“I don’t want to feel the fucking tree, Tristan. I hate this. Why can’t you just tell me how amazing your childhood was? I hate that you’re running from life.”
“Whoa, I am living life. Don’t ever think I’m not doing what I want to do. I am. I’m here because I want to be, not because I have to be. I wouldn’t be who I am if I hadn’t gone through what I have. I’m more than okay with it. If you would have given me the choice to be raised with a bunch of conforming socialites or be normal like everyone else, I’d pick it all over again. I would, Ty. I even had the opportunity to have my own show, and I fought it. I never wanted that. That’s not the kind of message I want to spread.”
“What about your mom? She just let this dick send you off?”
“Yup, I had a nanny that I don’t really remember until I was five, but then I was on my own, the youngest in an all-girls school. Believe me, eight-year-olds don’t really want much to do with five-year-old babies, but I was lucky. Clay got me in. I should have been grateful for that gift.”
“And I thought my mom was an idiot. Please tell me she’s not still with this guy.”
“Oh, she is. They’re one of the two biggest bigots in Washington DC, but they have the best ratings. That’s something. Right? She’s blind, Tobias. He’s the reason for her success, and he treats her like a queen. I mean, straight up royalty. Everyone is envious of their lives, their success, their relationship, their looks, their three homes, and their cars, pretty much everything in their fake lives. It’s so sickening.”
“Is your mom on television?”
“All the fucking time.”
“Wow. You have a famous mom? What’s her name?”
“Vanna Wise.”
I let go of the tree to look at her, my eyes landing on Baby-T, wide awake. “Oh, my God. Are you serious? Isn’t she the one that blew the whistle on that senator with the hooker a few years back?”
“Yup, that’s her.”
“She was just on TV the other night, but I don’t know what for. I’m going to pay closer attention next time.”
“She’ll be on there a lot for minute. It’s election year, and don’t bother. It’s all a bunch of scripted bullshit lies. She’s just the messenger in it for the ratings and the attention. You suck at being quiet.”
“One more question and I’ll shut up.”
“What?”
“When was the last time you talked to your mom?”
“Two years ago. I already told you that. Now shhh.”
I didn’t realize how silly it sounded until I asked. “So she doesn’t know about Baby-T.”
Tristan tilted her head and gave me a knowing look. “Two years, Ty.”
Ignoring the snide remark, I continued to pry. “Because you don’t want to or her?”
“Both. I cramp her style. Not many people even know I exist. I was whisked off to boarding school before my mom and Clay became big hits. However I did read once that I was supposedly on a mission trip in Hatti. Whatever. I don’t need her. Stop talking. I’m done with that. I’m not a dweller of the past. Now you know. Move on.”
I couldn’t move on. Tristan was somebody. I’m not really sure what I thought, but it wasn’t that. She wasn’t some trailer-park trash, too poor for a home. That wasn’t where I pegged her to come from. Not at all. Tree hugging wasn’t really my thing, and I really did have ADD. It was nearly impossible for me to be still with nothing to do with my hands, and I didn’t like where my mind was taking me. I hated that she grew up so alone, so isolated.
“I’m going to leave a mark, Tobias. I am,” Tristan assured me in a quiet tone, her eyes closing and then opening to mine.
Squeezing her hand a little, I didn’t doubt it. Not one bit. “You’ve already left a mark, T. On me anyway.”
Tristan smiled and kissed my cheek. “Yeah, but you’re an exception. I never preach like this to other people.”
“Why not?”
“People don’t want to hear it. They label me a tin hat, or a conspiracy theorist. I mean, I don’t give a shit what people think of me. I’m totally okay with being different. If wanting everyone to wake up and have a better life makes me a conspiracy theorist then so be it. I’ll be whatever name they want to call me, but I won’t be a part of following this fucked up system, and neither will Baby-T.”
Tristan spoke the truth and I knew it. Her truth. “You make me proud, T.”
“Where’s your grandma now? Does she still live in Morgantown? We should visit her.”
“Nah, she moved to Florida a few years ago. I don’t really talk to her either.”
“Why not?”
I shrugged one shoulder, not really knowing the answer myself. “I don’t know. She’s just not close to me. She moved to Florida with someone she met on the Internet. We just don’t talk.”
“I’m sorry, Ty.”
“Don’t be. It’s fine. I’m fine.”
I was fine. I was finer than I’d ever been in my life and I didn’t even know why. Because of her. Because of Tristan and Tobias. My everything. My life. My sunshine. My air.
Chapter Twelve
Dear, past, thank you for all the lessons.
Dear, future, I’m ready.
I didn’t get shit done on the van that day. Instead of being in the barn getting the van ready to roll, I stayed with her for the rest of the day. Even after she told me she wanted to leave on Thursday instead of Friday. That was all fine and dandy had the van been ready, the real problem being where to divide my time. She and Baby-T were just as important as getting the van done, and truth be known I liked their company more than the oversized automobile and Kota snoring nearby.
We talked a lot about everything under the sun, and although Tristan did go out on a couple tangents, nothing was overbearing. Honestly, I sort of found it all very intriguing. Tristan forced my mind to go places I’d never let it go before, and she was right. I never let myself think about the things her mind contemplated on. Even with the sheeple-word I didn’t like, I knew I was just that. It was just all sort of strange, coming at a weird time in my life. The me before Tristan and Baby-T would have been on social media, sharing the viral video, and now well, I didn’t even think about it. Come to think of it, I didn’t really think about any of it. Not my friends, my cheating ex-girlfriend, Cali, my senior year of high school, my like page, my YouTube channel. None of it.
“This tastes just like a cheeseburger. Hmm, it’s really good, T,” I said, my taste buds melting into the foreign burger.
“Thank you. It’s black beans, quinoa, rice flour, and onion. Oh, and my secret spices. I can’t disclose that information though. Let’s go sit in the grass where the sun is.”
I didn’t remember ever eating black beans before, but this was amazing. However, I wasn’t really interested in sitting in the evening sun. Of course I did though. I did everything the girl told me to do and then some. “I’ll grab our chairs.”
That got me a hooded glance. “We don’t need chairs. Have you ever read about the Lakota Indians?”
Holding onto sleeping Baby-T, I followed Tristan to the clearing and to my plate she’d taken. I was freaking starving. She could educate me on history all she wanted; I just wanted my food. “I don’t know. Maybe in school some.”
“Do you remember anything at all you’ve learned in school?”
I shrugged, squatting with Tobias sound asleep in my arms, my free hand reaching for my plate. He sure did a lot of sleeping. “I remember what H20 is.”
Tristan sat beside me with half a grin, her lips moving to mine. “Remind me to tell you what you don’t know about the water you drink. The Lakota’s touched the earth because they thought it to be good for their skin. They often walked around barefoot to be close to the sacred earth, and they always sat upon the earth, not some folding chair for comfort. Even before I read anything about the tribe, I felt the same way. There’s something mystical about it. Try it some time. Just sit quietly in the grass. You’re destined to think
more clearly, deeper, and more keenly. I guarantee, those fancy flip-flops you’re wearing wouldn’t come to mind. What the hell are those anyway?”
Knowing the answer wasn’t what she wanted to hear, I succumbed to her way of thinking. Sure she didn’t want to hear about the vacation of a lifetime, shopping with Avery, I played coy. “Memory foam, but in my defense, they didn’t cost that much.”
“How much?”
“Like thirty bucks, and I worked for it. My mom made me deep clean my room for the money.”
Tristan gave me that look she used when she was amused at me. At least that’s what she called it. It was more like making fun of me. “So you cleaned your own mess to earn enough money to buy a pair of shoes that you could have gotten for two bucks at a thrift store? You’re very smart, Ty.”
“And you’re a bully.”
“No, I’m just wondering how it can be you. Why you?” she called out, her voice loud and questioning directed up to the blue sky.
“You’re glad it’s me and you know it. Come on. Admit it.”
Tristan’s lips pursed, her eyes gave me a once over, and she shrugged one shoulder. “Meh, you’re a little exasperating. I don’t normally associate myself with people like you.”
I chewed the delicious burger before speaking, both my eyebrows lifting. “People like you? Really, Miss I don’t judge?”
Her shoulder bumped mine and she laughed, but she did recant. Sort of. “You’re the only person on this earth that I judge, and I can’t help it. I long for you to be like me so much. It’s hard for me to talk to you. I never know when I’m being too much for you. I’m not interested in what the Kardashian’s are doing, what shopping center you bought those shoes from, or that fancy cell-phone you got there. This is as hard for me as it is you. We have absolutely nothing in common.”
I swallowed the last bite of half-hard carrots, and moved Baby-T to the ground beside of me, carful with his little head. His arms and legs stretched and then coiled right back to his sleeping little body. Both Tristan and I smiled at him and then to each other. Taking even myself by surprise, I took her plate from her hand and set it beside Tobias. Straddling her body with mine, I moved her to her back, my eyes holding hers in a trance. “We have this in common. Tell me you don’t feel this.”
Already out of my comfort zone, she had to go and make it more intense. Tristan lifted my shirt and placed her soft hands on my chest. “I do. That’s the only reason you’re still here. This doesn’t happen to most people, Ty. You have lots and lots of soul mates come in and out of your life, but finding your twin flame is extremely rare. You’re a crystal child without question. You just don’t remember. You’ve been programmed to work like a machine, but you’re waking up. You are, Ty. That’s why you see the number eleven. Did you look it up? You’re not the only one. Lots of people are waking up.”
The crystal child thing was something new, something I hadn’t heard her speak of yet, and quite honestly, I didn’t want to. “I’m on top of you, about to shove my tongue down your throat and you want to discuss—what was it again?”
“Oh, nothing.”
All the nights that I’d gone to bed thinking about her body close to mine was no comparison. This was cosmic. Heat transferred between us, creating a warm energy that tingled in the pit of my stomach. Forget the butterflies, this was a stampede of horses; fireworks lighting the sky. Her hands slid up my ribs and mine went to her back, our lips entwined with a powerful force, and our bodies melted into one. Tristan and I were a part of the same whole. That’s why we had this magnetic pull, this sense of familiarity, like we were continuing something we’d left off, this instantaneous deep bond, this peculiar synchronicity, this powerful and unique energetic connection. I believed her. Tristan was right. This didn’t happen every day, but when it did, there was no denying that it was bigger than me, bigger than any one place or thing. Something celestial whether I understood it or not.
I couldn’t help but lower my body onto hers, spread her legs a little with a knee, and grind into her. Possibly more for me than her, but nonetheless, she grinded back, a soft moan humming in my mouth.
Of course she was the one to put a halt to it. “Jesus, Ty. Stop. I can’t do this.”
Going in for one more kiss, I rolled to my back, not even trying to hide the disgusted groan, let alone the hard-on going on behind my shorts. Tristan rolled to her side and ran her soft hand up my stomach. God, I loved her hands on me. Not even exaggerating, they were magical, warm with a touch that sent shivering tingles up my spine and caused the hair to stand up on the back of my neck. No lie.
“I’m sorry,” I halfheartedly apologized, my fingers moving up and down her arm.
“I can lay Baby-T inside and take care of you if you want.”
Yup, I was doomed I thought, circulation being constricted from the growth and my suddenly too tight shorts. “No, I want to wait for you. I’m good.”
Tristan smiled, her head tilting to the side and her words spoken to my lips. That wasn’t what got me. It was her hand moving up and down my crotch, a thin sheet of material the only thing between us. “I love you for saying that.”
“Yeah, well, you better stop doing that.”
Tristan giggled loudly and then hunched her shoulders, whispering after startling Baby-T. His little arms flailed briefly and his eyes fluttered, but only for a second. Once he realized we were right there with him, he was right back out. Tristan rolled off me to her side facing Tobias. Her hand held mine, rolling me to my side with her, her ass going right to my crotch.
“Well, that helps,” I confessed. My hand held her hip and I thrusted into her without control.
Propped to one elbow, staring at her baby, Tristan kissed me with a simple sweet kiss over her shoulder, her fingers sliding up Baby-T’s little belly. “Stop doing that. Think about something else. Isn’t he the most perfect thing in the world?”
“What happened to his clip thingy?”
“It fell off last night.”
I reached around her and pulled his little shirt down. “It looks gross. How long is it going to look like that?”
Tristan smiled over her shoulder and once again, kissed me. “I don’t know. This is the first baby I’ve ever had.”
My smile reached clear to my ears. I was so in love it wasn’t even funny. “Me too.”
“Do you want to stay for supper?”
No! I wanted to leave and work on the van. “Of course. I want to stay forever.”
“When you marry me,” she teased with yet another kiss.
Planting a little seed, I sort of mentioned the van. “You do know there’s no way we’re all going fit in your van, right? Where do you plan on us sleeping next weekend?”
“I already thought about that. I have a tent under the cot. We’ll set it up in front of the van. My air mattress has a hole, but I have plenty of blankets.”
Just when I was about to ask her what she did in the winter, my phone rang in my pocket. “Hey, man. What’s up? How’s it going?”
Situating myself in my shorts, I sat up, dropping my elbows over my knees, listening to Mason describe the vacation of a lifetime. “It’s going. What about you? Dude, I can’t believe you’re not here. You should see the girls. Fuck, man. They’re everywhere, basically naked, and I swear they’re multiplying. Dude, there’s more pussy here than any man could ever want. I’m in heaven.”
I looked to Tristan, my eyes locking with hers, smiling knowing she could hear every word. “I’m pretty content right here. Glad you’re having a good time though. Took you long enough to call me.”
“I bet he hasn’t gotten laid once,” Tristan wavered in a whisper, her fingers lacing with mine.
My long lost friend Mason continued with the talk of girls walking around in bikinis. “Yeah, because of all these hot chicks. Between that and being fucked up, I haven’t had time. How’s it going, Bro? Does it suck there?”
“Not at all. I’m actually glad that it worked out th
is way. I’m good.”
“You’re such a liar, but I do feel bad for you. Hey, I saw your video. It was awesome. I heard you made some money from it.”
“Yeah, a little. Thanks.”
“Like how much? Thousands? Six digits?”
I chuckled at that one, wishing that were the case. “I wish. It was less than two grand.”
“I’d still take it. Hey, here comes Avery. Want to say hi. I think she is starting to miss you. She’s been moping around here all day.”
“We broke up, and I can’t. I’m a little busy right now.”
Unfortunately, Mason didn’t listen. “Ty, hi. I miss you like crazy. How are you?”
“Good, but I can’t talk right now. I’m busy.”
“You’re too busy to talk to me? I just told you that I missed you.”
“Yeah, I heard that part, I just didn’t care.”
Tristan cracked me in the chest with the back of her knuckles, a whisper barely heard. “Don’t be an asshole.”
What the hell? I had a right to be an asshole to her. As soon as she got away from me, she was off doing some other dude. Screw that. I wasn’t being nice. Not to her.
“I’m sorry, Ty. Can I call you on my phone? I really need to talk to you.”
“We broke up. We don’t need to talk.”
“I don’t want to be broken up. I miss you. I made a mistake.”
Really? We were doing this right here beside Tristan where she could here every single word? Ugh. “Where’s your new friend? He not taking care of you anymore?”
“That was nothing, Ty. He left. He was only here for a week, and it didn’t mean anything. I love you. Can I please call you on my phone?”
“I can’t talk right now. I’m busy.”
“Later? Can I call you later?”
“I mean, I don’t know what for. There’s really nothing to say. We’re good. It’s better this way. I don’t plan on coming back to Cali anyway.”
“But there’s college. We’re still going to the same college. Right?”
“Yeah, I don’t know about all that. Hey, I’m with someone so I’ll talk to you later.”