Tell Me What You Hate About Me

47: 'Tis Folly To Be Wise

When we arrived back in Tillamook, there was only one place to go. Out of everyone I thought I couldn't trust at one point or another, from Dominic to Butterfly to Dr. Reed to Dr. Rainier and Harvey, I wasn't surprised that I was a hundred percent correct on most of them. Dr. Reed got Dr. Rainier involved in the talisman business—with no ill intentions, as far as I believed—and Harvey was a student who helped him with his basic ASL classes.

Dominic, though, was a different story. Maybe the talisman helped us out there—I wasn't sure, but did it really even matter? It was what it was, and it was pretty good, except for the current situation, of course.

Although we still didn't have a firm plan in place (but when did we ever?), there was a feeling in my stomach that bubbled with excitement or anxiety or something else. We weren't taking the easy way out, and that was enough to stir something inside of me.

At Harvey's place, there were lights on all throughout the house, and I took a glance over at Dominic. It was almost ten and dark without any headlights, and he rubbed his eyes like he was tired after a long day or something. The audacity. We still had a talisman—and potentially so much more—to save.

I hadn't checked my phone since we left my mom's, and I was sure that there were at least eighty messages from Jack and Sierra about how they were worried or that we abandoned them in hell. But that wasn't my problem. I was the one who lost the talisman, and I had to be the one to get it back.

Everything was just much easier said than done. That was my problem.

"So, Lindsay," Dominic practically whispered.

I turned to him. "Yeah?"

"You feel anything right now besides like you're about to throw up?"

I shook my head. "Should I?"

"That's weird."

Weird? He was weird. Not me. "You feel something?"

He nodded. "Well, it's just this thought I have running through my mind. It's like all I can hear right now is don't do it."

My heart sank into my stomach. "Don't do what? Go in and get the talisman back?"

He shrugged. "I can't say that for sure, but we have to try, right?"

His feelings had never been wrong before, and they always led him to me and the talisman. If the talisman was warning him now somehow, what the hell were we in for?

"I really don't think we can wait any longer unless you really think this is the talisman's connection again. It could just be, you know, a normal stress response," I said.

"I think I know what stress is, Lindsay. I'm always freaking out about something."

Maybe he was right. I sure as hell wouldn't get it.

"But," he continued, "I don't think we have a choice here. Harvey either has it or he'll find it soon. Either way, I'd much rather have that kind of power in your hands. At least I know where your heart is."

My breathing sped up, and before I could figure out why, I turned away from him to look back at the house.

"Then let's go," I said. "It's better to try and get hurt than to give up and not know."

He nodded. "But we're definitely coming up with a plan, right?"

A plan. Right. That would probably save us some heartache.

"Well, it looks like he's still here and not taking over the world or whatever we're afraid of him doing, so that's a good sign. So the talisman's still in there too," I said.

"When you found out that the talisman had powers, what was the first thing you wanted to do with it?" Dominic asked.

"Use it to get myself off of academic probation and pay my room and board," I said.

"That's," he hesitated, "a lot more nerdy than I thought it would be. What about after that?"

I let out a sigh. "I don't know. I just wanted to figure out how to actually use it like I was meant to use it. I wasn't sure where I was going to go with it, but I wanted it as an option to keep in my back pocket."

"An option for what?"

What was he interrogating me for? "I really don't know, Dominic. To get myself out of shitty situations that I always seem to get myself into."

"So for selfish reasons?"

"Selfish, yeah, but not bad." Well, maybe a little bad, but still. "Why are you even asking me this? None of those answers help us right now."

Dominic ignored my question. "What does Harvey want?"

I blinked a couple of times. Usually I was pretty good with keeping up with him, but he was off in his own little world this time.

"Think, Lindsay, what does he want? You wanted to stay in school to prove your mom wrong, so what does he want?" he asked again.

"Okay, first of all, my mom has absolutely nothing to do with my motivations for anything—"

He interrupted me. "He wants to be the leader of a successful band."

"That seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to want. How can that hurt anyone?"

Of course, I didn't know a thing about music, but that role always seemed like it actually belonged to Jack, so that could have potentially been a problem.

"He's also got Rainier in his ear, who has access to way more resources and knowledge than anyone we know besides Reed," Dominic continued.

I was beginning to see a point in the interrogation. As cliche as it was, knowledge was power, and I certainly didn't have as much as many other people did.

"Then what are we wasting time for? We have to get it back now," I said and got out of the car.

"But the plan!" Dominic shouted a whisper at me.

I leaned in through the open door. "Do you have one after having hours to think about it?"

He shook his head slowly.

But fortunately for us both, I was crazy enough to not give a single shit. "Then here's what we're gonna do: we're gonna have faith that the talisman really does have some deep connection with us both, and we're gonna let it guide us. It's never steered us wrong so far."

"I'm ninety-nine percent sure it's telling us to abort the mission right now."

"That's anxiety, not magic. I know you don't hear all that well, but you don't have to. You just have to listen to what it's actually saying," I said.

He paused for a moment, and as I watched his breaths slow back down to a normal pace, he nodded slowly like he had truly heard what I had to say.

"You trust us?" he asked.

I nodded. "One hundred percent."

He opened up his car door as well. "Then let's keep this magical power in the hands of the people too stupid to know what to do with it."

That was the spirit I was looking for.

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Hi everyone! Thank you so much for reading! I know my past couple of updates have been on the shorter side, which I typically don't do, but it feels like the most manageable way to keep my updates on track. That way, I don't feel overwhelmed with how much I have to do, and I actually get more done. I'm trying to adapt, and I feel like it's the best way to move on with the story, so updates will be more frequent! We both win this way haha.

So for today's question, do you think the talisman will guide Lindsay and Dominic to getting it back, or do you think something else is going to happen?