“Anna! I’m not gonna tell you again,” Mom yelled.
“I’m coming,” Anna called out, and I gave her one last squeeze before letting her go.
When she ran off, I felt a huge weight had lifted from my shoulders. I hadn’t expected her forgiveness to come so readily, but maybe she’d wanted our relationship back as much as I did. I needed to plan some sibling time with her one day soon, but at least for the moment, it seemed like we might be okay.
Thank God.
I crossed her name off my mental checklist and moved down to the next name: Ollie. How to explain all my baggage to a new friend—if that was what we still were—and have him understand where I was coming from? I needed to figure out what to say to apologize for my behavior, so before I got around to calling him, I needed to clear my brain a bit.
A walk in the fresh evening air sounded like a good plan to me. The last thing I wanted to do was sound like a hot mess when I called. Although Ollie had already seen me have a panic attack followed by an attack onhim, so chances were slim he’d even answer the phone for me at this point.
Man.It was a roaster of a day, a thousand degrees, give or take a few, and I was already regretting my decision to go for a walk. But since I was about halfway at that point, I figured I’d finish out the lap before heading inside.
As I reached for my phone in my pocket, my eyes landed on a house across the street and I stopped moving. There wasn’t anything that stood out about the place for it to have gotten my attention. It was on the smaller side and had the same brick exterior as almost every other house in the neighborhood, only this one had a red door and green shutters.
But…that house. Iknewthat house, and not because I’d walked past it a hundred times before. There was a loose brick on the third porch step of that house.
Without knowing why, I found myself crossing the street. Maybe it was that I wanted to check that brick to make sure it was loose and I wasn’t crazy. But what would it mean if it was? I couldn’t recall ever coming here before. There would be no reason for me to know a detail like that.
Venturing across the yard, I noticed there was no car in the driveway, so at least the owner wouldn’t see some crazy guy on their front lawn.This is stupid,I thought when I stood in front of the porch steps and debated whether to turn around and keepright on walking. But I’d come this far, and better to know I wasn’t fully losing it…or not.
Stepping onto the first stair, I toed the edge of the bricks on the third step with my foot. On the right side, one of the bricks had darker edges surrounding it, and I bent over to wiggle it with my hand.
It didn’t move.
Shit.
“Don’t tell me the brick came loose again,” came a voice from the driveway, and I whirled around to see Ollie getting out of his car, still dressed in his uniform of navy-blue pants and a matching button-down shirt that fit his muscular build like a glove.
“Ollie?” I rubbed my eyes, making sure I wasn’t seeing things, but no. He was still there. “What are you doing here?” I said, as he opened his trunk and took out a few grocery bags. He easily slid them all up one arm and then shut the trunk with the other.
“What do you mean what am I doing here?” he said, giving me a funny look as he walked past me up the stairs. “It’s my house. What areyoudoing here?”
His house? This was Ollie’s house?
He tapped on the third step with his foot, right over the place with the darkened cracks. “Oh good. If that thing had come loose again, I would’ve chucked it into the lake.”
Oh God.A wave of dizziness had me reaching for the rail to keep me upright.
My mind knew Ollie’s house. But why…how? We’d just met, and I’d never been here before. But that detail was so strong, just like I knew if I walked up those steps, that it would lead into a hallway with dark blue walls and white trim before opening up into a living area and kitchen.
What the fuck is happening?
Ollie stood inside the unlocked doorway and looked down at me. “You comin’?”
Was I? I’d been about to call him anyway, but this revelation felt like my feet were being kicked out from under me. With shaky legs, I climbed up to where Ollie watched me with concern in his eyes.
“Everything okay?” he said, as he gestured for me to go in. And sure enough, the hallway looked exactly like I thought it’d would—dark blue walls and white trim, and I had to keep a hand on it as I walked so I wouldn’t fall over.
I don’t understand, I thought, a wave of dizziness hitting me again so hard I had to stop where I was and close my eyes.
“Reid? Did you get too hot?”
“Hmm?” I managed. I heard Ollie lower the bags to the floor, and then the back of his hand was on my forehead and then my cheek, checking my temperature, and then he took my wrist, checking my pulse.
“The heat index is still over ninety, so you need to cool off,” he said, leading me over to a recliner chair and forcing me into it. He returned a few seconds later with a glass of iced water, but my hands were still shaking so badly that he had to lift it to my lips.
It couldn’t be heat stroke that had me feeling so strange? No, I didn’t think so, but the cold water helped, and when Ollie went back to refill the glass, he also brought a cold towel, placing it around my neck.