The Meridians(83)

In the other world, the other vision that she was having simultaneously, she was holding the hand of the other Kevin, the boy who had told her and Scott to run, who had spoken of "the nexus" and "preserving symmetry." In that second world, the other Kevin was also holding hands with Scott.

Only no, it wasn't Scott. It was someone who looked like Scott, who appeared almost exactly like him, only this Scott had a bullet wound in his stomach. He was gasping, bleeding, dying.

The other Kevin looked at her. "History is seeking to repeat itself," he said cryptically. "The lines of history want to assert themselves in certain patterns. In this pattern, Scott will die. Unless you can save Kevin in your pattern."

A whimper escaped Lynette. Partly it was the fact that she was seeing Scott - or someone who looked like him - clearly bleeding and dying in front of her eyes. Partly it was the fact that she was seeing visions that could qualify her as completely mentally imbalanced.

But most of it was just hearing Kevin's voice, unimpeded by the autism that had plagued and limited him for his entire life. She was hearing her son, she knew, as he had been meant to be born.

Then, suddenly, a shot rang out. In that second world, that phantom world, she saw a bright flower of red open up on Scott's shirt - the other Scott's shirt.

"The lines of history want to assert themselves in certain patterns," repeated the other Kevin. Then he closed his eyes, and suddenly Lynette found herself back in the room, the single room, holding onto her Kevin and with her Scott - unhurt and without swollen flowers of blood drenching his stomach and chest - nearby.

"Where did you go?" said Scott in a low whisper, his eyes wide.

"What?"

"You were gone. Someone...else...was here," he said, almost stuttering. "Someone that looked like you, but wasn't. Someone who looked like Kevin, but wasn't. You kept phasing in and out like a picture going in and out of focus. Where were you?"

Lynette didn't know how to respond. She wasn't sure herself where she was, or what had happened. And not only that, but she had little time to ponder the import of her vision, because at that moment, Kevin did the unthinkable. He shook himself suddenly loose from her slackened grip and ran out of the room.

"Kevin!" she hissed, hoping that Mr. Gray had not heard it.

Kevin was not running the same way he had run in Albertson's - fleet and sure of foot - but rather was running as he was more wont to do: arms at his sides, rigidly taking the steps in a curiously awkward gate that was speedy but a far cry from what he had done earlier in the supermarket parking lot.

She was keenly aware of Scott's warnings about running: a hundred yards of no cover. If Mr. Gray came out at any point in that time, they would be caught, they would have to be caught.

She saw an image in her mind of Scott, shirt awash with blood, and heard Kevin again saying, "The lines of history want to assert themselves in certain patterns." Was this how it would happen? she wondered. Had the other Kevin been telling her that Scott was doomed to die no matter what, wounded in the stomach and chest, and then dying in front of her as history "asserted itself"? She did not know if she could handle that; did not know if she would be able to survive such a devastating blow to her soul. She had already lost one man she loved; she could not bear to lose another.

It was in that instant, the single instant in time when Kevin bolted for the door of the office, that she realized with stunning clarity that she did, in fact, love Scott. And it was not an infatuation born of lust or of the pulse-pounding terror and excitement of the last few days. It was something more real, fuller, more genuine than that. It was deep as she would have expected it to be if she and Scott had known each other for many years, instead of only a few days.

I love him, she thought. Then, on top of that thought, she had another: And he's destined to die.

No, she thought back at herself. No, I reject that.

It doesn't matter if you reject Truth, she answered. What is True is True, and remains so independent of how many people do or do not believe in it.

Thankfully, all further thoughts along those lines ceased as Kevin raced for the door. Lynette reached out to grab for him, but again as in the parking lot, he danced just out of her reach. Even in his usual, stumbling gait he somehow managed to elude her grasping fingers, as though he knew where she was going to grab at him and managed to move out of that spot just in time to avoid her hands.

He made it out the door before either Lynette or Scott could touch him, and was away in an instant, his head down as though he were pushing his way through a gale that was rapidly gaining strength and becoming a hurricane. He shuffled into the middle of the baseball diamond, past the bleachers that would have offered their only small hope of cover in this moonlit, starlit night, and into the empty space that marked right field before she and Scott caught up to him.

They grabbed him, and he looked lost and terrified, as though he didn't know what he was doing. He pawed at Scott suddenly, poking and prodding him in the chest and stomach.

"What the -" began Scott.

Lynette knew instantly what her son was doing; that he had somehow seen the version of events that she had seen earlier, the version where Scott was shot in stomach and chest. "Let him," she whispered.

"Let him what?" asked Scott.

"Let him make sure he can feel you're okay." Truth be told, she was somewhat jealous of Kevin in that moment. Being autistic gave a person a certain amount of immunity from having to observe the social norms that went along with living in any civilized community. So though Lynette also wanted to check Scott for wounds, she had to settle for allowing Kevin to do it.