Gasp (Visions) by Lisa McMann Read Free Book Online Page A

it.”
    I think hard. Is this a psych question? A life lesson based on book facts? I figure it is. He’s that kind of teacher.
    “Because it makes you guys feel better?” I guess. And I know it’s something like that. “You felt helpless to fix the real problem—i.e., make our house and restaurant not burn down—so . . . you do what you are capable of doing to help us and appease your inner . . . whatever?”
    “Close enough,” Mr. Polselli says. “An A for the day.” He slips back into his classroom, leaving me standing there, kind of in shock, when Sawyer finally comes.
    •  •  •
    We decide that it’s best not to have Trey with us when we visit Tori since he acted like a crazed madman the last time Tori and her mom saw us. And they don’t know Rowan, so we leave her home as well to help Mom and Dad search for an apartment for us. Sawyer and I make the familiar trek up to Tori’s room.
    “Hey,” I say, lightly knocking on the open door. I poke my head in.
    “Come in,” Tori says, her voice listless.
    Tori’s mom frowns when she sees us, like she’s not expecting us. I glance at Sawyer.
    “We’re really sorry about what happened last time we were here, Mrs. Hayes,” Sawyer says, looking at Tori’s mom. “Trey—Jules’s brother—had just run here all the way from campus to let us know that there was a fire at their restaurant.”
    “Oh dear,” Tori’s mom says, her face softening immediately. “Is everything all right?”
    “It’s fine,” I say. I don’t want them to have to pity us too—they have enough to worry about. “But yeah, I’m sorry for the way Trey came screaming in here, scaring everybody.”
    “It’s understandable,” Tori’s mom says, and Tori nods.
    Sawyer and I pull chairs to the side of the bed, across from Tori’s mom. We sit, and I give Tori a reassuring smile. But I’m worried. Will she talk in front of her mom? Does her mom know why we’re here? We talk for a minute about how Tori is doing with her slow road to recovery. And then, after we run out of small talk topics, I say, “So, I got your text.”
    “Yeah,” Tori says. She looks uncomfortable, and I don’t know what to do. Tori’s mom is paging through a magazine.
    I mouth the words “Do you want to talk about this now?”
    Tori’s eyes flit over to her mother and then back to me. She nods. “Yeah,” she says. “She knows.” It’s impossible to read her face. And she’s not giving us anything.
    “Okay, so if I remember correctly,” I say, “we told you about Sawyer seeing a vision as a sort of aftereffect of the shooting. Right?”
    Tori nods.
    “Are you seeing a vision?” Sawyer asks.
    “Maybe. I don’t know.”
    “But you’re seeing something? Like, a reflection, or on TV, or in the windows?” Sawyer leans forward.
    Mrs. Hayes looks up. “The doctor believes it’s a side effect of the drugs,” she says in a firm voice. “And I agree.”
    “Mom, please.”
    Sawyer sits back. “Well, um . . .” He looks at me, scrambling, not knowing what to say.
    I don’t know what to say either. I wish Tori’s mom would go away so we could talk. But we’ve never seen Tori without her mother here. She never leaves. She even has a cot set up. I take a breath. “Um,” I say. “I—I—I think I need to give you some information that is going to sound really weird.” I bite my lip and glance at Sawyer.
    He shrugs.
    “You see,” I say, “it really started with me.” And I giveher the entire story, even going into the part where Sawyer got his vision, and how we saved people because we prevented the shooting from being worse.
    And that’s when Tori’s mom stops us. She stands up and says, “That’s enough.”
    I swallow hard.
    “My daughter has been through a tremendous amount of pain and stress. You are not making her any better with your crazy theories and your—your—making light of the fact that my daughter almost died. This isn’t a joke, and if you two