Heal Me (A Touched Trilogy Book 2) (19 page)

“I’m gonna go home,” I said, tired of wallowing in self-pity. Being near Micah was just making it too hard to enjoy myself. “I’m not really feeling up to this tonight.”

“What!? We just started our second game.” She sighed and rolled her eyes when she saw the determination on my face. “All right, let me grab my keys.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll walk. It’s only a mile or so.”

“Dad would kill me if he knew I let you walk home alone in the dark.”

“I’ll walk her back.” Owen grabbed his drink from Phoebe’s hold. “I’ve gotta get home early anyways.”

I ignored the strange look Micah gave me, glad that he finally had his emotions back in whatever compacted space he kept them hidden away in. Instead, I concentrated on grabbing my purse and saying bye to everyone. I couldn’t let myself become obsessed with what he was thinking or feeling, or what he wasn’t feeling.

Owen and I walked without talking the first few blocks and I soaked up the absolute absence of others. Cars whipped by as we walked down Main Street and the constant revving of engines filled the night.

“I lied when I said I didn’t feel anything.” I ran my fingers through my hair and pulled it back, twisting it into a loose bun at the nape of my neck. “I felt empty. Like something should be there, but I don’t know what or how to fill it. I’ve been like that every minute of every day since Dylan died. Just empty.”

“Really?”

I thought about the anger that bubbled to the surface every so often, the pain of knowing he was gone. The peace I’d felt when cuddling with Micah on the couch. No, I hadn’t really been empty, but I’d wanted to be. So much that I’d almost convinced myself there was nothing inside of me.

“My sister Lisa died when I was eleven,” Owen said, when I didn’t answer his question. I looked up at him, completely surprised. “She was seven and had leukemia.”

“I’m so sorry. I had no idea...” I could barely remember him mentioning a sister before.

“I don’t talk about her much, but I think about her when you’re around. She wanted to be a nurse. ‘To heal people’ she said. I think it’s really because she spent so much time in the hospital that she didn’t know what else there was.”

I let that sink in and tried to find his grief, his anger over losing his sister, but there was none.

“I don’t...” I was at  a loss for words.

“When it first happened, I didn’t feel anything. Nothing about her being gone felt real. I kept thinking she was going to walk through the door and tell me she was all better. When I finally accepted that wasn’t going to happen I got angry. Everyone, the doctors, nurses, my parents, had all failed her. They let her die. I let her die and worst of all, she gave up. Then all of that just went away and I felt empty and that was even worse.”

He was right. The emptiness was worse than being angry, because there was nothing you could really do except wait for it to fill up.

“I did all kinds of crazy things,” he continued, “or at least the craziest things an eleven-year-old can get away with. Cherry bombs in the toilet, egging our neighbor’s house, kicking down mailboxes.”

Was Micah just a crazy thing I’d done to fill the emptiness inside of me? I wanted to believe that, to think that he would be so easy to put behind me as a child’s prank, but I knew it wasn’t true. I felt something for Micah that I don’t think I’d ever felt for Dylan.

“It took me a long time to realize nothing I did was going to bring her back or take away the pain of knowing she was gone.”

“But I don’t feel that from you. You never project any of it.”

“It was a long time ago. Thinking about her doesn’t hurt anymore. I can miss her and wish she were here, but I’ve accepted that she’s gone. She’s not sick or in pain anymore. Most of the time I’m able to block it out and when it starts to bother me, I think of something else.” He leaned down to pick up a rock and tossed it into the street ahead of us. “I dealt. I needed to.”

“Is this what you meant the other day when you said not all pain is a bad thing and that I was stealing it from them?”

“Pretty much.” He grabbed another stone, throwing it further down the road. “We have to deal with all of the crap before it gets better.”

“I don’t think I’m dealing very well.”

“So what?” He put his arm around my shoulder. “Are you still angry? Guilty? Depressed?”

I shook my head. Those were gone, maybe not completely, but they weren’t crushing my chest like they had only days ago.

“Then you’re dealing. Even if you’re making a mess of everything,” he said. I shot him a sharp look and he laughed. “I don’t think you messed up with Micah, though.”

“Well, you’re the only one.”

“Maybe. Or maybe not,” he said, looking over his shoulder. He stopped walking as a car pulled up beside us. We both looked over to see Micah in his mom’s white SUV. “Hey, Micah.”

“Hey. You guys want a ride?”

“No.”

“Sure.”

I glared at Owen. How could he have just spent the last hour being some kind of Dr. Phil and now he was back to his regular oblivious self?

Owen hopped in the back seat behind Micah, which left me with the front. I could have gotten in the back too, but I always felt it was weird for no one to sit up with the driver unless it was a cab ride. I mumbled thanks and yanked on the seatbelt.

“If you take a right here, you can drop me off first.” Owen pointed between the seats and Micah silently followed his direction. “I thought you guys had the lane until eleven?”

“Oh, I didn’t feel like sticking around. Bianca’s boyfriend showed up and I felt like a fifth wheel.”

Two minutes later, Owen was climbing out in front of his house and the silence in the vehicle grew once Micah and I were alone. I turned on the radio to drown the noiselessness out.

When he finally pulled up to my house, I was ready to jump out, but his hand lightly touched my arm, a warm pressure that reminded me of how much I loved when he touched me.

“Lils...I wish I could be what you wanted. I just...When Jaime decided she didn’t want Hannah anymore, that included me. I really thought she was the one I was gonna be with forever.” He cleared his throat and looked out his side window. “I’m not ready to try that with anyone else.”

I heard the words he said, but underneath I could feel the ones he didn’t voice. The ones that put a longing in him that I knew I could never fill or truly take away either.

What if Jaime wanted him back? What if one day she realized what a mistake she’d made and came back to him and Hannah?

“You don’t have to explain, Micah.” I didn’t want him to even try.

“But I want you to understand.” He twisted around to face me and I could see the frustration in his eyes. The desire to fix what was broken between us.

“I do. It just doesn’t change anything.” The tears I’d tried to keep in all night welled in my eyes and slipped down my cheeks. He brushed them away and framed my face with his hands.

“I wish it did,” he whispered.

“So do I.” I leaned forward and kissed him gently on the lips, wanting for one more time to feel connected to him in a way I’d never felt with anyone else.

Neither of us pushed it further. Possibly because both of us knew it would only make it harder on the other. I wanted something he couldn’t give me, and he wanted someone I couldn’t be.

I pulled back and slipped out the door. He waited until I was inside before he drove off. I flicked on the living room light so I could put my shoes up.

“What are you doing home so early?” Dad asked as he came out of his office.

“I guess I wasn’t ready for a full night out.”

“Where’s Phoebe?”

“She stayed. I caught a ride with a friend,” I added quickly when his mouth opened to ream Phoebe even though she wasn’t there to hear.

“You look a little pale,” he said, coming closer to put the back of his hand on my forehead.

I struggled to find an answer that would pacify him without making him suspicious. “You know how I get around our birthday.”

He nodded and folded me into a comforting hug. When I was little, Dad’s hugs were like being wrapped in blanket that would squeeze all of my fear and pain away. I tightened my grip on him, wishing I could get that feeling back.

“I’m worried about you, sweetheart,” Dad said, his breath brushing the curls along the top of my head. The prickling along my skin had already told me how worried he was. “You’re not the same and I don’t think I realized how different you were until the past few weeks. But I don’t know how to help you.”

“It’s not something you can help me with, Dad.”

His arms tightened for a moment and he pressed a kiss to the top of my head, then he let me go, his concern only a vague impression as the calm I’d given him settled in. “Just promise me that if things get bad...”

“I promise.” I didn’t need him to say Dylan’s name to know he was worried I’d make the same choices.

“Good, good.” He walked over to his recliner and sat down, pulling the remote control from the pouch hidden along the side of the chair. “How was bowling?”

“It was okay, but I wasn’t really in the mood. I’m going to finish up some homework and maybe watch a movie.”

He waved me off, already focused on his search for a show to watch. I headed downstairs and while there was no homework, I did watch a movie. I fell asleep halfway through and woke up only when Phoebe came in. I pretended to be sleeping when she checked on me, waiting until she’d been in her room a few minutes before quietly making my way to my bedroom. She would just hound me with questions about either Micah or Nathan and frankly I was tired of thinking about Micah and Nathan held no interest for me, especially when Phoebe’s questions would involve seeing him naked.

Chapter 15

At first, I tried pushing everyone out, like Owen had managed to get me to do at the bowling alley. It had been exhausting, even more than it would have been to heal all of them. I went back to eating outside or alone at one of the tables in the corner of the cafeteria, avoiding people as much as possible. It was either that or be tempted into going on a touching frenzy again.

Chloe and I had yet to talk about what had happened and the tension didn’t seem to be lessening. We pretended nothing was wrong and I wanted to simply ignore it until it was simply a bad dream, but that didn’t seem to be happening. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and that Friday after school, I went to her room.

I knocked on the door, and then pushed it open. “Chloe?”

“Hey.” She sat on her bed, papers scattered in front of her, looking surprised to see me. I couldn’t blame her for that. Even before things had happened with Micah, or even Dylan, I’d never been one to seek my sisters out. They were both high drama, always ready to confront people.

“So...”

“Are you guys finally going to talk?” Phoebe stopped beside me in the doorway. “Thank God. Chloe’s moping is even more annoying than yours.”

I rolled my eyes, stepped into the room, and swung the door shut on her. Phoebe could only make a situation worse. There was a pause between Chloe and me, while we both tried to figure out what to say.

“Lils, I never would have gone out with Micah if I knew you guys were...” she finally said and I nodded. “Why didn’t you tell me about you and him?”

“I didn’t want anyone to know. It all happened so quickly.”

“Explain it to me.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“Try.”

I closed my eyes as a sigh escaped my lips. “Why? It’s over.”

“Because I need to know.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to know why you were sleeping with a guy who wasn’t your boyfriend, why you were passing out, why you didn’t tell me you were hurting, why you told Phoebe all about this but not me.”

She was hurt. I’d always assumed Phoebe and Chloe were the emotionally indestructible ones. They fought, argued, got mad, but never really got hurt, at least not by me. She wanted to know things I wasn’t sure I wanted her to. It would be so easy to simply reach out and take that hurt from her, but that would just delay the inevitable, because Chloe would simply keep coming back to it until she got her answers.

“Everything was just gone. I didn’t feel anything. At least, I didn’t feel anything myself. All of the emotions in me were from other people, but with Micah, I felt something inside of me, that didn’t come from another person and I didn’t want it to stop. I wanted more. As for not saying anything, it felt wrong to talk about it. It’s private. I know you and Phoebe talk about stuff like that with your friends, but it makes me uncomfortable.”

“You told Phoebe all about it,” she huffed.

“No, I didn’t. She guessed.”

She looked mildly pacified for a moment before she began shuffling the papers in front of her. Her nerves practically vibrated and swarmed me with their strength.

“Nothing happened with Micah,” she said. “Okay. No. We kissed. But not like that. I mean it was, but it wasn’t. It felt like one of those things we had to do, you know? But neither of us really felt anything and it was kind of awkward. And after it felt weird, like I’d kissed a brother or something. So, there’s nothing there. Between us, I mean.”

“Chloe,” I interrupted. “It’s over.”

“But, are we okay now?”

“You’re my sister.”

“So? You know Phoebe wouldn’t let this go.”

“Yeah well, Phoebe also broke up with Nathan for some stupid reason and then made all of us suffer for weeks before she finally admitted how ridiculous she was being.”

She snorted a laugh and let a smile break through. I forced myself to smile back. We would be good again. No guy was worth losing my sister over.

“Do you want me to try looking into your future?” she asked, her head still down. Her guilt said she’d already done it.

I thought about what Owen had said, that I needed hope. Having Chloe tell me what she saw in my future made that impossible to believe in. If she saw me without Micah, there’d be no hope for us. If she saw me with him, I wasn’t sure I could trust in that vision. She had missed so many things and even been wrong about a few. I’d always wonder if she was wrong about me.

“No. I’m happy not knowing.”

I went back to my room, closing the door and turning the lock behind me. Phoebe had developed a bad habit over the last few months of barging in. She’d always done it, but it was becoming a daily occurrence.

Grabbing one of my magazines off my nightstand, I belly flopped onto my bed. It was one of my favorite art magazines and even though it was an old edition I’d picked up from a garage sale, I loved flipping through it again and again. I use to dream about having my work in there one day along with an article about my own gallery showing. Mrs. Stewart, the art teacher, had quickly dashed those dreams. A successful artist requires pure talent along with technique, and sadly, I had neither. I wondered what Dad would say if I told him I was thinking of going for a degree in art history. He’d probably start talking about back up plans and double majors.

Eventually, I placed the magazine back in place on the nightstand and rolled onto my back. College seemed so far off, but I knew it wasn’t. Even Phoebe had sent off some applications. Maybe I was already too late. A year off wouldn’t be horrible. I could take my time and figure out where I wanted to go and if art history was really what I wanted. I could work or travel. Of course, in order to travel I would need money and a car. Neither of which I could picture Dad just giving me. Work was more likely.

I flicked off my table lamp and stared up at my stars. Dylan’s drew my eyes immediately. What would I have done if he were still here? I couldn’t even remember talking to him about my plans. Most of the time he talked about us going to Stanford or Harvard. Had he ever considered that neither of those schools would have seen me as a prospective student?

I pushed Dylan to the back of my mind. It didn’t matter anymore what he would have thought or done. There was nothing he could do.

I forced myself up and over to my desk to do my homework. With a history and English paper due on Monday I wanted to double check my editing before Phoebe sucked me into doing hers first. Besides homework was the best way for me to get my mind off everything else.

School became bearable and I didn’t spend a moment moping about Micah. I refused to do that. Micah and I wanted completely different things, or people really. It was a fact I could accept. Still, I found myself hovering on the edge of Phoebe’s group of friends. Not really with them, but not on the outside either. They tried to include me, even Micah did, occasionally asking me things, trying to draw me closer to them. But I couldn’t. I needed to hold myself together, find a way to get through the days until somehow I found my way out. Each day it was easier to accept Dylan’s absence, to be apart from Micah. I was finding a way to be myself.

My schoolwork was getting more attention than ever and somehow I was making an A in English. Although, I suspected that had to do with Ms. Garcia feeling bad about the disastrous character analysis. With my homework done and double-checked, I curled up in bed and tried to picture a happy place that didn’t conjure thoughts of Micah, Dylan or my mom.

The next morning, I awoke with a sweat. I’d dreamed of Mom. That wasn’t unusual this close to the anniversary of her death. The dreams start off nice enough. She’s with Dad at the hospital, finally giving in to the doctor’s request to do a c-section. She radiates happiness at finally seeing us, but even then, there’s a dark and heavy feeling to her. She turns hazy after they gave her some medication. Then we’re there with her and she holds each of us. We are grown, yet she coos to us and cradles our heads to her chest as if we are babies.

I feel something is wrong. When she holds me, I scream at the agony of what she is holding in. There is no way to describe what it is, only that it is the most devastating thing I’ve ever felt.

My arms flail as I try to latch onto her, but they refuse to cooperate and she passes me to my father. I can no longer scream the pain is so bad. I lay staring at the white tiled ceiling, whimpering as I feel her life drain away until finally I wake.

I wiped the sweat and tears from my face and reached for my water glass. The cool water soothed my ragged throat. I may not have screamed tonight, but the memory of it lingered. When I finally get out of bed, I know where I need to go.

Most people find cemeteries cold and sad places, but for me I found peace there. I use to go to Mom’s grave every week, then Dylan and I had started dating and I’d gone less and less. It had been nearly eight months since I’d last been. Dylan’s memorial service had been at the funeral home and I hadn’t gone to the graveside service, although I’m not sure why. My memory of that time was permanently foggy.

I walked to Mom’s grave without hesitating. Each step was as familiar as the walk from our driveway to the front door. The gravel path between the rows was neatly groomed and the grass trimmed. Fresh flowers lay against the small headstone etched with her name. Uncle Silas and Aunt Lita always came a week before the anniversary of her death. Picking up the flowers, I moved them to the side and sat down with my back against the headstone. The coldness of the stone quickly made its way through my thin cardigan and t-shirt.

My eyes drifted closed and I took in a deep breath. The pain my mom suffered as she died pulsed through me as it always did when I came here and I struggled to pull in more air. After a few moments, the pain lessened and my limbs went slack as if my life were drained from me, just as it had her. The hard stone kept me upright, and the impression of letters and numbers dug into my back.

“Even then you wanted to help.”

My eyes flew open to see Nanna standing a couple of feet away, her face wrinkled with the gentle smile she wore. She looked so much older than she had short weeks ago. The anniversary of Mom’s death was hard on her still. It was an aching hole that never soothed or fully healed. There’d been a time when my touch could bring her a moment’s peace, but that had slowly faded over the years. Her hands trembled slightly as she held one out to me. I grasped it and she stood for a moment staring through me into my past. Finally she leaned into my hold as she knelt then sat beside me.

“You’ve always cared so much, trying to take care of everyone else. It used to worry me that you never stopped to take care of yourself.” She laid an arm over my shoulder and pulled me in until my head rested on her shoulder and she could run her hand along my head.

“I didn’t need to take care of myself,” I said softly.

“Didn’t you?” She sighed and squeezed me closer. “Healing is a difficult gift to possess. I remember how your uncle Silas struggled when he was younger. He hated everything to do with his gift. Knowing every feeling the people around him had and why. It took him a long time to find a way to control it.”

“I use to think my ability was a gift, but now I wonder if it’s not a curse. It’s horrible,” I said, surprising myself with how I described my ability. Tears pooled in my eyes and slid slowly down my cheeks. “I constantly hurt and even when I try to help, it doesn’t really heal anyone. I tried with Dylan, so many times, but he still...he still killed himself. What if I hadn’t taken away his anger and pain all of those times? Maybe he would have gotten help.”

“We’ll never know what would have happened with Dylan, but that doesn’t mean what you did was wrong, or caused him to do what he did. Dylan made a choice and that’s it.”

“That’s not it, Nanna. He didn’t have a choice. All of those times I was supposed to heal him happened whether he wanted it to or not, whether I wanted to or not.”

“Maybe it’s what needed to happen, regardless of what was wanted.” She looked at me and I tried to avoid her gaze. “What’s making you question yourself so much?”

“Someone said that what I do is stealing. That people need the pain and anger to move forward.”

“And what do you think?”

“I think he’s right.”

“Perhaps, but this is more than you wondering if people need to feel those things. So why are you asking all of these questions now?”

I pursed my lips and picked at a blade of grass that tickled my leg. “I don’t understand why it hurts all the time. It doesn’t matter if I heal someone or not, their emotions burn through me.”

“And you want to know why?”

“Yeah.”

“When you feel someone’s anger or pain, how do you feel?”

“Like I’m on fire.”

“And what do you feel for them?”

“Sympathy, I guess. I feel bad that they are suffering.”

“But are they really suffering? Or is your friend right? Are they are healing themselves?” Nanna asked. I shrugged and glanced at her, wondering where she was going with this. “Have you considered that the sympathy you have for them is what’s causing you to lack control?”

“How can I not have sympathy for them? I can feel everything they are going through. Do you know how hard it was to even be near Dylan’s mom? I saw her the other day and it was suffocating. There was this huge ache in her that squeezed my chest so hard I wasn’t sure I could breathe. I couldn’t walk away from her. I had to heal her.”