A Need So Beautiful (A Need So Beautiful #1)(23)

“Hello, Charlotte,” she says, picking at the fingers of her leather gloves. “Any of this look familiar to you?”

Standing on the pavement, I feel nauseated. The next moment she discreetly waves her hand and the pain is gone. I’m fine. She looks back at me like she’s waiting for an answer.

“This . . . this is the Rose City Bridge,” I murmur. My voice sounds raspy, like I’m asleep. It occurs to me that maybe I still am.

“Very good.” She watches me for a long moment and I want to ask her so many questions, but I can’t seem to form the words. Everything feels so slow. I can barely move.

“Who are you?” I finally ask. She seems impressed.

“Onika.” She holds out her glove but I’m moving slowly and she pulls away before I can shake it. “You know,” she begins with a smile. “I’ve been looking for you for a long time, Charlotte. Been following Monroe for . . .” She pauses to think. “At least nine years. Where’ve you been, love?”

“Here. I’ve always been in Portland.” I feel the first drop of water hit my cheek and I look up to see storm clouds gathering above us.

Onika tilts her head, her blond hair cascading over her shoulder. She’s beautiful. “I couldn’t find you,” she sings. “It’s been quite a Forgotten dry spell around here. They must have been hiding you.”

“Who was hiding me?”

“The powers that be, I guess. But they can’t help you.” She hops down from the railing and the nausea returns, but this time Onika does nothing to stop it. “I can.”

“You can help me?”

There’s a crackle of thunder that shakes the bridge. Above us, the clouds part slightly to let down the sunlight. It lands on me and I can’t believe how warm it is. How inviting.

Onika smirks and turns away to walk across the bridge, her boots echoing on the pavement. “Damned sunshine,” she says without looking back. “Seems it’s time for you to wake up.” She snaps her fingers.

I jolt awake, feeling like I’ve just been dropped into my bed. I’m completely disoriented as I try to work through my dream. But it’s fading fast. Was that real? Is Onika real? The handle of my bedroom door starts to turn and I’m frozen in place. Is she here?

Sarah’s head pops in the door and she raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow at me.

“Wow,” she says, before pushing the door all the way open. I feel like I haven’t seen her in days, weeks. “You look like hell,” she adds.

“Thanks.” My heart rate slows and I try to sit up, the last bits of my dream nearly gone. I touch the stitches in my head. They’re still there. And they still really hurt.

“I waited at Frankie’s forever,” Sarah starts. “Thanks and all. Then I decided that if you were too screwed up to meet me, you must be really bad off. So I had my driver bring me here. Mom took the Beamer today. Oh,” she says, reaching her arm out, clutching a white paper bag, “I brought you a burger. But it’s probably cold by—”

I jump forward and grab it from her hands, tearing into the bag. I’m ravenous. I take out the sandwich and push it into my mouth without saying anything. It’s delicious. When I look up, Sarah’s staring at me like I’m an animal at the zoo. “What?” I say with a full mouth.

“Uh, nothing, tiger. You’re sure tearing into that meat.”

I look down and see ketchup running down my hand, bits of bun and lettuce lying in my lap, on my comforter. “Oh.” I demurely (if it’s possible at this stage) reach into the bag and take out a napkin, dabbing at the corners of my mouth.

“Much better,” she says sarcastically before pulling a chair from my desk and taking a seat next to me. “So are you really okay?” And for the first time, I see that she’s worried. Complete, freaking-out worried.

I nod. “I’ll be fine.” But my words are hollow. I don’t know if I’m okay, but I do know that I need to talk to Monroe again. He has to tell me what he’s holding back. I have to believe that there’s a way to keep me from disappearing into light. “What time is it?” I ask.

Sarah glances down at her delicate silver watch. “Almost three.”

I nod and try to get up. “I have to go by the clinic and talk with Monroe. I think he’s there now.”

“You’re well enough to see him, but not me?”

“He’s my doctor.”

She sighs. “And I’m your best friend. Totally uncool.”

“I have some things I have to do—”

“And I need a friend right now!” Suddenly her eyes begin to well up and I know that I’ve missed something big. Something about last night.

I reach out to grab her sleeve, pulling her over to sit with me on the bed. “What happened?”

She rolls her eyes, as if she doesn’t want to tell me now. “You should have foreseen it,” she murmurs. But I’ve told her before, I’m not psychic. My problems are so much bigger than having a few visions. So much worse.

I wait only a second before Sarah starts talking. “I saw Seth last night.”

“That’s good. I thought that was the whole upside of going to the dinner.”

She pauses, and meets my eyes. “It was. And he was happy to see me. Very happy.” She looks away and I’m confused, but I decide not push it. To let her tell me in her own way.