by Gregory Ashe
Chapter 39, Friday 14 October
“Alex, we’re leaving,” Dad called from the front hall. I left my room and trotted down the stairs; a good night of using the healing focus had put me back almost to normal, although some of the burns and cuts still lingered on the surface. Dad helped Mom on with her jacket as they stood at the door.
“Drive safe,” I said.
Mom glanced at Dad, then at me. “Are you sure you’re going to be ok? It’s only been a day; I don’t know if we should leave you alone yet.”
“Mom, Mr. Green is gone. He’s not going to come back and kidnap me.”
“I know he’s gone, honey, but I just thought you might feel, well—”
“I’m fine, Mom. You’re going to be gone for what, two or three hours? I’ll just order pizza, watch some TV, and probably be asleep before you’re home.”
“I can reschedule,” Mom said, pulling her jacket off, “this isn’t important.”
“Essie,” Dad said. “You need to do this.”
“Dad’s right, Mom. I don’t want you skipping therapy; I’ll be fine for a few hours.”
She hesitated, and that was enough of an opening for Dad to put her jacket back on and take her by the hand.
“You sure you aren’t going to go to the dance, Alex?” Dad said as he opened the door. “The tickets are on the table; someone from school dropped them off while you were in the hospital.”
“It might be a good idea,” Mom said. “Get out of the house, be with people your own age. Even if Olivia can’t go, poor thing. You wouldn’t be here, by yourself . . .”
“I’ll think about it,” I said. I had completely forgotten about the dance; I stood there, still mummified with bandages that, for the most part, I no longer needed, wearing a ratty t-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts. The dance was the last thing on my list, especially with Olivia still in a coma. “Now go, you’re going to be late.”
“Lock the door,” Mom said as she pulled it shut behind her. “We have a key.”
I let the door shut and then headed back up to my room; we’d never locked the door before, and I certainly wasn’t going to start now. How do you explain to your parents that a locked door won’t stop a murderous sorcerer who is bent on containing an ancient evil? To her, a locked door probably seemed like the only logical precaution; to me, it seemed laughable.
In the kitchen, I made a quick call to the local pizza place; the pizza here was nothing like what we had in New York, but pizza was still pizza, and I had been craving it since I woke up in the hospital. While I waited, I headed back to my room. I tucked my other foci away in the chest, then stored the cleaner and the polishing cloths. I kept one focus with me, though, the one Christopher had made for me, and a sizeable pool of refined energy sat within me. If I were attacked, I didn’t want to be caught without any protection. I wasn’t that comfortable at home.
Before I closed and locked the chest, I gave it a last glance. For the first time in a long time, I let myself look at the book that lay in the chest, really look at it. The book that Christopher had given me, filled with poetry he had written, or collected, for me. I set my hand on the cover, my thumb finding the same, worn spot where I always held it. One day, maybe, I would read it again, and remember. I closed and locked the chest. For the moment, I was more interested in the future.
The doorbell rang. I hadn’t realized how much time had passed. I grabbed a twenty from the desk and tumbled down the stairs to open the door.
Mike stood on the porch, a bouquet of flowers in one hand, a black dressing bag in the other. He wore a perfectly tailored black suit; it fit him like a glove, showing the strong lines of his shoulders, his thin waist. When he turned to face me, a smile splitting his tan, handsome face, it was like watching someone on a runway.
“Nice haircut,” he said, the smiling widening, teasing. “You look good. Come on, let’s go.”
Anger and surprise and a mixture of hormones ran through me. “What the hell are you talking about? Go where?” Anger won out, it seemed.
Mike’s smile didn’t falter. “Can I come in?”
I stepped back, grudgingly, and he walked in with that casual familiarity. I shut the door.
“What do you want?” I said.
“I wanted to say thanks for saving my life. On several occasions, but most recently, when I was taken captive by an insane grower and almost sacrificed. And I wanted to see how you’re doing—are you not using the focus? Why do you still have all those bandages?”
“I’m fine, thank you. Something you’d know if you’d come to see me in the hospital.”
“I did come,” Mike said, his smile faded, and he looked confused. “I brought you the healing focus.”
“Yeah, you came while I was unconscious,” I said. “I’ve wanted to talk to you for a week; why didn’t you ever come see me?”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
I blinked. “I was the one in the hospital!”
“They have phones in hospitals, Asa.”
“But I wanted you to come visit me.” It sounded very childish when I said it like that.
Mike stretched out the hand with flowers. When I took them, he rubbed his eyes with one hand. “Look, Asa, don’t make this more complicated than it has to be. Let’s just go have fun.”
“Go where?”
“God, are you purposefully being dense? Homecoming. The dance. The game just ended an hour or so; it was incredible.”
“And so you brought me flowers?”
“And a suit,” Mike said. “The flowers might be, ah, a regift. But the suit is definitely for you.”
I glanced down at the bouquet; Ashley’s name was written on a card.
“What happened?”
“At the game? Well, it was amazing. We were down two touchdowns, and it was the fourth quarter, fourth down, and I—”
“I know, I know,” I said. “You won the game, like you always do.” I couldn’t keep a smile off my face at Mike’s astonished look, and I felt my anger dissipating. It was hard to be angry when he was around. “I meant with Ashley.”
“We had another fight,” Mike said. “Right after the game.”
“About what?”
For a rare change, Mike looked decidedly uncomfortable. I had a flash of intuition. “About me.”
Mike nodded. “I told her I had to come by here first, to bring you the suit. She flew off the handle, said I was always spending more time with my friends than with her. I think I messed up her plan for pictures, but it kind of escalated from there.” Mike looked at me and said, “Don’t worry, it’ll blow over. It always does.”
“So what?” I said. “I’m your date now?” The words burned my tongue as they left it.
Mike just laughed. “Go put on your suit,” he said. “It was freaking expensive. I already told you not to make this more complicated than it has to be.”
I should have said no, should have told him that Olivia was still in the hospital, that I wouldn’t go without her. I should have told him that I didn’t know what he wanted from me, or if he was even a friend, and that I had wanted him to come see me in the hospital for more than one reason. But my heart swelled up in my chest, thrilling painfully, and I choked down the words. With an embarrassed grin, I accepted the garment bag.
I left the flowers on the counter, not sure what else to do with them, and scribbled a quick note to my parents. I took the garment bag upstairs. The suit fit me perfectly. As well as Mike’s fit him. I hardly recognized myself when I stopped to look in the bathroom mirror. They’d cut my hair in the hospital, for whatever reason, and now it was barely long enough to be called hair at all—just a short buzz. I looked older, I guess. I put on the shoes and went downstairs, each step as light as a heartbeat.
“Damn,” Mike said. “You clean up nice.”
“Shut up, Mike.”
Just that easy, familiar laugh. Christopher’s focus around my neck threatened to strangle me; I couldn’t seem to get enough
air, not when I was standing this close to Mike.
“Let’s go,” I said.
“We’ll have to travel back to my house,” Mike said. “I left my car there, and then I can drive us to the dance. I have to admit, I didn’t think I’d be going stag after winning the Homecoming game.”
I slugged him in the arm, trying to mask my flicker of dismay at the word ‘stag.’ “Get over yourself,” I said.
“Come to the next game,” Mike said. “Then you’ll believe me when I say I win the games.”
I slugged him again for good measure.
“Come on,” he said. “I have my traveler.”
I slid one hand into my pocket, felt the key to Isaac’s Mustang. I had transferred it to these pants without even realizing it; it had become such a part of my life, a weight that I carried with me everywhere. It was hot, burning the palm of my hand, but I wrapped my fingers around it. The metal bit into my flesh as I pulled the key out. It was time to start living again.
“Let’s take my car,” I said.
Surprise flickered in Mike’s eyes; I don’t know how much he knew, or understood, about what driving the car meant to me, but I knew that he would know and understand more than anyone else. When he nodded, he wasn’t smiling; he just squeezed my shoulder, the way Isaac would have.
And that night, with the world spinning into darkness, growing colder and more distant with every heartbeat, with a thirst for life and living burning inside me, in defiance of everything—of the universe, of growers and quickeners, of the future, of memory—that touch was a tether, binding us together, purging the last of my anger. It resonated inside me, in time with some eternal, unseen chord, centering me, destabilizing me. Shaking me to my core even as it offered, for the first time in a long time, solid ground. It was a touch that mingled promise and understanding, and I felt something inside me reply, speaking past those months of despair and pain. And I recognized that answer, because at its core, it was universal, what bound all of us together in spite of the unceasing cosmic tides that threaten to pull the world apart. It was forgiveness. Hope. Friendship.
Love.
