Heal Me (A Touched Trilogy Book 2) (3 page)

“I’m not stupid, you know,” I said, finally finding my voice to defend myself.

“Sure. Whatever.” He turned back to his book.

I felt like I was ten again and Phoebe had just told me I was the ugly sister.

“Why are you being so rude to me? Why don’t you like me?” Well, that came out completely pathetic.

He sighed and put his book down. “I don’t dislike you. I just hate getting stuck with lazy partners.”

“You haven’t even given me a chance to do anything!”

“I don’t need to give you a chance. I know you.”

“You don’t know me! Today is the first time we’ve even talked.”

“I have three classes with you and it’s the same in each one. You’re completely spaced, half asleep, and your sisters are always lending you their notes.”

I wanted to yell that I was exhausted because Dylan kept sucking all of my energy out, that I was spaced because I was trying to figure out what was happening to Dylan. Instead all I said was, “They borrow my notes.”

“Lily,” Dylan’s voice came from behind me and Micah and I both looked up at him. “I’m sorry about storming off. I just wanted to spend some time with you.”

“It’s okay,” I said, my fingers tingling as Dylan’s hurt reached me. I clenched my hands into fists, trying to resist the urge to heal. “Micah’s busy reading, so I’ll come eat with you.”

“Why don’t we just sit here?” He sat next to me, an inch away. One inch that carried the burning from my hands to the entire right side of my body and caused my stomach to churn.

Micah’s face was back in his book, I silently munched on my sandwich, and Dylan filled the silence with endless complaints about how the last project we’d worked on had lowered his GPA by two points. Just what I needed to instill confidence in Micah.

I finally shoveled my food into my mouth, not caring that I resembled a chipmunk with cheeks stuffed. I just wanted to get away from both of them. Dylan was doing a good job of not showing how furious he was, but the heat of it on my skin grew every second.

The afternoon warning bell rang and I stood up, holding my tray with both hands, careful not to bump Dylan. But he took it from me and stacked it on top of his own, then holding it in one hand, he looped his free arm around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. The pleasure I’d once felt at the action no longer existed. His anger rushed through me, ripping my heart apart. My shoulders ached with the transfer of his negative energy and a slight gasp escaped my lips. It lasted only seconds, but when it ended, I sagged against him, barely managing to stay standing.

He glanced down at me, concern filling his eyes. “You need to get more sleep, babe.”

I nodded absently and reached back to snag my backpack from the bench. Micah’s eyes caught mine, and there was a curious look in them. Did he know what had just happened? Unless he knew about the gifts my sisters and I had, he’d have no clue. And since most people had finally put it down to gossip, it was more likely he didn’t know. Besides, Dylan knew about my healing ability and most of the time even he had no idea when I was healing him.

Spanish class was the only thing that kept me going for the rest of the day. Immediately after lunch, Mr. Mason decided to show us a Spanish language film and I was able to sleep for the entire hour. At the end of class, I asked to borrow the movie over night so I could watch it again because it had been so interesting. He handed it over eagerly, hoping I would share it with Phoebe, who had been conveniently sick during her Spanish block.

I begged a ride from Phoebe after school and, once home, collapsed in bed, utterly exhausted.

Chapter 2

I slept straight through my morning alarm and woke just after ten. I had a vague memory of Dad checking on me and of Chloe reassuring him that I’d be fine.

The thought of going to school for afternoon classes crossed my mind, but the risk of running into Dylan was enough to keep me home. Instead, I watched the Spanish movie from Mr. Mason and then let soap operas suck the brains from me. I wondered what Micah had thought when I wasn’t in class, but he already had a low opinion of me, so what did one day matter? Besides, he hadn’t said we would be working on the project today.

“Hey, skipper,” Chloe said as she came into the living room. She tossed her backpack on the end of the couch and sat down next to me. She grabbed the remote and muted the volume. “You missed some excitement with your boyfriend today.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, Dylan just had some kind of mental breakdown.”

That had me sitting up instantly. “What do you mean?”

“Lils, it was so freaky. We were eating lunch and talking about our project. He asked about you and I said you were at home then he started yelling about not giving a shit about the project and flung his tray at the wall. He kept asking why you weren’t here, until Mr. Arnold came in and took him to the office. I think he spent the rest of the day with the school counselor.”

“Oh God.” I groaned and dropped my head into my hands. I should have been there. I could have stopped it from happening.

“What’s going on with him, Lil?”

“I don’t know. He’s...he’s so different from the way he was. I mean, he’s always angry and...I just don’t know how to help him.”

“Lily, you always know exactly what is wrong with everyone. And then you fix them. You have the easiest gift of all of us.”

“Whatever is happening to him is beyond what I can do.” I tucked my feet underneath me and hugged my knees to my chest. I wished I actually still wanted to help him.

“This is more than just him, isn’t it? Are you still upset about that stupid conversation with Phoebe? I already told you that things between you and Dylan would be fine. Just trust me, Lils.”

“Sure.”

“I promise, you and Dylan are gonna be together and happy. Whatever he’s dealing with will work itself out,” she said and gave me a reassuring smile. “Feel better?”

“Yeah, thanks. I’m fine now.” I smiled and gave her a hug.

I’d read once on one of those pointless Facebook posts that the most common lie people tell is ‘I’m fine’. I can’t recall a single time in my life when I’d truly felt fine. Maybe it was one of those subjective things that means something entirely different to the people I was talking to than I’d always assumed.

Using those simple, appeasing words came naturally. It was so easy to do, especially with Chloe. She didn’t hear the truth behind the white lies I told, or the words I forced back down my throat, nearly choking on them because they would only hurt someone else.

“Good,” she said, satisfaction and relief cascading off her in little ripples. “I’m going to get dinner started. Want to help?”

I shook my head. “I’m gonna finish watching this.”

Once she’d left, I flipped off the television and went to my room. I sat in my desk chair and stared at the blank computer screen.

“What the hell is up with Dylan?” Phoebe asked, barging into my room a few minutes later. I swiveled the chair around to face her as she sat on the edge of my bed. “He totally flipped out on Chloe today. I don’t even know what happened. One second they were talking and the next thing I know he’s throwing things and completely spazzing. Holy hell, I thought he was gonna pull some kind of massacre or something.”

“Hey, I just fixed that,” I said, gesturing to the bedspread Phoebe was mangling.

“Don’t avoid the subject,” she said, wriggling around and making herself more comfortable.

“I’m not.”

She snorted under her breath. “You are. You compulsively tidy your room, so I know you don’t really mind if we mess it up a bit, because it makes you feel justified in straightening everything again. You’re avoiding.”

“Okay, so maybe I am. I don’t want to talk about Dylan, because I don’t know what’s going on with him.”

“Is he why you passed out yesterday?”

“I didn’t pass out,” I said, and ignored her snort of disbelief. “I was just tired.”

“Lils, I had to practically drag you to your room. This kind of thing never happened to you until the last few months. And it’s always around Dylan. Obviously, whatever his problem is, it isn’t something you can fix. You’ve got to stop healing him.”

Frustration filled me and I rose from the chair to look down at my sister. “I don’t really have a choice, Phoebe. How can I stop my boyfriend from touching me? Besides, this is my gift. I’m supposed to use it to help people.”

“Not to the point that it hurts you. If you do that you’re screwed.”

And that was my real problem. It hurt when I healed someone and it hurt if I didn’t. So now I was messed up and screwed.

She pushed off the bed and left, closing the door behind her. I let out a deep breath before smoothing the comforter back into place. My room was my sanctuary, the one place where I could feel only myself. Phoebe and Chloe didn’t understand that. They had never needed a place to be free of emotions. Keeping things in order meant I could control what was in here, I could keep in the things I needed and keep out all the things I couldn’t handle.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned as Phoebe’s words kept coming back to me. I wanted to deny them, yet part of me knew she was right. My gift shouldn’t hurt me, but it did. She thought it had to do with Dylan, but I couldn’t let him take that blame, because it had always hurt, just not as much.

Ever since we were little, Chloe and Phoebe had said they wished they’d had my gift, that I had it easy. Chloe had always said her gift was pointless. What good was seeing the future if you couldn’t do anything about it? And Phoebe hadn’t even come into her gift until recently, but she always went on about how it must be nice to always make people feel better.

They had no clue.

They didn’t know the fire that burned my hands if I was near someone with even the slightest negative energy, or how my stomach would twist and cause me to vomit when a person was seriously injured.

They didn’t know that when I took away their cramps, or shaving nicks, or their heartbreak, I took it inside me. That their pain would flow through me and I had to absorb it. Pain, rage, hurt, doesn’t just disappear. It had to go somewhere, and for almost eighteen years, I’d been taking it in for everyone. The idea that it shouldn’t hurt was so foreign. What should it feel like? And could I actually do what Phoebe suggested? Could I simply stop? I’d never tried to touch someone and
not
heal them.

I eventually gave up on sleeping and wandered down the hall into the rec room. Sinking onto the couch, I flipped on the TV and started watching an infomercial, yet even a magic salad tosser couldn’t distract me. I wanted to talk to Nanna, but she wasn’t much for small talk. She tended to cut right to the heart of the problem and I wasn’t sure I was ready for that. Besides, it was almost two in the morning and Nanna would be flat out.

A shuffling behind me caused me to jump and twist around. Dad was coming down the stairs, obviously checking to see who was still up.

“Hey, sweetheart. Are you feeling all right?” he asked as he entered the room. He came over and planted a kiss on the top of my head.

“Yeah, I guess sleeping in so late messed with my internal clock. I’m a little wired.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re feeling better. You had me worried when I couldn’t get you to wake up. Do you want to talk about what happened?”

I shrugged and contemplated how much to tell him.

“I’m thinking of breaking up with Dylan.” Definitely not the words I’d been thinking of saying. A sense of freedom overwhelmed me, followed immediately by guilt. It was the first time I’d allowed the idea to even form, let alone say the words aloud.

“Wow. That wasn’t what I was expecting.” He came around the couch to sit on the coffee table across from me. “Is everything okay? He’s not pressuring you or anything is he?”

Mentioning it to my dad was probably a mistake. He was super paranoid after the mess with Phoebe’s friend Tonya being sent to the hospital by her jerk ex-boyfriend Trevor. Dad was working on getting the charges to stick against Trevor and Tonya had just gotten out of the hospital. Now he’d be suspecting Dylan of the same type of thing.

“No, it’s not like that. It’s just that he’s... we’re different people now. We’ve been dating for so long. I think I just need some time alone. To figure things out.”

It was as much of a logical explanation as I could come up with. Besides, Dad had an acute discomfort for all relationship discussions and a limited attention span. He was already fiddling with the remote control.

I unfolded myself from the couch and gave him a quick hug. “I’m going to head to bed. Love you.”

“I love you too, sweetheart. Good night and don’t let the bed bugs bite.”

I rolled my eyes at his little rhyme. He was such a dorky dad sometimes. After climbing back into bed, I thought about what I’d voiced. I wanted to break up with Dylan. Whispering the words to myself, I realized I really did. It felt right to think it, to say it, but I couldn’t do it. If Dylan had flipped out over me not being at school, then what would he do if I told him it was over between us?

Even Chloe knew that I was with Dylan in the future. Christmas, prom. God, I wondered if she’d seen more than that. Was I going to be stuck with this version of Dylan for the rest of my life? Were the past few months just a taste of what the years ahead of me would be like?

The questions drifted until I fell into a restless sleep and a dream filled with multiple Dylans surrounding me, reaching for me, attempting to draw me closer to them. I kept slapping at the hands, trying to evade their grasp. Finally, one of them grabbed my arm and I pulled and pulled until my arm ripped from my body.

My eyes flew open as I woke suddenly. It had only been a dream, but it was how I felt all the time. As if I couldn’t escape his hold.

I needed to break up with Dylan, and I had to do it soon, before it tore me apart.

The decision invigorated me. I glanced at my alarm clock. It was only a few minutes before I normally got up, so I bounced out of bed and down the hall to the bathroom, ignoring the small schedule posted on the door that said Chloe had the bathroom for the next fifteen minutes. As far as I could see, she was still asleep, so I took her turn.

The water pounded my back and head, adding to the invigorated feeling I had going on. I was finally taking control of my life. I was so used to making others feel good. Today would be about healing myself.

A loud thump came from the door, followed by Chloe’s clearly annoyed voice. “Phoebe, get out! This is my week to have the bathroom first. I’m going to go into your room and delete all of the music from your iPod. I’m serious.” She banged on the door again.

I kept silent, letting Phoebe take the blame. I turned off the shower, then twisted my hair up with one towel like a turban and wrapped the other around my body. A puff of steam escaped into the hall as I opened the door and ran to my room, hoping to keep my feet on the cool tile floor as little as possible.

“I saw you, Lily,” Chloe called from her bedroom. “I get one of your days next week.”

“Sorry, I didn’t think you were up yet.” I swung my door shut, not wanting her to see my smile. Chloe could be even worse than Phoebe when she was pissed off and I didn’t want to spoil my day.

Dylan lived a few blocks over from us on the way to the high school. Normally I caught a ride with Phoebe or Chloe, but Dylan walked to school and I wanted to talk to him before class. The light feeling I’d had before leaving home wore off with each step I made toward his house, but the loss of it wasn’t going to deter me. I needed to make the break. The sooner the better.

I approached his house and, as I walked up the path to the front door, I saw him moving around the kitchen through the window. The doorbell sounded especially loud that early in the morning, but his parents would have already left for work. For over three years, we’d walked to school together, with me picking him up on my way each day. That had ended the first time I’d had to heal him before we even left his house. I’d barely made it to school and the next day Chloe had given me a ride.

The door opened and Dylan’s unusually cheerful face smiled down at me.

“Hey! I didn’t know it was my birthday.” He grabbed my hand and tugged me closer for a kiss. I was so shocked by the lack of transfer that I didn’t pull away from his lips at all. It was like being thrown a year into the past and the Dylan I loved was back. Even the winter-fresh taste of his kiss was familiar.

When he let me go, I opened my mouth to say it, to say I wanted to break up, but the words refused to form. Instead, all I could do was think about how he’d trimmed his hair and that he was smiling. Really smiling. Not the fake one he’d been giving lately to cover his perpetually gloomy mood, but an honest to God, dimple forming, teeth baring smile.