by Peay, Dexx
“Is your brother coming?” I asked, eagerly walking towards her.
“Yes. He’s currently doing independent exercises with Marcus like I’m doing with you. Shall we get started?”
“Sure. I just don’t understand what exactly it is we’re doing,” I said as she walked up and took my hands.
“Well, Dylan, you’re special. You have something the Qihar wouldn’t expect, telekinesis as well as the ability of ice generation.”
“Yeah, but my telekinesis is very dangerous to myself and others.”
She released my hands, grinned playfully, and walked around me. “Correct. But, don’t you want to gain control over it?”
“Hell yeah! I — wait, is that why you guys separated me and Marc?”
“Understand, he doesn’t want you to use this ability. We’re here to help you reach your full potential.”
I was pumped. It didn’t bother me that they split us up and didn’t tell Marcus the plan. “I'm all for it, let’s go.”
“OK, so I’m thinking the reason you may be blacking out is your telekinesis requires a lot of your physical, mental, and emotional energy, and when you use it, you use up more than what your body is producing. What may help is if you can use it in stages. I think you can train your body to start producing massive amounts of energy so it can keep up with your ability over ice and telekinesis. Maybe it’s a good thing you can’t fly. I'm not sure your body would be able to handle that much power usage.”
“I think I'm following you.”
“Good. Now, if you use your telekinesis every day in small doses instead of once in a while in one big burst, that may stop you from passing out.”
“I’ll give it a try.”
“OK let’s get started. Move this from my hand to yours.” There was a quarter in her hand. I reached out and it flew right into mine.
“Too easy.”
“Good. Now try stopping these from touching the ground.”
“Stop what?” Instantly she pulled out a bunch of change from her pocket and threw it in the air. I raised my hand above my head and focused on the coins not hitting the ground. The coins in the center stayed floating above us but the ones on the outside ended up hitting the floor.
I flinched as her tone sharpened, voice stern. “You have to learn to keep your concentration and to be able to use your ability on command.”
We ran a few more tests like moving pieces of scrap metal from one side of the building to the other and blocking chairs she threw at me all while making sure not to overexert me. She wanted to run one more test on me. Hachi steadied herself and hover in the air.
“I'm going to rush you, and I want you to stop me,” she nodded, her eyes confident like she believed in me more than I believed in myself. Raising her body higher and higher, she quickly rushed me without warning.
I squared my center. As she got closer, I staggered both shaky hands in front of me. Her face was fierce like an eagle going in for the kill. I pictured an imaginary barrier in front of me that would block her, but it didn’t work. I found it difficult to breathe as my feet dangled; she shook her head with a smile. I glanced back, noticing she was flying towards the wall, and sealed my eyes shut. But she stopped, sparing me the pain.
“Not too shabby,” she said, landing. “We’ll work on it more. Hudson and Marcus are on their way in.”
“Whoa, do you two have some freaky little twin telepathy thing going on?”
“Yeah. It’s called a cell phone,” she laughed as the both of them walked in.
“Didn’t know you were going to be here.” Marcus walked up and shook my hand.
“Just waiting on you two to show up,” I said.
“One-on-one training with Hudson.”
“Yeah, how’d that go?”
“Pretty awesome,” he said, juggling fireballs. I stuck my hands out and the fireballs iced over. We shared a laugh.
Hudson coughed. “OK, time to get serious, guys.”
The night was intense and before we called it quits for the session, I warned them about keeping me out too late.
I took Hachi’s advice to try and build up my energy. In the mornings, I brushed my teeth and dried off after my showers with just my thoughts. I stayed up for the most part in my History class but when I got to my next one, Imani wouldn’t let me go to sleep. She did nothing in particular to keep me awake, but her presence just seemed to give me the boost of energy I needed to get through the day.
“You look like death,” Imani whispered.
My straight face made her giggle and I responded with, “Late nights. Training.”
“I’m sure your parents will be proud to know where their hard-earned money’s going to.”
I folded my arms on the desk and laid my head down. “Trust me, I’m done for a while.” I yawned. The teacher’s lecture was going in one ear and out the other.
“Listen, you know what tomorrow is right?”
“Yep, I think it’s Tuesday, but I could be wrong. All the days seem to just fly by now.”
She chuckled and caught herself; she focused back on the instructor. Couldn’t figure out why she was being all extra friendly towards me, but I wasn’t going to complain.
“Yes, I know, but tomorrow is Valentine’s Day.”
I looked up and my head followed. She now had my full attention. “I guess I didn’t realize that.”
“I was thinking maybe you could be my valentine and we could get out and just enjoy each other’s company?”
I laughed.
She exhaled. “Or maybe not.”
“No, no, no, I wasn’t laughing at you. I just wasn’t expecting a girl to ask another guy to be her Valentine.” I straightened my posture up. “I would be humbled to be your date for the evening, Miss Gordon.”
“Great. How about a fun, steamy, greasy night at Artichoke Pizzeria?”
“You want to spend Valentine’s Day at a pizzeria?”
“Hell yeah,” she whispered. I instantly fell in love with her. What guy doesn’t want a girl who wants to sit around and laugh over some cheesy pizza? Add that in with her ability to throw fireballs and her tough personality, she was almost perfect.
“I think you’re reading my mind, little lady.”
She toyed with the ends of her hair, her smirk teasing from her profile.
I passed out when I made it back to my room. That seemed to be the routine lately: stay up all night, go to class, and sleep when I got to my room. While I slept into the night hours, Marcus and the twins went out for a flight. That was my excuse to get more hours in dreamland.
Marcus was a natural at school. He could go the whole semester without opening a book and still pass all his classes with flying colors. The twins, well I’ve never heard them talk about school, so I don’t know what their grades look like.
I woke up anxious the following day. It took me almost thirty minutes to pick out a pair of shoes to wear to class. I was just ready to spend my night with Imani and hope we could start over. I’d say we were off to a good start. Everyone was walking around campus holding teddy bears and boxes of chocolate. It made me realize: I didn’t get anything for her.
When class was over I went to a local floral shop and got some flowers and a bear holding a heart with Be Mine stitched on it. We agreed on a relaxed dressed code — NYU sweatshirts and jeans. I mean it was only pizza.
When we got there the line was nearly wrapped around the corner. I couldn’t believe the amount of people that wanted pizza on Valentine’s Day and were willing to stand in the cold over it.
“This is one of the best places in New York for pizza. This is the short line, honestly,” she said.
We got our box and took a seat.
She grabbed a slice first. “I've been waiting all day for this pizza,” she said, taking the first bite. “H-H-Hot.” She dropped her pizza and immediately fanned her mouth with cheese dripping from her lips.
“What? Hot?” I chuckled. “You can throw fire from your hands. I
’d never thought I’d hear you ever say the word ‘hot’.”
“Yeah, well, that has no effect on my taste buds.”
I blew on my pizza to lower the temperature a little and stuffed it into my mouth.
“No fair, cheater.”
“It’s not cheating. I'm just using my natural born gifts to my advantage.”
Ignoring the pizza, she crossed her arms and leaned across the table. “So now that I have told you a little about my past, tell me more about yours.”
There wasn’t really much to tell about my life. It’s always been pretty normal except this last year. “Well what do you want to know?”
“Whatever, just, how was your childhood I guess?”
“Well I lived in Poughkeepsie the majority of my life. My parents were always loving and supportive of whatever my brother and I wanted to do.”
She looked down and whispered to herself, “Spoiled.” She snapped back up to giving me her attention. “How old is your brother?”
“He’s twelve and like my other best friend.” I laughed simply at the thought of my kid brother being my best friend but he was special to me. “I loved living in Poughkeepsie. It’s the perfect town. My dad’s a college professor and my mom is a doctor, so we lived a somewhat lavish lifestyle I guess.”
“I knew you were a rich boy?”
“No, not really rich, just well off. My parents didn’t just give us money. We still had to earn our funds. I had lots of friends, played basketball and dated the hottest girl in school. The end.”
“So everything was just perfect like that?” I put my pizza down and pushed it away from me.
“Everything was perfect. I found out not too long ago that my parents are in the process of getting a divorce. My perfect family apparently had some hidden flaws no one saw. Now I’ll go from having one room to two rooms next time I’m home. I'm not sure how I’ll cope with this. I’d never thought I would have to go through this kind of situation. I think I'm more worried about my brother since he has to be there directly, you know?”
“That’s a very common thing people have to deal with on a daily basis. Every situation is different. I’m sure your family will get through this.” She rubbed my hand.
“Can we get back to this pizza? It’s getting cold.”
She placed one finger on the box, and it was warm again. We both took a slice and finished eating.
“It’s getting late and I need to get you back to your room. You need to be well rested for class in the morning,” she said.
She walked me back to my dorm holding my hand the entire time. Touching her felt right. The cooling sensation of my hands and the fiery ember she let off worked together. I sometimes doodled “icy hot” on my notebooks when I thought about her in classes.
“Thanks for the teddy and the flowers. This night was perfect.” She stood on her tippy toes and wrapped her arms around my neck. I bent down to meet her halfway.
She kissed me on the cheek leaving a warm sensation at the site.
The night was still pretty early, so I called Marcus to see how he was doing on his Valentine’s Day. I felt as if we were growing apart. He was spending more and more time with Delilah and his new friends while I on the other hand was trying to keep up with school so I wouldn’t be put on academic probation.
He had a double date with Charlie and Stacey. He asked if I wanted to go do some training tonight but I told him I was going to call it a night and we should hang out this weekend, power free.
When I finally entered my room, Airez was crying on the couch while his brother consoled him. I didn’t want to intrude on their moment so I climbed into bed, waved my hands and the lights went out.
Chapter 23
Life of Dylan
I woke up to the sound of zippers and bags being tossed on the bed.
It was Airez.
Again.
His puffy red eyes and constant snorting had me thinking he was up all night crying. He looked over at me as I got up, and I saw nothing but pain in his eyes. He went back to packing.
“Good morning.” I stretched and yawned.
“Morning,” he said before I could finish, not even acknowledging me.
I started getting dressed when somebody knocked on the door. Airez and I glanced at each other, then the door. Airez answer it. It was his brother.
“Hey, freshman.” He walked in right towards Airez. “You ready, Air?”
Airez grabbed his bags and they walked towards the door.
“Is everything OK, Airez?”
“Don’t be late for class,” he said, closing the door behind him. I felt really bad for him and I didn’t even know why. Neither he nor his brother tried to pick a fight or have some belittling comment for me. I didn’t have too much time to think about it. I got ready and headed out the door.
I couldn’t wait until history was over. Hearing my teacher’s voice twice a week was torture. The real reason was that Imani was in my next class and I felt as if things were looking up for us. The more time we spent together, the more I fell for her.
“Someone looks well rested,” she said. She was already in class with her book filled with post-it notes. “I see you took my advice.”
“I didn’t need to take your advice. I’ve just been telling myself to stop staying out late and focus more on school.”
“Don’t get smart.” She smiled and her eyes flashed red for a second. I didn’t want to get her upset knowing she could incinerate me with one touch. But if getting under her skin fired her up, I’d be the annoying pest she’d loved to hate.
When class was over, we went out and got some milkshakes from the café.
“So I don’t think I ever asked you what you’re studying?” I asked.
“Journalism,” she said. “I want to be a photographer as well as an editor.”
“That’s different. My major is chemical engineering.”
“And … what do you plan on doing with that?”
“I've always been fascinated with chemistry and matter. I’ve been leaning towards a career in research.”
“Wow, you don’t hear that on a daily basis.”
“Nah, but you know, I've been in love with chemistry ever since I got my first kit for Christmas when I was eight.”
“So what made you choose NYU?” I took one more sip and put my cup down.
“Marcus.”
She rolled her eyes. “That makes a lot of sense.” I couldn’t tell if she was confused or read right through me.
“So you know Marc and I are best friends, right?”
“Yeah, I can tell. He’s all you ever talk about.”
“Whatever. Anyway, so Marc always had this dream way before I met him that he was going to go to Harvard on a full scholarship and his life would somehow make sense. Everyone knew that’s the school he wanted to go to and that’s what he was working towards. Since he was adopted, he always had a hard time not knowing where he came from or who his parents were. When Harvard rejected him, it left me with one tough decision.
“Which was?” She gestured her hand and if I was taking to long to hit my point.
“Do I tell him I was accepted and once again live his dream, or settle for NYU?”
“So in order to protect your best friend’s feelings, you didn’t go to the school?”
“Correct.”
“Honorable.”
“Thanks.”
“And stupid.”
I grimaced. “What do you mean?” I folded my arms and crossed my legs leaning back in my chair.
“Sometimes you have to let people down in order for you to live your own dreams. Best friends don’t always last no matter how long you guys have known each other.”
“But Marc and I are different. Have you ever had a best friend?”
She looked away from me for a moment and turned back around.
“Sort of. When my family was attacked my childhood sort of ended and I had to grow up pretty fast. Dad always said that having friend
s would only put them in danger.”
I felt bad for Imani in a way. Living life on the run, never having fun or making friends was a sad life.
We left the café then headed back to my dorm.
“We have to stop having these serious conversations,” I said. “I get too mushy when I'm around you.”
“So I bring out your soft side, Dylan?” She held out her hands asking for mine. I gave them to her.
They fit perfectly.
“Dylan Perry doesn’t have a soft side.” My macho voice activated and my chest puffed out as we walked into my room.
“Where’s your roommate?”
“I'm not sure. I think he may have moved out.” I knew he didn’t move out for good. He still had his things in the room. I honestly didn’t know what his situation was. Maybe he was staying at his brother’s place for a little while.
We kicked our shoes off and climbed onto the bed.
“Up for a romantic comedy?” she asked.
She knew how much I despised romantic anything when it came to movies.
“I thought we were studying. Midterms are coming up really soon and I haven’t been on my A-game this semester. My parents are going to kill me if my grades don’t turn out decent.” I pulled my books out, went to the desk and slammed them down. “Come on over and tutor me, woman.”
She sat on my lap and read something about Chinese Civilization. None of it made any sense, but I acted like it did.
Hours passed and we got more serious about studying. Snack wrappers and empty water bottles consumed the room. We went through all of our subjects that were giving us trouble. It was a good thing that the ones I needed help in, she knew enough about to help me and vice versa.
Our minds were getting exhausted as the night hours hit. I knew I had to keep pushing on to make sure I understood everything for the following week. She went to lie down on the bed then slithered under the covers.
“I know you’re not cold,” I said, looking back to catch a quick glimpse at her snuggled against my pillow.
