Heal Me (A Touched Trilogy Book 2) (8 page)

“There’s a burning sensation, before it happens. Then during the transfer, it’s as if I’m engulfed in flames. Every part of me aches.”

“That sounds really horrible.”

“It is, but it isn’t. It’s almost like when you wave your fingers through a candle. If you’re quick enough, you feel nothing, hold it a little longer and it’ll sting for a moment. But if someone holds your hand there, it’s excruciating.”

“And when you’ve healed me, like today, it’s that bad?”

I tried to remember what exactly I’d felt, but everything was a blur. Typically, I had a clear memory of what went on during a transfer, but Micah’s was just a black nothingness. I didn’t hurt anymore, and I didn’t exactly feel the exhaustion I would expect. No, it hadn’t been bad really, well, unless you counted the nausea and passing out part.

“I don’t remember much about it actually. The whole part where I passed out pretty much obscured my memories.” I sipped at my water as he tried to figure out what that meant.

“So this is why you started bailing on me,” he said. I nodded silently in response. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“I didn’t really know how to explain it. It seemed easier to avoid you.” Placing my glass on the table, I took a quick glance down the hall to Hannah’s room. “Now, it’s my turn to ask you a question.”

“Go for it,” he said, leaning
back in his chair. I really hated when he did that. Anytime I tried, I tipped too far back and ended up falling over. It wasn’t fair that he never suffered the same fate as me.

“Why didn’t you tell me about Hannah before now? I’ve been over here almost every day for over three weeks. How did I never see her?”

“She’s still a big napper and is usually sleeping when you’re here. Mom also takes her to the daycare at her work, so if Mom isn’t here then Hannah’s isn’t either.”

“How come you never mentioned her?”

“She’s not an easy subject to talk about. Back in Seattle, my friends ditched me after she was born. The few that kept coming around just wanted gossip to dish at school.”

“Gossip? About your sister?” It seemed like a strange thing for teenage boys, or even girls, to be interested in.

“Hannah’s not my sister,” he said, pushing back from the table. He stood up, wandered over to the window where he turned back to me and pushed his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans. “She’s my daughter.”

Digesting that detail was almost impossible. His daughter. Micah didn’t seem like a father. He was a teenager. He went to high school. He didn’t complain about being grounded for an entire year. Maybe it did make sense.

Questions bubbled through me, but overriding them was the discomfort slipping from Micah into the air between us, slowly making its way into my hands. He definitely didn’t want to talk about Hannah.

“Do you want to work on the project?” I asked, fiddling with the zipper on my green hoodie.

“Yeah, sure.”

We pulled out our papers and I relaxed as his discomfort faded. I tried to put Hannah out of my mind, but it was difficult, especially when she started crying and Micah brought her into the living room to play on a mat he took out from a hiding spot behind the television.

Getting work done with her in the room was nearly impossible. Funny, considering I hadn’t even known she existed all those times I’d been over before.

“This is pointless,” I finally said and shoved my papers back in my binder. Micah looked up from trying to hold Hannah while wiping drool off his laptop keys. “Why don’t I just come back tomorrow? Maybe when she’s sleeping.”

He looked like he was about to argue, until Hannah grabbed a chunk of his hair and yanked it hard enough for me to feel his pain.

“Probably the best idea. Here, let me email you the changes.” He shoved Hannah toward me and I instinctively grabbed her as she landed in my lap.

She felt odd. Not physically, but emotionally. I could feel the transfer, but it didn’t hurt. There was simply a content flow, with a hint of hunger.

“She wants to eat,” I said.

“What?”

“She’s hungry.” I jiggled her a bit awkwardly on my knee and she gave a grunt followed by a three-toothed smile. A foul smell drifted up from her and I quickly held her out to Micah. “And she needs a change.”

“Oh, you sure you don’t want to stick around?”

“Uh, I don’t do diapers unless I’m getting paid.”

“Crap.”

“That’s exactly your problem to deal with,” I said, smiling at my own witty response. Okay, maybe not so witty, but Phoebe would have been mildly proud of my attempt.

Chapter 7

Micah was stuck at home all day Saturday alone, but I ended up bailing on him. Just being in the same house as him had me on my last nerve. The experience of fainting wasn’t one I wanted to repeat. So, I’d waited until I knew one of his parents was going to be around. Not that I expected Micah to jump on me or anything, but I figured with them home it would at least help if I did faint again.

Knowing that they wouldn’t be there to take care of any problems and taking a chance that Micah’s emotional control would crack was too risky. I was barely back on a regular sleep schedule. I couldn’t chance passing out again with Dad checking up on me constantly, so instead I escaped over to his place Sunday afternoon when I knew his parents were there.

I walked over, grateful it was only a couple of blocks. The clouds rolling in looked nasty and, because Dad hadn’t returned my license, I was still footing it. By the time I reached Micah’s, a few sprinkles of rain had begun falling. He answered the door after I’d rung the bell, and greeted me with his typical half smile. It was hard not to be suspicious of him when he acted all nice. Particularly when he insisted on continuing to make asinine comments and thinking he was hilarious for doing it.

I tried to sense if he was having any emotional issues. Nothing came through and I wondered if maybe I was being a bit paranoid, but when Micah brushed against me on the way to the kitchen, a surge of frustration and defeat passed through. The feelings were definitely still there, but nothing as strong as the other times, and I let myself relax.

Mr. Davidson was in his office, his back visible from my seat. I called a greeting to him, and he did a half turn to wave.

“Are you ever going to be ungrounded?” I asked Micah.

“Is your dad ever going to give back your driving privileges?” he asked instead, pouring me a glass of water with ice from the fridge door.

“I’m hoping for this week.” I’d asked Chloe and Phoebe to use their cars and they’d both shut me down. What good were sisters if they didn’t help you break the same rules they never followed? “So? Are you ever going to be ungrounded?”

“Yeah, well, I’m now on a voluntary grounding, so I guess I’m done.”

“Voluntary grounding? You mean you grounded yourself?” And I thought I was messed up.

“Mom and Dad only gave me a year. But they’re still pretty pissed with me, so I figure if I put in more time, on my own, then the next time I screw up they won’t be so harsh.”

“A year?!” What the heck had he done? Dad barely managed to stick to grounding us for a week. I couldn’t imagine what I’d have to do to get an entire year.

“What can I say? I have a talent.” He smiled as if he weren’t bothered by the memory of what he’d done, but it was there in the tingle of my fingers.

“Yeah, apparently pissing people off.”

“Well, apparently knocking up my seventeen-year-old girlfriend qualified as deep shit territory.”

That effectively shut me up.

We set to work, walking through our plan for filming of the interview. I was petrified at the idea of having myself taped and then shown to the class, but at least I knew our script was good. We ran through the lines a few times, which according to Micah was supposed to relax me, but actually increased my anxiety. The only positive I could find was that Andrew and Micah were going to be the only other people in the room while I did it in costume. Maybe I would arrange to be sick the day we showed the video to the class. That way I wouldn’t have to watch myself on camera.

Micah rolled up his sleeve and I caught sight of some black markings on the underside of his forearm. I tilted my head to try to get a better look. It was a tattoo of Hannah’s name and something underneath. I tried to read it, but he shifted so I couldn’t see it any more. I wanted to ask him about it, but figured it fell into the ‘do not mention’ section of our friendship.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure, as long as it’s not one of your dirty ones,” I said as I put my binder back into my backpack.

“Not dirty, promise,” he said, holding up a Cub Scout salute. “What you were talking about, this gift you have...”

“Please don’t ask about that.” My heart clenched in despair for him and what it was about Hannah that managed to upset him so much. I’d had a hope that there was going to be someone who would think of me only as normal.

“Why? You don’t even know what I was going to ask.” He crossed his arms in front of him, rested them on the table, and then leaned toward me.

“Maybe not, but I know that the more you know, the more you’ll want me to prove it, and I don’t have the energy to do that. When I said I was a healer, I should have been a bit more specific.” I left it at that, hoping he’d drop it, but no such luck.

“Meaning?”

I sighed and for a moment wondered how my life had changed so much in only a few weeks that I was spilling all of my secrets, not just to my sisters, but also to a guy I still wasn’t even sure I liked.

“I don’t really heal people.”

“Why call you a healer then?”

“I can do minor healings. Scratches, bruises, a headache, or cramps. But really, I do more of an emotional transfer. When I touch a person, their negative energy or emotions disappear. It’s only a temporary thing though. The good feelings might last a few days, minutes, maybe only seconds depending on the person’s desire to hold onto them.”

“Is that what happened in the cafeteria the other week with Dylan? I saw you grab his arm and then all of a sudden he got real calm.”

“Yeah. I knew how angry he was and I didn’t want someone getting hurt. It didn’t help that you were practically daring him to hit you.”

“He never would have connected,” he said with a smug grin, before looking back at the papers he was shuffling in his hands.

“Fine. Can we drop this now?” I hated talking about my gift. I hated more that it was Micah asking me about it. I’d started to hope that he wouldn’t be interested in that part of me.

“I heard that you brought Andrew’s dog back to life.” Maybe it was the smirk on his face, but his words ripped through me and I snapped.

“I can’t work miracles, and contrary to Andrew’s wild story, I can’t fix the dying or raise the dead. Do you really think my mom would be dead right now if I had that kind of gift?”

I left without saying goodbye. Just picked up my bag and left. There wasn’t anything else to discuss. He was curious about my abilities, and I didn’t want him to know the details. Chloe and Phoebe were already treating me strangely, and I was sure Phoebe would be spilling all the details to Tonya and Nathan fairly soon. She’d already held out for longer than I’d expected.

Five houses down the street, I heard Micah call my name and I stopped. He was barefoot, and with the two-inch heel boots I wore, I didn’t feel so short when he stopped a few feet away.

“Look, I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said, truly looking sorry. “I didn’t even know your mom was dead.”

“It’s okay. I probably overreacted a bit.” I sighed.

“Probably?”

“All right, I overreacted. It’s just that...” My eyes wandered away from his. They focused on his feet and the toes that were drumming a silent pattern on the sidewalk. “My gift isn’t something I have a lot of control over, and sometimes people have expectations of what I can do that just aren’t possible.”

“I’m an ass.”

I looked back up at him, confused.

“I’m an ass and I don’t have a lot of control over it either. And sometimes people have expectations that I just don’t live up to.” He smiled and gave a careless shrug, but the feelings of guilt and disappointment flowed off him in waves.

I reach out instinctively, wanting to take away those feelings and my fingers brushed against his. He turned his hand over and my fingers traced along his palm. Suddenly the need for transferring was overpowered by the desire to just feel him. I slid my fingers between his and he tugged me closer. I couldn’t focus on anything except how his lips were so perfectly formed and slightly parted.

I couldn’t say if it was him or me who moved first. I only knew I wanted to. But whoever did, didn’t matter when our lips met. The contact was hesitant at first. As if neither of us was sure it was really happening. His were cool and soft. He shifted his head to get a better angle and when he returned, the pressure increased. My lips parted and what had started as an awkward ‘what the heck are we doing’ kiss turned into something much more natural. My hands fluttered along his arms and he raised one hand to the side of my face. He tasted sweet like coca-cola, and his warm breath puffed into my mouth. My own shuddered from me and my heart picked up its pace.

I gripped his biceps and held on as the kiss deepened. Lordy, he knew how to kiss. His teeth caught my lower lips and tugged playfully before he let go and glided his tongue along the seam of my lips. Kissing had never been this good with Dylan.

Dylan!

My lips tore themselves away and I shuddered in a breath as they quivered as if they were trying to make sense of the new set of lips they had been pressed to. Micah rested his forehead against mine. I kept my eyes closed, not wanting to think about what had happened.

“Um, right.”

A giggle escaped from me at his word. “Is that your favorite catch phrase for awkward situations?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

This time we both laughed and let the space between us grow, until we were separate entities again.

“We should probably just forget this happened,” I said.

“Right. I mean, it’s clear your hormones are all out of whack.”

“My hormones?”

“Yeah, it’s what happens when you’ve been stuck with a dick-weed boyfriend for so long. You’ll jump at any nice guy.”

“I thought we’d determined you were an ass?”

He brushed at some imaginary spot on his shoulder. “Well, I never said you were a good judge of character.”

I rolled my eyes and pulled my backpack up along my back as I started for home again. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Hey Lily,” he called after me and I glanced over my shoulder. “Don’t be expecting to get this sugar from me all the time. Too much can be a bad thing.”

“Oh, don’t worry, sugar gives me migraines.” I didn’t stop giggling until I was halfway home. There was something about Micah that made me forget about all the stress with Dylan. I didn’t have the constant pressure of his emotions, and I knew he didn’t want anything from me. The kiss had been amazing. Better than amazing, but going in that direction with Micah wasn’t going to happen.

Walking home from Micah’s meant passing by Dylan’s. When I turned the corner down his street, I hesitated and then altered my course. I went around the park that was across from his house. My steps slowed as I finally registered in my mind what I’d just done. The lingering tingle of Micah’s kiss faded fast as Dylan’s face floated through my mind. Logically, I knew I shouldn’t feel guilty. I had broken up with him and I wasn’t a cheater, but the aching pit in my stomach knew how devastated he’d be if he found out what I’d done.

It took me nearly an hour to get home, which ended up being a good thing since the house was in chaos when I arrived. All the lights were on and cars were piled in the double driveway. It took a second to recall Dad saying Nanna was coming over with Uncle Silas, Aunt Lita, and their twin girls. Before I could open the door, it swung wide and two towheaded little girls thrust themselves through the opening.

“Wiwy!” The first girl shouted, her baby speech identified her as Ella. Both girls wrapped their arms around me and then let go just as quickly to lean over the porch railing and peer down the street.

“Is Phoebe here? Is she here?” the other twin, Emma, asked, hopping up and down on the porch.

“No, she’s not with me. Sorry.” I’d learned not to be offended that they always wanted Phoebe. They were just too excitable to want the calming influence I had on them even if it tended to only last seconds, and Chloe’s blank stares when she was seeing their future still freaked them out.

“Lily-Pad!” Uncle Silas said from the doorway. “Why, I think you’ve grown a quarter inch.”

“Ha ha.” I gave him a hug and wished I could hold onto the warm fuzzy feeling he always gave off.

“Ha ha! Ha ha!” Emma and Ella echoed, running around me in an ever-shrinking circle that ended with them wrapped around my legs.

“Come on, girls. Let’s let Lily get her boots off and then she’ll be more your size.” Uncle Silas grabbed their hands, pulling them inside, and then held the door wide for me. I might have been offended by his jokes about my height, but he was barely five foot five, so I was fairly certain any joke he used on me had originally been used on him.

Nanna and Aunt Lita were in the kitchen with Dad who was pretending to listen to all of the cooking advice they attempted to drill into him. In seventeen years, they had yet to figure out that he still had no idea what to do in a kitchen. Before Chloe and I had learned to cook, our family had survived on burnt food and delivery. Tonight they had him basting a turkey and checking the stuffing inside.

Nanna found me before I escaped downstairs. She wrapped me in her arms, squeezing tightly. When she pulled back, she cupped my face in her hands and forced me to meet her eyes. I knew she had seen my kiss with Micah, my break up with Dylan. She had heard the things I said to Dylan to get him to realize it was really over between us.