Time Mends (11 page)

While shirtless Charlie was the main
contributing factor to my emotion-induced asthma, he wasn’t the
only one. Jase and I were just starting to learn how to be
post-accident Jase and Scout. It was going to be a long process,
one that would always have the pain of Alex’s broken body at its
center. But I was willing to endure it because, despite everything,
Jase was still my brother. I needed him. I needed us to be okay,
and we wouldn’t get to that point if he moved off to Lexington in
two weeks to get a head start on classes and unofficially train
with the rest of the basketball team. So I was happy Dad called the
school and used our family’s recent tragedy and my grandfather’s
name to ensure Jase could stay home all summer and not lose his
place on the team.

Of course, delighting in Jase’s misfortune
didn’t exactly get me Best Sister Ever points, hence some of that
conflicted emotion.

“
Scout, can we be done
now?” Talley laid her head on my shoulder, batting her big blue
eyes at me.

“
I guess that’s enough
warming up for one day.”

Her entire face fell. “Warming up?”

“
Yep, and the boys are
about done, too.”

“
You sure about
that?”

I could see where her doubt stemmed from,
the wooden swords were still whacking against each other in a
continued, steady staccato rhythm, but Jase’s feet were moving much
slower. Then, as if on cue, Charlie feinted to the left, and when
Jase followed, come down on the right side, delivering the killing
blow.

“
Bob Saget!” Jase cursed,
slinging his bokken across the room in an easily anticipated bout
of temper. Gracious loser and Jase Donovan were two terms that
rarely kept company. “You would never have been able to do that if
I wasn’t still sore as hell from yesterday.”

“
Keep telling yourself
that, pretty boy. Maybe one day you’ll start to believe
it.”

“
Time out,” I said,
sliding between the two. “No ninja monkey attacks. I’ve got a job
for you, Jase.”

“
Does it involve polyester
pants and a neon colored t-shirt bearing an annoying advertising
slogan?”

“
No.”

“
A lawn mower and/or weed
eater?”

“
No.”

“
Soap and car
wax?”

“
No, Jase…”

“
Then your wish is my
command, Pack Leader.”

“
I prefer Queen Scout or
Your Royal Highness.”

“
How about Royal
Pain?”

“
How about you run through
some simple drills with Talley before you get yourself in a heap of
trouble, Underling?”

“
You want me to train
Talley?” Jase’s mouth flattened into a straight line.
“No.”

“
No?” Was he joking? He
didn’t sound like he was joking. “But we need to train her to
defend herself, remember? We had this whole discussion about how if
we were going to do the whole Seer Harriet Tubman thing then she
needed to be able to fight just in case some crazy hillbilly really
did try to grab her. Surely this sounds familiar. It was your
idea.”

“
I meant for you to train
her. You. Not me.”

“
Why not you?” Talley
grabbed my arm and said my name in that
please-don’t-because-I’m-not-worth-it way of hers, which only
managed to transform my confusion into major annoyance. “You’re
good with novices.” When Toby made us help out with the younger
kids, Jase’s group always managed to actually learn something while
Charlie’s group was typically found running around the building
like a bunch of wild banshees and my kids sat in a corner crying.
“Is it because of that one time her mom sent her to practice with
us when we were eight? Because that was nine years ago, and your
uncle should have been wearing a cup.”

“
She’s not touching me. My
thoughts stay in my head.”

I saw Talley discreetly wipe away a tear and
had to swallow back a scream of frustration. “For the love of all
things shiny, she’s not going to go poking around in your head,
Jase. Talley has no need in knowing what half the females at Lake
County High look like naked.”

“
Whoa!” Jase’s head jerked
up, his eyes wide. “Did you just call me a man whore?”

“
How is that worse than
accusing one of your best friends of being a mental Peeping
Tom?”

“
She’s a Soul
Seer.”

“
And she has it under
control.”

“
She has it under
control
most
of
the time.” Talley brushed away another tear and this time Jase saw.
It was like someone let all the air out of a balloon. His shoulders
sank, his head fell slightly forward, and all the hard lines of his
face slid away. “I’m sorry.” He sounded like he really, truly was.
“But it’s my head. No one should be able to get in there but
me.”

“
But—”

“
No, he’s right,” Talley
said, cutting me off. “My control isn’t absolute, and Jase has a
right to privacy. It’s in the Constitution or something.” She gave
a watery smile. “Anyways, there was no way this was going to work.
I’m the Alfred to your Super Friends. Me and the physical stuff
just doesn’t work out well. I mean, look at me.”

“
Tal…” Jase gave me a
desperate look.

“
Don’t be stupid, Talley,”
I said, placing my hands on my hips. “You can and will learn to
defend yourself. That’s an order.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I thought you didn’t
want to be a Pack Leader and give orders.”

“
And I thought you wanted
to be your own person, free to choose which Pack you belong
to.”

There was an uncomfortable silence as Talley
and I just stood there, staring each other down. I couldn’t help
but think that at one time Charlie would have stepped in at this
point to say something clever to lighten the mood and then deftly
maneuver us all into doing exactly what it was he wanted, magically
convincing us it was our idea in the first place. Instead, he stood
off to the side, watching but showing no indication he was affected
in the least.

“
Okay, you’re right,”
Talley finally sighed. “I can at least try.”

“
There is no try,” Jase
said in a voice more closely resembling Miss Piggy than Yoda. “Do
or do not.”

In the end, Talley did. Sorta. She was
overly timid as Charlie and I showed her how to escape different
holds while Jase provided a running commentary of not-so-helpful
tips from across the room. Eventually, though, she gained some
confidence and began making progress.

Talley’s self-defense training and our own
workouts became the entire focus of the summer. It only took Dad a
single day to find Jase a job as a lifeguard, so we scheduled a
session every morning before he headed off to the public pool at
The Strip and another in the evening. By day two, Jase managed to
get Talley a job at the snack bar where he could keep an eye on
her, leaving me alone in the house with Angel and Charlie.

I spent the majority of my time in deep
research mode. Since I read every book available on werewolves when
I found out about Alex, I knew there was nothing helpful there.
Instead, I investigated the whole blood transfusion angle. I buried
myself in medical journals and text books. Mom’s copy of the Merck
Manual was my constant companion. I poured through library
databases and on online health sites. Through it all I found
nothing more than a growing fear of bloodborne pathogens.

As for my companions, Angel was surprisingly
tolerable. Sure, she criticized my wardrobe daily and tended to
watch the most annoying television shows ever made, but at least
she was fully interactive.

Charlie was like a ghost made of granite.
When we trained, he executed his moves with stoic precision. At
dinner - which my parents insisted should always include everyone
sitting around the table eating together - he answered Mom’s
seemingly endless questions on his family, first year of college,
and any other topic she could think of politely and succinctly.
Even Angel, with her inability to understand boundaries, couldn’t
wrangle anything more than a sentence or two.

You would think his lack of interaction
would’ve made it easy for me to ignore his existence and go on
about my normally scheduled life. You would be wrong. It was as if
his presence was made even more oppressive by his silence.

It was like he was always there, no matter
where I went. If I walked into the kitchen to grab a drink, he
would be sitting at the table eating. If I went out for a walk in
the woods, the only place outside the house I was allowed to go, I
would turn a corner to find him sitting on a tree stump or fishing
in one of the little ponds that dotted our property. I could barely
walk out of my bedroom without almost barreling into his chest.

I thought eventually I would get used to
seeing him, that it would become easier, but it didn’t happen that
way. If anything, it got more and more difficult. I wanted to hate
him. At times, I did. There were moments I hated him so much I
fantasized about clawing his face off.

Those were the easy times.

The times when I wanted to fold myself into
his arms, when I ached for the sound of his laughter, those were
the difficult ones. Those were the times I hated myself for still
loving him.

As my friend Joi would say, I was one big
hot mess and getting messier by the minute, which is how I found
myself trying to concuss Charlie with one of the wooden swords he
and Jase had developed an obsession over.

“
I just think you can do
better than Randy’s,” I said, swinging the bokken with all my
might. “You know, maybe there is a crack house in need of a janitor
or something.”

Charlie, having fended off my attack with
the exact amount of effort Goliath used on a ninety pound
asthmatic, cracked his sword against mine, sending it flying out of
my hands.

I really, really hated fighting with
bokkens.

“
What’s wrong with
Randy’s?” Jase asked from the other side of the room. He was
showing Talley an easy karate routine while maintaining a distance
of at least five feet. If I hadn’t needed all my oxygen to dodge
Charlie’s non-stop attacks I might have pointed out that she’d been
cured of cooties way back in second grade with a carefully placed
vaccination of circle, circle, dot, dot.

“
The words ‘den of
iniquity’ come to mind,” the cootie-free girl in question answered
for me.

“
Dude, I love that
place.”

I managed to get enough distance between
Charlie and me to shoot Jase an incredulous look. “My feet stick to
the floor, and it smells like urine.” The last word came out as a
grunt as I kicked out and finally relieved Charlie of his
weapon.

I smiled. Things were about to get
interesting.

“
What are you going to do,
Charlie?” I rolled my shoulders, loosening the muscles. ”Something
incredibly dignified, like mopping up puke in the bathrooms or
checking to make sure the working girls’ vaccinations are up to
date?”

Honestly, I don’t know why
I was being so antagonistic. Randy’s wasn’t that bad. Sure, it was
a little trashy, even for a place that advertised itself as a “one
stop shop for manly entertainment,” but it wasn’t
Trainspotting
worthy.
Part of me just wanted to keep pushing until Charlie exploded, just
to see something resembling life flash through his eyes.

Charlie circled casually to my left. “I’m
working at the shooting range.” I was so shocked I didn’t notice
his tell, a shift of his right hip, and found myself on the
business end of a right jab. His fist connected with my jaw, but as
per usual, he was holding back. It stung like crazy, but I would
hardly have a bruise the next day.

And that’s what made me snap. Not that he’d
hit me, but that he’d pulled the punch.

I couldn’t even blame it on the whole wolf
girl spilt personality. It was the same loss of temper that had me
punching Ashley Johnson last winter. I held nothing back and threw
every rule of fair play in existence out the window. He held me off
for all of two minutes, and that was only because he was strong as
a freaking ox. But I was faster. I knew he would be wearing the
evidence of our bout for days to come when I put him on the
mat.

“
Yield,” I said, bending
his arm back at an angle that would snap the bone if I pressed down
just an inch more. He attempted to roll beneath me, and I sent his
arm a quarter of an inch closer to the mat. Before, I would have
let it go right there, making some comment about boys and their
ego. Charlie would have teased me relentlessly about being the one
who gave up and picked at me until I declared a rematch.

Those days were over. That Scout and that
Charlie died on the shore of the lake under the light of the full
moon, and the next full moon made certain they would never be
resurrected.

He twisted again, and this time I planted an
elbow into the hard muscles of his abdomen. “Yield,” I repeated,
leaning in so my face was directly in front of his. With no other
options available, he was forced to look at me, and when he
did…

I knew a deep breath would help, but I
seemed to have forgotten the mechanics of it.

I don’t know how long we stayed frozen in
that moment, but it was a long time. Sometimes I think there are
parts of us still there, forever staring into the emotional
maelstrom of one another’s eyes. Charlie ended up being the first
one to break the connection. He lifted his chin, exposing his neck
to me.