I couldn’t hear anything besides the constant lapping and crashing of the small waves, but that didn’t mean I was alone out here; in the summer, the beach was a popular spot to camp out for our local homeless. I turned to my right and stared at the reaching expanse of the pier and contemplated going to it, knowing that some less desirable people may be hidden in its shadows. But as I looked left and saw nothing but a dark, deserted beach, I knew the pier was probably my best bet at figuring out what I was doing here.
I started forward, taking slow measured steps to make sure I wouldn’t make any sounds as I walked, but I quickly realized I couldn’t even hear myself moving. I looked down and saw that I wasn’t making any footprints in the sand either, which was enough to stop me in my non-existent tracks. I tried to press my right toe into the soft sand and didn’t even make a dimple. I looked around again and found that I was still alone, but suddenly had an irresistible urge to get to the pier and before I knew it, I was running full out towards it. I skidded to a halt just at the edge of the shadow the pier cast and, despite that momentary urge to get here, I just couldn’t force myself to take that last step into the shadows.
I stood there, looking into the shadows, unable to see anything menacing, not so much as the form of a sleeping body hiding from the police as it took shelter, but nothing could make me summon up the courage to step forward. I looked up the beach and saw the distant form of two people running in sync with each other and I wondered vaguely what time it was, thinking it was too dark for a morning run. But as the two came closer and closer, I realized daylight started bleeding quickly over the mountains and down the beach, illuminating the water and coloring the damp sand from gray to a soft brown. I had never seen a sunrise come about so fast, but before I could think about it more, I heard a woman’s blood-curdling scream.
“It’s okay! It’s okay!” a man said urgently and I turned to see the pair of early-morning joggers had reached the underside of the pier. The man was kneeling in the sand at the point where it met the water and the woman was standing back a few feet, peeking out behind her hands, not willing to see what the man was looking at. “He’s not dead, honey, calm down and call 911.”
I spun to face the man full on and realized he was rolling the body of a man over to drag him up out of the water, but as he slipped his hands under his arms, he moaned in pain and the man hissed, nearly dropping him in surprise. “His arm is broken,” the jogger called back over his shoulder towards the woman. She had finally managed to get her cell phone out and called for an ambulance, having walked a few feet away from the water to speak to the operator.
“Okay, son, let’s get you out of the water before you freeze your butt off,” the jogger said, moving to the boy’s other side and pulling him carefully to stand up and support most of his weight. They turned towards me and I held my breath trying to think of an explanation for standing there without helping, but they looked right past me, never noticing me. I looked from the man to the boy and felt my heart leap into my throat, nearly choking me. I was looking at Jimmy, beaten and bruised.
The world swam before my eyes. The water, sand, mountains, and people all ran together in a swirl of chaos and I thought I was going to faint. Just as I lost my balance, I woke in a tangle of sheets and limbs. I fought my way free of the mess I had made of my bed and crawled to the floor before I could stand up and grab my cell phone off of my desk. I dialed without thinking and only knew I had called Jodi first because I heard the feminine voice.
“He broke Jimmy’s arm and tried to drown him!” I said in a rush, my voice still hoarse from sleep.
“What?” Jodi asked, her voice lost in her own fog of sleep. I coughed and cleared my throat before trying again.
“Jeremy!” I said urgently. “He broke Jimmy’s arm and tried to drown him!” I was moving without thinking, grabbing clothes at random and fighting to get them on while cradling the phone between my cheek and shoulder.
“What? How do you know?” Jodi asked more clearly. Being shocked awake will speed up the recovery process every time.
“I just saw it in a dream. He was unconscious and washed up on shore under the pier. A couple of runners found him and called 911, he’s probably at the hospital by now.” I spoke a few of the words awkwardly as I pulled a shirt over my head while trying to keep the phone close enough to speak into. I never liked using the speakerphone option on my phone for fear one of my parents might be passing by.
“So then he’s okay, I mean, technically anyway?” Jodi asked and I knew she wasn’t moving to get ready yet.
“I guess so, why?”
“Well, I can tell you’re trying to get ready and obviously planning to come get me and Steven and then what? Rush to the hospital?” Jodi said, using that tone of voice everyone uses when speaking to someone planning to do something completely stupid, like jump off the edge of a pier in a storm because it sounded cool at a party a few minutes ago.
“Well, yeah, of course,” I said defensively, not knowing why I suddenly felt defensive.
“Shay, think about it, how do we know he’s at the hospital? It is eight o’clock in the morning on a Sunday. We wouldn’t even be up yet and somehow we already know Jimmy’s in the hospital. What time was it in your dream?” I appreciated that Jodi didn’t question the validity of my dream so I took the moment I needed to think back and get the answer to her question.
“Early, like sunrise, and since its summer, that’s what? Six o’clock or something?” I said shrugging even though she couldn’t see me.
“Okay, so he was found like two hours ago and we know about it even though we’ve been asleep? Do you want to explain that?” she asked and I knew she was snuggling back down into her pillows and covers.
“Yeah… okay, but we have to do something,” I said and had to fight the urge to stamp my foot.
“I ah-ah-agree,” Jodi said through a long yawn. “But we need to wait until it makes sense that we know about it. I’m sure my dad will be told and he’ll mention it to me and then we can go to the hospital like good friends.”
“Okay, but what if your dad doesn’t say anything?” I asked.
“Then we’ll think of something. You said his arm was broken, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, that’s gonna take a long time to deal with. That buys us some time. Go back to bed, we’ve only had like three hours sleep. Take a few more hours and then we’ll get together and try to figure out what to do,” Jodi said, as rational as I usually was.
“How am I going to go back to sleep?” I asked, finally allowing myself to fall back to sit on my bed, feeling my body alive with unspent nerves.
“Because you have to. You know if you don’t have enough rest, you won’t be at your best and then how will you help anyone?” I agreed with her and let her off the phone without further argument. I didn’t get undressed though, not wanting to admit that I had been hasty, but I did crawl backwards on my bed until I could lie back on my pillows. I had planned to stay awake and dwell on things, but sleep pulled me under before I could even start.
***
Jodi’s father didn’t tell her about Jimmy in the hospital, not because he didn’t know about it, but because he wasn’t home when she finally decided it was time to get out of bed. It didn’t really matter though; because the couple who found Jimmy didn’t know any better and they had attracted quite a crowd by the time the ambulance arrived and Jimmy’s blurred face was all over the morning news. We debated going to the hospital, not sure how it looked showing up, not really being friends of Jimmy. Luckily because Steven was on the Student Council and Jodi was in Band we could feign friendship by association.
Steven had bought flowers in the gift shop so we wouldn’t be showing up empty-handed. But when we got to the floor Jimmy was staying on, we realized we didn’t have to worry about standing out. It looked as though half the school had shown up to see Jimmy and find out what happened. Jodi was carrying Steven’s flowers for two reasons; on
e, so Jimmy wouldn’t react poorly from getting flowers from a guy, let alone a gay guy, and two, so I could cling desperately to Steven’s hand. I absolutely hate hospitals. There is so much pain and anxiety in them that the air, for me, was like trying to breathe through sand while tiny knives pricked my skin. I was holding onto Steven because he was so much a part of my life and we were so closely linked that I didn’t have to shield against him, so I could use him as an anchor to help block out the masses.
Sweetie, I don’t mind being your rock, but seriously you’re making my hand bleed, Steven thought at me. His thoughts, very calm, were a pale orange in my mind, rather than his usual deep red. He was trying very hard for me. I glanced down at our entwined fingers and realized my nails were digging into his skin, hard enough to cut half-moons into his hand. I gasped and let go quickly, watching as a couple of them welled with blood.
“Oh my god, Steven, I’m so sorry!” I whispered, covering my mouth in surprise.
“Really, it’s fine,” Steven said, taking my arm and linking it through his, patting my hand as it rested on his forearm. “There, that should save me,” he said with a smile. I couldn’t smile; the momentary break from him had sent a flood of nausea over me, nearly making me faint. If Steven had taken a moment longer to take my arm, I would’ve ended up on the linoleum. We were waiting near the door for a shift in the crowd of people that had descended upon Jimmy’s room. The nurses were having a fit over so many visitors, but Jimmy was one of the most popular kids at our school. Anything less would be unthinkable.
“How ya doin?” Jodi leaned towards me and whispered, touching my hand with hers, sending a gentle wave of cool air through my body. I realized her concern for my wellbeing was manifesting in her central power, a very interesting development.
“So long as I’ve got one of you, I’ll be fine,” I whispered back, returning her concern with my own surge of gratitude. I watched color fill her pale cheeks with the warmth of the emotion and she smiled at me again. I just couldn’t smile yet.
“So, Jimmy, what the hell happened to you? We saw you being wheeled on a gurney on the beach.” The three of us turned our attention back to the room when one of Jimmy’s fellow baseball players asked the pertinent question we had come to ask.
“You know I really can’t remember. I was at Cindy’s house last night and then the next thing I remember, I’m waking up on the beach, half drowned,” Jimmy finished with an awkward shrug. His arm was in a cast with a bar holding it up, straight out from the shoulder, the elbow at a right angle. The white plaster was already covered in a rainbow of signatures and messages from his many visitors.
“Oh come on, what are you saying? Cindy slipped you a roofie?” the same jock asked, laughing as he did.
“No, dumbass, I’m just saying I don’t remember anything after that,” Jimmy said, shooting the other guy a dirty look.
“Hey, where is Cindy?” some other random guy asked. I looked at Jodi then, asking with my eyes if she’d laid the calming spell too strongly, but she gave a quick shake of her head, telling me she didn’t think so.
“Oh, she was here earlier, but she wasn’t feeling great, so she took off. A headache or something,” Jimmy explained. After that, the subject was changed to lamenting over the fact that Jimmy wouldn’t be able to finish out the last big game with the team, but luckily for him, the college scouts had been around months ago and he had secured his scholarship to UCLA. Now he would just have to pray that they didn’t find out about his arm before he had a chance to rehab it.
Okay babe, if we let this go on, we’ll be here all day, Steven thought at me and with his direct thoughts, I could also read the underlying implication that he wanted me to use my empathetic abilities to clear the herd. I nodded, understanding, and took a deep breath as I closed my eyes to steady myself. I uncoiled my magic from my body, reaching out in a way that I could never quite explain and touched everyone in the room outside of the three of us. Suddenly everyone had the overwhelming urge to leave. Maybe they had plans they were late for or forgot something that suddenly had to be done right now. Those that couldn’t be persuaded so easily were forced to feel suddenly uncomfortable and desperately needed some fresh air; they would never pick on anyone who suffered from claustrophobia again.
As everyone shuffled to say their goodbyes and file out of the room, we stayed to the side of the doorway, letting them all pass without really seeing us. Finally, we were alone with Jimmy. Jodi nonchalantly nudged the edge of the door with her foot, pushing it to fall closed before she stepped forward to talk to him. Steven slipped away from me to go with her, making sure to keep his attention on them while I turned to the door and traced my finger over it, murmuring a warding spell over it. That way any nurse or doctor who wanted to check on Mr. McCormack would just walk right by, missing the door until I broke the spell. I took an extra moment to speak a calming spell for my own sake, not wanting my empathetic abilities to interfere any more.
“Hey guys, I didn’t really expect to see you here,” Jimmy was saying as I turned and walked towards the bed to join Jodi and Steven.
“Well, we saw the news,” Jodi said as casually as possible. Jimmy nodded as he looked at each of us in turn. Jodi set the flowers among all the other arrangements and cards.
“So you really don’t remember anything?” Steven asked. We had decided I would do as little talking as possible, since of the three of us I knew Jimmy the least.
“No, man, it’s really weird, right?” Jimmy asked and I realized I could feel tiny pricks of anxiety coming off of Jimmy every time someone pressed him for details about last night.
“I dunno, maybe you hit your head?” Steven offered and Jimmy nodded, his eyes going glassy, as if he wasn’t really looking at Steven.
“Were you guys drinking?” Jodi asked.
“Actually, no, not last night,” Jimmy said, as if he hadn’t thought about that fact yet. “See, it doesn’t really make sense. I mean, if we’d been doing something like that, I’d get why I couldn’t remember, at least remember up until I wasn’t at her house anymore, ya know?” Jimmy said, desperation dripping from his voice, the tiny pricks of anxiety becoming stronger, hotter against my skin. He wanted answers too and didn’t have them. I felt for him, like a date rape drug victim waking up in the morning, not knowing who her rapist was or what exactly happened.
“Okay, guys, that’s enough I think,” I said, stepping closer to the bed and reaching a hand out to touch Jimmy’s leg. Jodi and Steven stepped back, almost as if we had choreographed this. I started by opening a channel directly between Jimmy and me and began pushing calm and soothing warmth through him, letting him know he didn’t need to worry. I watched as his face started to go slack as he gave over to the comfort I offered. It was so much easier than thinking about what happened last night, what almost happened. “Jimmy,” I said softly, feeling the magic in my voice resonate like a bell through the room. He looked up at me, the trust of a small child naked on his face. “Jimmy, you have to remember,” I said and he nodded slowly, never taking his eyes off of mine.
I moved up to the head of the bed, making sure to never let my hand leave his body, slipping up his calf, over his knee and thigh until I met his hand that was resting on his stomach, taking the route up his arm to his shoulder and stopping there. I leaned in closer to his face, keeping his gaze locked on mine and I knew he was in the trance I needed; not deep enough to be hypnotized, but just enough to be open to me and the memories he was suppressing.
“Remember, Jimmy, remember,” I said, invoking a magic I rarely used. I didn’t need to know who had done this to him, that we already knew, but we needed to know how and what had gone wrong. Someone doesn’t wash up on the shore unconscious if you meant for them to live. His eyes clouded over and a spark of heat erupted between my hand and Jimmy’s shoulder. In another moment Jimmy and I were standing inside Cindy’s house. We could see the memory of Jimmy on the couch with Cindy, who was giggling, and the memory of me, Jod
i, and Steven standing in the foyer of the house and hearing Cindy giggle. Now I knew why.
Jimmy was in a half pushup over Cindy who was laying on her back, smiling up at him. He was lowering his face towards her for a kiss when Jimmy, the one standing next to me, turned our attention to the window as it opened quietly and Jeremy came through with an agility he never exhibited before. Jimmy and Cindy on the couch hadn’t noticed his arrival, which surprised me because I remember Cindy saying that Jeremy had come bursting in. I watched as Jeremy just stood there for a moment, watching his brother and Cindy, his face growing redder by the second until I almost expected to see steam burst out of his ears.
Suddenly Jeremy rushed towards the couch, his hands crooked into claws outstretched in front of him. Just then Cindy tilted her head up as Jimmy was working his way down her neck and she opened her eyes to see Jeremy closing in on them and she screamed as his fist came down and struck her face, explaining the bruise we saw when we rushed in. I could hear the three of us coming, but Jeremy only had eyes for Jimmy. He grabbed Jimmy and lifted him off of the couch with strength I knew he didn’t really possess, knocking Cindy to the floor, and tore out of the room back through the window he came in.
Jimmy took me out of the house before Jodi, Steven, and I came to Cindy’s rescue. We were standing in a fog, no road or sky to differentiate up and down. I reached out and touched Jimmy’s arm, turning his attention to me. “Remember,” I said, hearing my voice echo again, “even if you don’t believe it happened. Jimmy, you have to remember.”
The fog cleared, but it was still total darkness around us and I realized then we were hanging in the air above the ocean. I had to send more reassurance through Jimmy as I felt the first prickling of anxiety coming off of him. I had to be careful to keep him calm and in the trance, lest he break my spell.
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