I packed up that night and left the next day without speaking a word to Sean. Not knowing where I was going, I bought the first bus ticket out of Penn station and just kept going until I couldn’t go anymore. I ended up in a hotel in Hellebore and got the job at Manny’s. Noli was in the diner that day and asked if I had found a place to live yet. When I told her I was still looking, she asked me to move in, and the rest is history. I had a good life in New York, but this life is quiet and normal, I am dying inside. I haven’t been on a horse in two years. I haven’t smelled all that wonderful musty horse barn air in so long. Looking back, maybe I shouldn’t have left in such a rush, but it felt like my world just ended, and I couldn’t breathe. Escape was my only option.
I pull myself from this horrible chain of thoughts and notice Noli is cornered in an argument between the two men she was dancing with. I think about the reading she did, and the guys she mentioned. The cards are only a game, so this is just some silly coincidence. I’m standing a few feet away,so I can’t hear them over the loud music, but I see the big burly guy on her right pull something shiny out of his pocket. His face is scrunched in anger, and he looks like he’s going to flip out. The short, stocky guy on her left takes a step forward, putting Noli in the middle of the two men. This is making me nervous. As I’m walking over to grab her away from them, burly guy flings his arm back and opens a knife in his grasp. I stop in shock. Noli doesn’t notice it, and a scream passes my lips to warn her. It’s as if I’m watching a movie in slow motion. The knife is flung from his hand and is slowly flying toward her. My Cosmo slips from my hands, and crashes on the floor as my arms fly up in front of me into a stopping motion. I start to run straight at her to pull her out of the way, when I notice no one is moving. Not a single person or object is in motion. It’s almost like they are frozen in time. I look around, and all the people are stuck. There’s a guy next to me who is in mid-trip, his beer is cascading in an arc toward the floor. Each droplet stranded in time. His face is contorted in surprise, and his hands are bracing for the fall, but it never comes. I feel like I’m in a dive bar version of The Matrix.
How is this happening? Who is doing this? I turn around in a circle looking for movement, or any indication that someone is doing this, but no one is moving except me. Then I see it, the knife is inches from Noli’s heart. I rush over to reach her, wasting no more time. I pluck it out of the air, and throw it to the floor. Before I can examine the scene more, or think about what just could have happened, everything starts back up again. The pulsing music is so intense that I double over from the ear crushing pain. I glance up at Noli and see she is no longer paying attention to the two idiots, who are now looking around confused. Her eyes are all on me. The thought suddenly occurs to me that I am the one who did this. I somehow hit a virtual pause button in the space-time continuum, and I have no idea how the fuck I did that.
Security guards come barreling over and grab the two men by their necks and escort them out. She doesn’t even notice that they leave. I don’t even want to think what would have happened if I hadn’t stopped time, or whatever it is that I did. I’m dizzy, and my stomach doesn’t feel quite right.
“How did you get over here so fast, Az?” Noli asks me, with a bit of a shocked look on her face. I notice that her makeup is starting to smudge from all the sweat on her skin.
“I was standing here the whole time, Noli,” I say, not ready to confess to her that I may or may not have stopped time.
“No, you weren’t. The last time I saw you, you were over there dancing and looking like you were having a semi-good time. Then these two dickwads got into it because they thought that I was going home with one of them, and the next moment I’m looking at you almost puking your guts up on this floor. Something isn’t right,” she says, sounding exasperated. She is flustered and scared, but I still can’t tell her. It’s crazy. I don’t even know what happened.
“I’m not feeling too good, so I’m going over to the bar to get a glass of water and cool down. I’ll be back in ten,” I say, walking away without waiting for her response. She yells after me, but I ignore her.
“Azra, wait a minute,” she says, grabbing my arm. “What the fuck just happened? You can’t run away from this.”
I don’t want to talk about this. I
