Pulse of Heroes (19 page)

“How many?” he asked Michelle?

“Three,” she replied casually. Elliot opened
his hands to show that they were empty. “How did you do that?”
Michelle asked, smiling in disbelief.

“Do you believe in magic?” he asked her, and
she shook her head. “Good, because there’s no such thing,” he said
as he emptied his pockets of the missing pinecones. Michelle
clapped in astonishment. “I’m really fast. I’ve been practicing my
whole life. Guess you could call it a hobby. You’re not seeing
things, Michelle. You’re perfectly sane,” he told her, and a huge
weight was lifted off her shoulders. Michelle’s cell phone rang and
broke a long silence between them. Elliot became visibly agitated
and asked Michelle not to tell anyone that she was with him. It was
Anna calling to let her know that her mother had called to see when
she would be returning home.

“What did you tell her? Ok. I’ll head back
soon. Thanks for covering for me. Bye.”

Elliot was a bit surprised that Michelle had
been forced to concoct an entire lie about where she was just to
meet with him, but he didn’t share those thoughts with her.

It was almost completely dark by now, and the
evening chill had begun to set in. Michelle hadn’t noticed that the
sky had turned dark until Elliot mentioned it. “You’re cold,” he
said, after noticing that her body would involuntarily shiver every
so often. Michelle on the other hand couldn’t really tell the
difference between feeling cold and feeling excited. If she was
cold, she didn’t want to say anything. She didn’t want the evening
to end. She could have stayed there with him forever. The wind
howled between the treetops and Elliot took off his jacket and
wrapped it around Michelle’s shoulders. Things were good again. She
was sane and so was he. And now she was wrapped in his scent and
that was the best feeling she had ever felt in her life.

Elliot told her that he should get back to
the school before anyone noticed that he was gone. It wasn’t as if
he’d be in trouble, but it showed badly in terms of respect. There
were many people who had tried to get into the program and he
didn’t want to take the opportunity that had been given to him for
granted. But Michelle was no longer listening to him, because when
he stood so close to her she lost almost all her thoughts, besides
the one that repeated in her head like a flashing neon sign: I want
to hold him. That was all that Michelle could think about. Nothing
else existed, just Elliot and his scent wrapped around her body
like a warm comforting blanket. She felt herself lean in towards
his body, but she wasn’t sure if she really was or if it was just a
sensation. She didn’t want him to leave; she wanted to scream and
beg him to stay with her.

“What about the photo? Why does he look like
you?” she finally asked as a means to keep him talking. In her own
head, her words sounded like they were slurred.

“I actually have something to show you,” he
said, looking down at her. “It’s on the inside pocket of my
jacket,” he said while gently reaching towards his jacket with his
hand. Michelle looked up at Elliot just as his arm rounded above
her waist. She tilted her head backwards. She wanted him to kiss
her. Elliot was also feeling drawn to Michelle. His hands, however,
were unsure. He couldn’t make up his mind if he should hold her or
not. Having her so close to him made him uncomfortable. He looked
down at her face, then at her hair, and her eyes, and then her
lips. She was very pretty, he had to admit that to himself, and he
also had to admit that to avoid kissing her was a battle. Michelle
closed her eyes, which only gave Elliot even more time to look at
her up close. He could feel her warm breath reaching up to his,
inviting him to join hers.

They stood like that in an embrace that
wasn’t for what felt like an eternity. Michelle slowly began to
open her eyes just as Elliot closed his and leaned in to kiss her.
She closed her eyes again and waited to feel his lips on hers.
Their lips touched, but just barely, when Michelle’s cell phone
sprang into life again. Within less than a millisecond both Elliot
and she were standing apart from one another. She was sadly
awakened from what would have been the world’s most passionate
kiss, while to him it seemed that such a kiss would have been the
world’s most horrible mistake.

Michelle pressed the ignore button on her
phone, but by looking at Elliot she could tell that there was no
going back to that magical moment. The sweet sea mist scent was
gone and her head was no longer comfortably faint. She was awake
again, and Elliot was walking back and forth just a few feet away
from her with his hands over his head in agitation. His back was
turned in her direction; he wasn’t even able to look at her.
Michelle’s heart was dying a slow and torturous death. Every breath
she took in felt as if she was breathing in ice.

Elliot finally turned back to face her. As
dark as it was outside, his eyes were glowing like blue fire. He
suddenly moved rapidly towards Michelle with his finger pointing at
her. She was guilty? But how, she wondered?

“This can not happen,” Elliot scolded in a
low and angry voice. Michelle couldn’t say anything, she was frozen
and she was mortified. “I might not be in this school for emotional
problems, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have them. The reason
I chose this location is because I need to be away from everyone
that interferes with what I’m doing, away from people like you. I
don’t want to lose control, and I don’t want to hurt anyone. It
happed before and I’m not about to let that happen again.” Elliot
let out a scream of pure anger and Michelle was shaking just
watching him. She wondered if she should run away? But what was the
point? He was hundreds of times faster than her, and would
undoubtedly catch her if that was what he wanted.

After a few moments, Elliot tried his best to
calm down, and when he had better control of himself he told
Michelle that she needed to go home. Michelle felt ashamed,
rejected and disposed of. She could feel the warm tears trying to
burst out of her eyes, so she turned around. She wasn’t going to
let him see her cry.

“I’m sorry, Michelle,” Elliot said in a more
neutral tone. “This is not going to go anywhere. I made a mistake.
You made a mistake.”

Michelle began walking away from him and
towards her house. Her pace picked up speed the further she got
from him. She shed his jacket off her shoulders straight to the
ground without looking or caring where it landed. Elliot walked
behind her, apologizing and telling her that it’s for her own good
and that she needed to forget all about him; they’ve cleared
everything up between them and there was no point to seeing one
another again.

Up ahead, Michelle could see the light coming
from her living room windows. Elliot could see it also, and he
stopped once the house was in view. Michelle didn’t look back to
see if Elliot was still there, or if he had turned around. All she
knew was that she didn’t hear his footsteps crushing the pine
needles behind her anymore. Elliot watched as Michelle opened the
backyard gate and then shut it behind her. He even heard her open
the back door to the house. Only then did he turn around and walk
back. He picked up his jacket off the ground, only to see that the
photo he had wanted to show Michelle had fallen out of the pocket
and lay in the dirt. He picked it up and looked at the familiar
image, then angrily crumpled it into a paper ball. He looked for a
place to throw it but there was none. So he stuffed the destroyed
photo back into his pocket and disappeared into the woods towards
the school.

Michelle didn’t have the energy to cry.
Everything was going wrong in her life, everything, and she
wondered if she had done something in a past life to deserve such a
beating. She was just not making it in anything. School was
dragging and her grades were slipping again. She didn’t have a job
anymore, and she didn’t have a boyfriend either. Why did Tim like
her now but not before she met Elliot? And what was so horrible
about her that made Elliot react with such hatred? Michelle was in
a breakdown mode, numbering each and every one of her faults. She
was too short, her hips were too big, her hair tended to frizz and
tangle, she probably had to shave her legs more often than other
girls, her lips were too thin, and her face was comparable to
everyone else’s, basically boring. Elliot was just too good-looking
for her. The list went on and on. Michelle covered her head with
her blanket and quietly whimpered like a wounded animal until she
finally fell asleep.

The next morning, Michelle stayed in bed and
told her mom she wasn’t feeling well enough to go to school. She
said she would call some friends to get the day’s lessons in the
afternoon. Since Michelle was not known to call in sick often, her
mom didn’t think anything of it. Crumb remained by her side most of
the day, looking confused as to why they were staying in bed for so
long. But since he was getting so much attention, nuzzling and
caressing, he stayed put and purred like a little engine. “You
don’t care what I look like,” Michelle said to him, while lovingly
almost squeezing the life out of her little cat.

The weekend passed in pretty much the same
tempo as did Friday. Michelle stayed in bed and never once showed
her face downstairs. Her mother would come in with food and tea,
and every so often would check her temperature, although it always
showed the usual 98.6º Fahrenheit. At one point her mother
suggested that they should cancel the car trip they had planned
down south. But Michelle immediately showed that she was improving
because she was really looking forward to having the house to
herself.

To her mother’s delight, Michelle was feeling
much better by Sunday night, and was back off to school by Monday.
She seemed completely normal and healthy to everyone; even Samantha
didn’t sense that anything was wrong. The girls talked excitedly
about going to Fort Bragg and couldn’t wait for the next two days
to pass.

Michelle made plans to visit Francesca on
Tuesday, and had even agreed to drive her to the church in St.
Allodia on Sunday so she could attend Easter services. There was
something about the elderly lady that made Michelle feel at ease,
and when Samantha dropped her off in front of Francesca’s iron gate
she was feeling relieved. Michelle savored every step while walking
down the path of the beautiful garden that was now completely in
bloom with scented flowers and trees. She had missed Francesca over
the last week, and with that realization she also realized the role
that grandparents play in their grandchildren’s lives, and how she
wished she had a grandmother by her side throughout all her life’s
ups and downs.

Michelle could smell something cooking before
she even entered the house. Francesca left the front door open,
telling Michelle that to close or lock the door was rude if someone
was expected for a visit. The smell was intoxicating, Michelle
thought. It smelled sweet but also doughy. She headed straight back
to the kitchen. Francesca was at the stove. In front of her was a
deep pan bubbling with boiling oil. She was frying some sort of
stuffed ravioli. When Francesca saw Michelle she smiled and
Michelle went over to her and kissed her on each cheek, Italian
style. She still wasn’t an expert on the custom because she didn’t
understand what was the right amount of lip pressure. She was
working on it. Francesca motioned for Michelle to sit at the small
kitchen table and three minutes later she set a large plate filled
with golden fried pastries at the center of the table. “Panzerotti
di Ricotta,” she told Michelle, while sprinkling fine powdered
sugar over them. She brought over two plates and a fork and began
serving some of the heavenly smelling moon-shaped raviolis.

“That’s enough,” Michelle said when she
realized that she expected her to eat at least four of them.

“Ok,” Francesca smiled, “if you want more
I’ll give you some to take home.”

Michelle waited for Francesca to sit down,
but Francesca told her that these must be eaten while still hot so
dig in. Michelle thanked her, and once she finished one of the
treats she had no intention of stopping there.

“These are delicious. You didn’t make them
just because I was coming over, did you?” Michelle asked with a
mouth full of powdered sugar.

Francesca laughed while motioning Michelle to
wipe her lips. “I made them for me, but better if I share them or
I’ll get too fat for my dresses.” With that thought in mind,
Michelle decided to forgo the forth pastry and pushed her plate
away. “These are from my grandmother’s recipe. It’s from Calabria,
the foot of the boot, and besides I thought something sweet is good
every once in a while. Keeps us happy, you know?” Michelle couldn’t
have needed anything more right then than food that would make her
happy. She was in the right place.

Later, while Michelle was helping Francesca
clean the living room windows, her mind started drifting back into
her self-doubt mode and Francesca noticed the mood change.

“Can I ask what is wrong? Your face looks
long, you are sad, no?”

Michelle didn’t want to bother Francesca with
her drama. “No, nothing important. Just silly stuff.”

Francesca looked at Michelle straight in her
eyes and nodded with understanding. “You have man problems,” she
stated.

Michelle couldn’t lie to her. “A little bit,”
she admitted coyly.

“Is he going with other girls?” Francesca
asked, becoming angry.

“No, not that I know of,” Michelle answered,
but had to think about that. Maybe Elliot was seeing someone
else.

Francesca kept inquiring, “Does he like you?
Do you like him?”

That was the problem. Michelle didn’t know
how to answer that question. She described the situation to
Francesca, omitting a few odd facts, but told her about Elliot and
their several encounters with one another.