Page 20 of Chasing Dreams
“Now I know differently,” she went on. “The institute—Tom especially—helped me understand that my dreams were real.” She waved a hand. “But I disappointed them all with my lack of abilities in any of their test areas.”
Finally he turned back to her.
“I left after a month,” she said. “I couldn’t afford to not run my business, and we weren’t getting anywhere. They wanted me to do more tests, but I knew it was pointless.” She raised her glistening gaze to his. “Did you take all those tests?”
The answer was out before he realized he was going to give it. “I spent years being tested and observed and recorded. Those researchers wait years for a find like me.”
“And you were just a child?”
He nodded.
“How did you first know?” she asked. “That you had this... ability?”
Taking time to think about his reply, he left to refill their cups and carried them out, sitting on the sofa across from her. She’d been honest with him. He didn’t intend to get chummy, but she needed to know she wasn’t the only one who had experienced these things.
“One day when I was about four or five,” he told her. “My mother showed me my grandfather’s war medals. I held one in the palm of my hand. I saw battles. I saw him in an army hospital. I saw his coffin covered with a flag, and I smelled roses. I described it all to my mother. She staggered a moment, but then she found a place in North Carolina to have me tested.”
“What happened then?
“They drilled me with ESP cards, mind-mapping games, remote viewing exercises and every imaginable test.” He ran a thumbnail along the crease of his jeans. “I had abilities in all those areas, but like I said before, my strength was in touching objects and getting pictures of the owner.”
“That’s incredible.”
“It was pretty normal for me. I’d always done it in some way or another. Once I developed the ability, it was just my life. I didn’t know anything else.”
She leaned forward as if listening with her whole body. He’d never talked about this with anyone before, and he didn’t know why he was telling her now, except that for some unexplainable reason he didn’t want her to feel alone.
He understood loneliness.
“I had a few dreams,” he said, and her expressive eyes widened.
“Like mine?”
“Similar.” A flush came to her cheeks and he knew she was relieved to hear him say these things. Her sincere reaction made him glad he’d told her. “Anyway, articles got published about the criminal cases. Once the ball was rolling, it gained more and more momentum until after a while all I did was find victims and tune in to killers. I couldn’t go to school anymore because the kids and teachers knew about my talents and connections to the police.”
“That must have been awful.”
“My mom moved us around. But it was the same everywhere. We couldn’t keep a low profile. My mom fancied herself an agent of sorts.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’d get a call, book us a ‘gig’ and take money from people to find their loved ones.”
“You had to live,” she said.
“We could’ve lived like everyone else did. But she liked it that way. She took advantage of people who were hurting. I didn’t realize until I was older, exactly what she was doing. What I was doing.”
Though his voice and expression were carefully controlled, her expression said she’d seen through them to his pain.
“Sometimes,” he said, more lightheartedly. “I’d pretend I wasn’t picking up on anything, so I could have a rest from it. Sort of a vacation.”
She studied the flames. “You were treated like a freak,” she said softly.
He didn’t know how well he liked her easy assessment of his feelings. “I guess so.”
“I know how that feels.”
“You do?”
