Glimpse by Stacey Wallace Benefiel Read Free Book Online Page A

doing.  I was just gonna go with it.
    The instant Avery pulled my top lip in between his, my anxiety melted away, and was replaced by sensory overload.  Every ounce of my body pulsed. 
    He pressed against me closer, harder, pushing his mouth into mine. I grabbed at him, sliding my hands under his jacket, drawing him to me. There wasn’t thought. My body acted independently of my brain, out of my control. I arched my back, meeting his touch at every point of contact.
    I breathed him in, finally. He smelled sweet and clean, like oranges and…Glycerin soap. My lips were going numb.
    “You okay?” he asked, coming up for air. “I’m, uh, that was even better than I thought it would be.”
    “Keep going.” I brought my swollen mouth up to his.
     He traced the edge of my face with his nose, kissing my neck. I thought I was going to spontaneously combust. I twisted my fingers into his hair, pulling his mouth back to mine. His fingertips brushed up and down my waist. He moved his hands around to the small of my back, grasping my hips.  I didn’t push him away.  I wanted this.
    Then Melody was saying something and everyone was hurrying around the room. Different, faster music put on.  We stood there stunned, looking into each other’s eyes, letting the intensity move between us for just a second more. Avery backed away from me. He looked like he’d been punched in the mouth.
    “Tomorrow, after church, can you meet me at the lake?”
    I almost couldn’t get the words out of my own puffy lips. “Yes.  Yeah.  I’ll be there.”
     

    Avery felt electric.  Lying on top of his made bed in the dark, still wearing his church clothes, he listened for his parents, trying to detect any movement coming from their bedroom. All he could hear was the energy coming off of him. The whole room was buzzing.
    He kicked his shoes off, letting them fall with a soft thud onto the blue carpet of his bedroom floor.  Sitting up, he took off his suit jacket and white dress shirt, wadding them up and throwing them in the general vicinity of his laundry basket. Lying back down he unbuckled his belt and took his slacks off, pushing them to the end of his bed.
    Rolling onto his side, he closed his eyes and pictured Zellie’s face as he leaned in to kiss her.  He traced his lips with his index finger. He smiled, feeling dumb for calling what he and Zellie did just kissing. Again, he had overcome his fears and touched her, touched her the way he’d fantasized about, and it had been effortless, instinctual.
    A sense of relief washed over him.  The wondering was over.  He let himself admit what he had been pushing down for a very long time. He loved Zellie and now he was certain she loved him too.
     

    It had been two hours since my sixteenth birthday party had ended. Three hours since I had first kissed Avery. Four hours since I’d had the vision of him bleeding to death on the side of the road.
    I’d spent the past twenty minutes trying to concentrate on the vision, that’s what it was, about that I had no doubt. I wanted to figure out what it meant, but my mind kept wandering back to the kiss. I replayed my first kiss over and over in my head until the vision and my curiosity about it subsided. I was going to have to check with Claire, but I didn’t think the whole “dry hump as first kiss” experience was normal.  I could still sense the intensity of it vibrating in my bones.
    Now, however, as I lay in bed listening to Melody snore, I needed to think about the vision without interrupting myself. Work through it.
    First off, why did I have it?  Was it my age?  Was it because of Avery? Okay, if I was being truthful with myself, I wasn’t completely shocked. My whole life I had known things about people. Like the game with Mom. I had always had a gut feeling about others lives, what they were sick with, if they were close to death.  When I visited people after church with Mom on Sundays, I always saw if that person was going