Intrinsical - Lani Woodland [26]
“It’s a date then.” Brent gave me an odd look and I realized what I had said. My cheeks burned and I sputtered, “No, I mean . . . not a date, an appointment.”
He puffed his chest out as he stood. “Gotta watch out for those Freudian slips.” He grinned at me lazily. “See ya tonight.”
****
“So, explain to me one more time how you astral projected,” Cherie demanded.
I lay across my bed, with my head hanging off the side looking toward Cherie’s bed, my legs stretched up and my feet resting against the shiny white cinder block wall. “Well, when I first got up there, I was a wreck.”
“Right, I noticed that. But that isn’t out of the ordinary,” Cherie interjected, as she dug through her makeup drawer and pulled out her nail care bag.
Although she spoke the truth, I gave her a nasty look as I sat up. “And then I remembered this advice I found in a book in the library. It said that when I was nervous I should take a deep breath and pretend I was dreaming, and it would help me get through it.”
“So how did that make you leave your body?” She asked, her nail file pausing in her hands.
“I don’t know how. I was panicking. It just happened. Anyway, and then when I did, I noticed that I sort of separated.” I continued to tell her everything that had happened, hoping she wouldn’t think I’d lost my mind.
To my relief, she set down her emery board and leaned closer to me, her eyes dancing with anticipation. “What was it like?”
“Everything around me slowed down, but my mind was so alert I felt like I was in fast forward. When I fully stepped out of myself, my body froze like an empty shell.”
“So cool.” I could almost hear the internal gears of Cherie’s mind working. “Can you do it again?”
“I don’t know,” I answered, more than a little nervous of trying it again. I didn’t feel it was my place to tell her about Brent being able to do it too, so I couldn’t explain his warnings.
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I haven’t tried it yet. I did some research on it and found it could be dangerous,” I lied, wringing my hands together in my lap. I wanted more answers from Brent before I told her more. “Some article said that if you do it once you won’t be able to stop.”
“Who says you’d want to? You need to embrace this, Yara. It’s part of who you are.”
“I’m not sure I want this, Cherie. It’s too close to everything else I don’t want to be part of. I need some time to process it.”
Cherie pressed her lips together but her eyes spoke volumes. She wasn’t done talking about it. Voices carried into our room from the hall outside and then grew faint as the girls walked by. A new song on the radio began, but still she said nothing. Finally she nodded. I’d bought myself a little time.
****
I hadn’t told Cherie about my training session with Brent, so I slid out the window and onto the fire escape as quietly as possible when my alarm went off. I shivered in the chill air, trying to find constellations in the stars as I waited for Brent.
I must have dozed off at some point because the next thing I knew the sun was peeking over the mountains behind the school. My body was stiff, sore, and freezing as I stood and stretched. A gentle gust of frigid air circled around me, tugging my hair away from my shoulders. Instead of moving on, the wind danced around me for almost a minute, like I was in the eye of a small storm. The breeze carried all the smells of Pendrell and a familiar scent that tugged at my memory. I tried to place it as I made my way back to my room. My bed was warm by comparison and I crawled into it drowsily. I drew up the blankets, wondering why Brent hadn’t shown up and if I should be angry or worried.
By the time I got up, I had slept through first period, despite Cherie’s attempts to drag me out of bed. In an effort to not be even later, I considered skipping a shower, but one sniff of myself and I ruled that option out. So I gathered my bathroom bucket, robe, and striped towel on my way to the bathroom.
After showering, I toweled off and wrapped myself in my robe. I emerged from the shower