4 comments/ 7216 views/ 9 favorites The Knowing By: pigalle NOW Jaan Underneath the orange glow of the candlelit hall he watched her sway playfully in the arms of her oldest cousin. The peek-a-boo game the bits of her exposed skin played with his mind gave him a foggy, distracted feeling in his head. He felt increasingly unclear. At his table sat other friends from high school, people he hadn't seen in years, the atmosphere was strangely jovial. People were excited to be at this wedding, excited to see each other, and excited to be in the presence of the ethereal Brown clan. A family, at times too strange to be believed, one so loving, so caring, so open that it made others suspicious of their motives. In the small but open hall, Jaan could see each of them clearly commanding their own space in separate parts of the room. Sanchez, on one end of the room, near the floor to ceiling windows that lined the back wall and gave him the appearance of a backlit demi god, nearly floating as if he himself was the light he was emerging from. He was speaking loudly, sucking all of the attention on that side of the room towards him. Faces tilted up to watch his standing glowing frame, his long locs tied behind his head, his arms outstretched resting on the backs of two separate chairs in which women sat. He was slightly bent forward, almost as if telling a secret, save his incredibly loud voice. Jaan could only make out snippets of what he was saying. He was telling a story about Santiago from childhood. Something hilarious, no doubt, because Sanchez was a gifted storyteller and Santiago had been an utterly odd yet charmingly hilarious child. Everyone within an 8-foot vicinity could barely look away. In the center of the room, seated at long table reserved for the wedding court was Santiago and his bride, surrounded by their family, yet alone, completely absorbed in their own world. Their heads huddled together, newly married. Jaan could see they were being closely watched by their families, each with the satisfied look of contentment, of having known if they had done anything right in their lives it was this. Bringing these two people together, the children of immigrants, hard pressed to find anyone else out there who would understood the particular confusion of having to be two people, two places, at once, they had found their way to each other. Jaan watched the families glance quietly across tables at one another, speaking the secret, silent, and safe language of understanding, over plates of their traditional food, while sampling a few bites of the new tradition of the other. Then off in another corner, on the dance floor with her cousin was Santos. Her hair dreadlocked just like her brothers, long and flowing to her back, longer than it had been when he knew her well in High School. He watched them flow together to the song, the tinn-y sounding music of their island, her legs moved in sync with her cousin to a rhythm and step they knew by heart, one they'd learned in childhood. Jaan remembered suddenly and intensely a feeling he had felt one night in her bed during high school. One that came to him suddenly as he held onto her naked waist and watched her sleep, their bodies still connected, her legs wrapped around him, the clammy feeling of her skin underneath his hand. The feeling of dread of knowing this couldn't be forever, the excitement he felt at knowing that he was experiencing a particular love, a knowing he would always feel for this person, and the total anxiety that all those things brought him. Jaan remembered how he shook her awake, still inside of her, and said. "Why are you sleeping?" Her eyes drifted open and closed a few times before she answered. "What's wrong?" she asked. And then he remembered feeling calm, hearing her voice, knowing she knew that something was wrong with him, even in the middle of her sleep, made him relax. He kissed her barely open eyes, pulled himself to her chest, and then drifted off to sleep with her. He felt that feeling again now. In that moment watching her dance with her cousin. He felt so deeply for her that he began to sit up in his seat and move towards her. "Where are you going?" She asked him mid chuckle. Her voice rose up to him like a hand, pulling him out of a fog, and into the moment. He had forgotten where he was, who he was. He looked down into her beautiful freckled tan face, her hazel eyes and flaxen hair, the mole on her lip. The mole that he thought of when her bought her engagement ring. He sat back down. "I don't know." He laughed. She leaned her warm head on his chest, he passed a hand over her shoulder lightly and kissed the top of her head. He just needed to remember, he just needed to get out of the fog. He needed to get away from Santos. Santos There was a point in High School when she thought about Jaan obsessively. The second winter after they had started sleeping together, It was the winter of their senior year. It was, at this point when she had made it clear that she wasn't just ignoring him, she was going to pretend he did not matter. She was so cordial it bordered on severe. From the outside she had perfected the sincerity of casualness, it seemed as though they never knew each other in the first place, and never would. At times she even had to question herself if she had ever known him more. Her casualness and cordiality so convincing that at moments she forgot that he had lived in her bed for nearly a year. But she never really forgot. How could she when she lived inside her head. A world where she could endlessly reconstruct and deconstruct every scenario in which she maybe, might of, possibly, or on the off chance, said something to him that had made him not want to be with her anymore. She built castles of the times when she had openly, unabashedly questioned him or laughed in his face, even when it was in jest. Over and over again she churned their time together. Was she wrong for finally confronting him as she did. Especially when it meant she had to be in this much pain? Or was she right? Was she right for finally telling him that he couldn't possibly love her like he said if he didn't actually try loving her, if he didn't want to tell her brother about them, or walk beside her in the hall. Was she right for finally saying to him, please don't visit me at night if you can't look at me in the hall in the morning. But hadn't she too been complicit in this deceit? Wasn't she the one who insisted on keeping things a secret at first? Wasn't she the one who didn't want to feel the wrath of her brother, who wanted to keep experimenting, who wanted things to be safe? She had, she was- initially- the engineer of their clandestine affair, the one who went out of the way to make things sneakier, to make things more exciting. So wasn't it ironic, that she was also the one to end things over the fact that he was reluctant to go public? Now she watched him from the corner of her eyes. It seemed in the past 3 months she had bumped into him, talked to him, thought about him more times than she would like to count. After 10 years of complete silence, suddenly there he was. She remembered that obsession she felt the winter of her senior year. The way her mind couldn't turn or move without the thought of him. She remembered dreaming of him, her mind in such a constant loop that it wouldn't even stop thoughts of him while she slept. She remembered the phantom knocks she would hear at her window. How she would run to check to see if he was hanging on the edge of her shutters, only to be met by wind, and the strange feeling of missing someone. She was having dreams again too, Simple ones, ones where she would open her apartment door and he would be standing there. It never went further than that. But the fact that she had had this dream nearly a dozen times since the first time she first saw him 3 months ago was eerie. She closed her eyes and thought about Peter. His dark skin, his soft pillow-y lips, the lull of his voice, the strong way he made her feel about herself. She opened her eyes and looked at Jaan. His hair was much shorter now, cut like one of those trendy barbers who worked in one of those shops down in Soho. He looked good, and not over styled in the way she thought most men who cut their hair in that way looked. There was always something very cool about Jaan, an offhanded way that he handled his inherit stylishness. The crease in his pants, the certain hang of his shirt, Jaan had always looked preternaturally cool. She remembered that he was one of the only white kids she knew who could wear jewelry and not look weird. He wore always two thin gold necklaces and sometimes a ring. Now he wore a slim cut navy tailored suit that had a slight shine to it and a crisp white dress shirt with the top two buttons undone. She closed her eyes again and tried to breath, but all she could remember was the subtlety of Jaan's two different colored eyes, one brown, one green, his chipped tooth and scared chin. "Are you okay?" Santos was aware that she had started to hold her cousin a little too tight. "Yea," Santos replied exhaling her tension. Her cousin held her back, moving her in double time to the beat of the music, making her feel giddy and childish. They laughed together, and for 20 seconds Santos forgot that Jaan was even in the room. Jaan Jaan cannot take his eyes off of her. Not because she is mesmerizing, not because she commands attention, not because of the smoothness of her skin, skin he can almost feel underneath his hand. But because it has been so long since he has been allowed to look at her. It's hard for him to look away, and he is afraid that he is upsetting Marlena, but he really can't help himself. He leans over and kisses Marlena on her tan freckled cheek, I'm sorry, he wants to say, but instead he says, "I need to go to the bathroom, I'll be right back." She leans into his body and kisses him full on the mouth, her tongue taste faintly of strawberries and champagne. He kisses her back and closes his eyes, willing himself to put his entire being into this kiss. When they break away her mouth is glistening. A piece of her hair stuck to her lips. He pulls it off. "I love you," she says. He smiles at her and stands, watching her turn back to the conversation before he walks away. He has to cross the dance floor in order to get to the bathroom. The floor is not packed yet, just a few people, most from the Brown family dancing to the music and having fun. He makes sure he crosses so that he doesn't even come within arms reach of Santos. He keeps his eyes plastered to the floor, feeling increasingly anxious of his sins, particularly of the way he has been staring her down all night. At the wrong moment he looks up just as she is about to shout over her shoulder to Aaloka, her brand new sister's twin sister, to come join her on the dance floor. They lock eyes, only for a split second, but it happens, so quickly he can barely tell it's happened. He moves off the dance floor and he knows immediately that she is tailing him. He walks past the wall where Sanchez is still holding court and smiles at three little girls, one black, one white, one Indian, playing underneath a table, their faces covered in food. He walks down a long hallway lit only by the outside light pouring in through the windows. He pauses right before he enters what he knows to be a single bathroom and hesitates a moment before pushing open the door walking in. When he turns around she is right behind him, closing the bathroom door and then backing herself up against it, her hand still holding the door handle behind her back. Jaan clears his throat surprised by her boldness, but ups the ante by zipping down his pants and peeing into the toilet bowl in front of her. The sound of his stream is comically loud, and he can hear her laughing softly and shaking her head. When he is done he zips up his pants and moves over to the sink to wash his hands. He takes a towel from the dispenser to dry his hands off and then turns to look at her, throwing the wet towel into the garbage can. They stare at each other, unhurriedly for the first time in a long, long time. No one is there to distract them, they are decidedly officially alone together. She smiles at him. Everyone in the wedding party is wearing white, and she has on a white blazer dress with an asymmetrical hem, that makes her look chic and fashionable. He can tell from the times he's seen her that New York City has done wonders for her style, but she still looks essentially the same, a soft rounded face, her soft bowed lips, thick eyebrows and sparse eyelashes, her hair perfectly outlining her face, the ends fading into a light brown. "Jaan?" she questions, then they are kissing. It takes a blink for his mouth to be on hers, there is no second-guessing; they are now furiously kissing in the bathroom during her brother's wedding reception. Jaan takes his hands and slides them up her dress feeling her skin under them for the first time in a decade- she is just as smooth. Her mouth tastes the same, she still smells like peppermint. Grinding his pelvis into her stomach then hoisting her up against the wall so she can feel his hardness in between her thighs. She rocks into him frenetically, and Jaan's mind is buzzing still in a fog unsure of whether this is actually happening or if he is imagining it. He can feel her reaching for his belt buckle. "Please." She whispers. She's not asking, it's a command. A 10-year dry spell, a reunion. Jaan nearly looses it. He can barely look at her as they kiss. He keeps his eyes closed as he lets his pants fall to the ground and she slides her panties to the side. When he enters her they both suck in air quickly and sharply, immediately aware of how easy it was for them to fall back into rhythm with each other. They move as one unit, gracefully. Her hips meeting his, the smack of their bodies together, the heat they generate as they become one energy source. She feels him sliding in and out of her and her body tingles all over. He begins kissing her neck and she grabs him even tighter. In her mind all she can say over and over again is Shit. Shit. Shit. They are building up as one. Climbing the edge of a cliff together, doomed to fall off into the pits of an abyss. Jaan pushes into her deep, grinding his hips into her their frenzied movements reaching their hilt. They open their eyes to look at each other at the exact same moment. He watches her, and knows that same thing he knew when he met her the first time, and when he slept with her the first time, or when he watched her during math class working on a problem, or when she walked into his office that day three months ago; he will always love this woman, they can never be together. They come at the same time, his body shooting into hers he rests his forehead onto her lips. Jaan is panting heat rising out of his body, she kisses all over his face, and onto his eyes. She pulls herself away from him kissing his lips softly lingering before walking over the towel dispenser and cleaning herself up. "Look," Jaan starts. She shakes her head and waves her had in front of her face and then her neck making the signal for cut it off. She exhales very deeply, and then looks at him, she's crying slightly, and so is Jaan though he doesn't know it. "Don't," she says. And then she walks out the door. The Knowing Ch. 02 A/N Ok, so this chapter is really long and there is no sex in it. It sets things up a bit. This story is something a bit experimental. Don't know what I'm doing, just enjoy writing it. ***** THEN Jaan On the way over to Sanchez's house Jaan remembered that he'd forgotten to pay the light bill with the money his mother had left in the drawer by the stove. She said, "You need to pay the light bill on June 29. The light bill is due the last Monday of each month." He was pretty sure today was the first day of July so... there was that. But now, riding his bike, the wind blowing in his hair he couldn't care less. He didn't really care much about anything at all really, he was high, he was about to get even higher with Sanchez, and he was two months away from starting his junior year of high school. Three nights ago he had gotten the second best blow job of his life (well he'd only ever had two before) from this Senior girl who wanted him to come over to her house that night and "hang out". He was already in training for basketball season and getting better everyday, and on top of all of this he had hit a recent growth spurt in the last 4 months and he was suddenly aware that every girl was looking at him, even grown women. Young, high, and careless, Jaan weaved his bike in and out of traffic, his hair blowing in the wind behind him. Jaan lived on the city side of town while Sanchez and his family lived in the more spread out suburban area near the woods. Jaan had known Sanchez and his family for 2 years now. They met Jaan's freshman year when he tried out for the basketball team and somehow made Varsity. As a sophomore, Sanchez was already captain and the star of the team, but he wasn't like most kids. His family was weird. At least that's what Jaan had heard about them, that was before he got to know Sanchez. The Brown family was a bit notorious in the small college town where they lived, a black family with three kids, all with wild dreadlocks and deep brown skin, the parents where professors at the local college; the mother a Philosophy professor, the father a professor of French. They lived in a modest house on a small plot of land with an above ground pool in the backyard attached to a deck. Sanchez's parents where eccentric to say the least. They had given all of their children Spanish last names as first names because they wanted to create their own army of Cuban revolutionaries. Their house was filled with art and instruments, hundreds of books and a pot of food always on the stove. He vaguely remembered seeing Sanchez's mother once in the grocery store before he met them. He remembered that she was wearing a pair of white painters overalls with a men's button up shirt underneath and a very large afro, it seemed nearly a foot tall. Jaan remembered thinking she was the craziest person he had ever seen. He was sure of it. How could someone go out of their house looking like that? He remembered poking his mother in the arm and then pointing at her, watching as his mother's eye grew wide with shock. "Wow" was all she said. It was strange to think of his reaction to her then, now that he knew her, especially since she wasn't crazy at all. Rather she was soft spoken and kind with a penchant for painter's overalls and workmen's jumpsuits. Sometimes Jaan wondered if he had a crush on her, only to realize he just liked the way that she cooked often and spoke to her children in the softest French. Whenever he came over to the house and she was home, she'd always ask him if he was hungry, or if he wanted some tea, and then she'd make sure that he sat down while she fed him or gave him his tea or water. Also he remembered the first time he came over to the house that Santiago who was maybe 9 or 10 at the time was having a full blown melt down, sprawled out on the ground with his mother standing over him. The house was filled with light and there was loud experimental jazz music playing in the background. When he and Sanchez walked into the house she yelled something to him quickly in French and then she turned to Jaan and said in an accent so heavy he could barely understand her. "He just realized his mortality. Now he can't stop crying." Then she walked over and kissed Jaan on the cheek. "Do you want some tea?" He couldn't believe it. Not only was it the woman from the grocery store but she was kissing him and there was a child with long snakes growing from his head bawling in the middle of the living room floor. Jaan started coming over more often after that. He rode his bike over most afternoons after school, when they weren't at practice, and in the winters he took the bus halfway through town and then walked. Sanchez was a funny kid too. He was smart, the star of the basketball team, and also oddly dreamy. Every once and a while he'd catch Sanchez staring absently into space only to turn to him and say, "Can you believe I've been in this body all my life?" totally out of the blue. Jaan liked him for that, and the way that he could turn anything into the best thing, and also that he still built Lego houses for fun but taught himself Russian. The entire Brown family was like that, the oddest mix of contradictions. That day Jaan was hoping that he and Sanchez would ride their bikes out to the creek to smoke, then go and visit the girls from the party. As weird as Sanchez was, he was amazing with girls. Jaan had watched him for years pulling girls just by smiling. He was beautiful even Jaan could admit it. His hair touched his shoulders and was inky black and wild, running in all directions. His perfectly shaped almond eyes almost always looked half closed. He had the appearance of someone who might have distant Asian ancestry. And his smile, it was his smile that did it. Perfectly white and straight teeth set inside a gorgeous mouth. Sanchez was something of a demi god to women of all ages. The older teachers where enthralled by him, stunned into silence or shock when his brown body sauntered into their classroom and surprised that such a loopy athletic character could ace any test given to him in any class, yet still remain so strange. Maybe that's why they liked him, because inside of this unrelentingly handsome body was a goofy, curious kid. As Jaan rode the last stretch to Sanchez's house he thought about the pretty redhead at the party who had pulled him into the coat closet to kiss him. As the wind blew against his face he thought about her pretty plump lips on his neck and he could feel that tingling sensation in his stomach. Jaan dropped his bike on the Brown's front lawn and ran up to the front door to ring the doorbell. Santos opened the door. She had a pair of headphones on her head and one of Sanchez's shirts from the basketball team. It was so large it looked like she didn't have anything on underneath it, but Jaan could see that underneath the shirt she was wearing a pair of shorts with green frogs on them that he was pretty sure belonged to her little brother Santiago. On her face were her thick black-framed glasses that nearly dwarfed her features. Jaan paused for a minute as they stood staring at each other. He felt that familiar tightness in his chest, the uncomfortable feeling he always felt around her. He cleared his throat, "Is Sanchez home?" She twirled the end of her headphone cable in the air, allowing it to wrap around her finger; She shook her head no. "Do you know when he'll be back?" She shook her head no again. "Umm... ok" Jaan backed away from the door slightly. She laughed lightly, "They're in New York." "OK, when will they be back?" She walked away from the door leaving it wide open. Jaan stood there for a moment. Well he could go inside and finish up this conversation or he could continue the conversation from the door and then get on his bike and find Sean or Mike or maybe head over to the Tennis Courts to see if the girl's team was around practicing. He stepped inside. Santos Santos could tell that Jaan was already really high. She knew that he and Sanchez had been getting high a lot that summer, because Sanchez had told her. He had the tendency to tell her everything. Even all the gory details of his silly sexcapades, and some of the trouble he had been getting into. She knew all the girls he liked and the boys he had kissed. She understood how scared he was about his senior year, and applying for colleges. She knew that he spent a lot of his time really sad and was afraid to let other people know it. She knew of all his friends, he liked Jaan the best though he had never told her outright, she knew. "They'll be back Sunday night" she said sitting on the couch. She picked up the remote control and started the game again. Jaan stood in the house but just a step away from the doorway. He was debating. She could see that he couldn't tell if he wanted to be in the house with her or leave and do whatever it was he was going to do, but without Sanchez. She continued playing the game trying her best to ignore him standing there. "Why didn't you go?" he asked. He closed the door behind him and walked over towards her on the couch. He sat on the floor beside it and watched her playing the game. "I have school." She was the dumb one. Santiago was 11 in the 8th grade, Sanchez had taught himself Russian, and she was the one in summer school math class because she couldn't get all her math work finished during the school year. Which was a shame because she was already in the super slow math classes. Actually, all her classes were super slow. And she wasn't just taking summer Math; she was taking summer history and English as well. The problem was she just never could seem to get her work done. She understood everything. When she wasn't playing video games or outside with Santiago she usually was reading and writing stories or looking at maps. But when it was time to do the test, or write the stupid report she could never do it. She just couldn't make herself perform on command. So she was stupid probably. She figured as much at least. And she'd struggle through 11th grade just like she struggled through 10th. "Oh that's right, Sanchez told me." They sat silent for a minute. Santos looked at Jaan. He was very pretty, but something about him was jagged. His hair was long, too long for a boy but he had worn it that way for as long as Santos knew him. He was maybe the only boy she knew who could wear hair so long and still look masculine even though his hair itself was beautiful, feminine even. Jaan looked back at her, catching her eyes for a split second before she could turn away. "So how is it going?" he asked "You know, it's school." She said. Well not quite. She daydreamed a lot more in summer school. She could see out the window, and she would imagine all sorts of things, flying animals, the school melting around her, turning herself into a tornado. She couldn't control her mind as much in summer school, she just wanted to go outside. "It must suck." "Yea, it does." she said. Jaan looked at her again, his eyes where the lightest clearest shade of blue in existence. She had never been alone with Jaan before. He usually avoided her. Most of Sanchez's friends at least said hello or tried to make small conversation. She figured she wasn't like most little sisters. She wasn't cute. She didn't have a lot of friends. She was into girly things in vague ways. Like she knew that she liked make-up though she didn't want to wear it. She liked dolls, but she was too old for that, and she mostly liked them to act out her stories with. Mostly what she did was spend a lot of time with Santiago outside in the woods, riding bikes or playing in the creek. She did feel weird that one of her best friends was an 11 year old and all of his middle school friends, but they didn't judge her much. They let her be quiet when she wanted to, or crack jokes when she wanted too. She had a few friends in her year. Minjun took classes with her and lived in town, they both liked to play video games and swim, but she was in Korea for the summer. David had stopped talking to her after that whole mess a few months before and Sarabelle was officially cool now after losing 30lbs and dying her hair blonde so Santos was very limited in the option of friends. During summer school she had made friends with a kid named Jeremy. She knew he hung out with the skater kids and she was pretty sure he did a lot of drugs, but for now they mostly talked about manga and she could sense that he liked her because he could be a part of himself he wasn't allowed to be around most of his friends. But Jaan, she could never really figure Jaan out. She had watched him grow into himself this past year. Well she had always watched Jaan, ever since he came into their house freshman year, but this year as his limbs sprang out and his face matured she noticed that now everyone else noticed him too. Sanchez and Jaan were like a force. Two tall and lanky star basketball players they had carried their team to the state finals, though they lost. In their town they were well loved and liked. Even college students stopped Sanchez in the grocery store wishing him congratulations and inviting him to parties. But Jaan was new to it. She could tell, that though he liked the attention, he wasn't used to it, and he wasn't sure how far he could take things. He stood up and started walking toward the door, "Ok well, when Sanchez comes back tomorrow, tell him I was here." "Do you want to go see a cave?" Santos felt itchy, she did not want him to go. That morning she had planned to spend the whole day alone, playing video games and then maybe riding down to the creek. But now that Jaan was there, his body in front of hers she felt like she wanted him to stick around. "A cave?" "Yea, we found it, well I found it one day with Santiago when we were just riding around up there." "Up where?" "Dover." "You rode your bike to Dover?" "Yea, we were just bored last week" "It's like 10 miles away" "You ride your bike here everyday" "Yea but you live 2 miles away from my house" Santos laughed at him, so hard it surprised her and she covered her mouth. He smiled back at her too. "Do you want to go? It's still early." Jaan nodded his head. "Yea let's go" Jaan She was strange. Usually when he spent time at Sanchez's house he stayed away from her. Well not really stayed away but rather avoided. She seemed to be very aware of people, of himself in particular in a way that made him uneasy. Once when they were in the house sitting at their kitchen counter she walked into a conversation they were having about girls. "How different is it now?" she said to him absently as she poured herself a glass of water from the sink. "What?" he said confused. She was midway through filling up her cup, she looked at him like he was stupid. "Now that you grew and look like this." He starred at her. He had spent the entire day asking himself the same thing. It was different now that he had suddenly grown and started to look more like pictures of his father. "Santos you need to learn how to word yourself." Sanchez said in a voice Jaan could tell he had to use on her often. She always seemed to be saying the most obvious thing that no one else was saying. She shook her head, "What? He looks different now, I mean he looks the same but different. You're in here talking about how all these girls are all on him now and that's the reason why isn't it? I'm just asking him about it." "Santos," Sanchez said tiredly, "chill out." She rolled her eyes at him and walked out of the kitchen. He almost never saw her in school, only if he was in the section of the school reserved for the slower kids, the kids with mental issues and health problems. She had a strange and varied group of friends. David Otubenga who was going to be a sophomore and was on the JV basketball squad, and Sarabelle, the first girl Jaan had ever fooled around with. He didn't know the names of the other kids but they seemed just as much as outcasts as her. Now riding his bike slightly behind her he watched her dreadlocked hair blowing in the wind. On the ride over they had already tried racing and she was pretty good at doing wheelies, something that he couldn't even do. He sped up a bit to ride beside her and she looked at him, widening her eyes and baring her teeth. "Hey," she said. "Hey what." "Have you ever seen Stevie Wonder's wife?" Jaan thought about if for a minute, "No?" "Well, neither has he." She grinned at him and then sped up again prompting him to chase after her. She was strange indeed. The 10-mile bike ride to Dover wasn't nearly as intense as Jaan expected. Besides for a few hills they made it there in a little more than an hour. She pulled her bike over to the side near a river overlook right off the main road. He jumped off too and walked his bike over to hers where she chained them up to a guardrail. "We just have to walk down here for a bit." She said pointing to a path that led off down toward the river, but then bent up towards the woods a bit. She started off down the path, her hands in the pocket of her frog shorts, and then stopped and looked back at him for a moment and starred. She was sweating a bit, her glasses sliding down her nose and her hair pushed up off her face awkwardly. "What?" Jaan said looking back at her. They stood staring at each other for a beat too long and then she said, "Do you have any siblings?" "No, you know that." She was still standing still but Jaan walked towards her. "That must be lonely," she said. He was standing near to her now, they where maybe 8 inches apart and facing each other. "It is." Jaan said, she looked at his chest and poked it delicately with her finger, and then continued down the path toward the cave. They walked in silence for a few minutes before she started talking again. Jaan had heard her do this once before with Santiago. She made up stories. She did them in a way that made Jaan think she was just starting a conversation, but it was only a moment before he realized that she was leading him into her weird imagination. "Ok so imagine this, you're a kid that has three arms and you have to hide one of them." "Three arms?" "Yea, and you have to hide one of the arms," "Where would it be?" "It depends." "Ok, so how do I hide it?" "Well that's the thing it only appears where you need it, exactly when you need it." "How does that work?" "So you're in the kitchen you have to stir the pot, add the butter and the milk at the same time to make a sauce." "You're making a béchamel?" "What?" "That's what the name of that sauce is called, a béchamel, Flour, butter and milk." "How do you know that?" "I work in a kitchen." "Yes, like that. Then your third arm would appear." "Ok that's weird" "But it would also appear when you needed to get out of bad situations." "How?" "Well it can open doors into other worlds" "Like universes?" "Well no just another part of your same existence. So if I wanted to get out of this situation my arm would appear and then I'd open a door and I'd end up, wherever I wanted to go, but in this same world or existence." "So not time travel?" "No, like maybe a portal." "That's convenient" "Yes but sometimes it misinterprets situations and you open doors when you don't want to you walk into situations even stranger than the one you came out of" Jaan laughed, "Where do you get this stuff from?" "You have to follow me," she said. Jaan looked at her, she was walking now into the woods. Not on the path, but into a thicket of trees. She kept talking. Sanchez told Jaan once that he loved Santos more than anything in the world. They were talking about food. Jaan had said jokingly that he loved pizza more than his mom, to which Sanchez answered that he loved Santos more than any food or anything he could imagine. Jaan couldn't believe it. What teenage boy loved his sister that much? Didn't he love his brother just as much too, and what about his parents? The Knowing Ch. 02 Sanchez laughed, "Well of course I love Santiago, he's great. But Sanchez, she does these funny things, and she pays attention, and she's curious. She's really something." Walking behind her, into the woods Jaan suddenly realized exactly what Sanchez was talking about. "Look," she said pointing ahead of her towards a dark space beyond the thicket of trees, "That's it there." Jaan had only ever been in a cave once before in his life, on a class trip when he was about 7. He remembered nothing from the trip except that he went. Santos pushed through the trees and towards the cave. As they walked closer to the cave opening Jaan could feel the difference in the air. It was cooler near the cave, by nearly 10 degrees or so. Jaan felt a chill go down his back, the cool air collapsing his wet t-shirt onto his skin. Santos looked back at him a moment and than ran into the cave disappearing into the darkness. "Hey!" he screamed, running after her. Inside the cave was even colder by maybe another 10 degrees. He could hear her laughing, but couldn't exactly place where she was. "Santos!" he yelled. "WOOoooooooOOOO OOooooPPPPPPppp" she yelled, her voice bounced all around them. "What are you doing?" he yelled again He couldn't tell if she was in front of him or behind him. "KKKKKKaaaaKKKKKAaaa AAAAAkkkkAAAAAHHHH!!" she yelled again, Jaan felt a little nervous, but mostly curious. He edged himself further into the cave inching his way on the pebbled ground toward what he assumed was the center. The light behind him was diminishing and he was nervous about what might be before him lurking inside. "Santos?" he said again. He didn't yell it this time, but spoke it softly like she might be besides him. Nothing. He inched forward a little bit more listening to the sound of his feet crunching against the pebbles, the movement echoing against cave walls. He turned around facing the direction he came in and wondered if she had perhaps run back outside, in an attempt to trick him to go further into the cave. "Santos!" he yelled again. His own voice bounced right back at him. Now he was scared. Where was this girl? He picked up his pace slightly further into the darkness into where he thought she might've gone. What if there was some kind of big hole she fell into? Or what if she... "I'm right here," he heard her saying, a laugh in her voice, and then he felt her hand lightly encircle his elbow and walk him toward the faintest hint of light. The touch of her hand was warm and sweaty, but feeling the heat of her body so close so suddenly made Jaan hard. She continued to pull Jaan toward the faint light, never letting him go until he could feel himself starting to down hill, the light getting increasingly brighter. At the bottom of the hill was an opening, as they entered the opening Jaan could hear water falling. They had entered an alcove, the cave broke into an opening and they were now underneath a section of the river that broke off and continued below them, creating a mini 7 or 8-foot waterfall, which they now stood behind. "This is crazy!' Jaan said, he was a bit shocked. He had partly figured that she was just going to try and scare the shit out of him, but he didn't expect this. "Isn't it cool?" she said letting go of his elbow and stepping through the waterfall into the shallow section of river before them. His elbow felt cold. He watched her gingerly walk on the slippery rocks deeper into the river and then throw herself in, submerging herself in the water fully clothed. Jaan watched her for a minute from behind the waterfall. "Come on!" she yelled, and he stepped through the waterfall too, following her into the cool river water. Santos Santos lay on the pebbly riverbank and breathed in deeply, she could feel the heaviness of her socks inside her went shoes. Today was a good day. Undoubtedly one of the best she had had in a long time. Not only because she actually got to hang out with someone her own age, but because she felt lighter, and clearer than she had felt in a while. The sun was setting. There was no way they were going to make it home before dark, but she couldn't help but close her eyes and let the warm air move over her face. She didn't want to move. Jaan was still in the water. Like a 6 year old he was turning over rocks and looking underneath them. She sat up and looked at him. He had taken his wet shirt off and was in his boxers and basketball shorts, his long hair wet down his lightly tanned back. "We have to go soon," She yelled out to him. He turned to look at her and then trudged through the river to meet her on the bank. He sat down beside her and she lay back down on the rocks. She suddenly had the strongest urge to touch him. Somehow she felt like she needed to put her hands on him, but instead she kept her hands to herself stuffing them into her short pockets. "Yea, it's going to get dark soon." She turned her head to look at him. He was looking at her already. He had a strange look on his face, one that made her sit up and crinkle her eyebrows at him. "What?" "Sanchez loves you a whole lot." He said quickly. She laughed, "I know." Jaan nodded his head and looked up at the sky. He stood up, and then walked over to his wet shirt and put it on. "Ok let's go." They walked back to their bikes in silence. But through the cave, Santos held onto Jaan's elbow again although he was the one that led them out of it. They said nothing too as they were unchaining their bikes, except Santos heard Jaan vaguely say that he was hungry. Santos didn't know what to say, so she got on her bike first and rode ahead of him. Something was passing through them. Santos wasn't quite sure what, but she could feel it, a surging of warm energy through the both of them and it was freaking her out a bit. On the ride home she showed Jaan how to do wheelies and it made things sort of normalize again, they were talking again and the feeling was subsiding, but she could still feel the tingles, the snaps of energy she got when he looked at her, or when he laughed. She felt like she might be sick. It was totally dark as they rode up to her house, the last strains of light had vanished a few minutes before. She had just started telling him another story but stopped abruptly when she could see her house in the distance. She started riding faster than him, she felt like she wanted to jump out of herself. "Ok I'll see you later!" she shouted over her shoulder as she sped up away from him. Jaan followed. "Wait!" She had hopped off of her bike and was opening her front door when Jaan finally caught up to her. "What are you doing? Wait a minute." He said laughing. She laughed too, but she was really beginning to feel truly sick. "Sorry, I just want to get out of these wet clothes." She said laughing; she couldn't even look him in the face. What was going on? "So...?" Jaan could tell something was going on. He knew something had changed but he wasn't sure what, he felt it too he was just unsure of what it meant. "Ok, I'll tell Sanchez Sunday when they get here that you were looking for him" she said quickly looking him in his face. She needed to get rid of him. "Ok but-" "You should take him there sometime he'll really like it." She said stepping into the house. "I know but-" "So listen I'll see you around ok?" and with that she turned around and shut the door in his face.