Peace Love Resistance Read online

  “Hey, where’re you going?” my mom asked as I zoomed past her.

  “For a ride.”

  “Smelling like that?”

  Being quick normally wasn’t my thing, but it came out of nowhere, and I mentally patted myself on the back. “Yeah, I’m pretending I’m home in my real life. I’ll be back later.”

  Again, I heard my dad tell her to let me go. Maybe I didn’t hate him as much as I’d thought. At least he kept my mom off my back. I smiled as I stepped out to the front porch, hearing her response.

  “He hates me. My kid hates me.”

  Kota wagged his tail, coming to his feet as I skipped the steps, but I ignored him. Dumb dog just didn’t get it. I kicked the bike over, happy that the new plugs helped. It didn’t seem as sluggish and I actually got it up to forty. Almost. That was ten miles faster than it was before I tuned it up. I headed across the river with a smile, a purpose, a passion.

  Tristan and a baby. God help me.

  Chapter Six

  It takes nothing to join the crowd,

  It takes everything to stand alone.

  ~Hans F Hansen

  I pulled into the secluded camp, killing the engine and coasting to Tristan. Tobias was asleep in his girl sling, nestled close to her while Tristan chopped a carrot, tossing it into a skillet over a two burner camp stove.

  “Hi,” I said, my fingers combing through my windblown hair.

  Tristan glanced up to me, her eyes opening wider, and then quickly shifting back to her carrot. “Jesus, you look like trouble, but come here anyway.”

  I boasted, my tail feathers on full display, walking to the folding table where she prepared our dinner. I looked like trouble. That was good. I could tell. “Do you ever put him down?”

  Once again, she looked up to me. This time holding my gaze. “Not really. Only when I can’t hold him, when I shower.”

  “Want me to hold him while you do that? Not shower. Cook, I mean.”

  Tristan laughed, wiped her hands, and loosened the strap, kissing Tobias on his sleeping lips. “I mean, you can if you want to. I’m getting used to doing everything with him.”

  “Why?” I questioned, taking him in my arms.

  My gaze was stuck on his tiny little body nestled in my arms when her thumb touched the goose egg right below my eye.

  “What happened?”

  I glanced from Tobias to her, our eyes locking, stirring an energy I didn’t understand. Avery and I had been dating since the middle of sophomore year, almost two years, and she never made me feel like this. Her touch was physical, Tristan’s was magical. “Wrench,” I smiled.

  “You’re kind of late,” she said, her accusing eyes shifting back to the vegetables.

  “Whatcha making?”

  “Veggie fajitas. You can sit,” she said, more of an order than an offer, her head nodding to the folding chair from inside the van and her eyes staying on mine.

  I sat, looking down to Tobias squeaking from a stretch. One little eye peeped open, he yawned, and then opened the other one. “Hey Baby T. How are you?”

  Tristan looked up to me with another hint of shock that I didn’t get and then she laughed it off when both Baby-T’s eyes closed. “He was just kidding,” she teased.

  “He’s so little. I bet he doesn’t weigh more than a gallon of milk.”

  “He does. He’s up to seven pounds. He was six-four when he was born.”

  I watched Tristan and Tobias at the same time, my eyes switching back and forth, in awe of both of them. “How do you know?”

  “Fish scales,” she admitted with the most poetic giggle I’d ever heard.

  I was so screwed. “Want to see a video I made. I posted it a few days ago and its gone crazy, almost a thousand likes.

  Her bright eyes lost their light, moving from mine back to her meal, a disappointed expression stealing her joy. “Facebook, right?”

  “Yes, I made it on my drive here. I uploaded it on my YouTube channel, but I haven’t had a chance to check it there. It’s pretty cool.”

  Tristan looked at me with defeat in her eyes and again, I didn’t get it. “Yes, Tobias, I’ll look at your video, but Facebook’s got to go. You said you wanted to learn.”

  My head went along with the confused expression when I looked at her as though she’d just grown another head. “Go where? What do you mean?”

  “Delete your account.”

  “Seriously? Why?”

  “Because you said you wanted to learn.”

  “And you’re going to teach me by me deleting my Facebook?”

  “And Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Google+, and whatever other social media sites you’re on.”

  No way. I was almost to five-thousand friends, I had thousands of photos and videos on all my sites and my like page had almost ten-thousand. That wasn’t happening. “Why? What does social media have to do with anything?”

  “It’s a distraction. Do you want something to drink? Well, water. That’s all I have,” she added, her genuine smile trying to return.

  I took it as a way to sidestep the ongoing disagreement and let it go. “Water’s fine. Did you go to Smitty’s?”

  “Yeah, he didn’t have one.”

  Once again, I gave her a confused look, my thumb hiking toward her van. “He didn’t have a radio to fit this thing?”

  “I’m looking for a certain one. I normally make this with Tabasco sauce, but I’m afraid of it upsetting Tobias’s belly. You can put it on afterward if you want.”

  “Why would it upset— Oh, never mind,” I countered, stopping that one right there. Even for a newborn rookie, no explanation was needed.

  Tristan placed Tobias back in his sling, close to her chest when we sat down to eat.

  My eyes glanced to the wrap thing full of green stuff and onions on my plate. I hated onions and spinach. Deciding to taste it before covering the flavor with hot sauce, I made small talk. “Does he cry? I haven’t heard him cry since he was born.”

  “No, not really. I don’t want him to cry.”

  “Isn’t it supposed to be good for them? Like it clears out their lungs or something?”

  She smiled, failing the attempt to cover her amusement. “Did you read that somewhere?”

  “I don’t know. I just thought that.”

  “Babies don’t cry if their contact needs are met. Why would I want him to cry? You should know by now that I don’t really color in the lines.”

  My taste buds, relished in the delicious fajitas. Even with no meat and lots of green spinach, they were excellent. I studied her, chewing the food in my mouth. “Why not?”

  “Why not? Why don’t I conform like most people?”

  I shrugged, talking around the food in my mouth. “I mean, if that’s how you want to look at it. It’s probably not how the majority see it.”

  “That’s because they’re all asleep like you,” she accused; a light hearted whisper like it was a big secret, followed by a smile.

  Even though I was sitting there across from her, wide-awake, I nibbled on her bait. “How do I wake up?”

  Tristan looked down to a squirming Tobias, speaking to him before me. “Well, hello. Did you wake up? You were sleeping a long time.” Throwing a thin blanket over her shoulder, she fumbled with her dress, situating Baby T for his own meal like I wasn’t even there before getting back to my question. She looked at me without words, a silence I assumed she needed to gather her solution. “I don’t know, Tobias. I’m used to talking about this stuff with other people. People with the same esoteric knowledge. I don’t know how to start with you. I’ve always been aware.”

  Having absolutely no clue what she had just said, I refrained from telling her to speak English. “Esoteric? I don’t know what that word means.”

  “By definition it means, likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest.”

  That’s when it dawned on me. Like a light bulb instantly flipped on. “A cult.”
r />   That made her laugh, an unexpected giggle with jubilant eyes and bouncing shoulders. I loved her eyes, two shades of brown with a golden tint, simple, and pretty. “No, this isn’t about being in a group or a religion. It’s just hard to explain it to someone with your blissful ignorance.”

  I tilted my head, a flirty grin to the side, “You throw the blissful part in there to lighten the blow?”

  She flirted right back. I knew she did, I could see it in her smile, her eyes, and the way her bare shoulders squared. That wasn’t just a look. “Maybe you’re a little smart.”

  “How did you get this way? Awake?”

  Tristan chewed the food in her mouth, peering beneath the blanket before replying. “My dad left my mom a cassette tape before he died, something he had been recording for six months. Unlike most people, my dad knew why he was here on this earth. The first ten years of my life was spent trying to be like everyone else and then I found the tape. I’ve listened to that tape since I was ten, and I still go back to it when I need to. My dad’s the reason I’m free.”

  For a quick second, I thought about asking for the tape. My van had a cassette player in it, although I wasn’t sure if it worked. Besides, I didn’t want to listen to a tape, I wanted to hear it all from her just to be with her whether I learned to ‘wake up’ or not. “Teach me what he taught you.”

  Her eyes drifted to her plate slowly and then back to me, her tone quiet and serious. “I’m going to try, Tobias, but I need to know one thing first.”

  “Okay, what?”

  “If you don’t think you’re a spirit in a human body, I’m wasting both of our time.”

  I scratched my eyebrow, thinking about how to respond to that. A spirit in a human body. Rather than lying to her like I’d initially planned, I told her the truth. “I don’t know what that means either, Tristan, but I’m here, I want to learn, and—.”

  Silence fell between us when I stopped midsentence. We sat, quietly for a moment, our eyes searching each other out. “What, Ty?”

  “I want to be with you, with Baby-T.”

  She blinked three quick blinks like I’d startled her or something before responding. “Why?”

  A quick puff of air fell from my lungs, sputtering from my lips. “I don’t know. I feel like—like.”

  “Like you’ve known me from before?”

  “Yes, just like that.”

  “That’s because you have. We’re twin flames. We’ve loved each other for a long time, many lifetimes from our pasts.”

  Although I didn’t really believe in the whole past lives thing, she did make sense. Sort of. I didn’t respond because I didn’t know how. Tristan was very passionate about her beliefs, and offending her seemed to come natural to me.

  She broke the silence and the trance. “What do you feel?”

  “I don’t know, Tristan. I think—.”

  “No, I didn’t ask what you think. I want to know what you feel.”

  As out of character as it was for me, I took a deep breath and said it. Exactly how I felt. I looked down to my plate and played with an escaped black bean to help with the spot she’d put me on. “I feel like you’re right. Not only do I feel like I’ve known you forever, I feel like I have loved you forever. I feel drawn to you in a way I’ve never felt before, like we’re magnetized or something.”

  Tristan smiled, her head tilting to the side. “And that’s the only reason I’m even giving you a second of my time. I don’t normally go for guys who wear Tommy Hilfiger jeans and Orange Nike’s.”

  I smiled, too not because I thought she was funny, but because she smiled first, and she was that contagious.

  “I think you have a lot of potential, Ty, but you have to have an open mind. I’m going to flood your mind with deceiving information, lies you’ve believed your entire life.”

  As crazy as she sounded, I listened with wide-open eyes and sensitive ears. I gave her my full attention without saying a word.

  “There’s so much that you don’t know, but I don’t even know where to start. Like I said, I’m used to talking to people about the truth who are already awake. I suppose we should start there.”

  “Start where?” I cautiously questioned, waiting for the snakes.

  “You have all the answers already, Tobias. They’re inside of you and that’s the first rule. You have to stop looking for the answers outside of yourself. The big lie always has a certain force of credibility, the broader the masses, the more easily they’re corrupted.”

  I wanted to tell her she sort of sucked at being a teacher, but I didn’t. Nothing that came out of her mouth registered with my brain. “What lie, Tristan? I have no idea what you’re talking about here.”

  Tristan sighed, her hand moving to Baby T’s bottom and her lips touching his head as she moved him up to her shoulder. Her hand patted his back in search of a burp and her cheek snuggled to his little face. “Okay, so the first Universal law is harmony. Let’s start with that.”

  Although I tried not to sound sarcastically confused, I failed and so did my expression. “Harmony?”

  “This only sounds crazy because you’ve been taught what someone else has told you to learn, not what you already know. We have to un-program your mind with all the bullshit you’ve believed because someone told you to believe it. I swear once you get this you’ll never un-get it. It’s not even possible. You hunger for something more, yet you don’t know what it is. We all do. That’s why you’re here.”

  That was impossible to deny. Why else would I be here with a crazy chick and a teeny, tiny baby? “How do I get harmony?”

  Tristan’s eyes were intoxicating and I hung on every wild word. “Everything is energy, a vibration. Do you understand that?”

  “Um, like from science class?”

  “No. God no. Forget that word. Science is a lie. They only throw that word out there because it’s part of the illusion. As soon as the word science is mentioned it’s all over. People accept it as the truth. It’s not, Ty. It’s so full of holes, but let’s not go there yet. We’ll get to that later. Let’s stick with harmony.”

  “Okay.”

  Tristan looked around her camp, her bottom lip between her teeth in deep thought. “Follow me,” she said, all of a sudden jumping up, but only for a second. Her hand went to her lower abdomen and she returned to her sitting position, the grimace on her face portraying the pain.

  “What’s wrong? You okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I just keep forgetting that I just had a baby.”

  “Maybe you should see a doctor, Tristan. I don’t like this.”

  “Ty, I just gave birth three days ago. I’m better every day. I just jumped up too fast. I’m fine. Here, take him for second. I need to go to the bathroom.”

  I took the last bite of my fajita and stood, happily taking Tobias from her. My lips met his soft hair with the same strange feeling his mommy gave me, and I noticed. My breath held in my lungs, watching her walk away to the back of the van, to a makeshift bathroom made out of a white tarp. This girl was so far into me it wasn’t even funny. Baby-T and I walked to the clearing, where the sun shined bright. Tristan was right. The view was spectacular, the sounds of water falling hypnotic, and the fresh, country air, refreshing. Even I had to admit it was somewhat spectacular, something I never felt in L.A.

  Tobias cooed, squirming in my arms, pulling my attention from one beauty to the next, this one even more spectacular. “Hey, little buddy. How are you, huh? You sure do sleep a lot. Lucky.” My smile widened when he yawned, a deep baby breath following a stretch.

  “That’s a good sign,” Tristan said from my side.

  I moved my eyes from Baby T to her, noticing for the first time the tiny braid going down the side of her head. “What?”

  “He yawned. That means he’s comfortable with you, that’s why he’s all kicked back like he owns the place,” she teased, her fingers touching his fine hair.

  “Oh, really? That’s good because I feel pretty comf
ortable with him, too. And believe me, that’s crazy. I’ve never held a baby in my life. I sort of hate them. Except T-man of course,” I added, speaking the truth. I may have been a little bias because I was a part of his arrival, but he was pretty awesome.

  “Come on, let’s walk over to the stream. I’m going to try to explain something to you. Want me to take him?”

  “No, I’d rather carry him down the bank,” I protested when she tried to take Tobias from me.

  Tristan’s hair flipped behind her shoulder when she looked back, her eyes and faint smile genuine. Once again, I noticed something else. Long, light brown eye lashes. “You don’t trust me?”

  “I don’t trust that pain you keep having not to show up on your way down.”

  “Ah, smart thinking, but we were down here earlier. We did fine.”

  I let Tristan lead the way, feeling like I was home for the first time in my life, and I didn’t even know what that meant. Once we got to the little bank, I stepped in front of her, took two steps down, and reached for her hand, already hearing the sound of fresh spring water, cascading over rocks. She folded four fingers over my hand and held my gaze. That was another thing I loved. I loved the way she constantly looked at me, the way our eyes seemed to find each other’s no matter what the situation or where we were. Her hand stayed in mine three steps further than it needed and she was the one to break the contact.

  She pulled on my hand, leading the way and let go. “Not there, come over here in this little cove.”

  I followed Tristan to a little bay of still water, a log perfectly fallen over the calm water.

  She lifted her dress and waded, barefoot trough the ankle deep water, her hand patting the log for me to sit. “Everything is vibration, Ty. Everything you let into your mind has a certain frequency. Do you understand that?”

  I toed off my sneakers and waded with her. Even though there was plenty of room to sit, I sat right beside her, our legs touching from the waist down. “Um, nope,” I said, my attempt to be funny ignored.

  “Okay, watch this. When I throw this rock into the still water, I have disturbed the harmony. I caused the effect in the splash and the flowing ripples. Imagine that is your mind. What you’re putting in there, you’re sending out there,” she assured me, her hand waving out into the Universe. “Just like the water being harmonically restored, the actions you put out flow out and back to you. Just like the ripple. Do you get it?”