April 13, 2010
I know it’s been a few days, but Mom got me sidetracked, first with one thing then another. I even had to hunt the woods behind the house for the twins. I found them with Hank’s little brother; they were target practicing with his pellet gun.
Anyhow, Uncle James let me leave early after Doraleigh lied her head off and made it sound like I was carrying the plague or something just as lethal and if I didn’t leave then it could kill me (now I’m exaggeratin’). So, we rode over to Dianne’s house. Huey, her husband, wasn’t home; just Dianne and the kids, Jett, Jasper, and Jade. Doraleigh didn’t make much sense on the way over to Dianne’s. She kept rambling on and on about when she got her inheritance. That’s what she calls it anyhow, her ability to see the future. Not clearly, like that chick in that vampire movie, more like bits and pieces of a movie or a dream that doesn’t quite make sense until the event she sees actually begins happening, then like déjà vu or hindsight, it all comes together. At least that’s how she described it when she first got it, her Sight she calls it, when she was sixteen. Now, four years later, I think she can totally see anything that’s about to happen. I know the rest of us can’t pull anything on her without her knowing. But, getting’ back on track,…she just wouldn’t shut up about how lucky I was to be getting a gift, that she and Dianne thought that only the girls would get them since Jesse didn’t get one when he turned sixteen like she and Dianne did. All I kept thinking was, I don’t want this gift if I’m going to be getting sweaty over guys.
Thank god we pulled into Dianne’s yard at that last thought. I was able to fling the door open and puke in the grass instead of Dori’s car. I really thought I was coming down with something. My stomach was knotted and I felt my face get hot and my neck start sweating; that’s about the time Dianne came out and told us that Jett was puking and probably had the flu. He didn’t feel good, and that we’d probably want to stay on the front porch or risk catching what he had. That’s when Dianne asked me if I was feeling alright, that I didn’t look so good. Dori looked worried as she stared at me, and I was beginning to get scared, but as soon as little Jade came running from the house squealin’ and laughing I immediately felt better. She threw herself around my legs and Dianne told me to be careful, that Jade had been rollin’ around with Jett all day and probably had the virus, too. But we sat on the front porch and I let Jade crawl all over me, her favor uncow, she calls me while Dori told Dianne about my problem.
Dori told her what happened at the garage and I told her what happened in Chemistry class and as she listened I kept feeling more and more confused. I was about ready to just tell them to forget it, I’d just hermit up until this gift went away, which was really impossible since, according to both of them, it doesn’t go away, when Dianne became very angry and yelled at us for coming over while her baby was sick and her house dirty, blah, blah, blah. Dori looked shocked, then confused, then calm. And in the same instant I was angry and screaming back, then shocked at my own response, and confused at Dori’s response, and finally a wash of calm came over me.
“What the hell was that!?” I yelled. Within five seconds all of those emotions had flown through me without so much as a pause for me to register it. And on top of that, the feelings I’d felt were full force, no holding back feelings of anger, confusion, and calmness. By the looks on their faces, they knew what had happened to me.
“That was your gift,” Dianne said. She smiled at Dori who looked at me like she’d just gotten the punchline of a joke.
“You can feel what others are feeling, DJ,” Dori said.
“Why couldn’t you see this and tell me earlier?” I asked.
“Because we needed Dianne to demonstrate it,” she said.
Dianne explained that she had forced all of those emotions on me to see if I could read them and reproduce them. Dori had to be there to see what would happen because that’s how her gift works. And Dori told me that what I felt for Benji and Josh had to be byproducts of what others around me had felt for both of them.
“I know for sure what you felt for Benji was me thinkin’ he was oh-my-god hot,” Dori said in her straight-to-the-point way. “Who was around you when you felt that way for Josh?” I picked up on her little sneaky smile, but ignored it.
“Only Cheyenne,” I said; then it came to me. Cheyenne has a thing for Josh! “Well, I’ll be damned! My girl’s got it bad for another guy!” I set Jade down off my lap and walked in the yard to kick a few rocks and basically act like a fool, cussing and kicking, before going back to the porch.
Dori said she was sorry, but Dianne said it was better to know now than to find out when something really cheatow (her made-up word) happened.
So, now my dilemma: confront Chey or let it roll and see what happens?
Later…