Chapter 8 - A Sending

Jeremy went back to the park every night, sometimes just for a walk around the pond, sometimes to stay and wait to see if she would show up. Sometimes he knew she wouldn't be there. Sometimes he thought maybe she would be.

He got stopped once for loitering after curfew, but he was just given a warning. Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night.

Friday night he thought about the fact that last Friday he had missed her, and how guilty and angry with himself he had been about it, certain he had blown every chance with her, and how unbelievably she'd proved him wrong about that the very next night. He was an emotional wreck, bouncing back and forth between being depressed that he hadn't seen her in so long (every hour without her had become a week, and five days had been an endless torment that showed no signs of letting up), and being angry with her for treating him this way. He wanted to give her a piece of his mind. He wanted to . . .

He sat down on the stone near the archway where they'd first met. What he wanted, he knew, was to hold her, to kiss her, to make love to her again. Even just to hold her in his arms. Even if she said up front that that was all, no sex, not even kissing, just to hold each other, that would be enough.

Well, of course, it wouldn't be enough, but it would be considerably better than nothing, which is what Jeremy had now.

He sat quietly, and tried to banish these tempestuous thoughts from his head, tried to calm himself. He crossed his legs as he'd been taught in a yoga class he took back in college, balanced his hands on his knees, sat up with his back straight, head held high, and closed his eyes. Deep breath in, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, deep breath out, 2, 3 4, 5, 6, deep breath in, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, deep breath out, yes, calm, quiet, restful, counting, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 --

"Jeremy, go home."

His eyes snapped open. He was all alone, sitting on a stone, no one was anywhere near him. Yet he had heard distinctly, Liliana's voice whispering in his ear. He had been positive she had been there, right beside him. He could have sworn he'd even felt her breath on the side of his face.

He shook his head. This was all getting way too weird. He looked around, even sheepishly looked under a nearby bush, just to make sure she wasn't nearby playing a trick on him. He'd had a lifetime's worth of pretty girls making fun of him in 8th grade.

There was no doubt about it. Liliana wasn't there. But she had spoken to him, clearly and distinctly, and even if she hadn't, it was probably time to go anyway.
All the way home, he'd tried to figure out what had happened. She'd said that women read minds. Did that mean she could send her thoughts to him by way of telepathy? Was she taking pity on him? Was she aware somehow that he'd been going to the pond every night? She'd said the first night that she'd been watching him. He still didn't understand exactly what that meant.

Jeremy wasn't a superstitious guy, but enough weird things had been happening that it unnerved him when he turned onto his street in time to see a black cat saunter across it, right underneath a streetlight, leaving no doubt as to the fact that it wasn't a mostly black cat with a little white her and there but a coal black silent Halloween cat, crossing his path with trouble.

"Great," thought Jeremy, "just what I need."

But perhaps the cat was harbinger of some other kind of luck altogether, he thought later, because he felt something, some electric charge in the air, as soon as he entered his apartment building. He found himself running up the stairs eagerly, fumbling for his keys and throwing open the door as if in expectation of something he had waited for without knowing what it was.

The apartment was quiet, but . . . different. He couldn't put his finger on it.

And then he could, and the obviousness made him feel an oblivious moron for not noticing it right away. The apartment was clean. The microwave pizza box he'd used as a plate the night before because all the plates were dirty was gone from the coffee table, the cups and plates and knives and forks all vanished from the living room, the "dining area" table and the counter between that and the kitchen. His heart thumping, he didn't even dare imagine what else he might find.

"Jeremy?"

The voice came from his bedroom. He rushed in, and there she was, naked in the moonlight, arms held out to welcome him.

He didn't ask how she got into his locked apartment, or why she didn't call or where she'd been all week. A part of him knew that these were really important questions that shouldn't be ignored, that he was just asking for trouble down the road if he accepted this situation as it was, without probing and analyzing and trying to find out what was going on. But it was all he could do to keep from literally ripping his clothes off and taking her without even a word of greeting, so fierce was the longing inside of him. He reached out for her with something like a sob, and held her long in his arms saying only "Thank you," over and over again.

It wasn't until much, much later that he thought that maybe the black cat might have been a warning, after all.