As I gradually became aware of my surroundings, I was 100% sure I was hallucinating again. I was in his arms, my head against his shoulder. Everyone had started to crowd around and I vaguely heard his calm voice tell them to back off and let me catch my breath.
My head was spinning, so without moving too much, I tried to get another good look at him. Wow, I was right about the Jared Leto thing! At least he wasn't as short as the actual Mr. Leto though. I would dwarf him in real life... I realized I was succumbing to completely irrelevant thoughts and fought to break out of my haze.
This couldn't possibly be happening. Wake up! Think straight!
Protectively, he held me tighter as I struggled to get free. My heart was beating out of my chest with rage and fear. I felt so sure he was... HIM. The digital intruder. The figment of my crazy imagination. But here he was, holding me in his arms, looking at me with wide eyed concern and shock.
"Let go of me!" I screamed incoherently.
Startled, he loosened his grip. "But Molly, are you sure you're ok? You just passed out!" he seemed unsure of what to do next.
Claire dropped to my side and began pleading with me, "Moll, not here, not now!"
I knew she was trying to suppress her selfish, insecure worry, but there wasn't much compassion in her voice as she whispered to me, "they're all going to think we're crazy!"
It was obvious she was starting to think I was crazy, but right then, I just didn't care. Even if Teague wasn't the ghost, the holo, the hallucination, whatever, I wasn't about to stick around and find out.
I bolted to my feet, knocking Teague backward onto the grass. "Mitch, I need to go home. Now. Please." The panic was rising in my throat.
I could tell he was scared to say no. "Yeah. Sure... uh, Claire? You wanna come with us??"
She nodded sheepishly, embarrassed. I quickly scanned the crowd: puzzled, worried and amused faces staring at me and the scene I had just made. Claire with her head hanging, overcome. And Teague, still on the ground, his expression deflated, pained with concern and rejection.
I couldn't take it anymore. I turned and ran for the road, down the long driveway, away from the incredulous crowd and into the night.
________________________
I had probably made it almost a mile by the time the headlights pulled up behind me.
"Molly! Moll Doll! Please, please, get in the car, we'll take you home!" Claire yelled from the open window as they approached.
I slowed my gait and finally halted to cross my arms over my head and catch my breath. The run had done me some good. My head was a little clearer, less terror wracked my brain. But I still couldn't reconcile all of the events of the day. Maybe my memory wasn't accurate; maybe Teague just looked enough like my hallucination to make me mistake him for one and the same; maybe I was totally and completely crazy and I needed medication to fix my broken brain...
"PLEASE get in the car, Moll..." now Claire was pleading, her self consciousness gone, true concern causing her voice to break.
I shuffled back and waited for Claire to scootch over to the middle of the car next to Mitch. I ducked into the passenger seat, wondering what to say to them.
Mitch leaned forward around Claire. "You ok? That was pretty gnarly back there."
I didn't answer. Instead I looked at my cuticles, deciding which finger to chew on.
"I tried to get Teague to come," he continued, "but he was convinced you freaked out because of him for some reason. I told him he was crazy, but he just wanted to get home."
Get home... initially, when I had seen Teague's dark hair falling over his ice blue eyes, the only thing I could think about was how he had somehow tricked me. Made a fool of me. He was the one who had caused my episodes, projected himself into my life. Conspired with Joey. But now all could see in my memory was his trusting expression. The way his eyes had briefly searched mine for a sign of understanding and acceptance. He didn't mean me any harm, it was clear. And Claire and I had already debunked the holo hypothesis... Oh god, if I had been wrong, what did he think of me now? After he admitted our strangely rapid connection and trusted me with his pain? I had left him there, on the grass, stunned, with no explanation.
"Is he ok?" I blurted, realizing it must seem like a strange question after everything that had happened. Everything I had done.
"We’ll get you home and in bed safe, k Molly?" Claire chose to ignore my question. She wrapped her arm through mine and hugged me close.
The clock on the El Camino's dash glowed only 11:28 pm but I realized how good bed really sounded. Regardless, this had felt like one of the longest days of my life.
_____________________
The next morning I called my mom to see how my family was doing. And yeah, to hopefully get some motherly words of encouragement. It was obvious she was still sad I hadn't decided to come back to Minnesota after graduation, but that wasn't my life anymore, and hadn't been for almost five years. Plummer didn't have anything to offer a NRE grad with an Orgo minor, except maybe mixing chemicals together to create "food" for livestock. And if not on a farm, I certainly wasn't going to work at the post office, the one grocery store, the single restaurant or the solitary bar in town.
My two older siblings had moved away after college, too, but for some reason mom had always expected me to come back. I mean, REALLY expected me to come back. in the years after they moved out, Shannon and Owen's rooms slowly became the sewing room and a library, but she hadn't changed a thing in my room since I had left home as a freshman. The first couple summers I had gone home and stayed in the huge castle of a farm house on the prairie feeling restless and bored. After that I had stayed summers in Ann Arbor to take an internship at the DNR.
Of course, that was the first thing she asked me after she said hello. "Molly honey, when are you coming home? It’s been so long. Don’t you miss us?"
The guilt trip. Big surprise.
"Of course I do, I just don't miss Plummer."
"You're getting too modernized for us, Mol. you're such a big city girl now."
I knew what she was getting at. She couldn't stand most of the new technologies college students were embracing. Sure, she was fine with the Internet and social networking sites, but she still felt like bio-passes, telechips, holo-casters, motohancers and even wristscans were too invasive and scary. I guess I had gotten a lot of my feelings on the subject from her.
"Ma," I used this term of endearment for her ever since she had read me Little House on the Prairie as a child, even though I would never say it in front of anyone else, "Don't worry so much about me. I’m like the only kid I know who doesn't have a telechip."
"But Moll, why do you need that stuff? I understood the wrist scan when you went to college - student records, security and all that stuff - but beyond that, why do you have to be so wired into the system?"
I couldn't really argue with her. For the most part I agreed. I had upgraded to a bio-pass from the standard wristscan last year, despite the media's typical "the-cereal-your-kids-eat-could-be-killing-them" hype about possible damage to the implantee's occipital lobe. Renowned experts in the field of biowear had processed exhaustive clinical trials, theoretical tests and even overcome a few minor mishaps with test subjects in the quest for public acceptance. The research had served to placate everyone but the conspiracy theorists. And my mother.
"Mom, I know you worry about me, but it really is better that I have a bio-pass. I even downloaded a tracking app the other day. Doesn’t it make you feel more secure to know that in the event of an emergency, authorities will know the exact GPS location of my skull?"
"Really? That's supposed to make me feel better? I've heard the stories about problems with that program picking up residual locations instead of sending out a locator signal like it should. Not very reliable."
My attempt to placate her with reason had apparently failed. Maybe mentioning my skull wasn't the best choice of words.
She sighed loudly. "Well, at least you're still calling your poor old mom once in a while. I haven't even HEARD from Owen in weeks."
"You're so dramatic," I was relieved the attention was off me. "I bet if you actually checked your email once in a while, you'd have a shit-load of notes from him, waiting for your reply."
"Nice Molly. A "shit-load"? Excellent vocabulary you have there." But I could tell she was holding back laughter.
Her tone made me reflect on how tolerant and sweet my mother is. I thought about telling her about my headaches, about seeing things, even about Teague, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I knew she would worry. She was always worrying.
"Well, ma, I gotta go. I have an appointment in a few." It was somewhat true; I had a doctor's appointment at 1 pm.
"Sure Moll, I know how busy you always are." I could hear the disappointment in her voice as the conversation was cut short. "Don’t forget how much I love you honey."
"I won't. I love you too."
I hung up my cell and sat, letting my mind wander for a minute. Letting it go comfortably numb and blank.
_______________
For the second time, the doctor couldn't find anything wrong with me. Dr. Mitchell was a small town physician with an office that could have just as easily housed law clerks or accountants. The only real discernible difference was a medical scale and blood pressure machine. His expertise extended to looking in my ear canals and listening to my heart, and after a "thorough" exam, he decided I should probably see an expert.
"Well Miss Quinn, you don't seem to have any illness that I can treat. You have a strong heart and lungs, you don't have any prescriptions that could cause side effects, no history of medical problems. Your headaches might be a stress related issue and certainly, everyone's bodies deal differently with varied levels of pain. I believe that your mind could be triggering a migraine with aura, which would cause you to see these 'things' that aren't really there. I'm going to send you to a neurologist to get a more detailed overview. They will have more advanced equipment to probe this issue further." he advised as he scribbled out a prescription for 800 mg Ibuprofen.
So helpful. Because I can't just take four pills from my bottle at home, I thought to myself sarcastically.
He uploaded his findings - or lack thereof - to the medical file on my bio-pass along with appointment information for the Traverse City Hospital. Without an emergency order, their specialty clinic didn't have an opening for a week, and Dr. Mitchell evidently didn't think my "headache episodes," as he called them, were much to worry about.
______________________
When I walked in, the condo was spotless. I mean CLEAN. I don't know if it had looked this nice since we had moved in at the beginning of the summer. And Claire isn't one of those crazy people who cleans for the fun of it. Something was up.
"Clairy! You home?"
She came bounding into the living room wearing a TINY, light blue, eyelet sundress. She always made me feel under-dressed in my typical tank top and jeans uniform.
"Hey! Mitch should be here any minute, help me look like we're just hanging out."
I couldn't help but laugh at her. The place was so clean and her "beachy" hair must have taken her at least an hour of wrapping small pieces around a big curling iron, there was no way Mitch would believe he was just coming over to hang out and lay around on the couch. I obliged by propping myself in the corner of the love seat with my feet on the coffee table.
"So, how'd it go girly?" I could tell she was preoccupied with her date's arrival, but she tried hard to focus for a second.
"Oh, fine. Same. He’s gonna send me to some clinic in Traverse for a second opinion."
"Well, that's good, right?" I wasn't sure if she had actually listened to what I said. "Mitch and I are probably gonna go down to the beach. Why don't you call that Trevor guy and see if he wants to hang out?"
"Claire! I couldn't STAND that guy! Didn’t you even notice?"
"Picky picky... and you didn't like that hot Teague guy either. What was up with that, by the way? He tried so hard to be nice when you fainted last night."
Oh my god. I was getting so frustrated with Claire lately. I felt like she was in her own little world half the time.
"Listen, I really want to talk to you about what happened last night. Like REALLY talk to you about it. But if Mitch is going to show up any minute, I don't want to get into it. I want your full attention."
"Moll... You’re so dramatic! It's ok you passed out... nobody will hold it against you. They might think you're a lush, but drunk people do stupid stuff sometimes. No biggie."
"I wasn't drunk!" I was getting pissed now. "Is that what people are saying? You know I didn't drink that much!"
Why did I CARE what people were saying? I was getting so off track from the real issue...
"Well, you did stumble and fall as soon as you got there, and passed out a little while later, and then threw a totally hissy fit in front of everyone... if you weren't drunk, what the hell happened?"
"Oh my god. That’s my point! I want to tell you about it but you're more concerned about your date! You should have SOME concern for me after everything that's happened lately!" the pitch of my voice had risen an octave. "You’re supposed to be my best friend!"
I had had enough. I don't know why my emotions were flaring so much, but I just couldn't take her flippant attitude. I felt the heat of embarrassment and regret flush my face - the memory of all those people crowded around last night, the look on Teague's face... then the worry that something was really wrong with me, physically - or even mentally - hit me. I tried to catch my breath, but I couldn't help myself. I threw the TV remote on the floor and ran out the door, down the stairs and into the parking lot where I almost ran into Mitch as he exited his El Camino.
"Whoa! Another rough day?"
I could tell he was trying to make a light hearted joke but I wasn't in the mood.
"Funny," I said sarcastically.
"Sorry, just kidding." He carefully moved around me and began to climb the stairs to our condo.
I mentally slapped my forehead with the palm of my hand. Stupid! I’m just ruining more relationships, I thought to myself. I mumbled an apology under my breath and exhaled as I watched him disappear into the door at the top of the stairs. As I turned to walk to the beach, I stopped, startled. There HE was in front of me. Teague had just gotten out of the passenger side and was watching me warily with a wry expression on his face.
"Hey Molly. Hope you're feeling better." He gave me a forced half smile and started to walk away.
"Wait, Teague, wait!" I felt so stupid and desperate.
He looked back at me, a mixture of surprise and apathy in his features, and waited.
"I want to apologize to you. I'm so sorry about last night..."
"No, no. Don't worry about it," he broke in, "Totally fine. I’m just gonna go grab some rays on the beach until Mitch is ready to go. Nice to see you though."
He was obviously trying to get rid of me. Obviously scared away by my psycho behavior. I thought wildly about what to do next. Be calm, act casual, SANE. No. Tell him how bad you feel! Apologize and ask him for understanding. Beg. But, don't seem too desperate...
With my thoughts swirling around like an indecisive tornado, all I could manage was, "You too." And he disappeared over the sandy hill next to our complex.
