he endured hearing his name being called, just to turn around and find out that it wasn’t him who was being spoken to. Just before ninth grade, he’d finally had enough of the whiplash and decided that he’d go by Alex instead. It took a while for everyone to get used to the change, but they finally did. Except for her. He didn’t mind. No one else's voice was familiar to him the way hers was so he never felt compelled to turn at the mention of the name Jacob unless she was the one speaking it. There was only one Jacob she was interested in. That brought a reminiscent smile to his face. She was his best friend for so long and eventually became his first love. Then she was taken from him. But now he was getting a second chance. Alex brushed his hand across Astrid’s cheek. “Shhh. I’m here,” he whispered. “I’m always here.”
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CONTINUE TO CHAPTER THREE: CLICK HERE
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