Destiny's Revenge (Destiny Series - Book 2) by Straight, Nancy (novels in english .TXT) 📗

He was really here: Max was right in front of me. He didn’t see me, and he couldn’t hear me. Could he feel me? I reached for his arm closest to me, and just like the rocks and sand I had touched, I could feel him, but my touch didn’t so much as ruffle his shirt sleeve. I foolishly tried again to talk to him, but no sound came out.

I realized it was no use. I was dreaming. I had known that from the very beginning. This was such a realistic dream. I walked in lock step with Max the whole way up the mountain. He was moving to the shade that the goats had occupied. Every couple minutes I could hear him speaking words of encouragement to Ski. The man’s leg was caked with dried blood and soaked-through bandages.

Once Max and Ski were both in the shade, I sat on the ground next to Max. He was exhausted, his hands covered in dried blood, his face unshaven for a week. I kept trying to touch his face, tracing the lines of his face, touching his lips. I tried to hold his hand, but there was no recognition that he even knew I was with him. I stayed with Max from the time the sun blazed directly overhead until it had passed over the mountain. He had dozed off a few times, only to wake himself up a few minutes later. As the heat of the day began to subside, I found the clear images of everything around me beginning to fade in front of my eyes. I reached out to touch Max’s face: my fingers felt the coarseness of the stubble on his cheek, the warmth of his skin, and the dryness of his chapped lips.

My vision of Max in the middle of nowhere on a desolate mountain faded into nothingness. I awoke in my room at the nursing home. As I looked at the clock, it was 7:00 a.m. - time to start my day. I thought about my dream of Max for several minutes before I forced myself to get up and get moving. It felt like I had really spent several hours with Max, but I reasoned that I had just watched one too many war movies, and so desperately wanted to hear from him, that I made myself believe that I was with him in a war zone.

The morning of the forty-third day the nursing home administrator stopped by and told me rather than them keeping me in my current room, they were going to move me to the assisted living wing. This didn’t seem like much of a difference, but, boy, was I wrong. This was where all the old retirees went to hang out. Joe requested the same move, and we were both routed to our new rooms.

Although not as lavish as a cruise ship, this assisted living area was awesome. There was only one nurse in the entire wing, everyone else were just staff members. These staff members could be compared to that really cool babysitter you had when you were a kid. We played shuffle board, there were two jazzercise classes each day, a book club, bingo, backgammon tournaments, and endless choices for entertainment. The residents were much more upbeat in this area, and most still had their own cars.

Joe was really in his element here. If he had not had me tagging along with him everywhere, there were at least five women who were all pretty sweet on him. My novelty still hadn’t worn off with my family, but they all had jobs to get back to, so my string of visitors was limited to evenings.

Rewsna was the only exception. She arrived every day promptly at eight a.m. I had my first real milestone before her arrival on the forty-fifth morning. I had woken up, showered, dressed, gone to breakfast, and brushed my teeth without any assistance. I had seen Joe at breakfast, but there was a lady, Ruby, who was desperate to spend time with him, so I made my way to a table off in the corner in lieu of my usual seat beside him.

Rewsna seemed genuinely glad to see me and just as thrilled as I was with my progress. We settled into the pseudo living room in my mini-apartment. Neither of us were tremendous at small talk, but it made me feel good all the same that she would come to see me and pretend that she was interested in the weather and the Riverdogs baseball team.

Rewsna casually took my hand and caught my eye when she asked, “Have you heard from Max yet?” I could hear a hopefulness in her voice that made my heart spasm. She always seemed to know way more than she let on, so I had hoped she would be able to give me some information on him.

I shook my head that I hadn’t, “No, I wish I could just know that he was all right. I understand being in the middle of nowhere, but at some point he has to come back to his base, right?”

She nodded in agreement and told me how sorry she was, but she was sure he would contact me soon.

It was easy to be open with Rewsna; whether I said things out loud or just thought them was irrelevant to her. That dream I had of Max climbing up a mountain had haunted me, and I thought it was worthwhile to share. “The funny thing is that for years I always had the same dream about Max. You know the one, where he comes to me and tells me he’s my destiny, that I have to be courageous to find him?” She nodded that she knew what dream I was talking about. “A couple nights ago I had a really strange dream, completely different. I could see him but he couldn’t see me. I could feel