Near Touch

Chapter 19: But We'll Be Okay

"Hey, what do you know? It works!" Amy slurred.

Pirates would've admired the way Natasha Dawson and Amy Irvine drowned their sorrows in spiced rum. A rabid mob of insidious ideas had besieged Amy's mind and drenching their flames with lighter fluid seemed ingenious at the time.

Amy stood up from the grass with decisiveness. Teeter totter, but she was fine. Maybe except for the nagging worry that Natasha would do something stupid in the wake of her absence.

When she walked out of the conservatory, through the brambles of bathrobes scratching her face, Amy found that the depressing theory lay in ambush outside her little rosy reprieve.

Surely it was just a coincidence that both of them had sustained similar dire thoughts for the past week. Plenty of people had suicidal ideation. Hell, morbid millennial humor was social currency!

This whole week, the second I wake up from my nightmares...

Natasha's words resounded inside her head. The day Caleb had charged into Mrs. Aplin's class had been the first spark of trueborn fear in Amy's mind. It was alien so she denied it. A cuckoo's egg in a crow's nest.

Then the day of their experiments set and Amy realized which form her subconscious fear had filched. Caleb Dawson's presence brought forth voices in her head that did not belong to her.

They don't even seem like my own thoughts...

Amy retraced her steps across the catacombs of Heavenfell to the kitchen. She felt too hot.

Before Caleb, she would've never risked anything. Methodical and vigilant, Amy always took her time making sound decisions. But for him she drove headlong into a thunderstorm. For him Amy had nearly died.

If Natasha had felt the same exactly for a week, it was either coincidental or Caleb was the common denominator. Weighed down with the bulk of her discovery, Amy sagged onto a barstool.

A concerned voice carried over the pulsing music. Ashton pressed a cold plastic bottle to her cheek. "You're burning up."

Amy sloppily drained the tiny Evian, glistening beads of moisture running between her fingers, igniting memories of tap water, rain, and sprinklers. Of Caleb.

"Feeling better?" Ashton asked.

"Will you hold me?" Amy murmured, locking her limbs around Ashton. Her rock in this typhoon. The only shred of normality life had to offer.

Boyish laughter shook Ashton's solid frame as he squeezed his arms around Amy and kissed the top of her head. "Do I have a choice?"

Amy nuzzled into the cool material of his varsity jacket. Ashton's heart was steady and strong in her ear. Nevertheless, her desperate attempt to live inside his cool embrace – away from the burn that awaited her – proved futile.

Why would Caleb never mention Natasha if they were so close? Did he go to her on sleepless nights he wasn't at Amy's side? Did he realize he was haunting them? Slowly draining them of the will to live?

Did Caleb choose to do it anyway?

Ashton swayed gently to a moonstruck tune he hummed, pulling Amy with him. Her reality was once again imploding around her ears but at least she had something to cling to. Amy imagined never letting go.

All the answers she sought hinged on a simple confirmation from Caleb: if he had been with Natasha or not, ever since he became a spectre.

Just as Amy's paranoid intoxication was settling into a tranquil haze, an unnerving shout came from the poolside. "Just fucking jump already!"