What No One Else Can Hear (4 page)

Out of the blue he said, “I’m gonna be a police officer when I get big.”

Professional or not, the teacher stopped midsentence and looked at Stevie. She had known him the whole time she had worked at the center and had never heard him say one word. Here was a whole sentence… on topic.

Stevie wasn’t finished. “Well, that… or a draw-er.”

I knew he meant “artist” but we could work on vocabulary later.

The teacher shook herself out of her shock and chuckled at that. “Either of those things would be a very good thing to be, Stevie.” I could see her inner debate. Should she push a little and ask for another response? Should she downplay the importance of what she had just witnessed? She decided to converse a little. “Police officers help us a lot, don’t they?” Stevie nodded and smiled. He had a terrific smile, but the staff didn’t see nearly enough of it. “Would you like to put our police officer up for us?” Stevie seemed hesitant and looked at me for direction.

“That would be fun, sport, don’t you think?”

He slowly nodded and stood up. He was still reluctant to go into the thick of the group, so I went closer and retrieved the cutout from the teacher. Stevie took it from me and put it on the bulletin board. Both the board and the cutout were covered with felt so it easily stuck wherever Stevie put it. He took it back off and tried again, several times, until he had it just right. Then he returned to his seat and started adding it to his drawing. Conversation over, apparently. But the teacher seemed more than satisfied. She turned her attention back to the rest of the class, but the beaming smile never left her face.

E
VENTUALLY
,
DINNERTIME
rolled around. Man, had it been a long day, and it had just started at noon. I noticed most of the third-floor staff seemed to be sitting together. I settled Stevie at the next table over and sat at that end of the staff table. Dottie was right behind me with her tray and sat on the opposite side of the table.

“Hey, Jesse,” she said. “How was your first day?”

“Busy. Exhausting,” I answered with an exaggerated sigh and paused for effect, “and I’m loving every minute of it.”

She chuckled. “Have you met everyone? Let’s see. Drew and Chuck were off yesterday, and I bet you were all too busy to get to know each other yet today. Have you been introduced?” I answered in the negative, and she continued, saying, “That’s Drew Ferguson,” and nodded to the strikingly handsome man beside me. He had dark brown hair a couple of shades darker than my own, two to three days’ worth of stubble, and the most beautiful blue eyes I’d ever seen.

“It’s nice to meet you.” He presented his hand for a shake, and I almost didn’t want to let it go. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Nice meeting you as well.” I tried to add levity to distract from my awkwardness. “I haven’t heard anything at all about you yet… but I’m sure it’s all
good
stuff that I haven’t heard.”

He laughed, and I decided it was just another of his attributes that I really appreciated.

Dottie chuckled good-naturedly and introduced me to the other man. “And this is Chuck Tyler.”

If Drew had given off good vibes and made me want to get to know him as quickly as possible, Chuck had the exact opposite effect. He was stockier than me, but I could tell he was all muscle. He had dishwater blond hair and dark brown eyes, almost black.

I reached my hand across the table to shake his hand as I had Drew’s, but he leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and said, “So,
you
are Saint Jesse McKinnon. Everyone around here makes you sound like the second coming. Hell, I was gonna ask you to walk across the pond later… you know, just to see you perform
another
miracle.”

Dottie handed Chuck a roll. “Put something in your mouth, Chuck, before you embarrass yourself further.”

Chuck took a bite of the roll but didn’t stop his critical inspection of me.

He continued to stare and downright glare at me all during dinner. Oh well. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time I’d rubbed someone the wrong way. I could deal with it. I wasn’t here to be “Mr. Popular.” I was here for Stevie, who was at that moment exploring the relative merits of eating mashed potatoes
with
gravy or without, trying a bite of first one and then the other. I had found that the cafeteria workers had long since learned most of the children’s eating quirks and had loaded Stevie’s tray with three helpings of mashed potatoes: one with gravy, one without, and one, God help me, with ketchup. Don’t ask me what was up with that. I wasn’t sure if that was an empath thing, a preteen thing, or just a Stevie thing, but he ate that helping first, so who could argue?

Dinner was otherwise uneventful, as was the rest of the early evening. We allowed the children some outside playtime, during which Stevie drew picture after picture of various play equipment. Not even I could convince him to actually
use
said equipment.

Then we headed back to the hall. We were working on rotating the kids through snacks, indoor play or TV, and baths. Each staff member had an average of three students to care for, with some exceptions like Lydia and Stevie who had their own aides, so we had plenty of people to staff all the stations.

Stevie was watching a cop show, and the bath was scheduled around him so he wouldn’t be interrupted. The staff took it in stride and Stevie seemed to think it was his due. The boy seemed to have this whole place wrapped around his finger.

I grabbed some cookies and settled down in an armchair near, but not right next to Stevie, to hang out in case I was needed. Drew grabbed a couple of cookies and sat in the next chair. Chuck had continued to glare at me the whole rest of the evening and now swept in, grabbed a cookie, and left the room.

“You’ll have to excuse Chuck. He can’t help himself. He’s suffering from TAD,” Drew said after a nibble or two of cookie.

“What’s TAD?” I asked, taking a bite of my own cookie.

“Terminal Asshole Disorder.”

It took every bit of effort I could muster to keep from redecorating the carpet with partially masticated chocolate chip cookie. Regaining my composure at long last, I countered, “Yeah, I know that disease. Must be rampant. There always seems to be at
least
one sufferer of the disorder just about anywhere you go.”

“Unfortunately it’s incurable, and
we
have to suffer with the symptoms.”

I thought I’d found a kindred spirit. So far, Drew’s sarcastic wit seemed to match or even surpass my own. All in all, not a bad day’s work. Numerous supporters, one of whom was quite possibly the future star of my wet dreams, and only one enemy so far. I could live with that.

T
HE
FIRST
several weeks went by pretty well. I fitted into Stevie’s schedule as if I had always been included. He was doing much better with regard to communication and was interacting in class a little, but he wouldn’t let me out of his sight. Stevie was still having trouble controlling the voices in his head, the sudden overwhelming emotions, and the physical sensations they caused. He had several sensitive periods. Most were minor, but one was so bad that he ripped off all his clothes in the middle of the hallway after class. Fortunately we were near the calm room and I could take him there to calm him down so we didn’t have a very distraught, very naked Stevie in such a public place. Sometimes rubbing his back or arms was the most effective way to calm him down, but when his skin was already excruciatingly painful, that was out of the question. That left voice alone, and Stevie didn’t respond to that as quickly. Stacy, Chuck, and several children happened to be walking by when I was ushering him into the calm room, and Stacy offered to bring down some more clothes for him.

They were among the softest clothes he had. The staff had always thought he stripped because his clothing irritated him, so instead of having him put the same clothes back on after he was calm, they’d give him something softer and hope for the best. It had seemed to work, because once Stevie got the voices and tingles under control—as well as he was able to on his own—it didn’t really matter what he wore, so he didn’t take the softer clothes off.

The staff assured me Stevie was handling himself much better than he used to, and his meltdowns, though just as frequent, were nowhere near as lengthy as they had been. I was still frustrated, though. This wasn’t the Stevie I had met in the forest. Don’t get me wrong; I adored him—in the forest, out of the forest, in full meltdown mode, it didn’t matter. I was seemingly destined to be an integral part of Stevie’s life, and I
loved
having that opportunity, but I felt I wasn’t doing enough. I should be able to help him be the little boy I met in the forest. For all my research, I was just reacting to each situation, doing what came to mind to help restabilize him, one crisis at a time. I wanted to help him be proactive, to control his empathy
before
a crisis and to develop shields. I had been thinking of ways for him to visualize shields, or intensity of the noise, or anything that would help him control it himself, but so far I hadn’t found that one magic way that would get through to him.

I
WAS
getting to know the staff members better and got along well with most. With one notable exception: I didn’t know what Chuck’s problem was, but no matter how much I tried to be nice to him, he seemed to try just as hard to hate me. I’d rubbed people the wrong way before, but this instant and prolonged hatred was something I had never experienced before. Always in the past, I was at least able to come to some kind of truce. It just wasn’t happening with Chuck.

Dottie said Chuck liked to be the center of attention, and once I got here, all the focus shifted to me, or at least Chuck felt that it had. She felt Chuck received no less attention now than he did before, but she thought his goal all along
was
to be “Mr. Popular,” to have everyone know him and like him, greet him warmly in the halls, and tell other people how good he was with the kids. The problem was he really wasn’t good with them. He became impatient way too quickly, tended to talk to them either in a condescending voice or an angry one, and when he felt they weren’t complying quickly enough, he simply manhandled them into things. Nothing that could really be called abuse, just much more physically intrusive than he needed to be.

Case in point: one day after class, we had no sooner gotten back to the hall, hung up jackets, and started handing out snacks, when the fire alarm went off. Dottie had told me the administration usually notified the third-floor staff before a drill because of some of the children’s bad reactions, but sometimes they weren’t able to. So that day we had no warning. And man, did Stevie have a bad reaction. Probably because everyone else did, and the combined emotional turmoil must have been terrible.

He grabbed his ears and screamed as loud as the alarm itself. He jumped around, still holding his ears and screaming, and slammed his body into the wall, over and over.

“Stevie,” I tried to get his attention, “Hey, buddy, calm down now. We need to go outside.”

He was still throwing himself into the wall, so I put myself in the way and continued to talk him down. Everyone started to usher the other kids outside and left Stevie to me.

Dottie said, “I’m going to go check to see if there’s an actual fire. We may not have time to get everyone calmed down first. If it’s a drill, though, I’ll see if they can turn the alarm off.” She left me still talking to Stevie.

After a half minute or so, I could finally touch him, then hold him. He was still screaming and holding his ears but not hurting himself anymore. I used only touch to soothe him instead of my voice, since I didn’t want to have to shout over the alarm. I rubbed circles on his back, rubbed his arms, stroked his hair, even held my hands over his, until he was finally quiet. But he was still upset. I endeavored to send out calm vibes and good thoughts. I didn’t know if he could pick out my emotions over everyone else’s, but it didn’t hurt to try.

Several children and staff members were still on the hall, some heading for the doorway and some having their own crises. Stevie was certainly not the only child who didn’t like fire alarms. I finally convinced him to stand up and worked us toward the door in a timely enough fashion to be safe in a fire. We were ahead of several other children when Chuck came stomping across the room.

“Oh, for crying out loud. It’s a
fire
. Coddle the brat later.” He bent Stevie over his shoulder and headed for the door. Of course Stevie started screaming again and kicking. Chuck didn’t seem to care about Stevie’s distress, only the kicking. “You kick me, brat, and I’ll leave your ass to burn up.”

I followed as quickly as I could, trying to talk to Stevie, but I knew it wouldn’t help. Chuck’s hatred and anger were palpable enough for
me
to feel, and I wasn’t an empath. I knew Stevie wouldn’t hear me. We finally got outside, and I took Stevie as soon as I could, and sent a glare toward Chuck.

“Well, you’re welcome for my doing
your
job, Messiah.”

Ignoring Chuck, I went through the same motions that had worked earlier. I finally quieted Stevie again, but he wouldn’t let go of me. At that moment, I just let him cling.

When he finally had himself under control, he turned to me. “He makes my brain hurt.”

I assumed Stevie meant Chuck’s emotions were hard for him to deal with, but I had to chuckle at the terminology. I had to find some humor in this horrible situation. As much as I hated to make things worse between Chuck and me, I felt I would probably have to talk to the administrator about this. I vowed to sleep on it and make the decision tomorrow. For now, I needed to concentrate on Stevie.