Keep You From Harm (17 page)

He bumps me lightly with his good arm causing me to turn to him. “I really am sorry,” he says.

I nod. “I know.”

We go through the rest of our morning with awkward, restrained friendliness, and I can tell that Lucas isn’t exactly sure where he stands with me. I can’t help him because I’m not sure either. I know that I miss him, and I would like to be friends, but I’m afraid to want more.

Before lunch, Lucas stays after class to get the assignments he missed yesterday. I wait by the door for him as the hallway quiets down and students scatter either to class or to the cafeteria. When he’s finished, he appears surprised but pleased to see me waiting by the doorway.

“Hey,” he grins at me.

“I copied all the notes for you from our morning classes yesterday. I have them in my locker if you’d like them.” Actually, I hurriedly did that before class so that I’d have an excuse to get him alone and to touch him.

“Sure. Thanks.” He eyes me, unsure. My friendly behavior is obviously confusing him.

We walk together down to my locker. The hall is quiet now as he stands patiently beside me, watching as I enter the combination and pull the metal door open. I can feel his eyes traveling over me, and I try to contain the self-conscious flush coloring my face. I grab the loose papers and turn toward him. When he reaches out his good arm, rather than placing the notes in his waiting hand, I touch my palm to his. Immediately, my stomach flutters with anticipation. The pleasant buzzing sensation begins, and I can feel the energy growing. It peaks inside me before uncoiling and flowing from me into Lucas. He sucks in a breath, and his hand jerks within mine. His forearm is actually broken in two places and those sections fuse back together as I breathe out slowly. But then something else happens. I begin to see a scene in my head. I see a woman coming at Lucas with a baseball bat. Her mouth is open in a scream. Her chestnut hair swings wildly around her face. She raises the bat over her head, and his arm comes up to shield him. When the bat jerks downward, I hear something snap in Lucas’s forearm just before his face crumples in pain.

With a sharp inhale of air, I remove my hand from his, letting the notebook pages drop onto his open palm. I know I just saw the truth of his injury. I don’t know how, but I did. When I allow myself to look at his face, I see absolute astonishment there. His eyes are wide and wild as he stares at me. When I heal injuries, I know the other person feels the same exhilaration I do, but this time, I’m not sure what Lucas felt. I know his bones are healed, but did he relive their breaking with me? Is that what just happened?

“If you have any trouble reading them, just let me know,” I say with a shaking voice, gesturing to the notes resting absently in his hand, trying to return us to normalcy.

Lucas blinks at me as he attempts to comprehend what just happened. He turns his hand, and the papers flutter to the floor. Then he lifts his other arm, the one with the cast, and looks down at it, flexing his fingers and turning it over. His eyes find mine again, and they narrow on me. “Ray,” he whispers before holding his arm up in front of him and staring at it. “What the hell just happened?”

“What do you mean?” I laugh, and it’s not exactly an academy award winning performance. Then I take a step back. “I’m heading to lunch.”

“Wait,” he says.

I stand there watching his shock change to confusion. He wants to say something to me, to ask me something, but he doesn’t. He just stares at me as though studying me long enough might give him the answers he’s looking for.

Finally, I end the standoff. I bend down, pick up the papers, and hold them out to him. But he doesn’t acknowledge them. “So, um, I can hold on to these for you,” I say, acting like nothing strange is going on. Then I step further away from him as I shove the papers into my bag. “I’ll see you later.” I flash him a tight smile before I turn and head down the hallway, anxious to put distance between us, to let him think about what happened, and to dismiss it as crazy while he decides to be happy that his arm is no longer broken. That’s how it goes. That’s how it has always happened before. But I’ve never healed Lucas before, and I’ve never had the event that caused the injury play itself out in my head. Knowing Lucas, I’m afraid he won’t let it go the way most people do. I don’t think I can let it go either now that I know his mother did this to him.

I see no sign of Lucas for the rest of the day. He doesn’t make an appearance at lunch, and I find myself nibbling on my lip as much as my sandwich. He may be confused, but I know that physically he’s completely fine now. Based on his reaction, a small seed of worry begins to sprout inside me. What if he tells someone? If he does, I’ll deny it. The likelihood of anyone believing him is slim anyway. As the anxiety takes hold, I begin to regret healing his arm. Broken arms mend. I didn’t have to intervene, and I can only hope that it doesn’t blow up in my face. But I never could stand to watch people suffer in even the smallest way. I haven’t begun to process the vision that accompanied the healing this morning. That has never happened before, and I don’t know why it did now. I have no one to talk to about any of this. The questions are swirling around in my head, and the answers are completely out of reach.

After school, I catch a ride with Gwen to her house so we can finish our chemistry lab. She’s wavering as to whether Tyler’s asking her to the prom means that he likes her or not, and it feels good to immerse myself in her typical teenage issues for the afternoon.

College acceptance letters will be arriving soon and like me, Gwen nervously checks her mailbox every day. Unlike Lucas, the rest of us are on pins and needles. Gwen wants to return to Manhattan and has only applied to schools in the city. I’m worried that my letters won’t find me here in Fort Upton. Kyle assured me that he took care of having any mail addressed to me forwarded here. I took the extra step of calling the schools to give them my change of address. So, the letters should arrive just fine. But so far, they haven’t.

T
he
day is finally over, and I’m heading down to my bedroom, when the doorbell rings. Since I’m the closest to the front door, I pull it open to find Lucas standing in the darkness on the other side.

“Who is it?” Kyle asks, stepping beside me. “Hello, Lucas,” he says with a frown.

Lucas offers him a tense smile. “I came by to see if Raielle wanted to go for a drive.”

Kyle hesitates and glances at me. I can’t read anything in Lucas’s stoic face, but I know we need to talk, and as wiped out as I’m feeling, I’d rather get it over with.

“It’s supposed to storm pretty hard later. Maybe another night would be better,” Kyle suggests.

Lucas is about to say something when I interrupt him. “We won’t be gone long.” Then I reach for my coat without waiting for Kyle’s answer. He stands silently while I slip it on, and since he doesn’t appear to be stopping me, I head out the door.

It’s a cool damp night. The air is heavy with moisture even though the rain hasn’t started yet. As I silently follow Lucas to his truck, I notice that his cast is gone. He opens the door for me, and I get inside, still getting no read on his mood since his face is a mask of neutrality. His silence is probably a bad sign though. Once we leave my neighborhood, I turn to him. “Where are going?”

“Not too far,” he says, his eyes on the road.

Soon fat raindrops begin hitting the windshield. Lucas pulls onto a bridge that crosses over a river and parks to the side. In the distance, I can see the glittering lights of a city skyline.

“That’s Albany,” he says.

“I didn’t know it was so big,” I comment, peering out the window at the glowing buildings that stretch upward, disappearing into the low hanging clouds. Below us, the rushing water is a moving dark mass.

“We’ll have to talk in the truck,” he says. “I was hoping to take you down there.” He gestures to a grassy area just below the bridge. “There are some benches. On a clear night, the view is pretty amazing.”

I take the fact that he wants to share amazing views with me as a good sign. It’s not raining too hard yet but the heavy drops ping around us as they land on the truck. Lucas keeps the heat running, and I catch the faint aroma of his spicy scent in the air.

His intense eyes meet mine. They’re shining at me in the dim light. I notice that his hair curls more in the humidity, just like mine does. He turns his body toward me, resting his right arm along the back of the seat behind him. “I cut the cast off this afternoon,” he says, raising and lowering his forearm. “Since I don’t need it anymore.”

I quietly hold his gaze, deciding to let him steer the conversation. He doesn’t appear angry, or nervous, but he does look determined. “Have you always been able to do that?” he asks. When I don’t answer right away, he clarifies himself. “Heal broken bones?”

If I’m going to deny it, now is the time to do it. It will be ugly, and he’ll know I’m lying, but that’s the smartest course to take here. Instead, inexplicably, I find myself nodding at him.

He doesn’t appear to be surprised, but he tenses, and the muscle in his cheek jumps. “Is it just broken bones, or can you heal other things?”

While he waits for me to answer, a part of me wants to jump out of the truck and run away. This is my last chance to shut down and shut him out completely. Instead, I can hardly comprehend how badly I want to let him in. I don’t want to be alone in this anymore, but I can’t trust him, not completely, not with the way he acted before. I have never wanted to be close to someone the way I want to be close to Lucas. I don’t understand it, but every part of me wants to let go and embrace it.

“Ray?” he prompts me, using my nickname in that tender way he has. That alone is enough to weaken any resolve I’m still grasping at.

“It’s not just broken bones,” I finally say, feeling like I’m stepping off a cliff.

He watches me expectantly.

“It’s just about everything, I think.”

He leans toward me. “Everything? You think?”

“I don’t use it much, my ability,” I hesitate before continuing. “My mother told me it was a curse, and that using it always came with a price. That it was safer not to use it. But I’ve seen her do amazing things and terrible things, too. I know I could do those same things if I let myself.”

Lucas squeezes his eyes shut and scrubs his hands over his face. I have no idea what he’s thinking.

He lowers his hands and blinks at me in the darkness. “Your grandmother’s name is Cora, isn’t it?”

I stare at him. “How do you know that?”

He takes a deep, shaky breath. “My father took my mother to see her. Your grandmother claimed she could heal people. This was a long time ago, right after Liam was born. My father paid her five-thousand dollars to cure my mother’s postpartum depression.”

“What?” I whisper, his words sinking in slowly.

“Nothing could snap her out of it, my dad said. He took her to a bunch of specialists, but nothing worked. People told him that this woman in town, Cora, could help people even when doctors couldn’t. That she’d cured them of everything from the flu to cancer. So, he took my mother to her.”

I can feel myself sinking lower in my seat, leaning away from him, not wanting to hear what I’m afraid is coming next.

“She got rid of the depression,” he states, bitterness straining his voice now. “But she destroyed her in the process. She turned her into what she is now. Your grandmother is the reason my family is so fucked up.”

His hard eyes zero in on me, and I can see the accusation in them. I begin to sink under the weight of his glare. I can feel the sob building inside me, and suddenly I can’t pull enough air into my lungs. I reach for the door handle and close my fingers around it. Then I push the door open and watch Lucas’s eyes widen in alarm just before I drop down onto the wet pavement.

I land hard on my hip and catch my upper body with my arms. Sheets of cold rain pour down on me as I lift myself to my feet. The need to flee is strong and without any rational thought, I begin to run over the bridge. I hear the sound of the rain pounding around me, but I now know that my mother’s words were the truth. Our ability is a curse, and my grandmother used it to hurt people. This is my legacy. This is what I come from, and I can’t accept it. I don’t want any part of it.

A hand grips my arm, and I try to pull against it.

“Ray, stop. Stop!” Lucas yells.

And I do. My legs stop moving as my sudden panic flees, leaving behind a twisting knot of misery. I slump to my knees, and Lucas follows me down, kneeling in front me. He’s soaking wet. We both are. His warm hands cup my cheeks, forcing me to look at him.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him in a strangled whisper. “I’m so sorry.”

He lifts my face back to his when I try to turn away. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

When I don’t respond, he leans in closer to me. “Listen to me. I shouldn’t have told you that way. I only just figured it out myself. I never really believed the story my father told me until I saw what you did today. I wasn’t blaming you. I know you’re not your grandmother. You’re nothing like her.”

My heart fills with sorrow for Lucas. I may not have done it myself, but it’s the power my family wields that took his mother from him. I can’t help but wonder how many other people my grandmother may have hurt, how many lives she ruined for money. I can’t hold it in any longer. The sob rips through me as my tears mix with the rain streaming down my face.

Lucas’s arms come around me, and he presses me to him, murmuring quietly to me, telling me it’s going to be all right. But I’m not just crying for what my grandmother did. I’m crying for my mother and for how much I’m missing her. I’m crying for a terrible legacy that I want no part of. I’m crying because I’ve been in the dark for so long, and I’m now just realizing how innocent that darkness was. Lucas is holding me tightly. I can feel how much he cares about me, and I can’t understand why he would, especially with what he now knows. With that terrible thought lingering in my mind, I’m suddenly all too aware of the cold, wet night, and I start to shiver, my teeth chattering uncontrollably.