by Jessica Gunn
If I’d won there, I could win again. I just had to figure out how.
IT’D BEEN a whole week since Dr. Cohen had delivered my potentially career-ending football news. I reclined back in the hospital bed, waiting to be discharged, and flipped through all the channels on my room’s television. There weren’t even sports on, just endless, pointless news and History Channel shows. What was this bull?
A knock sounded on the door.
I glanced over at it, curious. A nurse would have entered by now. “It’s open.”
The door slid open a few inches and Rachel popped her head in. “Hey.”
“Hi,” I said. “What brings you to this hellhole?”
Her expression twisted, confusion quirking her brow. “I can’t just want to visit you?”
“Mom and Dad are filling out discharge papers as we speak,” I told her. “I’ve been in this room for too long. I need to get out of here.”
She nodded and took a seat next to my bed, wringing her hands. “I wanted to talk to you before we left for home, without anyone else around.”
My breath hitched. I’d re-read my notebook I’d started writing in last night when visiting hours had ended. That notebook contained everything I could remember about my coma and the void within. But it made no sense now that there was very little I remembered. I resisted the urge to reach for it now, though the temptation surged through me, making my fingers itch. The notebook wasn’t far away, but it’d raise questions, especially with Rachel.
“What’s up?” I asked her.
Rachel padded over and took a seat. “I need to ask you something.”
I shrugged, but uneasiness swept over me. Every time someone sat in that damn chair, someone got bad news. My family. Me. One of us always got the bad end of the bargain. “Shoot.”
Her eyes tightened and she moved her mouth to speak, but no words came out.
“Rachel?”
“How much of that day do you remember?”
“On the lake?”
She nodded.
“Not much,” I said. “I know we went out for Amanda’s birthday, and then we got stuck out on the water when the storm hit.”
“We capsized,” she whispered. “The whole boat sank. Michael pulled Amanda up immediately, but I… Not me.”
My brow furrowed. Something about this conversation rang familiar, like we’d had it before.
We did. When she’d visited me while I was still in a coma. When she’d told me about me zapping her with lightning somehow.
“I remember,” I said.
Her eyes lit up and she sat straighter. “You do?”
I nodded, eyes narrowing in concentration. “I heard you talking when you told me about what happened out on the lake. And about me… doing something to you, when you held my hand.”
“The lightning,” she mumbled. “You remember that whole conversation? How?”
My eyes fell to my open palms lying flat on my lap. “I don’t know. But you told me I zapped you somehow.”
She twisted the chair toward me. “You had these sparks flying between your fingers for a good portion of the time you were gone. The doctors all attributed it to static electricity, but…” She looked down at her hand, then raised it for me to see her pointer finger. “Static electricity doesn’t do this.”
Part of her finger was covered in a deep red mark. Like a burn.
From lightning.
My eyes widened, panic flushing through me. “I did that? Oh god. Rachel, I’m so sorry—”
She stuck her palm out and shook her head. “No. Don’t apologize for something you did when you were in a coma. That’s absurd, and you couldn’t have known.”
“What’s absurd is me having lightning in my hand.”
Rachel shrugged, sagging into her chair. “You took the full brunt of the strike, Ben. Anything is possible.”
“Like how you drowned but didn’t?” The question was out of my mouth before I could stop it. I remembered that part of the conversation, too.
Rachel didn’t say anything, just stared at me with an open mouth.
“You said you think you can control water now. That is also absurd.”
“But true.” Her voice broke on the last word and her hands shook. “It’s all true, Ben. Amanda and Michael… they don’t have any signs of anything abnormal, but us…” She shook her head. “I think it’s because of the lightning strike and me drowning. Like some superhero movie power breaking out because of a dire moment in our lives. But it still doesn’t make sense. Why do we have these powers? How is this even possible?”
“Shh,” I said. Her voice had risen with every added question, and the last thing either of us needed was a nurse or orderly hearing proclamations of magical powers. “We can try figuring that out later.”
“Later?” she gasped. “Ben—”
“Not here,” I said. “Especially when I’m so close to getting out of the hospital.”
Rachel leaned back and crossed her arms. “You care more about getting back to football than our mutations.”
“Mutations? Who said anything about mutations?” This wasn’t some comic book, this was real life. A life where Rachel had stopped herself from drowning by apparently becoming the water’s master.
As for me…
I held up my hand and focused on my fingers, on the feel of the lightning striking me that night. Focusing on my hand, I willed lightning to form there. Seconds went by. Twenty. A full minute.
Nothing.
Defeat tugged my shoulders down. “I think you might have gotten something wrong about this.”
But Rachel’s attention wasn’t on me. She wove her hand in the air in front of her and a trail of water, suspended in the air like a streamer, followed her motions.
She’d done it.
My breath hitched. “Holy crap.”
Rachel nodded slowly. “Yeah. This is real. It’s happening, Ben. And I have no idea what to do about it. I don’t want this freak show.”
“You think I do?”
“No. But I am happy you’re awake,” she said. “So I’m not alone in this anymore.” She sucked in her lower lip, her hands shaking. Tears brimmed behind her eyes. “I thought you were gone for good.”
I reached over and lay a hand on hers. “I’m right here. You know I’m too stubborn to die young.”
She closed her eyes, chuckling a little, then pulled her hand away from mine. “I should go. They’ll be here to discharge you soon. I’ll see you at home—if Sandra lets you leave her side.”
My heart jumped at the sound of her name. “Tell Sandra she can visit soon?” Though, if I had my way, I’d be going to her house, to college, to basically anywhere, as soon as possible. Three months cooped up on a hospital bed was more than enough for me.
“I will,” Rachel said. “Be good, Ben.”
I nodded. “I will.”
Rachel turned for the door on unsure feet. Just before she exited my room, she spun and said, “I’ve tried searching for information about magical powers online. Maybe you can help once you’re feeling up to it?”
“Sure thing.”
If she hated the idea of powers but spent who-knew-how-much-time looking up information about them, Rachel must have been terrified. Which didn’t bode well for me at all because Rachel was my rock. And rocks weren’t built to break.
Except via water.
I LOOKED at myself in the mirror and tried to figure out where to start putting me back together. The week I’d spent outside of the hospital for the first time in three months had mostly consisted of errands, doctors’ appointments, and physical therapy to prove I might be able to play this season. I’d already missed too many practices and had attended my first one yesterday. Our first game was tomorrow and tonight’s date with Sandra was exactly what I needed to calm the hell down and get out of my head. To escape the void that still threatened to swallow me whole. To forget my conversation with Rachel about magic and powers and lightning in my hands.
/> Unless, of course, that lightning power helped us win the championship this year… that I’d accept.
I straightened my button-down shirt and worked the kinks out my neck and shoulders. Sandra and I hadn’t had a real night together, alone, since before the accident. I’d worked myself to death catching up on work and football, neglecting her and pretty much everything else. I’d make up for that tonight.
I swiped my phone from the counter and sent her a text. Be there soon. I’d moved back to the dorms yesterday, and our buildings were barely a few feet apart. The perfect setup for our relationship during college.
My phone dinged with a text from Sandra. Perfect. See you soon :)
My heart danced inside my chest, giddy with happiness and the anticipation of being reunited with everything I’d missed since the accident. Tonight would be a way to show her how much I appreciated not only her, but the fact that she’d stuck by me for the entire three months I’d been dead to the world. Lost. Gone.
I didn’t deserve a woman like that. But somehow the world had given her to me.
I grabbed my wallet from my bedside table and made for the door, sprinting down the stairway to the bottom floor of my dorm building. Finally, a night out for the both of us.
People stared as I crossed the courtyard separating the entrances to our two buildings. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the lightning strike story, the fact I was the varsity quarterback, or because I was running like a mad man being chased by a predator. Okay, it was probably the last thing. But I didn’t care.
Sandra’s dorm was women-only, though Cindy, the student behind the front desk, scanned men in all the time. I knocked on the front door’s window.
Cindy smiled before buzzing me in. “Glad you’re back, Ben.”
I nodded her way. “Me too. Thank you.”
Cindy signed me in, then directed me to the third floor, where Sandra’s new dorm room was. I rode the elevator to her floor, then walked, my heart pounding in my chest so forcefully, I thought it might actually jump out and escape to her door.
She’d left it open.
I nudged the door open and ducked my head in. “Sandra?”
She squealed in excitement and appeared in front of the door, swinging it wider open and throwing her arms around my neck. Her lips found mine in a frenzied dance as if this were the first and last time we’d ever kiss. I slipped my hands around her and held her trembling body close, molding her body to mine. She tilted her head, deepening the kiss as her fingers interlocked at the base of my neck. They were cold and shaking, so I pulled her arms between us and held her hands in mine to warm them up.
I smiled at her, breathless. “Hi, Sandra.”
She giggled. “Hey. Sorry. I couldn’t help myself.”
I grinned down at her and watched the lights from above dance in her eyes. “Never apologize for greeting me like that.” I was the luckiest guy in the entire fucking world.
She arched a sly eyebrow and pushed her hips against mine. “Oh? What about greeting you like this?”
I bit my lips to keep from speaking, lest I say anything stupid. “That works, too.”
“Good,” she said, lifting a hand to shut and lock the door behind her.
“Uh—what about your roommate?” My heart rate skyrocketed. I’d assumed we’d end up here eventually, but after dinner and the movie downtown.
“She’s spending the night at a friend’s,” Sandra said, peering up at me with full lips and a smirk. “When she heard the Lightning Quarterback was coming over for some much-needed alone time now that he’s out of the hospital, she was more than happy to find somewhere else to be.” She licked her lips, looking at me expectantly.
Well, if that’s the case…
I bent down and captured Sandra’s lips with mine, pulling her closer, the action like a lightning rod against my soul. Sandra had been one of my best friends growing up, then that friendship had turned into something much more in high school. And despite what everyone had always assumed was a hormone-driven phase, we’d stuck it out all the way out to senior year of college.
She moaned into my mouth before nudging my lips with her tongue, drawing my attention back to her and every buzzing, crazy sensation she was making me feel. I let her in, felt her tongue caress me in ways I didn’t realize I’d missed. My body craved her, hungered for any semblance of normal, and I obliged wholeheartedly.
God, I’d missed Sandra. Not just after waking up, but also inside the void.
I’d missed her and never wanted to let go ever again. And after standing by me while I was in a coma, I wasn’t sure it’d be a stretch to say the feeling was mutual.
CHAPTER 4
Five weeks later…
A shrill beeping broke into the darkness of sleep, slamming sunlight in through narrow slits in the curtains. I rubbed my face as the alarm clock continued blaring, though confusion swamped over me. That wasn’t my alarm clock. I’d never let mine wake me in this god-awful, eardrum-piercing way.
Hands over my ears, I rolled over to figure out whose room I must have fallen asleep in. Derek, my roommate, rolled over at the same time and slapped a hand over his phone, pawing it in an attempt to shut it off without opening his eyes. Derek’s alarm. It was Derek’s.
Panic splintered through my chest, the sudden adrenaline opening my eyes fully as Derek’s phone uttered its last dying cries. I darted my eyes from him to my own phone’s alarm clock. All heat drained from me, rolling to the floor in icy waves.
My phone had been on silent. All silent, even alarms. Including the final one to get my ass out of bed in time for not only class, but also breakfast with Sandra beforehand.
“Shit,” I hissed and tossed my sheets aside. I scrambled to my shower caddy and towel, tripping over my cleats and grass-stained practice uniform.
“What the hell are you still doing here?” Derek asked, sleep keeping his eyes half-closed.
“Coach kicked my ass last night,” I answered, hand on the door. “You saw him. He was a monster.”
“He wants to win tomorrow.”
Derek was my main running back. If I got the ball to him, he’d get the touchdown. Plain and simple. I wasn’t sure how he did it. Derek might actually have run at the same speed as The Flash.
“We all do,” I said. “Hey, do me a favor?”
Derek rolled onto his back and started scrolling through some app on his phone. “Sure thing, boss.”
“If Sandra calls, pick up and tell her I’ll be there in ten minutes.” If she called. Sandra had class at 10 A.M., and that was an hour ago. I wasn’t likely to see her until dinner now.
Some unseen force wrenched my chest—the force of failure. With the ass-kickings Coach had been handing out to the team all week ahead of tomorrow’s big game, I hadn’t been the most available boyfriend. But she understood that, right? We’d been dating for five years now. The fall was always a shitty period thanks to football. Normally, Sandra took that time to work holiday hours like I did during the summer. But come to think of it, I hadn’t noticed her taking extra hours this season.
Why?
I rushed down the hall and into the showers, which were empty because it was almost fucking noon. The warm water relaxed my muscles but did nothing to ease my mind. At one point, I’d been better at this whole balancing thing. Football, schoolwork, Sandra, and family. It used to be so easy before.
Then I got struck by lightning. That night and the subsequent void had changed my life forever. Now, Rachel and I had started trying to figure out how to use these powers of ours on command. All I had to do was make it through football season without shooting lightning at anyone and maybe I’d get a handle on that.
And… maybe that was also why I didn’t feel as bad as normal about not seeing Sandra as often as I should. This power didn’t betray me most of the time. I’d only had little sparks since Rachel had asked me about it in the hospital over a month ago. But that didn’t assure me of anything, and given that I’d used my powers
while unconscious, I was terrified of accidentally doing something while awake. Like hurting Sandra.
God, I’d never forgive myself if that happened. Ever.
Someone banged on the bathroom door, snapping me out of my thoughts.
“She just called, dude.” It was Derek. “Said she’ll be here in a few minutes. She didn’t sound too happy.”
Of course not. I’d have been pissed, too. We always had Friday breakfast together, like some ridiculously domestic couple.
Not ridiculous, though. I wanted that, to marry her. After school, or at least after football season. My last football season. After December, I’d never have to split my time again. Doubly so after next May. It’d just be me and her, and I needed that. Craved it.
But only after football season.
Head in the game. Or at least tomorrow’s game. Because if we lost tomorrow’s game, the season was over and I could kiss my scholarship for next semester goodbye.
“Thanks, man,” I shouted and began rinsing off.
I finished my shower, dried off, and tugged on gym shorts and a long-sleeved shirt. My morning classes were already over and I wasn’t sure I wanted to make it to the afternoon ones now.
By the time I got back to the room—not three minutes later—Sandra was already sitting on my bed. Her face was a mask of tight, red eyes with bags beneath them and firm-pressed lips.
My heart stopped. I dropped the shower caddy on my desk and rushed to her side, brushing hair out of her face. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
Her lip quivered and a single tear slipped out of the corner of her eye. “Can we have a moment, please?”
The question wasn’t to me, but she didn’t look away. I glanced at Derek and he shrugged, grabbing his own shower gear and exiting our dorm room without another word.
I brushed the tear from her cheek with my thumb. She turned into my hand and kissed my palm, and that was the moment my world came crashing down around me. My gut twisted around the inevitable. I’d screwed up. Big time. This was it. After the boating accident during the summer, after the coma and missing breakfast with her, Sandra was finally going to end it.