by Lee Davidson
She doesn’t realize Flannel King is about to maul her so I put my body between them. Jackson slams into my chest with the force of a fly. My coffee doesn’t even spill. Only when his head hits my scar do I flinch.
When the stunned look clears from his face, Jackson becomes flustered. “Where’d you come from? I mean, I’m sorry! Are you OK, man? That was some hit I gave—”
I hold up my hand to stop him. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? I mean I really hit you—”
“One hundred percent sure. Can you give us a minute.” This does not come out as a question.
“Oh yeah, totally. I’ll just be right over here waiting. Just right over by—”
“Goodbye, Jackson.”
He shuts up, but before I can spew everything I want to tell Trina about Tate, Jonathan has joined us.
“Grant, I’m glad you could join us. Are you feeling ill?”
Mental sigh. “I’m fine. I just need a minute with Trina.”
“So she told you the good news? Excellent.”
Her face contorts like she’s been punched in the stomach. “I’m a Legacy now.”
If Trina looks like she got punched in the stomach, my expression would be more of a steel-toed boot to the groin. I’m surprised I don’t actually stumble backward.
Jonathan, completely oblivious, couldn’t be happier. He may as well be yelling: Best news ever!
Trina and I don’t share his enthusiasm. I want to wrap my arms around her, maybe even kiss her again, but then Jonathan reminds me he’s still here.
“Grant, are you feeling up to being blocked today?”
When I finally pull my eyes off Trina, I sigh, which he takes as a yes. Could this day get any worse? With just the blow of a whistle, Jonathan has everyone lined up.
“Why are you still training?” There’s a misdirected venom in my voice and Trina seems fragile when she shrugs.
“I don’t know what else to do. Jonathan said it was OK for me to be here. What am I going to do?” Her eyes are desperate, searching me for an answer.
Now I do hug her. Screw what anyone else thinks. “It’ll be all right.” Her curly hair is extra wild today, like she just woke up, and the stray pieces tickle my chin.
“Ready?” Jonathan asks.
I let go of Trina and mope through the ten steps it takes to face the line. Reed is waiting like he’s bored.
“Go left?” he asks.
I nod.
He yells the first order and I hardly notice the dark, cold wall. His thoughts are easy to distinguish and I fight against them with almost no effort. When my blue filter clouds my vision, I walk left with as little enthusiasm as possible.
“Great job,” Jonathan says.
Evelynn is next. She smiles—glint—and doesn’t give an order at all. She doesn’t need to. We both know which direction she’s going.
She says, “Haze,” still wearing her smile and little else. The ensuing blackness is more dominant than with Reed.
With the process even more familiar, I pluck out her foreign thoughts and fantasize about reflecting the block back to her so she’ll kiss Jackson instead of wanting me to kiss her. Jackson would love that. Of course, then he’d have to tell me how much he loved it and, chances are, he wouldn’t do that in three words or less.
When she severs the command, I come back from Fantasy Island and stand like a department store mannequin. Her bright white teeth show again, she shrugs, and moves to the back of the line.
I almost smile with relief for the chance to rid myself of some pent-up aggression. “I’m coming after you,” I growl at Billy before he can even get into position.
His response is equally hard. “Good luck.”
“I don’t need luck.” I can’t wait to pummel him.
Which I do.
Hard.
I match him swing for swing and get a few good blows in before Lawson and Reed peel us apart.
I spit a glob of red to my left, but the cut is almost healed when my tongue slides across my gum line. Jonathan isn’t happy about our display and is equally unhappy when I ask for another try with Billy.
Lawson is next. I refuse to go after him and we opt for the trusty go left bit. Before Jackson can step up, Jonathan releases us.
I stay close to Trina when she walks, zombie-like, along the stone path. Once we’re through the doors, out of sight of Jonathan, I grab her arm. “Come with me.”
I release her arm to shut my calimeter off while we run. She perks up, grabbing my hand, and we sprint through the hallways. We don’t stop until we’re so deep into the maze, no one could possibly find us.
I push her against the wall and kiss her. And keep kissing her. Her fingers grip my back and she pulls at me as if it were possible to get closer. As much as I kiss her and want to want her, and this—I can’t fool myself.
I feel nothing today. Strangely, my scars don’t even burn.
We’re both breathless when I pull away, but only one thought swims in my head: Tate.
14. I’ll punch you in the face if you take your pants off
I wipe Trina’s cherry lip gloss from my mouth with the back of my hand. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” she asks, still out of breath.
I shake my head. “This. Us. You being a Legacy. Everything.”
Trina’s eyes are sad when she puts her hand on my chest. “How are your scars today?”
“Better,” I mumble.
“That’s good.” When she drops her head, her curls cover her face. “What am I going to do?”
I pull her chin up and try to sound convincing. “You’ll be fine. You’re going to start another life.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t want another life.”
After a short silence, I ask, “Who are you joining?”
“My brother. He’ll be dead in a few days.”
“That’s great!” Did I really just say that?
She cracks a smile. “Dork.”
I lean away and put my back against the wall beside her.
“You said on the field you had something to tell me, too?”
“I don’t even know where to start. Remember I told you about Elliott trying to jump-start my memories?”
“Yeah.”
“It might be working.” I try to explain the unexplainable. Trina listens without interrupting until I’ve wrapped up the bathtub scene. I neglect to add my vomiting episode; some things are better left unsaid. I tell her how strong the incessant fire in my scars is, not only when I code, but also now just before I see a vision of Tate.
“Has the pain increased?”
“If you mean, do the lesions feel like they’re ripping me in half, then yes.”
“Have you looked at them lately?”
I shake my head. “I’ve tried not to since the other day when…well, you know.”
Her face brightens a little and I wonder if she’s thinking about our kiss. “Yeah, I know. Let’s see them.”
I raise my eyebrow. “Trying to get me out of my shirt again?”
“Trust me, if I wanted to do that, I wouldn’t use an excuse,” she jokes.
Grinning, I pull my sweatshirt off. My chest tenses when Trina’s finger trails along the raised welt.
“Yowch!” She jerks her hand back and puts her index finger in her mouth.
“What?”
“It’s two hundred degrees, that’s what!”
I touch the bright red scar, which is slightly warm. “You’re being a little dramatic.”
“Really?” She turns her finger so I can see the white, raised blister on the pad.
I grab her hand. “Holy—”
“Tell me about it!”
“It doesn’t burn me.” I touch the scar, leaving my finger there to prove my point while she watches in disbelief.
“You really are a freak,” she whispers.
Amen to that.
; “I can’t stop thinking about her now. Tate, I mean.”
“Are you saying that whatever this is…or we are, is over?”
Somehow I know our almost-romantic-relationship has to be severed. Willow’s right, I don’t need any distractions. And now I have this Tate thing to contend with. “I’m sorry.”
Her expression makes me wish Elliot had kept his sister out of my head.
Trina tilts her chin upward and kisses me. Even though my lips move with hers, Tate’s image wraps itself around every fold in my brain and I pull back. “I really am sorry.”
“Me too.”
We put more space between us. I push my hands through my hair and catch a glimpse of my calimeter. “Crap!”
Trina jumps. “What?”
“I gotta go! My calimeter,” I say in explanation.
“Oh. Oh! Go!”
“I’m really sorry,” flies from my mouth for the umpteenth time while I fight with my uncooperative sweatshirt sleeves.
“Shut up and go!”
My fingers fumble in my pocket and the command is out as soon as my hand closes around Meggie’s locket.
I’m grateful that Meggie is just pulling into the driveway when I land in the compact car. The last thing I feel like doing is explaining my tardiness to Lawson.
Brody welcomes Meggie home by warming up dinner and Lawson and I share a minimal word conversation. Sharing assignments with him certainly has its advantages. The couple endures an uneventful night with a few tears shed from each of them.
The next morning, when Meggie and Brody are at the kitchen table with coffee, Lawson says, “Your head is somewhere else.”
It takes me a minute to register what he’s said. I shrug, though I really should be agreeing. I know my head is in another place. Like on this girl I don’t remember.
Lawson doesn’t press for more, but warns, “You’d better keep your focus on the game.”
I internally battle with myself on whether or not I should talk to him about what’s been happening. After about an hour, I make my decision. “You know Elliott’s little experiment?”
When Lawson says nothing, I stand up and start pacing, wondering where to begin. Deciding to go with a direct approach, I pull my sweatshirt off. I kneel down a foot from him and point to my bright red scar. “Feel this.”
“You’d better step back, bro,” he warns in his baritone voice, wearing his best WTH look.
“No, I’m serious.”
“So am I. Get your bare chest away from me.”
“Come on,” I urge.
Curious enough to bite, his finger reaches to the raised welt. He pulls back immediately after coming in contact with my scar and shakes his hand in the air. “What the—?”
“Exactly.” I pull my shirt back on and sit beside him so we both have our backs against the island in the kitchen. I’m sure Lawson would agree our proximity is closer than the two of us prefer, but the size of the kitchen doesn’t allow for much else. “I have an identical scar on my knee.”
He turns to me with a dead-serious look. “I’ll punch you in the face if you take your pants off.”
Even through the absurdity of what’s happening, a grin escapes. “One run-in with a giant per day is enough for me.”
Lawson studies the new blister on his index finger while I wonder why my scars don’t cause such a reaction when I touch them.
“You’re a messed up dude, you know that?”
Huh, you think?
Lawson’s welt has already decreased by half and should be completely gone within the next fifteen seconds. “What’s this have to do with Elliot’s stories?”
“I’ve been having these—I guess you could call them visions—of his sister. Before this, though, I started hearing a girl’s voice while I code. I think it’s Tate I’m hearing and my scars don’t like this very much. There’s a connection between her and my wounds, there has to be.”
Lawson sits for a minute like he’s mulling this over. “I thought for sure Elliott was wasting his time.”
“Me too.” Or wished, at least.
“You really are a messed up dude. At least you have the bonus of keeping people out of your head.”
There’s that, I guess.
“I’ve tried using your advice to fend off blocks in training, but I can’t do it.”
Hello? The real problem isn’t blocking; it’s that my skin has the side effect of burning people.
Meggie grabs her keys off the counter, kisses Brody and opens to door in the kitchen that leads to the carport.
I slap Lawson’s knee. “That’s my cue. Keep trying with the blocking, man. I’m sure you’ll get it.”
Instead of sticking around for Lawson’s reply, I plunge through the front wall. Meggie is already buckling herself into the car, so I fly behind. My heart leaps when we pull into the grocery store. She’s doing something normal!
When we walk through the sliding doors, I realize that I haven’t done my reading. Sheesh! Lawson’s right, my head’s got to get back where it belongs. I catch up on the day’s events in the produce department, after noting that the fruits and vegetables are sad compared to what we’ve got in Progression.
I thank the big man that I didn’t procrastinate any longer because two minutes later, I’m preparing for an upcoming block.
Five, four, three, two…
“Hey Meggie! How are you, honey?”
The woman puts her hand on Meggie’s arm, but this isn’t what sets Meggie off.
“Haze,” I yell.
Be strong, be strong, be strong…
The pain hits me, but I’ll happily take the torment if it helps Maggie. Gritting my teeth, I sever the connection.
Meggie turns away from the little girl in the cart who’s chewing on her own shoe, and gives what I assume is suppose to be a smile. Her expression is frightening, but better than crumbling into a sobbing fit in the middle of the supermarket.
“Hi Jody,” Meggie’s voice cracks, but she’s mostly keeping herself together.
“I just can’t imagine what you must be going through…”
Really? The woman couldn’t just talk about the weather or something? Politics, religion, anything else? To make things worse, the crazy lady goes on and on about how sorry she is, blah, blah, blah. She says nothing that actually helps, like this is complete crap, or someone should suck it hard for putting you through this kind of hell.
Meggie’s glassy eyes are so distant I almost reach out to be sure she’s standing in front of me. The little girl says gibberish words that make no sense to anyone but a two-year-old and stretches her arms out to Meggie.
And there goes Meggie.
I say the command.
Time to go, time to go, time…
When I sever the connection, Meggie manages to say, “Sorry Jody, I really have to go,” and all but sprints her cart past the deli. She stops when she reaches the chip aisle, probably because it’s vacant, and zones in on a bag of pretzels for an excessive amount of time.
After a few deep breaths, Meggie adds a bag of chips to the cart and wanders through the store. There’s no rhyme or reason to her mad shopping spree. She goes up one aisle, passes five and goes down another. Then she backtracks to the aisles she skips. After we’ve made at least seven trips up and down each lane, she abandons her cart of seven items at the register.
I follow her outside, wanting to tell her she forgot to check out, or she’s leaving her groceries, or she’s lost her mind. Obviously, she wouldn’t hear any of these things so I consider blocking her to go back, but what’s the point? A jar of olives, a bag of chips, and five pounds of bacon won’t fit in her already-full fridge or freezer.
She makes an emergency stop at Doc Arnoldson’s office and he spends thirty-five minutes with her. From there, we drive to Pine Grove Cemetery and devote the rest of the sunny afternoon to lying on the ground that shelters her kids and her mother. Without grave markers or
grass covering the fresh dirt, the four rectangles sit like healing wounds.
When my calimeter buzzes, it’s hard to tell that the scene freezes because Meggie is so still to begin with. I displace and see Lawson a few miles away, burning red through the atmosphere. Green and orange blurs, Elliott and Whitfield, are further to my left.
After landing, I opt for coffee instead of coding and I’m crossing through Benson in under five minutes. Even making good time, the place is crowded. Trina is missing from her usual corner so I head to Willow’s table. She and Liam are at it again, but now my arrival doesn’t stop them. When Willow raises her head, I almost fall backwards. The woman looks like she’s fifty-years-old! Owen, Anna, and Clara are watching them chinwag back and forth while I slide into a chair to do the same.
“…the second time she’s tried to slice herself. One of these times, we’re not going to be so lucky,” Liam is saying.
“I know.” Willow sighs. “We just need to keep watching her.”
“Christ, woman, we’ve been watching her!”
There’s a heavy exhaustion in Willow’s voice. “She’s in a rut, that’s all.”
“This is more than a bloody rut. She’s not functioning anymore. She’s consumed with him, with the idea of joining him.” Liam’s eyes dart to me, but move away just as fast.
“Well, she can’t,” Willow says matter-of-factly. “Our job is to be sure she doesn’t.”
Lima’s pathetic sigh isn’t as dramatic as he probably hoped.
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
All eyes turn on me like I’ve just announced my coming out or something. No one responds, until Willow opens her mouth, but before she can vocalize anything, she’s interrupted.
“Mind if I join you guys?”
I turn at Trina’s voice. “Sure,” I say quietly. “You guys know Trina?”
They all nod like I’m stupid. Clara is the only person who doesn’t say hello. I move my chair over a couple inches to make room for Trina and she scoots a chair in from the neighboring table. Our close proximity, mixed with Clara’s obvious disapproval, makes me uncomfortable. Plus, I think everyone is still shocked by my offer to help Tate. To be honest, I’m surprised myself. The idea is stupid, really. What could I even do that would aid in her healing?
