I felt a cool rag being placed on the back of my neck.

“Has it passed?” Mark asked, in a concerned voice.

“You have to touch her Mark. It will speed up her recovery.” I could hear Sam tell him, but her voice sounded far off as the pounding in my ears drowned everything else out.

“I’m fine. I’ll be out in a moment,” I said, hoping he would just leave. If my body hadn’t just been overrun by emotions, I would have been embarrassed.

Mark ignored the hint and reached out to rub my back. I instinctively shied away from his touch, embarrassed to have him so close when I had just puked up an entire days worth of food. He insistently leaned in even closer, and I could feel the heat radiating out of him. An electric current seemed to flow through us, and I could feel the sickness beginning to ebb away. I kept my eyes closed as his touch soothed the rest of the sickness away. I finally let all my inhibitions fade and I leaned back against him, using his body heat to try to contain the chills that began to creep over my body.

Mark felt my sudden quaking and scooped me in his strong arms. I kept my eyes closed as he walked down the hall. He laid me on a bed and pulled a blanket up around me. After he had the blanket tucked firmly around me, he crawled on the bed beside me and pulled me snuggly in his arms.

We lay there quietly for a while as his soothing presence slowly began to help my weak body recover from the sickness. It seemed to take longer than normal because I had dealt with so many emotions in one short week, but finally, the chills receded and my mind began to drift as my body begged for rest.

“Before you go to sleep, you need to call your mom.”

He was right. I got so comfortable lying there in his arms, I’d forgotten all about my mom. I started to sit up, but Mark pushed me lightly back down.

“I’ll go get your cell phone.”

He was back within a few moments and handed me my phone. I dialed my mom’s cell number and waited for her to pick it up.

“Hey honey,” she said as soon as she answered.

“Hey Mom, Sam and I had such a good time tonight, and Sam asked if I wanted to stay over,” I said, trying to inject enthusiasm into my voice.

“That’s fine,” she said, sounding thrilled. I knew she was ecstatic that I had finally made a friend.

“I’ll call you in the morning.”

“That’s fine, have fun.”

I hung up the phone. I should have felt guilty for lying to my mom twice in one day, but the bout of sickness prevented any other emotions.

I closed my eyes as Mark continued to hold me in his arms. My mind drifted and I sunk into a deep sleep.

My sobbing woke us both up. I felt him wrap his arms around me.

“I’m here,” he said. “I’m never going to leave you,” he murmured in my ear.

The sobs subsided at his soothing words. He was here with me. I loved him so much, and it was so hard to be ripped away from him every night. He continued to whisper in my ear, telling me how much I meant to him and soon the dream faded away.

“Do you feel better?” he asked.

I thought about it for a moment, and surprisingly, I did feel better. I felt grimy from the sickness that gripped me last night, but besides that I felt much better.

“I think I would like to take a shower, but besides that, I feel much better. I’m so sorry you had to see that again. Would you believe, I’ve never had this many episodes in one week? Well, except when my dad died.”

“That’s what worries me,” he told me. “Sam says it’s not good for you to be having so many episodes.”

He brought up something I had been wondering about.

“Why isn’t Sam having these attacks?” I asked him.

“We talked about it while you were sleeping. Sam thinks it’s because of the rough childhood she had; that she is able to control it better. Plus, she thinks that a lot of this is fear, and she dealt with fear enough when she was growing up, so it doesn’t affect her as badly; not to mention the most important thing, which is letting Shawn sooth her.” He said chidingly.

“I know. It’s just a little tough for me to let someone in. I’ve spent my life handling all of this on my own.”

“Come on, I’ll get you some clean towels so you can take a shower,” he said, changing the subject as he helped me to my feet.

He left me at the bathroom with clean towels and a new toothbrush. I turned on the water. While I waited for it to heat up, I looked in the mirror, cringing when I saw my reflection.

“Oh my gosh, I look terrible,” I moaned.

My eyes were swollen from the tears and my skin was pasty from throwing up so much. Every hair on my head seemed to be sticking up in every direction from sleeping on it. I resembled a scarecrow in a corn field. I could not believe I let him see me looking this bad.

I stepped into the spacious shower and let the water wash over me, wiping away the last traces of the sickness. I stayed in the shower for a long time, gathering my thoughts and finally, filing some of the information away.

I finally turned off the water and dried off. Mark had given me a pair of sweats and a sweatshirt; I pulled them on, dropping the towel at my feet. They were baggy, but I didn’t care, they smelt just like him. I inhaled deeply enjoying his scent.

After I brushed my teeth, I left the bathroom and went off to search for Mark. I found him in the kitchen; he was finishing up fixing two cups of hot chocolate.

“I thought you might want a pick me up,” he said as he handed me one of the steaming mugs. “I thought we could take these out to the patio while the others sleep.”

Now that he mentioned it. Where were Sam and Shawn and where were they sleeping?

As if he could read my mind, Mark smiled. “Sam’s crashed in my dad’s room and Shawn took my room,” he said.

I felt relived. I knew that Sam was her own person, but for some reason I felt responsible for her. I knew I was being a hypocrite. Hadn’t I slept in the arms of the love of my life? Sure, I had been sick, but still.

We headed out to the patio. It was only 4:00 a.m., but the temperature outside was nice and mild. Mark helped me settle onto one of the patio chairs.

I took a sip of my hot chocolate. “That’s good,” I said as the hot chocolate ran down my throat.

“I added extra chocolate,” he said with a smile.

I returned his smile as I took another drink of the rich concoction. I could definitely get used to this. This is how it will be if we ever married, I thought wistfully to myself as a whole new warmth spread throughout my body.

“It’s so nice out here,” I said, sighing.

“I know what you mean, there’s nothing like the sounds of the ocean. Especially at night, the ocean seems to have a mysterious feel about it.”

Mark reached over and grabbed my hand. I studied his warm masculine hand in mine. I cringed when I saw his nice even fingernails next to my own ragged ones. My nails looked pitiful in contrast. I really need to stop chewing on mine, I couldn’t help thinking.

Shawn and Sam joined us on the patio shortly after dawn.

Mark and I had spent the last two hours talking about anything and everything. Mark asked me about college and I told him my plans to go to school locally.

I told him about my aspirations to help others, how I hoped to major in human relations in college.

“I want to be there for those in need. I would like nothing better than to set up foundations that would help others. It doesn’t matter if it’s as simple as raising money for books that volunteers could read to children in the hospital, or as big as finding funding to open a soup kitchen for the homeless. I just want to help,” I said empathetically.

“That’s what I love about you. You put the needs of others ahead of yours. I’ve watched as you struggled with guilt from lying to your mom and putting her peace of mind ahead of yours. I feel so lucky that the woman of my dreams turned out to be so fantastic.”

After two hours of talking, all remains of the dream had vanished. By the time Sam and Shawn found us, I felt at peace.

“Are you feeling better?” were the first words out of Sam’s mouth as she perched at the bottom of my lounge chair.

“Yes much better,” I said, drawing my knees up so she would have more room to sit.

“You have to try to control it better. It’s not good for your body to keep going through this. I’m going to try to show you some tricks that I picked up while I was growing up that seemed to help me cope. I want you to practice them and learn to use them. I’m worried that you’re endangering yourself and I don’t want you to wind up in the hospital. We love you and need you,” she said giving me a quick hug. “You need to trust Mark more, let him know when the emotions are going to attack.” She whispered in my ear.

I was touched by Sam’s speech. I knew I could always count on my parents growing up, but I had always felt like the odd man out around other people. My childhood was lonely, friendless, and now for the first time, I was surrounded by three people who made me feel like I belonged.

“Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m hungry, and unless all of you feel like eating left over take-out Chinese food from who knows when, we will have to go out for breakfast.”

“Well, as much as I would like a good case of food poising from old take-out, I opt to go out to breakfast,” Sam piped in.

“Me too, I’m done with throwing up for a while, let’s head out,” I said.

I waited as the others got ready to go. I already changed back into my clothes from the day before. Mark had thrown them into the wash while we were talking.

I needed to pick my mom’s car up from the Boardwalk and take it home. All of us would have liked to stay together another night, but tomorrow was a school day, and I knew, there was no way my mom would let me stay at “Sam’s” on a school night.

Sam did think it would be easy for her to talk her foster parents into letting her stay over at my house since they would be busy in court all week. The trial for their case was finally starting, and the time they weren’t in court would be spent at the office preparing for the next day.

I felt I could play on my mother’s sympathies to let Sam stay over.

We swung by Sam’s on the way to breakfast so she could pack an overnight bag. I told her to pack extra just in case we were able to con extra nights from my mom.

I knew if I had to be separated from Mark, I at least wanted Sam to be with me.

The Boardwalk was packed when we finally showed up, stuffed from breakfast, to pick up my mom’s Focus. I groaned when I saw the parking ticket sticking out from under the windshield wiper. “Great, how will I explain this to my mom?”

I got out of Mark’s car and walked to the front of my mother’s car. I pulled the ticket out from under the wiper blade and looked at it in dismay.

“Seventy-five bucks!” I screeched. “You have got to be kidding me!”

Mark came over and grabbed the ticket from me. He folded it up and put it in his pocket.

“You don’t have to do that,” I said, embarrassed that I made such a big deal about it.

Mark watched as color began to stain my cheeks. He leaned forward and gave me a kiss. I forgot my train of thought as I lost myself in his kiss. I liked that he was a neutralizer for me; the kisses were a definite bonus.

“We’re going to work on those tricks later;” I heard Sam mutter behind me. “He’s not going to be there every time.”

I heard her muttering more, but I tuned her out as I kissed Mark one last time. It would be almost twenty-four hours until I saw him again, and my heart already ached, thinking about the separation.

I noticed that Sam was being unusually quiet.

I turned around to see her locked in Shawn’s arms. I felt a twinge of guilt. Poor Sam and Shawn, they would be separated for longer than Mark and I. At least I would get to see Mark at school tomorrow. Sam would have to wait until after school to see Shawn again.

Mark and I stepped away to give them a few more minutes of privacy.

“You don’t have to pay the ticket. It was my responsibility,” I told Mark, making a grab for the ticket.

“I want to, anyway, Shawn and I planned on coming back to get it last night, but we forgot. Besides, I’m a working man and you’re just a mere student,” he said teasingly.

“Mere student,” I said in mock anger. “You’re a dirty old intern who preys on sweet innocent students,” I teased.

“I like to prey on you,” he said, raising his eyebrows suggestively.

He was joking, but my heart still skipped a beat. The idea seemed a little too appealing.

Sam and Shawn finally separated, and both looked quite flustered. Both had the same dazed look on their faces, like they had forgotten where they were.

We got in my mom’s Focus.

Mark came over to the driver’s side window to give me one last kiss.

“One to sleep on,” he teased. “I’ll call you tonight.”

I had no trouble convincing my mom to let Sam stay over. I went for broke and pitched for the whole week. Playing on the fact that Sam’s foster parents would be working late hours all week, and that Sam hated being alone at night.

My mom said it would be fine, but we had to promise to go to bed at a decent time.

“Just because you’re in your last nine weeks of high school, I don’t want you to fall off now.”

I looked at her with humor. Was she forgetting that school was easy for me? Did she forget all those times everyone had commented on my IQ?

She saw my look and laughed. “Okay maybe not you, but school may not be as easy for Sam, so she needs to get enough rest.”

Sam and I had of course kept it to ourselves that Sam’s IQ was probably just as high as my own.

We both thought my mom’s concern was funny.

Once we were in my room, Sam called her foster mom to ask her permission for the entire week at my house. Her foster mom was thrilled.

Sam told me after she hung up, that her foster mom admitted that they had been worried about leaving her by herself so much during the coming week.

We decided to continue surfing the web while we listened to some music.

I ran downstairs to grab a couple of sodas and a snack for both of us.

We ate our snack while we waited for my computer to boot up. Once the computer was ready, I typed in the words, “Strange links between people.”Almost at once, a ton of options popped up. My eyes scrolled down the list and I was surprised to see a lot of sites on twins listed. I clicked on a random site and was amazed as I began to read.

“Listen to this,” I said. “Twins that have been separated at birth will often suffer similar injuries in the same location on their bodies. They have also been found to marry similar spouses from the same backgrounds,” I read on. “This paragraph says that twins often talk about the connections they share. It says it doesn’t matter if they are identical twins or fraternal twins.”