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Sweet Discords † 7

When I wake up the next morning, I don't know what wakes me up the beaming sun through the open window or my subconscious mind worried over Caleb. Turning over on my stomach, I push up on my elbows and watch Caleb sleep. His dark eyelashes flutter in his dreaming. Soft breaths blow from his slightly parted lips. His usual creamy skin is ashen from worry. I can't imagine the guilt that must have been eating at him. He was so guilty last night it had him questioning his existence. I never want to see him like that again. Pulling up to him, I lay my head in to the crook of his neck and fall back to sleep.

†

  I look over my shoulder, as I hear Felise stir in the bed behind me and I put down my mom's shirt I was folding with her jeans and folded socks at the end of the bed. Felise lifts her head looking for me and I climb on to the bed next to her and she whirls around feeling my presence and I instantly meet her with a kiss. She immediately pulls down to the bed and it takes no coaxing from me for her to know that I want her, as she wraps her arms around my neck and I straddle her waist. 

  †

  "Nathan wants us to meet him at the Shakespeare Cafe?" Felise says already dressed, as she checks her phone for Nathan's message.

  "Hah! That's ironic," I say sarcastically, as I pull my shirt on over my head.

  With my shirt on, I walk over to Felise and take her phone from her checking the message for myself. Of course, I knew he wasn't kidding, but this is truly ironic. 

  "He couldn't have picked a Starbucks?" I ask incredulously.

  "It's not too far from here," Felise says, looking up to me from my own phone. "We could walk there." 

  I look back at her phone and wonder if that is a good idea, us being out in the open. It's as good of a choice as any as I look out on the morning traffic and pedestrians below. It's a good crowd. One where we can keep low and they shouldn't be able to find us. Even if they did they wouldn't want a string of bodies following them if they try to attack just to get to us. The police would catch on soon enough. Putting my phone in my back pocket, I turn to Felise and say, "Lets go."

  From down here the streets are even busier, as we make our way down the four blocks it takes to get to the cafe. People stare at us weirdly, as we pass seeing Felise with my sword strapped to her back and my two unused magazines sticking out my back pocket. Outside the cafe, Nathan sits at a French red patio table with two matching chairs beside him on the cafe patio waiting for us to join him. There are few occupied tables surrounding him already making it easy for us to get skipped over in a search. As we take our seats across from him, it's almost strange seeing Nathan without his pastor's suit on. In a button down over jeans, he looks more like a college student than his twenty-seven years of age. He doesn't look up at us immediately, as we take our seats across from him, but sips at his coffee.

  "Y'all okay?" he asks, as if unconcerned still not looking up at us.

  Felise looks at me with nervous, weary eyes. It's then that I understand what's wrong. This all feels wrong. Fear spikes in my heart and I feel unsafe. It has nothing to do with Nathan, but the situation. Nathan's voice strikes me out of my fear.

  "You need to understand that everyone in your life must be a reincarnation of those in your previous life," Nathan says, finally looking up at us. "It is your job to figure out who is who, so that you know who is on your side." 

  Felise and I look at each other again and back at Nathan. Nathan produces a pen and paper out of his pocket, unfolding the piece of paper and flattens it out on the table with two names already written down on it. Pastors Evans on one side and across from it with an arrow Father Laurence. Felise pushes up in her chair looking down at the paper and says, "Momma Clarice. Nurse."