I quickly catch up to the three of them and pull them off of the track they were on, the one I had run yesterday after narrowly dodging Hilt. I take a sharp left turn towards the direction of the ocean. We continue our run until the sounds of the ocean waves crashing against the shore pierce through the tree line and mix into a crescendo of sound with the swaying of the trees and the periodic chirps and hoots of nearby birds.
"What just happened back there? Alex, what—," Cynthia pauses as she gulps down a large breath seemingly choking her for a moment. "What the heck?"
"Dude yeah, seriously, where the hell did you come from?" Tristis lifts his bent body off of his slightly knees and cranks his face as he attempts to fill his lungs with fresh air.
"Yeah you were just inside of the bathroom, an...and then you were rushing towards us from the opposite direction," Aubri adds; similarly striking an out of breath pose.
I almost forget that I was in that moment for the second time around and this time I was in a totally different place. As this realization hits me I feel disoriented. As if out of place somehow. My spot in the universe almost, shifted from beneath my feet. The me that stands here and now doesn't belong, well, in the here and now. Though the people that stand before me now are the same as before I feel displaced from them, and it takes me a second to recollect myself and shake the offbeat feeling filling my gut and spilling out everywhere.
"Yeah," Cynthia adds signaling she's not done grilling me for answers, "and I could almost swear I heard you still in the bathroom through the window."
"Long story short," I pause for effect, and also to catch my breath a little more before striking a superhero pose. "I'm from the future."
My sad attempt at a joke seems to have done its trick. Granulated laughter trickles out of their oxygen starved lungs. I join in, and it feels good to laugh. I couldn't quite tell, but if almost seemed as if the laughter helped me catch my breath.
"So what—where did you come from then?" Aubri asks.
"Yester—," I'm still getting use to referencing my position in space and time correctly. "I lost you guys leaving the hotel back there and spent the night out in the woods. I returned to the hotel, tomorrow and came back to now to regroup with you guys. I couldn't find you all after we escaped the hotel; now I know why."
"Wow so you really are from the future then, technically," Aubri face shines with intrigue, almost excitement. She's still getting use to the time traveling and gravity bending thing.
I slant my face at her and give her a playfully crooked grin.
"Is someone starting to get excited?" I ask; probably sounding a little more flirtation than I originally meant to.
She smiles a sideways smirk. "This doesn't count you know."
"As what?" I ask biting her hook.
"As a real date," her eyes rise to meet mine; they cling to mine and I find it near impossible to look away, let alone even think of looking away.
"Oh yeah, I know. Doesn't count," I say scrunching my face, shaking it side to side; I wave my hands back and forth for added emphasis.
"Ok love birds. Can we please figure out what we are going to do next? Or are you guys gonna find a nice perch to snuggle up on and make googly eyes at each—," Cynthia's elbow to the gut cuts his joking short.
I look back at Aubri to see that she's blushing a bit. Seeing her blush immediately heats up my cheeks. She slips her finger over her ear tucking a locket of hazelnut hair snugly behind it. My heart melts in that moment. There's just something about her. I can't put my finger on it. Something that make me drawn to her. Like some outside force is literally, physically pulling me towards her. Tugging at my chest. Beckoning me to get closer and closer till we are occupying the same space. I can't explain it, and the more I try to reason it out in my head, the less it even makes sense to me.
Sure she's drop dead gorgeous, but that's not all. There's something else.
"What should we do now?" Cynthia asks still coddling Tristis after that overemphasized elbow to his gut. I don't think she meant to hit him that hard.
"What about my place?" Aubri says; her voice sending enjoyable shivers down my spine.
"How far is it from here? Can we walk there?" I ask.
"Yeah, my apartment's about two or three miles from here. But it's not too bad of a walk," she says pointing presumably in the direction of her apartment.
I look to the two others and nod for their approval. They both respond with a similar head nod and it's settled. We begin our way towards Aubri's place. I hang with Aubri in the front as Tristis and Cynthia take up the back.
We fill the time it takes to walk to her place with conversation. Conversations about her life. Mine. Her interests and mine. She tells me about her love for animals and how she periodically volunteers at an animal shelter nearby. I tell her I'm allergic to cats and she tells me that's a deal breaker. She follows that with a gentle shove and her face lit up with a beautiful ear to ear smile.
She then tells me how her apartment doesn't allow for animals, but she sneaks them in from the shelter occasionally.
The more I get to talking with this girl the more I fall helplessly into this attraction for her. The idea of being alone, no longer seems appealing to me. I look back on all those lonely nights I spent by myself; all those nights and days spent keeping to myself, avoiding conversation and realize that I was missing out.
As we make it to the road we take a left and begin to walk more cautiously, alert. We make sure that when there is a traveler coming down the road, we are not in sight at all. We take no chances and we add about a half an hour dodging trucks and cars to our walk, diving into nearby bushes and dropping to the ground.
As we continue to walk we make a right onto another road. This road is not as wide as the other one making me assume that it is a less 'traveled' road. At least less than the other one. My theory proves to be right. We only have to dive and conceal ourselves a few more times before we feel that we have ventured into the other town far enough not to have to be so skittish. Besides diving to the ground every time there is a passerby may become more suspicious than if we just kept walking normally.
We finally make it to a small, quiet street where small apartment complexes line the sides. The small two story apartments are surrounded by grass and trees as well as other small greenery. We walk up to one of the apartments and Aubri begins to fiddle with her keys. I glance around at the few decorations that adorn the walls and ground outside of her apartment. A please wipe your paws mat is prominently displayed below the door. A small statue of a cat swatting at the sky stands next to the mat.
The door knob gives a slight grind sound as she inserts they key into the lock hole. She turns it and unlocks the door. Opening the door releases a sweet pheromone that nearly sweeps me off my feet. Take the sweet, flowery scent of Aubri and multiply it by ten and add a dose of heaven, that's what her place smelt like. Indescribable by any means, including words, my sense of smell reached the state of nirvana upon entering the room.
We talk for a little while all together in the dim lighting of the living room and decide that we need to get some rest before we even dare to follow through with our plan. If we tried it tonight, without any kind of sleep or rest, 'we might as well walk in there handcuffed and blindfolded' as Tristis puts it.
Aubri plays hostess as she pulls an arm full of blankets and sheets from a closet nearby. The blankets are scattered around the couch and floor of the room. She disappears again into the hallway and returns with another armload of plush fabric. This time its pillows. She deals the pillow out onto the laid out blankets like a deck of cards. Tristis and Cynthia quickly settle into their sleeping spots. Cynthia on the couch. Tristis on the floor next to her. It doesn't take long for them to fall asleep. Tristis has his hand raised in the air, leaning up against the bed firmly gripping Cynthia's hand which hangs slightly over the edge of the couch.
Aubri and I stay up talking again about our lives and how we got to where we are today. We talked and talked, and laughed and laughed until the bustle of the day finally grips us in its inevitable clutches, forcing us to start to think about sleep. Even then we stayed up a few more minutes just letting silence take the conversation. Feeling it was enough just to be in each others presence, no words needed. Neither of us wanting to separate; we push our sleep deprivation limits to the maximum.
When we finally just can't stay up another minute we say our good-nights reluctantly and I watch her leave the room into her bedroom.
"See you in the morning," I whisper wishing that just by saying morning it might be beckoned enough to appear instantly in this moment so we don't have to part.
"Goodnight, Alex," She returns in a hushed whisper draining my legs of any strength they had stored up in them.
"Goodnight."