The Knowing Ch. 02

Sanchez laughed, "Well of course I love Santiago, he's great. But Sanchez, she does these funny things, and she pays attention, and she's curious. She's really something."

Walking behind her, into the woods Jaan suddenly realized exactly what Sanchez was talking about.

"Look," she said pointing ahead of her towards a dark space beyond the thicket of trees, "That's it there."

Jaan had only ever been in a cave once before in his life, on a class trip when he was about 7. He remembered nothing from the trip except that he went.

Santos pushed through the trees and towards the cave. As they walked closer to the cave opening Jaan could feel the difference in the air. It was cooler near the cave, by nearly 10 degrees or so. Jaan felt a chill go down his back, the cool air collapsing his wet t-shirt onto his skin. Santos looked back at him a moment and than ran into the cave disappearing into the darkness.

"Hey!" he screamed, running after her.

Inside the cave was even colder by maybe another 10 degrees. He could hear her laughing, but couldn't exactly place where she was.

"Santos!" he yelled.

"WOOoooooooOOOO OOooooPPPPPPppp" she yelled, her voice bounced all around them.

"What are you doing?" he yelled again He couldn't tell if she was in front of him or behind him.

"KKKKKKaaaaKKKKKAaaa AAAAAkkkkAAAAAHHHH!!" she yelled again, Jaan felt a little nervous, but mostly curious. He edged himself further into the cave inching his way on the pebbled ground toward what he assumed was the center. The light behind him was diminishing and he was nervous about what might be before him lurking inside.

"Santos?" he said again. He didn't yell it this time, but spoke it softly like she might be besides him.

Nothing.

He inched forward a little bit more listening to the sound of his feet crunching against the pebbles, the movement echoing against cave walls. He turned around facing the direction he came in and wondered if she had perhaps run back outside, in an attempt to trick him to go further into the cave.

"Santos!" he yelled again. His own voice bounced right back at him. Now he was scared. Where was this girl? He picked up his pace slightly further into the darkness into where he thought she might've gone. What if there was some kind of big hole she fell into? Or what if she...

"I'm right here," he heard her saying, a laugh in her voice, and then he felt her hand lightly encircle his elbow and walk him toward the faintest hint of light. The touch of her hand was warm and sweaty, but feeling the heat of her body so close so suddenly made Jaan hard. She continued to pull Jaan toward the faint light, never letting him go until he could feel himself starting to down hill, the light getting increasingly brighter. At the bottom of the hill was an opening, as they entered the opening Jaan could hear water falling. They had entered an alcove, the cave broke into an opening and they were now underneath a section of the river that broke off and continued below them, creating a mini 7 or 8-foot waterfall, which they now stood behind.

"This is crazy!' Jaan said, he was a bit shocked. He had partly figured that she was just going to try and scare the shit out of him, but he didn't expect this.

"Isn't it cool?" she said letting go of his elbow and stepping through the waterfall into the shallow section of river before them.

His elbow felt cold. He watched her gingerly walk on the slippery rocks deeper into the river and then throw herself in, submerging herself in the water fully clothed. Jaan watched her for a minute from behind the waterfall.

"Come on!" she yelled, and he stepped through the waterfall too, following her into the cool river water.

Santos

Santos lay on the pebbly riverbank and breathed in deeply, she could feel the heaviness of her socks inside her went shoes. Today was a good day. Undoubtedly one of the best she had had in a long time. Not only because she actually got to hang out with someone her own age, but because she felt lighter, and clearer than she had felt in a while. The sun was setting. There was no way they were going to make it home before dark, but she couldn't help but close her eyes and let the warm air move over her face. She didn't want to move.

Jaan was still in the water. Like a 6 year old he was turning over rocks and looking underneath them. She sat up and looked at him. He had taken his wet shirt off and was in his boxers and basketball shorts, his long hair wet down his lightly tanned back.

"We have to go soon," She yelled out to him. He turned to look at her and then trudged through the river to meet her on the bank. He sat down beside her and she lay back down on the rocks. She suddenly had the strongest urge to touch him. Somehow she felt like she needed to put her hands on him, but instead she kept her hands to herself stuffing them into her short pockets.

"Yea, it's going to get dark soon."

She turned her head to look at him. He was looking at her already. He had a strange look on his face, one that made her sit up and crinkle her eyebrows at him.

"What?"

"Sanchez loves you a whole lot." He said quickly.

She laughed, "I know."

Jaan nodded his head and looked up at the sky. He stood up, and then walked over to his wet shirt and put it on. "Ok let's go."

They walked back to their bikes in silence. But through the cave, Santos held onto Jaan's elbow again although he was the one that led them out of it. They said nothing too as they were unchaining their bikes, except Santos heard Jaan vaguely say that he was hungry. Santos didn't know what to say, so she got on her bike first and rode ahead of him.

Something was passing through them. Santos wasn't quite sure what, but she could feel it, a surging of warm energy through the both of them and it was freaking her out a bit. On the ride home she showed Jaan how to do wheelies and it made things sort of normalize again, they were talking again and the feeling was subsiding, but she could still feel the tingles, the snaps of energy she got when he looked at her, or when he laughed. She felt like she might be sick.

It was totally dark as they rode up to her house, the last strains of light had vanished a few minutes before. She had just started telling him another story but stopped abruptly when she could see her house in the distance. She started riding faster than him, she felt like she wanted to jump out of herself.

"Ok I'll see you later!" she shouted over her shoulder as she sped up away from him. Jaan followed.

"Wait!"

She had hopped off of her bike and was opening her front door when Jaan finally caught up to her.

"What are you doing? Wait a minute." He said laughing. She laughed too, but she was really beginning to feel truly sick.

"Sorry, I just want to get out of these wet clothes." She said laughing; she couldn't even look him in the face. What was going on?

"So...?" Jaan could tell something was going on. He knew something had changed but he wasn't sure what, he felt it too he was just unsure of what it meant.

"Ok, I'll tell Sanchez Sunday when they get here that you were looking for him" she said quickly looking him in his face. She needed to get rid of him.

"Ok but-"

"You should take him there sometime he'll really like it." She said stepping into the house.

"I know but-"

"So listen I'll see you around ok?" and with that she turned around and shut the door in his face.