The Untouched: THE UNSEEN SERIES, #2

by Sheldon, Piper

  * * *

  Nathaniel

  A lifetime passes until I can be alone with Julia again. Thoughts spill over all day and I can barely keep up with my own brain. I’m thrilled that the tests are working. It’s no surprise, if my theory is correct. I’m so afraid that in my haste to share the good news about the tests I will accidentally say too much.

  I spend the day with Jared and Kate working in the lab. Test after test performs better than we ever expected. If we can keep these results going there’s a chance we will be able to deliver Lite-Brite on time to the customer. We spend almost eight straight hours in the lab trying to figure out how we can make this new information work. Julia goes back to her desk after the first hour.

  “I better get these supporting docs moving,” she says and sneaks away.

  I give her a look that I hope she interprets correctly: We need to talk more.

  She glances to Jared and Kate who are looking at the machine with their heads down before she mouths. “Tonight?”

  I nod.

  When I finally wrap up for the day, I go to her locked office to find there is no light coming from inside. We can chat tomorrow and that’ll be fine. I need to start running tests on her immediately. I head back to my office and decide to call Lincoln and check in on him. He said he was going to school today and if anybody asked what happened he’d just say he got knocked in his boxing class.

  As I’m checking in with him—he sounds good as can be—I notice a small post-it note on my keyboard.

  8PM - DANCE CLASS

  I smile as I check the time, happy to discover that I’ll be seeing her again in just an hour. I reply to some emails and time flies. It feels like only a minute has passed before I sense someone in my doorway.

  Julia’s dressed in tight-fitting workout clothes. I don’t mean to scan her from head to toe but my eyes seem to have their own plans.

  She glances down at her outfit. “I wasn’t sure if … I know we didn’t get a chance to talk more … but just in case.”

  It hits me then that she still thinks I’m ready to call off the whole thing. And of course she does. I was just about to deliver that exact news when Jared walked into her office a lifetime ago. But so much has changed since then.

  “Are you ready to dance?” I ask.

  She sucks in her lips and fights a smile. “Only if you’re sure. I don’t want you to regret anything.”

  I could never regret a moment with her.

  As we walk to the lab, I tell her how the tests all ran without fail today and Jared thinks we are ready to start building.

  “I’m so glad,” she says as we enter the top-secret testing area. “Is that why you’re still okay with helping me?”

  “I always wanted to help you. But now I think it’s you that’s helping us,” I say.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not exactly sure yet. Jared gave me an idea and the tests are speaking for themselves. If you’re still okay with it, I’m going to run some experiments.”

  She sets down her bag and smiles at me, but her face seems wary. “Just tell me what you want me to do.”

  “Just dance like before. I’m going to use the Lite-Brite solar cells to track what sort of light you are putting off first. I think we can use it to see the amount of power you output.”

  As she puts on her tap shoes, a thrill shoots through me. I’m excited to see and hear her dance as she’s meant to. She seems excited too. Her healthy glow has continued from Friday and I’m more convinced than ever that she is meant to be expending her power rather than locking it down. We just need to think of a way for her to do it safely.

  She does some warm-up stretches that I definitely do not watch. Especially not when she bends over and presses her palms flat to the floor. I do not watch as she lifts one leg behind her, arching her back as she bends it back to stretch her thigh muscles.

  “So, what was the big breakthrough you had earlier?” she asks.

  My hands are typing and when I look at the screen it’s just a bunch of nonsense. I clear my throat. “When Jared called you Jules. I thought of joules, the standard unit of energy.”

  She nods, stretching one arm across her chest. And then the other. She’s breathtaking. Literally. My lungs burn when I remember to blow out a slow breath. She’s the most hypnotizing when she’s happy like this and in her element. What might it be like to be the person in her life that makes her feel like this every day?

  She stares back. A slow grin lifts the side of her mouth. “Joules?” she prompts.

  I shake my head to clear it. “Right. So. All energy must come from somewhere and go somewhere. I’m assuming even within the realm of uncharted power, these rules of the universe still apply. We should assume that they do. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

  She nods, following along with my rambling easily.

  “We need to understand what form of energy you’re working with, where it is coming from and where it’s going. It seems to me you display different forms of energy from all over the electromagnetic spectrum. Maybe even some that we can’t see with our own eyes.”

  “I can do that too. I forgot to mention”—she doesn’t quite look at me as she puts her hair up, making me think she didn’t forgot at all—“I can sort of see in the dark. Like how a baby monitor looks.”

  “Infrared!” I shout, before reminding myself to stay calm.

  “I’m going to measure the types of energy you emit with these cameras to track your heat signature. See where you fall on the electromagnetic chart.”

  Another thought occurs to me. “You said you keep a plant in the room with you. As a sort of canary in the mineshaft?”

  “I always wanted to get through a routine without it dying. I haven’t been able to yet,” she says with obvious guilt.

  “Okay, this supports my multiple energy-types theory.”

  “How so?”

  “Not sure yet. I can’t really guess until I see and understand more.” I tap a few more buttons to set up the machine and then let her into the room. “Let’s get started.”

  She skips up and her shoes tap happily inside.

  “Oh,” I say and press the intercom button. “We can’t have Bluetooth or Wi-Fi in here, but I found an old AM/FM radio. I tuned it to some pop station. I hope that’s okay. I figured better than nothing.” I point to a dusty stereo in the corner.

  She smiles at me through the glass, giving me a big thumbs-up. The way she looks at me makes me feel like I just saved Schrödinger’s cat.

  I busy myself on the computer and she turns up the radio. It’s a song I don’t recognize but she seems to be okay with it. She bobs her head and taps her left foot as she digests the rhythm of the song.

  And just like that, she’s off. She dances and swirls and it’s the most satisfying thing to witness. If I thought she was brilliant before, hearing the rhythmic accompaniment of her shoes brings it to the next level. She must be improvising but anybody watching would think she’d spent months preparing this performance.

  And I am a hopeless dork with a super-crush.

  I’m so lost in watching her that it’s not until the third song that I realize she’s not glowing. I mean, outside the healthy glow of exertion that dews her face and neck with sweat.

  The cameras are ready to measure her but I never trigger them because … she doesn’t seem to be working. A different sort of feeling niggles its way to the back of my brain. Have I been duped? Has this been a trick to get access to this room? What, exactly, was I risking my career for?

  I clamp down the dark thoughts. Not everybody is set on evil. Not everybody is out to get me. There has to be an explanation. When the song ends, I hit the button and buzz her out of the room. She’s panting heavily when she exits.

  “That was amazing. The acoustics in that room are incredible.” She grabs a towel from the gym bag she brought. Her eyes sparkle with joy. “I feel amazing. I haven’t been able to do that many songs i
n as a long as I can remember. My hands aren’t even glowing. Look.” She thrusts her hands out to show me. “They’re totally normal.”

  She’s so happy. We’re spending our little bit of spare time in a multi-million-dollar test facility. I fight back the worry that threatens me. I can’t get angry. I favor my father’s large size and if I lose my temper, I scare people. I work so regularly to keep myself nonthreatening.

  “That’s great.” I force a smile.

  My clipped tone immediately flags my change in temperament. But I’m tired. She must be too. It’s always one step forward, two steps back with this project. Somedays it’s like I’m running upstream against the current. Like someone wants me to fail.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks.

  “I think that’s enough for the day.”

  All her effervescent joy from a moment ago dissolves into a frown.

  15

  Julia

  I stare at Nathaniel, any joy from a moment ago gone. This is another side of Nathaniel I’ve not seen. His mouth is a tight line. He looks … mad. It occurs to me then I’ve only ever seen him happy or friendly. Or at worst, mournful.

  “We’re done already?” I ask carefully. The towel in my hand twists around my wrist.

  “You made it seem like you’ve never danced before without going off. Now you go three songs without a thing?” His voice is tight with barely suppressed emotion.

  “It’s a big deal. I’m happy about it.” My defenses go on alert. It’s like he’s mad at me but trying to keep it locked away. I’d rather he just say what he has to say. I shared everything with him.

  “Help me understand. The point of this is to test your abilities. And yet we just wasted this time for nothing.”

  “Wasted?” My eyebrows shoot up. “And by the way,” I say, “the point is to stop my disability so I can live a normal life and so your contract can succeed. Those are the goals. To me, it’s a win.” I keep my voice steady as I can. Nothing makes a man more convinced of women’s hysteria than her showing any sort of emotion. I would have never thought Nathaniel held on to that old-school mentality, but I also never thought he would subtly accuse me of wasting his time either.

  “I’m trying to understand. You said that dancing triggers it,” he says.

  “I said I thought dancing triggered it. I’m not exactly an expert on it.”

  He makes a frustrated growl sound. “I don’t understand that. How can you not know how it works?”

  “It’s not exactly something I can play around with,” I snap.

  He really has no clue. How could he not understand?

  Heat burns my cheeks and my shock must be written all over my face. He’s frustrated after one attempt? I’ve had an entire adulthood of helplessness. Years of doctors telling me my symptoms were psychosomatic because I could never give the whole story. I’m exhausted by people telling me that I don’t know my own body. Are we really that far off the same page? We aren’t even in the same book.

  We stand in the small hallway outside the testing room. There’s barely a foot between us physically but I have never felt further from him.

  “If you think I’m lying, then I’m leaving right now,” I say.

  He holds up his hands. “No. I don’t think you’re lying. Obviously. It’s just frustrating. I have so many questions. Why are you so eager to get rid of something so amazing? I have seen your abilities with my own eyes. You’re incredible.”

  I scoff so loudly he has no choice but to stop short and look up at me. “Incredible?” I hold up a hand to find my words. “Do you remember your first kiss?” I ask.

  He opens his mouth but I’m not actually ready to hear him talk so I keep going.

  “Remember how nervous you were? Remember how it felt like the most important thing in the world? Now imagine that you are almost eighteen before you have your first kiss. Most people your age are already having sex. And yet you finally meet someone and trust them enough to try a simple kiss. Imagine spending months convincing yourself it’ll be okay, that you’re ready. Now tell me how it would feel to kiss that person only to end up making them so sick they have to go to the hospital?”

  He runs a hand over his face. “I’m sorry.”

  “No. You are frustrated. You think that I’m some magic riddle you can solve. You think that I don’t care about what I have. Trust me, I care. It’s all I ever think about. You cannot fathom the amount of people that I care about that I have accidentally hurt. Think of all the handshakes and hugs … the haircuts, for Christ’s sake. I don’t get any of that. None. I am almost thirty and have hardly been touched.” I am glaring, my chest is heaving, and I’m so humiliated. “Really think about what I’m saying.”

  I’m not about to tell this man that I’m a virgin. That is none of his business and a label that doesn’t define me, but he can get the frickin’ gist.

  “You can’t imagine how lonely I am,” I whisper, losing steam as embarrassment overtakes anger.

  “You’re right. I didn’t think of the cost,” he says, holding eye contact. “I’m sorry that I upset you. My words are coming out all wrong. I’m so sorry.”

  I’ve never felt more like a freak, never felt more isolated and alone. I thought that sharing with someone would make me feel less alone. I thought it would be freeing but now I feel heavier and even less understood.

  I heft my duffle bag onto my shoulder. “This shiny new toy that you want to play with has cost me any semblance of having a life. I am destined to be alone forever.”

  I can’t help the tears that hover on my eyelids. I didn’t want to share so much. It was a mistake to be here. And to do this.

  “Julia, I’m so sorry.” He reaches for me and then stops.

  I throw my hands up and point to the gesture as if to say see.

  I turn away. “I’m gonna go. This was a bad idea.”

  “I don’t know what to say to make this better.” And he looks so guilty I believe him.

  “I know it’s hard for you to understand. I don’t blame you for being frustrated. Hell, I’m frustrated. All the time. I’ve had to push people away I care about in order to protect them. I have this whole secret life that I can’t share with anybody. And for what? To glow, at best? To hurt people, at worst? It’s like you’re hoping I’m some sort of superhero. I hate to break this to you, but I’m the villain in this story,” I say firmly, holding his gaze. “It’s never been anything more than a curse.”

  Something about my speech settles into him. He hears me. “I can’t imagine how that must be.”

  He backs away to pace. His hands tug through his messy locks as I wobble between hurt and anger.

  “I’m going to head out.” I shift the bag higher on my shoulder and feel heat burning my cheeks.

  He stops pacing to look at me. I don’t know what he sees but he doesn’t try to convince me to stay. I look down at myself. There is a slight glow to my hands.

  Of course there is. No wonder; I’m all sweaty with rage. Now, when it’s way too late. There’s no way I feel like being tested now.

  I squeeze the strap of my bag, not bothering to hide the glow.

  He glances back to the machines, unable to meet my gaze. “I just have to shut this stuff down.”

  “Yeah. I’ll see ya tomorrow.”

  “I really am sorry.”

  He doesn’t clarify for what. For this not working out? For sharing the truth? For my sad and lonely existence?

  It doesn’t matter.

  Focus on what—

  Not today, Grandma Sue. The future feels unbearable. It’s a blank canvas of nothingness for as long as I can see. Nothing to look forward to. Nothing to hope for. He’s already looking at me differently. It was a mistake to involve him. I wanted to have a normal life, but the reality is I will never be normal. I will never have what everybody else takes for granted. A darkness settles in me. It was silly to ever hope for more. Once again, I’ve been pushed away because of who I am. For things I have no contr
ol over. And it hurts more than it should.

  * * *

  Nathaniel

  A few days later and I’m still a mess.

  Julia and I sit in silence before the meeting starts; nobody else has come in yet and she won’t look at me. It’s probably for the best. What would I even say? Sorry I presumed for a second to think I knew about a pain you’ve been dealing with your whole life? Over the last few days, any time I have thought about how she doesn’t get hugs or touches of comfort, my heart has ached all over for her.

  Lincoln is hardly talking to me either and he’s not coming over. I message him every day but I think he’s worried I’m going to freak out and do something to make his home life worse. His texts are short and he only says he’s fine.

  The tests are back to being sporadic again and the initial burst of relief has waned. We’re back to pulling more hours. Morale is way down again after having a weekend of amazing results only to see them fail again. We’ve explored every angle. Even knowing that Julia could impact the tests, we are no closer to answers. Something about the failures doesn’t line up for me. I know she feels responsible, but until I can understand more about how her gift works there is no way of being sure. And now I’ve way overstepped my bounds.

  I didn’t even know her a month ago but now having this weirdness between us feels like too much. I feel like every aspect of my life is spinning out of control. Julia has assured me, in the few times I’ve actually interacted with her, that she isn’t having any issues. She claims to be feeling better than ever. That’s the only good news. The correlation between our tests and the failures seems to lie with her, but if she can’t displace that energy on command, we’re no closer to getting answers. Every day that ticks by is another day closer to our project deadline and things are not progressing.

  I’m about to apologize again when Jared and the rest of the team walk in for our weekly staff meeting. I brought doughnuts and gourmet coffee this time but not even that seems to lift spirits. It’s the ups and downs that are killing us. I’m about to suggest another team outing but there’s no time. And I can tell that the idea would fall flat anyway.