The Fire In My Eyes (27 page)

By the end of that week, we were both exhausted. My injuries were taking a toll on my body. Even though Absynthe and Nikki were directing the accelerated healing process, my body had to do all the actual work. All I could do for myself was dull the throbbing echoes of pain at night so I could sleep. When Shade announced that he was leaving for New York City the next day, I was too tired to cheer.

He leaped off the roof after his announcement, but instead of following him, Absynthe stepped over to kneel at my side. “You're not doing too well, are you?” she observed.

I panted for breath. His final assault had cracked several ribs. “If I was in any worse shape, I'd probably be in the morgue,” I said.

She touched my chest and I felt more of the lingering pain fade. “They're knitting just fine. Why do you antagonize him the way you do?”

“What do you mean?” I sat up and winced with the expectation of pain. It didn't hurt, but I still felt as if it should. Getting used to broken bones was somewhat disturbing.

“You taunt him as much as he taunts you,” Absynthe said. “You push him, and not in a friendly manner. You deliberately make him angry. And then he deliberately hurts you.”

Nikki placed her hand on my shoulder. “She's right, Kevin. I've noticed too. It's like you two are playing a game to see who can make the other the angriest. Considering what ends up happening, even when you win, you still lose.”

I shook my head and started to rise to my feet. Her hand on my shoulder held me down. “He's always hated me. He likes hurting me. He'd do it whether or not he's pissed off at me. He's a sadistic bastard.” I removed her hand from my shoulder and stood up.

Absynthe stood up as well and looked me straight in the eye. “Bullshit,” she said. “Bullshit, Kevin. Bullshit.”

“Come on, Absynthe,” I said. “It's not like you haven't seen it for yourself. He opposed giving me a second chance, and he resents having to train me.”

She made a frustrated sound and shook her head. “He doesn't like you. That doesn't mean he wants to hurt you, or that he enjoys hurting you. If you give him an excuse to indulge his dislike, he takes it. He takes what’s offered. I know him that well.”

I bit my tongue before I could ask her just how she knew that. I felt Nikki put her hand on my shoulder again and squeeze, hard. She probably thought I was about to ask a rather indelicate question. “I'm not that dumb,” I tele'd to her.

“You are that dumb,” she said out loud. “But I like you in spite of that.”

Absynthe chuckled. “You two get along well. I'm almost jealous.”

“Almost?” Nikki asked.

“My relationships have not been quite so warm,” Absynthe said. “More business than pleasure. Not that they were unhappy, mind you, but I've barely had a chance to rest in the past twenty years. My life is a whirlwind. It's only since I was assigned to training duty that I've spent so long in one place.”

“Long distance relationships don't work out too well. So I've heard, at least,” I said. Nikki's grip tightened again. I took her hand off my shoulder again, but held on this time. “I'm glad this one isn't that way.”

“They weren't long distance, necessarily,” Absynthe said. She walked over to the edge of the roof and placed her hands on the waist-high lip to keep people from falling off. “It's hard to explain. Not physical distance. Emotional distance. I couldn't connect with them. Not since Green.” One hand rose to cover her mouth, as if she had just said something wrong. “Ah. What am I saying? Neither of you understand emotional distance yet. Your hearts are as close as your bodies are. The way things should be.”

Nikki squeezed my hand, but didn't say anything. I felt compelled to say something, and unfortunately, said the first thing that came into my mind. “Do you have that sort of emotional distance between you and Shade?”

“Kevin!” Nikki hissed. Her fingernails dug into the back of my hand.

Absynthe threw her head back and laughed. “Shade? He's as emotionally accessible as that block of concrete. I'll say no more. You two should go and rest.” She turned around and walked past us, slapping the back of her hand against my chest in passing. I recoiled, even though there still wasn't any pain. “Especially you. You won't be able to stand up much longer.” We followed her down the stairs to the elevator. She got out on the second floor, wishing us a good evening, and we got out at the ground floor and started the long walk back to the dorm.

Nikki was strangely quiet all the way back to the dorm. Most nights we walked side by side, discussing what we had gone through that night. She rarely held my hand in public and we'd never kissed where anyone else could see. Tonight, she clung to my hand as if she was afraid to let go, and she answered all my questions with one or two words.

By the time we reached the dorm, my arms and legs were shaking. I was so weak, I couldn't even hold the key to unlock the door. She had to do it for me. I leaned on her as we walked in. When I finally sat down on my bed, it was all I could do to kick my shoes off and lie down. “What time is it?” I asked.

She sat on the bed next to me and gently stroked my hair. “Half past nine.”

“Too early to go to sleep,” I mumbled. My body protested every single moment I was still awake. My chest was starting to ache and I could barely even lift my eyelids.

“You need to rest. Start studying tomorrow. Finals are the week after next.”

“Shit. I haven't even started.” I forced myself to sit up. I had too many things to worry about to sleep. Even if it was only an hour of studying, it would be a start, and maybe it would be enough to keep me from failing.

Nikki pushed me back down to lie on my back. “No,” she said. “You're going to pass out if you try and do anything other than lying down.” She walked across the room and closed the door, then walked back over to my bed. She stood there for a moment, looking down at me, then kicked her shoes off. “Move over.”

I shuffled over as much as I could. She sat down again, then laid down beside me, her head close to my shoulder, placing her right hand on my chest. “What are you doing?” I asked her.

“Making sure you sleep,” she said. “I can feel your heart, you know that?”

“I should hope so.”

She balled her fist and thumped my chest. I wheezed. “Idiot.” She flattened her hand out on my chest again and pressed a little closer to me. “I was thinking about what Absynthe was saying.”

“About the emotional distance thing?” I asked.

She nodded and burrowed in even closer. “That our hearts are as far apart as our bodies. I feel sorry for her if she hasn't felt this way. I hope we never get that far apart.”

“Me too.” I put my hand on hers. She kissed my cheek.

About the same time my eyes finally drifted closed, the door opened. “Dude, I was totally wanting to see that movie again. I'm thinking, whoa, are we interrupting something?” I opened my eyes. Drew stood in the middle of the room, grinning down at us. Max sighed and rolled his eyes when I looked at him.

“Just taking a nap,” I told them. Awkward.

“Yeah, right,” Max said.

“No, really,” I said. “Just tired.”

Drew laughed. “I need more naps like that, man. I would ask you if you wanted to come with us, but I think you'll have more fun napping. If that's what you crazy kids are calling it.”

I lifted my free hand and flipped him off. Nikki didn't even open her eyes, but I could feel her giggling. “What's the hold up here, Maxie?” I heard Jess's voice from the hallway. “Let's get over there before it's too late. What's taking you so long?”

Max looked over his shoulder toward the hallway. “It'd take too long to explain. You might as well just come in here and be a voyeur too.”

I heard footsteps and then Jess pushed Drew over to the side. Her eyes went wide. “Oh, shit! Did they walk in on you? Do I need to hurt Maxie?”

“Stop calling me Maxie.”

“We're just taking a nap,” I protested. “Really.”

“Sure you are.” Jess crossed her arms. “I bet as soon as we leave, you two are going to start-”

“You two are so cute!” Lisa burst into the room and jabbed Jess in the side before she could finish her sentence. “Oh wow, so totally cute! Naptime, right?”

I lifted my free hand again and gave her the thumbs up. “Thanks, Lisa, you're the only decent one out of all these animals.” Nikki was still giggling silently.

“Naturally! Drew's a bear, Max is a lemur, and Jess is a hedgehog. And I'm a panda!” Lisa beamed at me. I wondered how long it had taken for her to assign all those animal characteristics to us.

“A lemur? Really?” Max's protest was cut off as Lisa started pushing everyone out of the room. She winked over her shoulder at me as she thrust them out the door and slammed it shut. Max's voice was momentarily audible from the hallway. “We'll knock next time!” I groaned. This was going to start a whole new set of rumors.

“Your friends are so weird,” Nikki said.

After Shade left, the end of the trimester was almost anti-climactic. Absynthe's training was less intense, and much less painful. While she drilled us as hard as Shade had, it was without malice and she never deliberately hurt either of us. Our sessions were short and focused due to finals. The lighter pace let me heal and let us both study.

The road trip to Florida that we had planned back in March was coming up. I called home just before finals to let my dad know and he had acknowledged it without comment. A day later, I received an e-mail from my mom, wishing me a good trip. I was surprised that my dad had actually told her. Either way, I had their blessing to go.

By unspoken consent, none of us had said a word about it to anyone else. For my part, I didn't want Nikki to know. I did feel a little guilty about keeping it from her, but we spent so much time together, it had kept me from hanging out with my roommates and other friends. Getting a little time away from her would made it all the better when we saw each other again, I reasoned. I suspected Drew and Max felt the same way.

The last Friday of the month was the last day of finals, with most exams being crammed into the morning by professors who wanted to leave as much as we did. That evening, Max and Drew and I hung out with Andreas, watching movies, trying out some of his new creations, playing video games. Over the course of the evening, Lisa and Jess dropped by, then Nikki came looking for me, and Kaitlyn came looking for Nikki and Lisa. Andreas kept pulling chairs out to give people a place to sit, and started to dip into his liquor stocks.

By eleven, we were all very comfortable. Nikki had excused herself to the bathroom a couple of times, and I suspected that she was using her psionic powers to control how she was metabolizing alcohol. I had considered doing the same thing, but I was enjoying my buzz. Seemed silly to me. She was missing the entire point of having a few drinks.

“So what is everyone doing over the break?” Andreas asked, loud enough to cut through all the other conversations. I tensed. The topic had come up between Nikki and I, but only in passing, and I had just said that I wasn't sure yet. I didn't want to be the one to reveal that we had been planning on a road trip for the past few months.

“I'm going home again!” Kaitlyn said, jumping to her feet and staggering a little. “Going home to my beautiful beaches and skies and boys!”

“Silly Cali girl,” Max grumbled.

Kaitlyn turned to look at Max, then picked her way around the room, one step at a time, until she was standing right in front of him, then bent over to stare him right in the face. I was sure that he wasn’t focusing on her face. Judging by Jess's expression, she was thinking the same thing, but in much more negative terms. “You think Cali girls are silly?” she said. “Well, we're not. We're just like any other girl. Pretty girls who like pretty boys. Nothing silly about that!”

“If you say so,” Max agreed. Kaitlyn sniffed, then straightened up and picked her way back to her previous seat. Max watched her go, then looked over at our host. “What about you, Andreas? Going back to the land of eternal winter?”

Andreas sighed. “I have not had the opportunity to return home in two years now.”

“That's pretty sad, Viking,” Jess said. “Why don't you make some time?”

“I do not have the technological prowess to create time.”

“That's not exactly what I meant.”

I chuckled. Kaitlyn had collapsed back into her seat and was reaching for her glass. Nikki was sitting next to me, her gaze on me. She hadn't said much at all tonight, but I had caught her looking at Drew and Max with what I could only consider disapproval. Was she growing to dislike them, or was it just the setting here that she wasn't enjoying? Maybe it was just the alcohol thinking for me.

“As I have said before, Norway is not a land of eternal winter,” Andreas said. “In fact, due to the Gulf Stream, most of the country is as temperate as Canada. My home is to the southwest of Oslo, near Larvik, and our temperature around this time of year is just a little colder than Plattsburgh. The weather is nothing like what you experience here, though.”

“I don't know about that, it can get pretty weird around here,” Max said.

“Weird does not begin to describe what it is like at home.” Andreas shook his head.

“I think it'd be cool to go visit there,” Jess said. Max's head snapped around to stare at her. Jess kept talking as if she didn't notice. “All the Scandinavian culture. It sounds like fun.”

Andreas rubbed at his eyebrow. “We do not wear horned helmets, Jessica. No matter how much you wish it was so, it is not so.”

“What are you going to do over break, Jess? Big tournaments? Conventions? Geek parties?” Max asked.

Jess flicked a hand at him. “No plans. I was actually going to stay here over the break. Might work in the computer lab over the break to earn a little cash. Been spending too much, going out shopping with Lisa all the time.”

“It's not my fault you're a big spender,” Lisa protested. She was sitting on Drew's lap in one of Andreas' big chairs. Drew's eyes were closed. I wasn't sure if he was really asleep or just faking it. Probably faking it. He didn't want to be the one to break the news either.