by SL Naeole
"Grace, I am your friend. I won't let people treat you like that anymore," he vowed, the seriousness shifting now to his eyes. "You are too good a person to have people take you for granted."
"How are you going to stop people from doing what comes so naturally to them?" I snorted.
He ignored that and continued. "I know the hurt you've felt, and I've seen how you've been treated. It won't be like that anymore. I promise."
How could a mind reader protect me from the hurt that I already feel? How could he protect me from the memories permanently burned into my mind? How could be prevent the snide comments, the jokes, or the memories from crushing down on me tomorrow, when it started all over again? Truth was that he couldn't. He couldn't change the fact that no matter what time I went home today, Graham would still be my next door neighbor who wanted nothing to do with me, or that my dad was still going to let that viper into my mom's house.
Want to bet?
My mouth became the perfect "O". "No, I don't want to bet. If knowing you read minds is too much information already, then I probably don't want to know the rest anyway; and if that's the case, I will just have to ask you to stay out of my business." Boy, this friendship thing was getting off to a rough start. I've yelled at him more times in the past hour than I ever had at Graham in our entire lives.
Before I could utter another word, my stomach decided it was time to interrupt us. The rumbling sound was quite loud, and embarrassing, but a testament to the fact that I hadn't finished breakfast, and didn't even get a chance to start on lunch. The sun was heading westward, sinking ever so slowly, so dinner was around the corner. Was I going to miss that, too? I thought not. "Robert, you need to take me home. I'm starving, and it's getting late."
He stood up and pulled me up with him without an ounce of effort. Our hands had never separated throughout the entire conversation, I noted, and blushed. "If I must. But first, I want to make sure you realize that it's okay to yell at me if you want to. You don't have to keep it in like you did with Graham. I am your friend now. I accept you for what you are."
My eyes bulged. Would you stop digging through my memories? If you want to be my friend, you're going to have to realize that friends don't do stuff like that!
His laughter was soft. Most friends also can't literally read each other's minds.
Ok. He had a point. Just don't do it anymore. It's creepy. And annoying.
He nodded his head and we walked towards his motorcycle. His helmet, which he'd hung on the handlebars, was handed to me. I looked at it questioningly. "Don't you need it?" I asked.
"No. I have a hard head." He climbed onto the motorcycle and started it up. The loud rumble vibrated through me and my legs, remembering how it felt to get off, seemed to have formed an opinion of their own that they were not climbing back on. Trying to stall, I put the helmet on, not bothering with adjusting my hair, resulting in my vision being completely distorted by wayward strands covering my face. He sighed, and pulled the helmet off of my head. He pushed my hair back and replaced the helmet. He pushed the visor down, turning everything a muted dark gray, and yanked me onto the seat behind him.
Take that, legs.
I figured you needed a little help.
Yes. This mind reading thing of his was definitely going to get annoying.
Wrapping my arms around his waist again, I held my breath as he revved the engine and we took off. Like lightning, we streaked across the road, everything a blur once again. I wondered what had happened to the chili that I was sure had stained the back of his jacket, deducing that he'd probably cleaned it while I was passed out.
I closed my eyes and suddenly I could hear--no--see his thoughts, see all of the events that had occurred today through his eyes while we rode. He was standing in line, his vision set on a beautiful blonde girl standing off to the side with her boyfriend. It was Erica. He felt warm, happy.
He turned to the person who was standing in front of him. She had brown hair, the color of mahogany, and she was wearing an old t-shirt. She had chosen it for comfort, he could tell, because it wasn't like anything anyone else was wearing. She was whispering to the woman in front. The woman looked confused and needed her to speak louder. She did, saying her name. Grace...
"Oh honey, I know who you are. You're Miss Grace Shelley. My, you've grown over the summer, haven't you, sweetheart?" the woman in front said loudly. The name seemed to trigger a wave of fire through him, and he relished the burning, as though he had been starved for the heat. He continued to stare at the back of her head. Willing, waiting for her to turn around, fighting the urge to make her do so.
She reached behind her head to pat her hair. It wasn't hair she was feeling at all. It was a tangled mass of unruly knots that she had completely forgotten to brush that morning. He could feel her embarrassment, hear it. He reached forward to touch her hair ever so quickly as she stepped forward to talk to the lovely lady handing out class schedules once more. More warmth filled him as he inhaled deeply the sweet fragrance of it. When he removed his hand, the tangles were gone.
I blinked. He could do a lot more than read minds!
More visions appeared. He was walking to his homeroom class, seating himself next to a girl with short, blonde hair. She was smiling so widely, her ears were part of it. He smiled back. It was such a bright smile it was reflected in her eyes. His warmth flowed outward, and the blonde girl started perspiring--you could see she didn't care. She introduced herself, but he was listening to her thoughts; she wanted to know everything about him, his name, where he came from, but most importantly, if he had a girlfriend.
It sickened me to know that I had that in common with her; I, too, was curious about that last part. I felt him shake his head in the negative--reading the thoughts in my mind as he played back his own--and I felt some sense of relief that should have, but didn't feel out of place or awkward.
The vision behind my closed lids shifted and he was now surrounded by girls. Giggly, giddy, glorious girls. He liked girls, judging by how much he laughed and smiled with them. He glowed with warmth. A soft pale white surrounding him, fluttering in and out as they touched his shoulder, batted their eyelashes, lightly brushed against his side, the flirting not subtle at all, but not blatantly obvious either. Then his focus shifted to something else--no, not something--it shifted to someone else. He excused himself and walked towards the back of a classroom, taking a seat next to the person who had captured his attention.
She looked so sad, so forlorn. Grace... He wanted to reach out and touch her hair again. But there were no more tangles. He could see the tracks of dried tears on her cheeks, and he had started counting. What was he counting? He shook his head at the figure that he came up with. He had counted the number of tears that had flowed down her face.
The girl sitting next to him looked up and turned to face him. Through his eyes, she was surrounded by a soft white halo, and the warmth he had felt earlier around all of the other girls seemed to pale in comparison to this new heat, a blaze burning deep within him, threatening to turn him into living flames. It felt good. He welcomed it. He took in a deep breath, his nostrils flaring as he inhaled the fragrance that was her hair, her skin, her breath...her. Grace...
He spoke to her, amused at her shocked reaction. He spoke again, his gaze locking with hers, trying to reassure her without words or actions. She stumbled over her response, and then blushed. The flames licking at his skin grew even higher. Another girl sitting in front of her said something she thought was amusing in its cruelty. Its iciness dampened the heat enough for him to turn away and take a good look at the girls surrounding him now. All looked at him like he was the latest trend that they had to have...and he was on sale. Their thoughts were all the same. Nothing different here. It never was. Beautiful faces, but the thoughts were all predictable and mundane.
He turned to look at her again. She was bent over her paper, lost in thought, and she was chewing on the inside of her cheek. She was thinking about something
painful. It hurt him, feeling the despair she was experiencing, and what he heard, what he saw in her mind tugged at him, made him want to comfort her in any way possible.
He could see glossiness surrounding her eyes and knew them to be tears. She was on the verge of crying. Her pain was so acute it caused his breathing to get ragged, as though he himself were feeling the hurt that had welled up deep inside of her. He looked at what she had been staring at--her paper. It was blank with the exception of her name and assignment title. It would be enough, he decided.
Quickly, he dug deep into her mind and pulled out moments from her memory that didn't involve the source of her pain. He willed them to the paper sitting in front of her, bending them to her curvy and slanted handwriting until they filled up the front and back neatly and effortlessly. She wouldn't need to have failing her first classroom assignment hanging over her, not feeling the way she does. The bell was ringing, and images shifted. Another classroom, and she was there again. He felt the fire surround him as he tried once again to talk to her. He didn't understand why his voice sounded so shaky.
I smiled at that thought. It had sounded steady as time itself to me.
She was focused on the teacher speaking at the front of the class. He needed to distract her somehow. He saw her pencil resting at the edge of her desk, and called it over with a gentle crook of his finger. Obediently, it rolled off the desk. The sound of it hitting the cold tile below was enough to tear her eyes away from the chatter going on between teacher and students.
She reached down to pick up the traitorous writing tool and looked up at him. The flames around him danced with glee. She stared at him as he tried, once again, to talk to her. Her response was slow in coming. She seemed frozen. And then she moved so quickly, he couldn't see it happening until it was over. She had tried to rise--too fast, too nervous--and she hit her head on the edge of her desk, a complaint tumbling from her lips.
Instantly, one of her hands was at the contact point--trying to hold in the pain, or prevent it from coming at all--unwilling to allow anymore tears. Immediately, his hand was there, covering hers, offering what level of soothing comfort he could without scaring her.
There were titters around them, but he didn't notice who was laughing; he didn't care. He just wanted to lessen her pain any way he could. Soon, the hand on her head lowered. She was close to smiling now. It was almost enough. And then she spoke once more, telling no one in particular that his eyes weren't gray at all. No. They were silver.
Suddenly, the visions were gone. My mind was empty once again, save for my own thoughts. We weren't moving anymore. How much time had passed since he started his vision sharing? I looked up and saw my house. How had he known where I lived?
Do you even have to ask?
Of course I didn't. What he couldn't get out of me the conventional way, he could surely learn from me in another, more intimate manner. I looked at my house. The garage door was shut, which probably meant that Dad had indeed gone to work and wasn't home yet. Good. I wasn't ready to face him anyway. I climbed off the back of the monstrous bike and wobbled a bit before his patient grip helped steady me; I knew my legs weren't going to cooperate with me, fully mutinous now that they had been forced against their will to endure that seemingly endless vibrating.
I pulled off the helmet and handed it to him. "So...um, thanks," I said, unsure where to proceed with this oddly formed and sudden friendship, or how to process all of the new information I had just gleaned through him sharing his memories. I grabbed the hem of the shirt he had given to me to wear. "Um, I'll get this shirt back to you tomorrow."
He took the helmet from my hands, looking not at me, but at my home. "Don't worry about it. I have at least five more of those at home. You're going to be alone..."
I shrugged my shoulders. "No big. I've spent a great deal of my life that way. I'll see you at school tomorrow then." I started up the walkway, turning as he revved the bike.
Thank you, Grace...for allowing me to trust you with my secret.
I watched as he sped off, watched as he disappeared from my sight--watched with a small smile on my face as I thought, it's my secret now, too.
A SMALL KINDESS
I clutched my new secret to myself as I walked into the dark house. I saw the clock on the wall said it was a quarter past six, and knew that Dad would be home in less than an hour. I considered making dinner for the two of us, but I was just too hungry and quickly made myself a tuna sandwich instead. I plopped down on the sofa and flipped on the television, looking for anything that could be the white noise I needed to process all of the events of today.
He had said that I was different. VERY different he had emphasized, and so I was, like a dodo amongst the peacocks. But he was the truly different one. He could read minds! He could send thoughts into others' minds as well. He could...write papers in another's handwriting just by thinking about it, and turn a tangled mess of hair into something neat and presentable. It was as if he were some kind of magician.
I snorted at that. Magic? What was I, six? There had to be some logical explanation. Maybe he was showing me what he wanted to: a mixture of fact and fiction, to test me, test my loyalty. Well, even if people would have believed me, I wasn't going to go blabbing to the world that he could read minds. I'm sure that he knew that I wouldn't. It may not have been thought directly, but my subconscious would have definitely not have allowed for it. And he had already delved deep in there several times today to have known this.
I looked down at my hand. The one he had held for so long while sitting on that bench together. I brought it to my face, as though the warmth that had spread through it was still there, and would reach out and burn my cheek, half expecting to catch a hint of his smell. I wrinkled my nose as the pungent aroma of tuna and pickles rushed up and around me. No mystical, magical scent here.
I looked down at the shirt he had given to me to change into, wondering when it was last that he had worn it. I pulled it to my face and rubbed it against my cheek. It felt unbelievably soft against my skin, and I could imagine him on the other side of that fabric, his warmth radiating through, into me...
I don't know how long I stayed like that--my thoughts lost in my imagination and daydreams--but when my eyes reopened, I was on my bed in my room. How did I get here? I looked at the digital clock that sat on my desk, its red numbers bright in the darkness of my room reading thirty minutes to midnight. Daydreaming about Robert had cost me five hours? I looked down at the clothes on my body. I was no longer wearing his shirt. Instead, I was in my usual bedtime uniform of boxers and a white tank top.
I suppose that I had fallen asleep on the couch and Dad had carried me upstairs and changed me. I flipped on the lamp that sat on the nightstand next to the bed. With a surprised laugh, I realized that I felt bereft without Robert's shirt. I didn't know why, but I needed to hold it, feel it. Perhaps it was because it was the only proof I had that today had even happened.
I stood up and walked over to my dresser. Had Dad placed it there? The basket that had been there this morning was still there, but Robert's shirt wasn't in it. I went to check my laundry hamper. It wasn't there either.
I started downstairs and froze when I heard the sound of talking. I recognized Dad's voice; it sounded like he was asking a question but wasn't getting an answer. Was he on the phone? I continued down to see who he was talking to at this time of night. It was not like him to be up so late.
He was sitting on the couch, a laundry basket to the side of his knees, folded clothes piled on the coffee table in front of him. He was talking. But he wasn't talking to anyone on the phone. He wasn't talking to anyone. There wasn't anyone else there.
"Dad?"
He looked up at me and smiled sheepishly. "Hey Grace. You're up."
I nodded. I picked at the hem of my boxers, trying to figure out how to ask him if he'd been talking to himself. Well. Not exactly talking to himself, rather, having a full blown conversation with himself. "Um, Dad...who were
you talking to? Just now?"
"I-I was talking to Mom," he said softly, sadness plain to see in his eyes. "When it's just me and I'm doing things that we used to do together, it's like I can feel her here, and so I-I talk to her."
Well. That was a surprise. I knew he folded laundry to remind himself of her, but I didn't know he had conversations with...her, too. "What were you talking about wi-with Mom?" I asked, slowly lowering myself down by his feet, opposite of the now empty basket.
He started placing the folded clothes back into it while trying to find the words to answer me. When he had everything cleared off of the table, he turned to look at me. "Grace, I was telling your mom about Janice, about the baby, and about how much I worry about you." He grabbed something from the top of the pile of clothes in the basket and handed it to me.
It was Robert's shirt.
"I know that Graham broke your heart, Grace. I know how deeply hurt he left you. I saw it with my own eyes. But I worry about your actions as a result of that pain." He gestured to the shirt in my hands. "You were wearing that when I came home. It's not yours. It's not even a girl's shirt. Where'd you get it?"
I squeezed my hands around the soft fabric, wondering how to go about explaining the day's events in a way that didn't sound crazy. "A friend gave it to me to change into after I spilled chili all over my other shirt." There. Simple. Easy. The truth.
He looked at my face, and I knew he'd see that I was being honest. I didn't expect him to realize that it was only part of the truth. "Graham told me you went off with some guy after ditching school."
My eyes grew wide with shock. And, anger. "You spoke to him? After what he did?"
He blushed, embarrassed at his betrayal and my reaction to it. "I had to. I got a call from the school saying you missed the second half of the day, that you had skipped school altogether. You've refused to make any girlfriends, so I had to speak to the only person I knew went to school with you."