[Healer 01.0] The Healer

by CJ Anaya

“That was different,” I managed to choke out. “She was my mother, and she wasn’t supposed to die.” I pushed my lasagna around my plate slowly. “Ten seconds, Dad. That’s all I needed. If I’d been there ten seconds sooner she would have been just fine. That’s why I need to be there. I need to be at that hospital because ten seconds can change everything. It can change it all.”

  He nodded his head, his suspicions confirmed.

  “You took too much on. Blamed yourself for what was out of your control.” He had to stop abruptly and breathe a bit as a tear slowly made its way down the side of his face. “If you’ll remember, I wasn’t much help in saving her life either, and I’m the doctor.” My father gave me a weak smile laced with self-reproach. I saw the pain he tried to mask and felt like I’d put it there.

  “There wasn’t anything a doctor could do. The damage that bullet did to her heart was impossible for anyone to repair, anyone but me.” I reached across the table for my father’s hand and grasped it in my own. We both sat in silence, father and daughter thinking about Julia Fairmont’s death.

  “You’ve been doing your best to make up for a situation that no ten-year-old should have had to deal with. I see you trying to be everything for everyone just in case there’s a chance that you’ll be too late, but Hope, honey, people die. You can’t save the world.”

  “I can try,” I whispered determinedly.

  My father sighed in defeat.

  “Let’s talk about something a little less…depressing.” He reached for his fork and took his first bite of lasagna, then grimaced. “Too cold.” He picked up his plate and walked over to the microwave. “So, let’s talk about school. How are your classes going?”

  “I thought you said you wanted to talk about something less depressing. You’ve failed miserably.” I gave up on any attempt at eating my lasagna. As far as I was concerned, anything you had to reheat wasn’t worth eating.

  “You love school. Are you struggling in your classes? Why is this the first I’ve heard about it?”

  I put up a calming hand before he had an aneurysm.

  “Dad, everything’s fine. I’m getting A’s in all my classes, okay? I’m just bored with it is all. The subjects are super easy, and the only thing I find even remotely interesting is my class in folklore and mythology.”

  “I didn’t know you were taking that. You started that this semester then, or were you taking it in the fall as well?”

  “It’s not like math. Public education only allows you to take fun classes for one semester. Math is used to torture us all year.”

  His eyebrows lifted in surprise.

  “I thought you said your classes were easy.”

  “The words ‘easy’ and ‘torture’ go hand in hand in this case. Math easily tortures me. Plus, nothing even remotely interesting ever happens to me.”

  My dad gave me a wry look. I realized that statement must have sounded strange coming from a girl with the ability to heal people.

  “I’m referring to the fact that I go to my classes, I take notes, I turn in homework assignments, and I ace my tests. It’s all pretty predictable.”

  “What about guys? Isn’t there someone you’re interested in at school?” His fake smile hinted at his disgruntlement on the subject.

  “Please. The only action I’m getting around here is experienced vicariously through Angie. I swear that girl has a different boyfriend every other week.”

  Now his smile was genuine.

  “Don’t look so thrilled. The relief is oozing from your eyeballs.”

  “I’m not thrilled. Who said I was thrilled? It’s perfectly healthy and normal for you to be dating at this age. Kissing boys in parked cars. Getting your heart broken by some immature guy who gets drunk on the weekends and cheats on you with some bleached blond cheerleader. All part of the learning process.”

  “What if I did start to date someone? Then how would you feel?” I gave my father a tiny smirk.

  “Completely unthrilled.”

  “Unthrilled? Dad, that is so not a word.”

  “I’m your father and a doctor, and that means unthrilled is most definitely a part of the English language. How is Angie doing by the way? I haven’t seen her in about two days now. That’s like a record for you two, isn’t it?”

  I smiled, thinking of my crazy best friend.

  “She’s had the flu for a couple of days now. I thought about healing her, but she enjoys whining and complaining so much I figured all the babying her mom does would make her that much more enjoyable to be around once she got back to school.”

  Dad chuckled softly, retrieving his lasagna from the microwave and sitting back down.

  “I don’t get you two at all. I know you’re best friends, and I love having Angie over, but you’re nothing like each other.”

  I thought about that for a second. Angie and I were different in every way imaginable. Personality, clothing styles, opinions, and even right down to the way we looked… everything was different. I would have loved to look like Angie, but I’d been stuck with thick black hair, olive colored skin, and dark blue, almond shaped eyes. Not a terrible combination, but Angie’s appearance leaned more toward the femme fatal variety.

  I broke from my musings and realized my dad was waiting for some kind of response from me.

  “Angie helps me loosen up a little bit here and there, and I keep her from going to jail and possibly getting herself killed. We balance each other out,” I reasoned.

  My father’s lips lifted in amusement.

  I stood up from the table and put my full plate of lasagna in front of him, knowing he’d be more than happy to eat it.

  “Well, I hope for your sake that something crazy happens at school tomorrow, even if Angie isn’t there to instigate it.”

  “Even with Angie there, I still have math class.” I smiled brightly as my father’s laughter followed me up the staircase and into my bedroom.

  My cell phone began to ring as I walked across my room and flung myself haphazardly on my ivory colored bedspread. I laughed, recognizing the ring tone as one of Angie’s personal favorites. Moves Like Jagger blared loudly from my cell phone.

  “Were your ears burning?” I asked sweetly.

  “So you were talking about me,” Angie said. “I can’t say I’m surprised. The thought of you discussing my many virtues and accomplishments, simply delights me.” Her voice came out low and throaty.

  Angie is, I think, the most stunning beauty to have ever graced the face of this earth, a sentiment she probably shares. No false modesty in her corner. Fiery red hair…check. Perfect porcelain skin …check. Emerald green eyes…check and check.

  “You know I do have other friends,” I said. “You didn’t considered the possibility that I might have been discussing my latest love interest before you called?”

  “With your father? Please!” I smiled as Angie’s loud gasp crackled through the receiver. “Wait, do you have someone you’re crushing on? Because if you do, and you talked to your dad about it before talking with me, I will hunt you down and force you to eat an anchovy pizza…minus the pizza!”

  I had to smile. She always made me feel so normal. It was partly why I loved having Angie in my life. Though I’d never admit to it out loud, my father was right. The constant weight of everyone else’s pain was beginning to wear on me. I always felt like I led two different lives. There was Hope, the serious healer, and Hope, the carefree, average teenager. If Angie and I had never become friends, I don’t think I’d have known how to balance my secret life with my supposedly normal high school one.

  “Oh, yes. I can visualize you trying to pin me down while shoving slimy, miniature fish in my mouth. You’d die before laying one of your nicely manicured fingers on something so beneath you,” I teased.

  “This is very true.” Angie sounded disappointed. “It’s a shame you know me so well. That threat might have held some validity with anyone less worthy.”

  “And yet, it resembles the latest boy you
broke up with: shallow and empty.”

  “Hey, Nathan was very full of…well…he was full of something.” Angie’s laughter sang sweetly through my cell phone.

  “Full of himself, you mean?”

  “Too true. The last date we went on, he spent a full ten minutes looking at his reflection in his dinner spoon.”

  I held back the urge to give her a big lecture on her awful taste in guys.

  “Tell me you made him pay for dinner that time.”

  “Are you kidding? I got up and left, making sure I got a ‘to go’ box, of course.”

  “Of course.” I thought about Nathan Treadwell and the insane level of stupid he managed to operate under on a daily basis. “Why do you always go for guys who treat you like crap, Angie?”

  There was silence on her end. I waited for her to break down and actually talk to me seriously for once about this subject.

  “Well, they’re always such fantastic kissers. Have you ever met a nice guy who actually knows how to kiss? And if you did, would he actually be good looking?”

  I shook my head. Clearly, her plan was total avoidance. “Angie, there are nice, handsome guys out there who are good kissers.”

  “I’m going to have to disagree with you on that one. If a guy is a good kisser, it’s because he’s good looking, and because of his good looks he has various opportunities to use said good looks in the pursuit of women. Which also gives him plenty of practice with kissing, which simultaneously makes him a good kisser and a first rate jerk…or man whore…whichever term you prefer.”

  I decided to match her light tone with my own.

  “Then I suppose, in order to avoid the jerks of this world, it’s going to be of the utmost importance that we date only non-attractive, second rate kissers for the rest of our miserable lives.”

  “Your words are poison to me.”

  I let out a soft chuckle.

  “So,” she continued, “has that magnificent melon of yours come up with fantastic songs needing debuting at Expresso?”

  Expresso was a very popular café/restaurant, dedicated to giving high school students a chance to “express” themselves. You could read poetry, sing songs, play your own music, and perform any other type of talent while others ate, mingled, and enjoyed the entertainment. The atmosphere was pretty awesome and laid-back. Angie and I had become regulars there, due in large part to her insistence that I take my journal full of lyrics and sing them for the “undeserving masses lucky enough to be present.”

  Once we’d joined the ranks of high schoolers, we’d started going there every week. Over time, I’d become good friends with the members of the band who worked there on a permanent basis. All I had to do was give them the chords and they were on board with whatever. As a rule, I don’t like drawing attention to myself, but this is normal, healthy, high school attention, and for me, I really need the release.

  “Perhaps,” I answered. “Why? Are you suggesting we head over there and check out the night life?”

  “Heavens, no! I’m still feeling quite overcome by this vicious flu bug,” she huffed. “I need one more day to relax, recover, and enjoy my mother waiting on me hand and foot.”

  “Sounds pleasant enough.”

  “Oh, believe me, it is.” Angie sounded extremely pleased with herself. “I just need to know when you’re planning your next performance. There’s this guy I want you to meet.”

  “No guys! I can’t focus on my singing when you do stuff like that.” Angie’s exasperated sigh crackled over the connection.

  “Fine, since you refuse to allow me any excitement, did anything crazy happen to you tonight…without my help? In other words, would you really have a life if I didn’t insist that you live it?”

  I rolled my eyes, which was pointless since Angie wasn’t there to see it. Then my thoughts went to recent events and my alleged hallucination. “Well, something really weird happened to me as I was walking home from work.”

  “Ooooh. Do tell. Did you meet a handsome stranger?”

  “You’re so optimistic, and no, I did not. I think I have a stalker, though. I’m not one for the dramatics, but I could’ve sworn someone was not only watching me, but following me. I could actually hear their footsteps behind me.”

  “Hope, are you serious or do I need to be waiting for some kind of punch line here?”

  “No, I’m totally serious. There was someone out there. I started running, and whoever was behind me started running.”

  “Whaaaat?”

  “I know. Freaky, right? But it gets worse.” I rolled to the middle of my bed and began plucking at the fringe on my throw pillow in an effort to calm my nerves. “As I’m running, something hits my legs and sends me sprawling to the cement just as this weird burst of flame shoots past me and hits the tree in front of me.” I accidentally tugged too hard and broke off several wispy pieces. I frowned down at my handiwork and folded my hand underneath me. “I swear this really happened, but when I told my dad, he said he’d just walked past the tree and there was nothing wrong with it. He thinks I just imagined it.”

  Telling the story again made me realize how crazy it did, in fact, sound. On the other hand, talking about narrowly escaping a large ball of fire made sitting alone in my room entirely too creepy. I looked toward my window and wondered if my attacker was still outside waiting for me. What if he was watching me? I stood up fast and walked over to the window.

  “So, someone followed you, sent a flame thrower your way, and there’s no sign of any damage to the tree or any idea of who your stalker is?” Her voice had risen in volume.

  My window faced the front of the house, and I couldn’t help but look out toward the deserted street in search of my would-be killer.

  Nothing. Of course, with the heavy fog encircling the entire neighborhood it was kind of difficult to make out much of anything.

  “No. I must be going crazy,” I said. “Could I have hallucinated the whole thing?”

  “Hope, you’re the sanest person I know. If anyone was going to hallucinate about something like that, you know it’d be me. Although, I haven’t touched an illegal drug since that day in ninth grade when you found me cutting my hair off in the girl’s bathroom because I thought it was full of snakes.”

  “Yes, and what a special day that was.”

  One of Angie’s more unfortunate personality traits was a penchant for self-destructive behavior. I couldn’t figure out if it had to do with her daddy issues or the problems she had as a child. When Angie was seven, she took a bad fall from my tree house and when she regained consciousness, with my help of course, she had a difficult time deciphering between reality and fantasy. It scared me, some of the things she would mutter under her breath about seeing death and preventing it from taking people she loved.

  I was too little to understand what was happening to her. Her mother took her away for a few months to get her some help, and when she came back she never talked about it again. I did my best to wheedle the whole story out of her, but she simply played dumb, insisted there had never been anything wrong to begin with, and never allowed me to broach the subject again. Her wild behavior took front row after that.

  Fortunately, her drug phase had been a one-time deal.

  “Your hair didn’t look half bad, either.”

  “And still you lie. You’re such a good friend. No, I’m inclined to believe every crazy word you just uttered. Having said that, I’m completely freaked out. You shouldn’t walk to school by yourself tomorrow.”

  “You’re sounding like my father, now.” I turned my back to the window and plopped myself down on my bed.

  “No need to insult me. My request is a valid one considering what just happened tonight. You have your own car. You should drive it every once in a while.”

  “The high school is five blocks away. It’d be a waste of gas.”

  “I’ve never understood this need of yours to walk everywhere. It’s like you enjoy the exercise, and you and I both know that that
is absolutely ridiculous.”

  “Okay, you win. I’ll drive to school tomorrow.”

  “I always win. You never put up much of a fight, you know.”

  “Would the outcome ever change if I did?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Then why prolong the inevitable?”

  “Too true,” Angie said.

  I couldn’t help but smile at that.

  “Well, since I don’t have the flu or any tropical diseases preventing me from going to school tomorrow, I better get some sleep.”

  “All right. I’ll call you tomorrow so you can update me on all things high school.”

  “Should be the shortest conversation we’ve ever had,” I said dryly.

  “Please be careful.” Her voice became unfamiliarly serious. “You really have got me freaked out.”

  “I’ll be careful,” I promised.

  I hung up the phone and looked back at my window.

  It was morbid. I knew it was, but I just had to look outside one more time. The need to reassure myself no one was spying on me was an obvious sign of paranoia, but I jumped up from my bed and walked over to the window anyway.

  Gazing out across my quiet neighborhood made me want to laugh at how worked up I’d allowed myself to get. Honestly, the most dangerous thing in my neck of the woods was a potential visit from my neighbor, Mrs. Simmons, bearing homemade biscuits capable of rendering the most durable molar in two.

  I was so busy rolling my eyes at myself, I almost missed the dark figure standing on the only patch of unlit sidewalk in front of my house. It was definitely the same figure I’d spotted when I was on my front porch, and it was definitely a guy, but beyond that I couldn’t make out any other details. I felt that same mysterious pull, making me lean forward a little. The only thing that prevented me from walking toward him in some hypnotic, trance-like state was my closed bedroom window. My forehead bumped the ledge lightly, and I was suddenly back to myself.

  I blinked a few times to clear my head and focused in on the guy again. The mist surrounding his body clung to him in strange and unnatural ways. It was definitely horror movie material. Then he craned his head backward, looking up at something.