Awash in Talent (19 page)

But I shouted back into the room. “You know the surgery won’t work, Dad. Beth is her only hope. It’s so easy. Please. Just take her outside. You have to leave, anyway. The building’s on fire!”

I ran to the foot of the bed and started pulling. The tubes stretched, and with a look of utter horror, my dad reached for them. He drew the portable console to him, looked at my mother, and grasped the side of the bed to follow me.

“Dad! Thank you, thank you!” I shouted. My mom looked so small and vulnerable away from the wall in her bed with the tubes. Beth and Melinda took the foot of the bed and I ran ahead to hold the door into the foyer. When I opened it, a wall of smoke swept over us. I pushed the door back into place to stop too much more smoke from coming in.

Choking, I said to Melinda, “That’s some fire you made.” I told them to stay where they were. I slipped out the door, making as small of an opening as I could, then dropped to the floor, below the smoke. I didn’t see anyone’s feet, so they must have all evacuated like they’re supposed to. I got to the wastebasket Melinda had set on fire. Miraculously, it hadn’t spread. It was making tons of smoke, but it wasn’t going out under the sprinklers, either. I wonder now if Melinda made it like that on purpose, if she has that much control. It was admirable, beyond my snarky comment to her.

I reached underneath my sleeve to where I had my patch and ripped it off painfully. Then I stared at the flames and concentrated. I couldn’t tell you exactly how I did it now. I thought about how Brian did it and I guess my instinct kicked in when I needed it. In spite of my lack of training and the inhuman amounts of stress I was under, I did what was necessary.

The flames died down with a sputter and the smoke cleared magically. I went back to get my mom and dad and Beth and Melinda and we made a mad dash out the door to the sidewalk, through a bunch of people milling about like they really wanted to get back inside and work.

“Here’s fine,” Beth said, and my father stopped the bed in a snow bank.

Beth rubbed her hands together, maybe to get a little warmer before she touched my mom, but also maybe because she didn’t really want to do it. She avoided looking at my mom’s head. I had to, as well. Looking at what I’d done to her made me feel panicky, and I strongly felt I needed to keep the faith for this to work. Beth gingerly waved her hands over my mom’s hospital gown, and every movement was another nibble at my patience. Just when I was about to tell her to get on with it, she touched down, one hand on my mom’s forehead and the other on her chin, or rather, where those features had previously been. It was slow in coming. Had it taken this long for the scalding victim in Providence? Oh, God, I can hardly even stand to remember the clawing sensation while I waited for the magic to take place. I was ready to tear off my own skin and donate it—anything to put an end to that moment.

In the meantime, a bunch of people had gathered around us and were standing at a barely respectable distance. We needed crowd control. I felt like I was going to suffocate. Beth would kill my mother and all these people would witness. I must’ve had my eyes closed for a little while, reeling with this indescribable pain, guilt, and regret, but when I opened them again, the process had begun.

Much more slowly than the scalding victim, my mother got her face back. My gasp of joy wasn’t the only reaction in the giant crowd. The skin spread out faster and continued past where her hairline used to be to create a bald head that was much bigger than I would’ve thought. It looked a little like a space alien. But the face underneath looked like my mother, my sweet, innocent mother, almost like a newborn. The skin was thin and I couldn’t take my eyes off the blue and green veins I saw under the surface of her eyelids. There were no eyelashes or brows.

My mother is alive! I didn’t kill her after all. She’s bald, but she’s recovered from that horrible day and she’s going to be fine. The happiness was so new and unfamiliar as I stood there on the crowded sidewalk.

I guess something in Beth’s healing acts as a stimulant, because my mother woke up. “Kelly,” she said. She couldn’t see my dad above her, so I came to her side and put my face close enough to feel her breath. “It feels so good to be outside. Oh, that air is so cold. What a relief. I’ve been so hot for so long.”

I blushed because all the pain she’d been through was all my fault. My cheeks would’ve melted any snowflakes. “I did that to you, Mom, but you’re going to be fine now.” Some of my tears fell onto the new skin under her eyes.

She started shivering. At the flip of a switch, it was so violent my dad was holding her arms down at her sides. “We have to get her back inside,” he said. I looked around for Beth so she could part the crowd or levitate my mom into the nearest gurney, but she was collapsed in Melinda’s arms, her head on Melinda’s shoulder like a baby doll.

“Ahem,” said Melinda. I looked at her, bewildered. “I need my necklace back,” she demanded.

She was right. She’d given it to me, about five million years before, in the reception area. My hand went automatically to my pocket, and, amazingly, it was there. I fished it out and she held her hand away from Beth long enough to grab it.

“I’ll revive her. You take care of your mom,” said Melinda.

By that time, EMTs or hospital employees of some sort had brought a bunch of blankets to wrap my mom up. I followed them back into the hospital, throwing a dirty look at the receptionist, who was already back at her post. We went back to Mom’s room, and there was a doctor who I think was the same surgeon who’d been there before.

“Thank you,” my mom said as soon as she was propped up in her bed, cozy like she’d never left the room. “I feel much better.”

“So, she doesn’t need surgery,” I said to the doctor. “But will she be okay otherwise?”

“We’ll keep her here for a while to make sure,” he answered, and then I had time to look at my dad. He was as white as a sheet, but he was smiling and even had tears in his eyes. Thankfulness? Fear? Relief? You’d have to ask him.

Beth peeked in the door and Melinda followed behind.

“I hate to ask this, Kelly’s dad,” she started. “But we need to get the van back to the BoPLA. Do you think you could drive us?”

“Who drove you here, anyway?” he asked, returning to his normal, detail-oriented self.

“That’s a story for another day,” I said. We kissed my mom good-bye, telling her we’d be back within the hour, and went back outside to find the crowd dispersed. Melinda was checking her phone and Beth was grinning. Melinda guided us to the van—she’d given up and double parked near the entrance to the garage, but no one said anything about it—and after she started the engine, Beth talked nonstop all the way back to the BoPLA. This ride was quite a bit less eventful than the one on the way to the hospital.

Apparently, one of the onlookers on the sidewalk was the hospital director. While I was seeing to Mom’s shivers, he had approached Beth and offered to eliminate aluminum in the MGH if she would come to work there. They haven’t had an Other-Talented Healer for about twenty years, he told her. Of course she accepted. “My sister is disturbed, and I really should stay in Providence to help my parents take care of her,” she said, but she doesn’t make any money at her clinic or at Rhode Island Hospital, and the MGH is offering her a real salary and arrangements to continue her telekinesis studies for half the day, at least until she comes of age. Yet another case in which a nonpyro Talent gets rewarded when . . . well, at least we didn’t get arrested for barging into the hospital and setting fire to the trash. I’m counting my blessings. Melinda’s dad has money, so she’s basically not prosecutable. Is money the highest law?

By some chance, Dad parked the van exactly where Ms. Matheson had that morning. I took Beth by the hand and kind of pushed my dad to the front entrance. I was ready for them to sign sworn affidavits about what they’d done and witnessed even if they weren’t.

Jill, Raúl, Brian, and Ms. Matheson were waiting for us in the atrium. They were all grasping their phones tightly, like they expected to squeeze out some news about Melinda, Beth, and me. If Beth hadn’t been talking to me so much, I might have remembered to call one of them on the ride over and soothe their nerves. Or maybe not. With everything that had happened, I was sort of preoccupied.

“Hey,” I shouted at them. “My mom’s better. Beth cured her and she’s going to be okay.”

“That’s wonderful,” said Ms. Matheson. “But you stranded us.”

“You’re not stranded now,” I said. Nothing could spoil my mood. “Hey, this is my dad. He’s going to help me explain that my mom’s fine now, so my manifestation shouldn’t count against my enrollment here.”

Brian stepped up and held out his hand for a manly shake. “Great to meet you, sir,” he said. Then he turned to me. “I have to tell you, though, Kelly. They said you weren’t supposed to come back today, but you could submit another application next year with the results of whatever happened with your mother.”

“Oh.” The syllable caught in my throat. “But you guys are going to come here without me?”

He put his arms around me so that I couldn’t see Jill and Raúl. “We don’t know that. Nobody knows their results yet.”

Melinda asked if she was still allowed to go in and interview, and no one knew, so she checked at reception and was told to go up to admissions. I was going to get in a taxi with my dad, but in my disappointed state, he was easily able to convince me that I needed to get back to Providence with my friends. After I saw my dad off, I sat quietly on some padded benches in the atrium with Beth, Jill, and Raúl. Brian held my hand and maintained a dignified silence. Ms. Matheson brought me a vending machine sandwich with the texture of sawdust.

Just a week later, Brian and Jill, as well as Melinda, got in. While I send grateful nods to Melinda down the hallways and across classrooms, I won’t miss her back here because it’s almost like she never did any of that heroic stuff, never implied I was her friend. Like that could only happen across state lines or something. Jill, thank God, thought it over and decided not to abandon me and Raúl. At least not this year. Haven’t I been saying how awesome she is? She’s a better friend than any of my normal friends ever were. We’ll all apply again for next year. We’d be crazy not to. That place is a palace and this is a prison.

Right after Jill decided to stay, Brian waltzed into our room.

“Jill, could you let me and Kelly have a moment?”

She saw the same shaky smile I did and said, “It would be against the rules.”

He sat on my bed and took my hands.

“You got into BoPLA,” I said.

“Yes,” he breathed.

I barely registered that his hands were like ice. He didn’t have to say it: he’s going.

I shook my head and put my hand to his mouth to stop him, but it got worse. He’s not waiting for me to reapply.

“Most of the upperclassmen don’t even have to wear patches!” he exclaimed.

“What does this mean?” I asked, my voice way too high.

“There’s about to be a lot of distance between us. Maybe we shouldn’t be boyfriend and girlfriend anymore.”

I felt like I’d dropped a bunch of dishes on a tile floor, like things were shattering all around me and I couldn’t do anything about it. Jill ushered Brian out of our room milliseconds before I started bawling.

I might as well have given away his bracelet at the hospital.

Granted, Boston is far for me—anywhere is too far when they won’t let us leave the school—but he could come down to Providence without too much hassle. I don’t really get it, unless he thinks there will be too many available hotties in Boston. He is a guy, even though I thought he was above being
such
a guy.

I feel so ashamed of myself. How naïve and foolish I was. How could I think someone like him would even think of spending time with me? I feel like burning this journal again because it records all the tender moments. I imagined Brian was going to marry me. I should’ve known I couldn’t hold onto him for long. So embarrassing! I’m not even fifteen yet, how could I possibly have found my future husband already?

So I spend my time crying and having Beth visit a lot before she moves to Boston because apparently I’m her best friend. And, duh, I can’t let my stupid love life get in the way of the fact that my mother is home! She was really going to die, and I prevented it.

My grandma moved into our house to help while my dad goes back to work. She’s started setting up our house to accommodate me, a notorious firestarter. She did it once before, to her house, after all. But, really and truly, I don’t plan to ever be without my patch when I’m around my family, my mother especially. It makes me so happy to see her doing so much better. She’s even thinking about getting eyelash implants. Over the summer, I’m going to set up a barrel or something in the yard, and when absolutely no one else is around, I’ll take off my patch and practice controlling my Talent. I haven’t told anyone about how I put out Melinda’s fire. That’s my secret pride, and I’ll build on that. I’ll be so good by the time interviews roll around again, BoPLA will wonder why they ever rejected me.

March 12

Today Brian and Raúl came to our table at lunch as usual, with me across from Jill so Brian could sit next to me and I could ignore him. He surprised me, though, by taking my hand and holding it up over the table.

“You’re not wearing your bracelet,” he said.

“Duh,” I said. Maybe Jill would have said it more politely, but I’m not her.

“Do you still have it?” he asked.

“It’s probably lying around somewhere,” I said, looking at Jill for backup.

“Nah, I think she threw it away,” she said.

“Well, would you want to wear it again?” Brian insisted.

“Why?” I noticed Raúl had this big, goofy grin, mostly because he wasn’t saying anything.

“Because I can’t live without you, Kelly.”

“You’re not really living without her. You live down the hall and have every class with her,” said Jill. Jill can’t seem to stop being awesome.

Brian ignored her. “I want to get back together.”