Chapter 20 #3
If Liv hadn’t come home, I’d still be lost in the meditation—wherever it was it had taken me. Another realm or dimension? The depths of my subconscious? Would I have been able to pull myself out by the belt? I doubt it, considering I’d forgotten it existed.
I’d forgotten this entire world existed.
I shudder as Liv helps untie me from my bed frame.
“Explain,” she demands, chin wobbling.
What comes out of my mouth is a clinical, textbook definition of hedge riding. And the longer I speak, the more Liv recoils. She fidgets with the bathrobe tie as she listens, petting it one moment, wringing it the next.
“You wouldn’t wake up,” is all she can say.
“I would’ve,” I lie. “I just wasn’t done yet.”
She stares at me with big, horrified eyes. “What is going on with you?”
“What?”
“This isn’t just messing around with some rocks and Tarot cards.” She gestures to the crystals spilled beside me on the floor. “‘Perfectly nice people,’ my ass. Betts, you have to stop.”
“I won’t do it again,” I say, telling her a half-truth. I learned my lesson. No more hedge riding without Avery.
“Do what? What are you doing?” She chases down my eyes. “What are you on?”
Does she think I’m on drugs? “I’m not on anything!” Good god, that’s even more preposterous than the truth. But probably not to her.
“You never did anything like this before you started hanging out with them.”
“I’m not on drugs.”
“Then what the hell is wrong with you? Why are you doing all this witch stuff and acting so weird all the time? You tied your fucking arm to the bed, Betts!”
I sit in silence as tears pour from her eyes. I want so badly to set her at ease, to reassure her I’m perfectly fine. But I’m not fine. And there’s no way I can tell her that, because I can’t explain to her why.
“You’re never here anymore. You’re always out with them,” she chokes out. “And when you’re around, you barely talk to me. You’re my best friend and you have this whole secret life and I miss you and I’m scared for you and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do!”
“Liv—” I throw my arms around her and hold on for dear life, our tears mixing as my wet cheek presses against hers.
“I’m okay, I promise. There are just… things I need to figure out.
But you’re still my best friend.” I push back so I can look her in the eye.
“I still need you.” You have no idea how much.
At the same time, we reach out to arrange one another’s disheveled hair. Awkwardly, we both laugh, wiping the tears and snot from our own faces and tucking our hair behind our ears.
“Come on,” I say as I stand. “Let’s get cleaned up. I want some pizza.”
Liv gasps as I help her to her feet. “You’re coming with us?”
“Yeah, I think I really need to get out.”
“Hmm. Ya think?”
I stick my tongue out at her. “There’s no need to be sarcastic.”
She teases, “You look like a raccoon.”
“You look like a panda.”
Giggling, we swipe under our eyes with shaky fingers, trying to clear away the smeared mascara.
“Screw this,” she huffs. “I’m gonna take a quick shower.”
It takes an eternity for her to change into her robe and grab her bath supplies. The second the door shuts behind her, I collapse onto my bed, legs shaking. It took every last ounce of energy I had to wash my face and smile. I’m utterly depleted.
And scared.
I scarf the Hershey bar and will it to work fast. After about five minutes, the trembling in my hands eases enough that I can reapply my makeup. But it’s not easy to pencil my brows and dust powder on my nose when, with every blink, I’m at the bottom of that river again.
I didn’t set out to go back to the same location of my first ancestor meditation, but that’s where I ended up. Clearly, whoever was trying to reach me had more story to tell. But what in the hell does that story mean?
And who was that beautiful man? I couldn’t tell if he was a stranger or someone I knew.
And the cold that swept in—was that because Liv was trying to wake me?
The river went from inviting to threatening.
One minute it was my home, the next it was tossing me about like driftwood.
I’m pretty sure I was drowning, but somehow I wasn’t suffocating.
None of it made any sense.
I check my phone. No return message from Avery.
“Come on,” I mutter. “Text me back.” I tap my fingers on the desk, hoping to keep them too busy to message anyone else.
A particular someone.
My whole soul is screaming at me, Text him. Call him. He’s the one I want and need. But in a matter of days, he’ll be gone. And then who do I turn to?
Jean flashes in my mind’s eye. Her benevolent smile and her cloud of white hair. What if I called the church and left a message for her? Is that what her midwifery patients do, or does she have a separate business line?
When Liv returns, I’m once again pacing the small room, my phone in one hand and my hairbrush, unused, in the other.
“Good lord,” she mutters, pointing to my desk chair. “Sit and give me the brush.”
I wince as she ruthlessly rakes it through the snarls in my hair.
“We’ll see if Jenna can sneak you a beer,” she says. “Because you seriously need to chill.”