Heal Me (A Touched Trilogy Book 2)

by Angela Fristoe

  I rolled my final ball down the lane and turned away, not bothering to watch what it hit. I had a score of twenty-five so I doubted it did anything other than roll into the gutter. Bianca’s groan of disgust confirmed my lack of value to our team. I sat on one of the bright orange bucket seats and pulled off my borrowed shoes. The others could play the next game without me. I slipped on my Mary Janes and my jacket and headed outside for a breath of air.

  It was cooler out now, the autumn air biting with the first hint of winter. The night hummed with the sound of cars passing by along Main Street and their headlights flashed by, much less annoying than the strobing going on inside the bowling alley. I sat on the curb and stared at the cars, letting every burning emotion drift away from me. If only I never had to go in a enclosed space again, I might actually feel myself.

  “Are you feeling okay?”

  I looked up at Micah as he sat beside me. It wasn’t fair how good his gray hoodie looked on him, how it clung perfectly to just the right spots and showed off his muscles. Muscles I’d seen and touched. Muscles I knew were-

  “I’m fine,” I said, cutting off my own thoughts. I definitely didn’t need to go down that road.

  There was a long, awkward pause between us, something that had never existed before. I wanted to reach out and hold his hand, but didn’t. Even when we’d been friends with benefits, we’d rarely held hands in public. Maybe when sitting on the couch watching movies, or at the park while watching Hannah play in the sand, but most of the time that had been outside the fringes of our relationship. If we didn’t hold hands then, why would we now?

  “I took Hannah to the zoo last Saturday. She loved the monkeys. Well, all she really saw were the monkeys. She crashed before we got to anything else.” His lips tilted on one side and his eyes sparkled, the green darkened by the night until they were nearly consumed by the brown flecks that hid there.

  “Why are you telling me this?” I asked, my heart wrenching at the mention of Hannah. Losing Micah meant losing her, too. I’d miss her sweet little smile.

  His smile faded and his face turned somber. “She missed having you there.”

  “She’s a year old, Micah. She forgot me five minutes after I left.” I rested my head on my knees. It was too hard to look at him. The echo of his voice pulsed through me, causing my heart to ache more with each beat. If I truly were the glutton for punishment that I’d thought I was, maybe I would have just accepted it, but I realized I wasn’t that person. “I can’t hear about her anymore. Or about you. I can’t be your friend again.”

  “Lils, please. You’re my best friend. Everyone else is just...They’re not you. Why can’t we try again? Nothing to mess it up. Just friends.”

  “I can’t.” I turned my face away and swallowed hard around the lump of tears building in my throat, knowing how hard it was for him to ask when all of his friends in Seattle had turned their backs on him after Hannah was born.

  “Why?” His frustrated expression torn at me.

  “Because I love you. I’m in love with you. And I don’t want to be that person who clings to something that isn’t there.” I glanced back at him and for just a moment it wasn’t Micah sitting there. Dylan gazed back at me. I blinked and he was gone. Micah’s face hardened and he rubbed at his arm. Rubbed the tattoo of Jaime’s name.

  I rose from the cold pavement and went back inside, aware of Micah’s warm body only steps behind me. The door closed slowly behind us and my eyes scanned our group, searching for anyone to notice us. They locked on Owen, who watched us with a sense of curiosity. I gave him a pleading look and he immediately came to my rescue, sliding up to me and brushing a strand of hair from my cheek.

  “I was gonna go get a drink, did you wanna come?” he asked, playing the part Phoebe had asked him to.

  I nodded and he grasped my hand as we walked to the concession, all while I resisted the urge to check if Micah was watching us. Owen bought a soda and after he filled it at the soda fountain we wondered back over to our lane. Micah was busy messing with the scoreboard and I was glad I didn’t have to see the pity in his gaze. It was bad enough feeling it pour off him, or maybe that was coming from Phoebe or Bianca. Both of them were practically flinging it my way.

  Owen and I sat on the stools behind the ball rack and watched the others play. I fiddled with my phone, pulling up old text messages. Most of them were from Micah, with the occasional one from Chloe. Messages from Phoebe were deleted right after since they rarely made sense. I pushed a button and ‘delete all’ came up. I hesitated for just a moment then hit yes. I didn’t need to torture myself. I wasn’t going to be that person. Letting Phoebe and Tonya invite him to the party was one thing. Keeping what Phoebe had once called my booty-call texts was entirely different. Sliding the phone into my back pocket, I gave Owen a slight smile.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “That’s what friends are for.”

  He smiled and for a moment, I wondered why I couldn’t like him. Owen was so nice and easy to be with. He wouldn’t complicate things inside of me. He was cute with his curly black hair pulled back into the short ponytail, but he was a little too tall, almost a foot taller than me and his walk reminded me too much of Dylan, his long limbs swinging as they moved.

  “I think Phoebe’s plan is working,” he said, nodding towards the lane.

  I glanced over at Micah to see him staring at us before he turned back to the game. I wanted to believe Owen, but I knew feelings, and Micah wasn’t jealous. He was confused and mildly curious, but not jealous. I shook my head. “Phoebe’s plans never work. You know that.”

  “You can always hope.”

  “Not this time.”

  “Maybe that’s what you need.”

  I tore my eyes away from Micah to look at Owen. “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe what you need is hope. Here, try this. Close your eyes. Come on, close them,” he said. I shut my eyes and felt completely stupid. “Now tell me what you feel.”

  I concentrated on all the different emotions swirling around me. Everything was there so easily. The fire grew inside me and I hissed as my skin prickled with heat. “Frustration, anger, disappointment, jealousy, hate, pity, confusion, concern.” I reached out further when Owen stayed silent. “Happiness. Someone is in love. She’s happy.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  My eyes popped open to look at him. “I’m not wrong. I can feel everything everyone in this entire building is feeling. And that’s exactly what it is.”

  “I asked what you felt, not everyone else. Close your eyes and try again.”

  “This is pointless.”

  “Close them.” He covered my eyes with his hand. I closed them just to get it over with. His hand moved away. “Block everyone else out. Now what do you feel?”

  I pushed out all of those extra feelings, ones that didn’t belong to me, that hovered on the edge of my skin, just out of reach. It wasn’t something I’d ever really tried to do. Most of my life had been me accepting what others sent my way so they didn’t have to suffer. It’s what my gift was, and I’d always felt like I had an obligation to help them. This time though, I kept shoving them away, until finally I could sense myself. What I found wasn’t surprising.

  “Nothing. There’s nothing there,” I said.

  “You feel something. Try harder.”

  I kept my eyes squeezed shut, not wanting to see the reflection of his sympathy that was starting to seep in through my skin.

  A gentle wisp of air blew across my cheek and my hand lifted to my face as a tingle crept along my skin. The sounds of laughter and rolling balls increased until they blurred together in a dull humming. A feathering touch glanced across my arm and I shivered, the memory of Micah’s fingers trailing along my arm. A soft pressure on my bottom lip and a sigh escaped me as Micah’s taste permeated my lips. For the first time since Micah and I had ended, I felt something real, something that belonged to me and not the people around me.

  “
Alive. I feel alive.”

  My eyes fluttered open and Owen was still sitting beside me, staring intently. I swallowed, wondering what he saw as he looked at me.

  “Chill, Lils. It’s just something I saw on some TV show.” His face relaxed into his usual spacey demeanor. I drew in a deep breath and found that while I could once again sense everyone else, I could also still feel myself.

  “Dude, you’ve been holding out!” Nathan appeared behind Owen, and slapped him on the back. “You’ve got some serious moves going on!”

  My face was probably glowing considering the heat I felt building there. Owen didn’t laugh along with Nathan, only shrugged and leaned back.

  “You’re up.” Nathan chuckled and slapped Owen on the back again. They went over to the lane and Owen grabbed a ball as it rolled out of the shoot.

  “Oh my God, Lils!” Phoebe gripped my shoulders and spun me around. “Please tell me that you and Owen aren’t really-”

  “No! No, definitely not.” No way was I going to screw up another friendship, especially when I didn’t even feel anything like that for Owen.

  She laughed and her relief tickled across the back of my hand. “Good, because that would be just too weird. Besides I think he’s hung up on some girl from our history class last year.”

  Phoebe sat in Owen’s vacant seat and took a long sip of his soda, her eyes glued to Nathan. All of her emotions about her upcoming ‘event’ churned inside her and slowly drowned out my sense of aliveness. My fingers trembled and I struggled to keep my hands to myself. Her anticipation, nerves, fears were everything I’d missed out on with Micah. I’d been so numb and overwhelmed by the sudden sensations that had taken over me. How could I take that away from Phoebe? She deserved to remember every part of this.

  “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.”