Heal Me (A Touched Trilogy Book 2) Read online

  I opened my eyes and the butterflies were gone. Blue walls surrounded me, and even though the car posters were gone, it was obvious I was back in Micah’s room. It smelled of him, a nice earthy scent that made me think of hiking in the mountains. Through the doorway, I could see into Hannah’s room where the butterflies, once dancing before my eyes, were frozen in place.

  “What’s going on, Lily?” Micah asked from a rolling stool beside the bed. I looked at him briefly, then back to Hannah’s room, wondering how I could change the subject. “Come on. This is the second time you’ve passed out at my house. I think I should know what’s going on, just in case you decide to not wake up the next time.”

  “It’s nothing. Really.”

  “Bullshit. What is going on?” He leaned forward and his hand inched towards mine.

  “Don’t touch me.” I sat up abruptly and scooted away from him, regretting his confused gaze. “I’m sorry it’s just that you have a lot of emotions that you transfer.”

  “Transfer?”

  I shifted into a sitting position, grateful that the nausea I had experienced the first time I’d healed Micah was less severe this time around. Sliding off the bed, I stood and ignored his eyes as I headed out of his room. There was a pull in my fingers, tugging me toward Hannah, but I managed to go the opposite direction into the kitchen. Micah was close behind, watching me even when I helped myself to a glass of water. He sat at the table waiting.

  I tried to read the sensations flowing through me. No burning, instead it was just a pull, as if they simply wanted to find Hannah, and soothe in her something that went beyond anything I understood.

  “Where are your parents?” I asked. It was such an obvious stall that if I weren’t feeling so desperate I would have been embarrassed.

  “My mom had an emergency at work and Dad is out with some buddies from the shop.” His mom was some kind of IT specialist with a security firm in San Diego, while his father was a mechanic at a car repair shop.

  “Are we still going to the library?” I took a long sip of water.

  “No, I can’t leave Hannah alone and Mom isn’t sure when she’ll make it home. I guess I should have called.”

  “That’s okay.” A lame response, but there was no way for me to tactfully say ‘hell yes, you should have called me, so I didn’t have to pass out at your feet again’.

  “When you said transfer, were you talking about that whole healer thing you told me about?”

  I took a moment to pour the rest of the water in my glass into the sink, and watched the water spiral into the drain. When it was gone, I nodded slowly, not looking to see his reaction.

  “So you weren’t shitting me then? You can really heal people?”

  “Yes, but this is too much. I can’t tell what’s wrong.”

  “What’s wrong with who?”

  “You. There is something wrong with you, something centered on Hannah that I don’t understand. She’s healthy and happy, but you have this build up of feelings that seem to have no end that just pop up when I least expect them to. And the transfers are getting worse.”

  “So, just don’t do them.”

  “It’s not like I can just say no. Micah. All it takes is the barest of touches. Normally, I can sense before how bad it’s going to be, but with you, it’s only a fraction of what I end up getting. It’s to the point that I’m passing out.”

  “That’s only happened once, Lily. You don’t know if you passed out because of me.”

  “This is the third time, Micah. It’s happened three times.” I hated telling him that, since he looked horrified, but I needed him to understand how hard it was for me.

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “The first day I came here, that time I fell at school, and then today. Each time I touch you it’s like playing Russian roulette. Sometimes you hold it all in and I’m fine. Then the next I’m out, because you can’t hold it in any longer.”

  “Have you passed out healing anyone else?”

  “Not like this. I’ve felt drained to the point that I can sleep like the dead, but I’ve never immediately passed out.”

  “Why is it like that with me?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m guessing it’ll be even worse next time.”

  “I don’t feel different though. Shouldn’t I feel different? All calm and filled with serenity or something. I thought it would be like getting into Owen’s head. Kind of trippy and filled with flowers and smiley faces.”

  I laughed at the description. “I guess that’s close enough to what people would feel.”

  Then it hit me. He didn’t feel that way. He wasn’t a raging ball of pent up emotions anymore, but neither was he devoid of anything other than peace. Had the transfer not worked?

  “You don’t feel anything when I touch you?” I rolled my eyes when he lifted one brow and gave me a teasing smile. “You know what I mean.”

  “I do, and no, I don’t feel all mellow when you touch me. As for what I do feel, well...”

  “Trust me, I don’t need any details.” I said the words even as a rush of pleasure went through me. He hadn’t really said anything to bring it on, but just the idea was enough to cause blood to rush to my cheeks.

  “So, I’m causing you to faint all the time. Is that why you’ve been avoiding me the past couple of days?”

  I’d hoped he hadn’t noticed that. “It’s just safer if I don’t take chances. My dad, you know. He’ll keep my license until I’m eighteen if he finds out I’m passing out.”

  “Why did he pull it in the first place?”

  I could still feel the utter exhaustion following the transfer with Dylan that had led to Dad putting me on foot power. It had been the final straw for me in our relationship. My hands had gripped his so hard, that Dylan had been the one to pull away. All of my focus had been on drawing out every last ounce of negative energy in hopes of finally healing him.

  I hadn’t been able to help Dylan. Healing Micah would be just as impossible.

  “Yo, Lily!” Micah’s hand waved in front of my face.

  “Wha? What?” I jerked back a bit, startled by the suddenness of his interruption of my memory.

  “I asked why your dad pulled your license.”

  “Oh...I was having problems sleeping.”

  “Problems sleeping kept you from driving well?”

  “It does if I’m constantly falling asleep. Chloe found me asleep at the wheel of Dad’s car one afternoon. I couldn’t even remember driving home, so she ratted me out, and Dad yanked my driving privileges.” I shrugged and filled my glass again then took another sip.

  “Damn, was that because of your migraines?”

  “No.”

  “So? What was it?”

  “It was the healings I was doing.” I didn’t mention Dylan. I couldn’t.

  He nodded in understanding.

  “What do you feel when you heal someone? Don’t you feel anything for yourself?” Micah asked.

  “It hurts. I can feel all of their negative emotions flowing through me.” I stood and refilled my glass with ice and water from the fridge. Ice clinked against the edges of my glass as I set it down on the table.

  “All you feel is pain?”

  “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 h
adn’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.