Healer Chapter 11

I woke up to the feeling of lips on mine.

“Whaa?” I opened my eyes and saw Nathan looking down at me. Oh, I wish I was more coherent in the morning—I felt like a moron.

“Good morning,” he whispered smiling.

“ ’Morning,” I groaned. “What time is it?” I looked around, trying to see the clock without my glasses.

“Early. I have to go so I can get ready for work.” He’d already gotten dressed. “Sorry for waking you up, but I didn’t want to just leave.”

“That’s sweet of you.” I blinked at the sunlight just starting to lighten the sky out the window.

“You don’t believe that,” he said, laughing softly. “You think I’m a jerk who needs to leave you alone so you can go back to sleep.”

“You’re a mind reader,” I chuckled. “But come here anyway.” I reached my arms up, wrapped them around his neck and kissed him thoroughly. “See you later?” I asked when I released his mouth.

“Oh hell’s yes,” he growled, his eyes slightly crossed. I laughed. He kissed my forehead before leaving the room. I rolled over and hugged the pillow he’d used the night before. There might then have been some uncontrollable giggling because, hell, spooning is fun! I couldn’t believe that Nathan had spent the night with me—Squee!

I laid on my bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to memorize the exact feeling of his body next to mine. I’d spent my whole life feeling like a person who’d drawn the ultimate short straw. Who would want to date a girl who has the fury of an entire church—with magic aiding them, no less—against her? I’d spent my whole life just trudging along, praying to stay invisible, while wondering if any male would ever get the courage to get to know me. For all my ancestors had written about their talent, they hadn’t left me much information on their personal lives. I knew that they’d all gotten married at some point, otherwise I wouldn’t be here, but I didn’t know much about the husbands. All the siblings left town, I knew that. If I could, I would have left this town, but that’s one of the quirkiest quirks of this “gift”. The same personality trait that makes me give every ounce of myself to help people who don’t really want to have anything to do with me (though with the information I’d gained recently, my annoyance with that detail had greatly been redirected) also gives me no desire to leave. It’s not my house, it’s not the atmosphere, it’s not because I have some sick need to hurt myself. Nope. Great-Grandma Elizabeth had left for almost five years before she had to come back. She wrote five pages in the bible while she tried to figure out what it was that made her come back and she didn’t get very far. All of her entries have a certain amount of scorn about being back in this town. I don’t have much scorn—I’ve always just been resigned to the situation as one I could not change.

Now that Nathan was in my life, I wouldn’t have changed a thing. They say that it’s “better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all” and the way I felt right now, I think that’s true. Whatever the future brings, I’d always have this time to remember, so I was going to enjoy every second. Plus, I didn’t feel like getting out of bed, and I was too antsy to go back to sleep.

Eventually I did get up to take a shower and prepare for the day.

I was sleeping in the dark drawing room when there was a knock on my front door. It was five-thirty and I wasn’t expecting anyone, so when I opened my door and saw Nathan standing on my porch in jeans, I was slightly confused. He handed me a single yellow rose.

“What’s this for?” I asked, smelling it.

“Our one week anniversary,” he replied, stepping inside and greeting me with a kiss.

“Has it really just been a week? Sheesh.” I went into the kitchen and filled a bud vase for the rose. I put it in the center of my dining room table. “Very pretty.”

“You mentioned that you like to get flowers.”

“That, I do.” We sat in the chairs in the light drawing room. “How was your day?”

“Same old, same old. We did have a stolen car to track down. Some kids went joy-riding last night. Yours?”

“Average. Two bouts of Chemo.”

“You do a lot of cancer treatments?”

“Yeah. That and arthritis, with the occasional migraine. Most other things are too trivial for people to seek me out. Pain management is my main business.”

“That sucks.”

“Not really,” I told him. “I give over a lot of my energy when I do the treatment, so I go to sleep as soon as my patients leave. I only ache for a few minutes before I go into the other room and pass out for a few hours. I don’t feel the pain while I’m asleep.”

“Is that why the bed in that room is so comfortable?” He looked across the foyer to the other drawing room.

“Yep. That’s my recovery room. My mom just had a regular bed in there, but I used some of my first earnings to buy the best mattress I could find.”

“What happened to your mom? She’d always looked fine when I saw her around town; it was a shock when we heard that she’d died. ‘Course, Uncle Edward was thrilled, as you’d expect. He threw a little party for his followers to celebrate the deaths of all your relatives in town.”

“That doesn’t surprise me in the least.” I hesitated to talk about my mom, though. Sure, I loved her, but I still resented what she’d done. “Let’s go start dinner,” I said, reaching for his hand.

He didn’t press the subject and we decided that we’d just have sandwiches and salads for dinner. We’d just settled in the den with our food when Nathan brought up the subject of my mom again.

“Are you going to talk about her eventually?” His eyes probed mine.

“Yes. Eventually. I’m just new to this whole sharing feelings thing and I’m not ready for that subject to be voiced. Forgive me?”

“Nothing to forgive. I asked a question and you don’t want to talk about it. I expect that will happen a lot in the course of our relationship, and on both sides of the table. I just hope that we’ll be able to talk about those things together at some point.”

“Speaking of not talking about feelings, then, what’s this about you being moody for months? Dalia did look worried about you.”

“Huh? Oh,” he blushed. “My ex-girlfriend cheated on me after nearly getting me to leave this town and I’ve been pissed off at her. I was very close to throwing everything away here and moving to California to be with her when I found out.”

“Someone would cheat on you?!” I was honestly shocked. “Why?”

“Why does that surprise you?” but his eyes looked amused. “No really, tell me why you think a girl would be out of her mind to cheat on me.” He took a bite of his sandwich and had to wrestle with a slice of tomato that fell out.

“Well,” I started, lowering my voice, “you’re incredibly modest and very sophisticated.” I wiped at the tomato juice on his chin with my finger and licked it clean.

“Careful or I’m going to go visit mars.”

I laughed. “Greasy, grimy gopher guts stuffed in lettuce,” I sang.

“Thank-you for that wonderful picture.”

“That’s what I’m here for.” I bit into my own sandwich, doing so very neat and primly.

“Well aren’t you Miss Classy”

“I exude elegance.”

“You exude something, but I’m not sure if it’s elegance.”

“I thought we decided never to refer to that incident.” I tried to sound controlled, but that really had been the most embarrassing moment of my life.

“Whoops! Sorry!” He looked aghast. “I was totally thinking kindness, confidence, and killer sex appeal. But graceful, you are not, which contradicts the idea that you’re elegant. I did not even think about that other thing. But if I may,” he started, holding his hand up so that I wouldn’t hit him, “I would say that I’ve never seen a sexier pile of mess than I saw when you saved those children. If men are biologically ingrained to find a woman who will be a great mother, then you set off all those sensors in me when you walked into that room knowing full well that you would come out of it in that state. In a world where many women care more about their appearance than anything else, it was a huge turn on when you gave that up to help others.”

I smiled at him. “Well, that’s very sweet for you to say, but I never want my bodily functions to be discussed in this house again. Ever.” I narrowed my eyes.

“Done.” He took another bite of his sandwich.

We debated what movie to watch, which somehow ended up in a philosophical argument on the meanings of Harry Potter, I’m not sure how, before we finally settled on Lucky Number Slevin—which, really ,was an easy decision because I hadn’t watched it yet and I had to return it to the library on Saturday no matter what.

The movie was good, but I spent a lot of it debating whether or not I was ready to talk about my mom. After we finished eating we’d stretched out on the couch together. His chest was very warm on my back and I wondered if I would ever feel like my mom did. I loved Nathan, or at least, I figured this was what love felt like. I could easily see us doing this every night. I could even see us having children if that ever becomes possible, though I was seriously wondering if that was the kindest thing to do in this town. He made me feel good about myself. I realized that I hadn’t really been living before, I’d just gone through the motions—waking up, doing my work, and pretending that I didn’t exist. Now I had someone to talk about things with, my relationships with others had been transformed, too.

Natalie and I had always been on friendly terms, but I’d never confided my worries with her before. I think she’d always tried to get me to share more, but I’d always wanted to protect her. The less people know me, the less fuel the Brownies would have to use against them. With the revelation about their magic, it was apparent that it was less safe for people I might want to call friends than I’d thought, but after tasting this new world, I couldn’t bear to let it go. Oh, I would in a heartbeat if it was the only way to save them, but I really, really didn’t want to.

I heard a soft snore and twisted around to look at Nathan’s face. He was out. Funny, I didn’t remember hearing him snore the night before—maybe it was a couch thing. I let him sleep and watched the rest of the movie confident that I would share everything with Nathan when he woke up.

As the credits rolled, I sat up and stretched, letting the arm that was around me settle onto my lap.

“Hmm…?” I was happy to see that Nathan looks as confused as I do when he first wakes up. “Wha did I miss?” he asked groggily.

“The whole movie…or at least everything after you fell asleep.”

“Oh.” He reached for me. “Back to sleep then.” He pulled me against him, his face rubbing against my neck. “You smell good.”

“Thank-you.” We were laying on our sides, looking at each other.

“You’re beautiful, too.”

“You’re just full of flattery. If I wasn’t sure otherwise, I’d say that you’re just trying to get laid.” I ran my fingers through his soft hair.

“I am trying to get laid, my equipment is just broken.”

“You wouldn’t say such things if you could get into my pants.” I told him, scowling.

“That is one hundred percent true. But that’s one of the beautiful things about being a modern guy in a superficial world. Women find it to be a total turn on when a guy really wants to do something but can’t for either physical or moral reasons and admits it to her. You ever read Twilight? Bella totally digs Edward more because he wants to drink her dry but is able to control himself, barely. It’s his “sacrifice”--see the air quotes?--that gives him a double bump in hotness.”

“Okay…the fact that you’ve read Twilight is subtracting from whatever sexy points you hoped to gain by admitting that you are trying to get into my pants, but can’t,” I said, poking him in the chest.

“Hey, it wasn’t my choice. My third girlfriend was obsessed with the books and I had to read them to understand what she was saying half the time. Let’s just say that it wasn’t my most honorable moment when I realized that more than half of the reason why I was breaking up with her was because of the Twilight thing.” He looked ashamed. “I really wasn’t paying attention when we started going out or I would have seen the precursors to that particular development.”

“What was wrong?” I realize that it’s probably not normal for a current girlfriend to be interested in the exes of her boyfriend, but with my limited relationship experience, I felt that it was important for me to know these things. I really liked that he wasn’t calling her weird, or a psycho-bitch for her obsession. His ability to speak so matter-of-factly about his exes told me that he didn’t feel the need to belittle them to make himself look better.

“Well, since we’re discussing things in terms of Twilight, I guess it was because she was a lot like Bella. She was always certain that I was going to leave her for someone better.”

I blushed. Hadn’t I already confessed to him that I knew that he was going to leave me for someone else?

He seemed to read my mind. “Hey, the discussion we had was completely viable—it wasn’t like you were telling me that I was going to leave you for someone taller, or skinnier, or blonde-er.”

“Oh, so you’re telling me that I’m short, fat, and brunette?” I scowled at him. He looked flabbergasted. “I’m just yanking your chain.” I smiled, kissing his cheek.

“Do not scare me like that! Do you realize how many guys have nightmares about the ‘does this dress make me look fat’ debate?” He looked relieved.

“Really? Girls actually do that and they want a serious answer? That sucks.” I was serious. A lack of girl, or guy, friends leaves you ignorant of these social norms. “I’d always thought that was just used in television and movies for comedic relief.”

“Yeah. It’s not one of their more flattering charms. But for the record, if you were to ever ask me that question, what do you want me to say?”

“You know how you reacted when you saw me come out of the bathroom wearing that dress? That was perfect.”

“Huh…but what if you literally use the words ‘does this dress make me look fat’? Even after my eyes bug out? Then how do you want me to answer?”

“I want you to be honest, because I don’t want to be dressed up and have everyone else think I look fat. I’d rather change. But if I see your eyes bug out, I probably won’t ask you that, because honestly, I could look like an elephant and I wouldn’t care after you looked at me like that.”

“Okay,” he said slowly. “But you’ll have to excuse me if I’m not quick to test the theory that you want me to tell you that you look fat.”

“Fair enough. I don’t expect to have many opportunities to wear dress up clothes anyway.”

“Why not?”

“Nathan. Come on. Do you really want to publicize our relationship in this town?”

“Yes,” he said instantly. “It sounds cliché, but I want to scream it from the rooftops.” He smiled down at me.

“Do your parents know?” I asked quietly.

“No, but that’s because I wanted to talk about it with you first. You have as much invested in this relationship as I do.”

“I don’t think it will change my status any for your family to learn who you’re dating, but I think you should really re-think your screaming from the rooftops plan. It’s not an easy life that you want to enter. None of the husbands have had it easy and you can imagine the strain it puts on the marriage. I don’t have many personal accounts about the marriages, but there are a few complaints about how hard it was for the husband to get a job. Could you imagine losing your job because of me?”

He sighed. “This town sucks. You want to runaway together?” His arms tightened around me.

I laughed grimly. “I wish I could, but I physically can’t. I’ll get dragged back here by the magic just like Elizabeth did.” I paused. “Tell me about your past girlfriends.”

“WHAT?!” He didn’t quite shout but he definitely looked at me like I’d grown a second head.

“I don’t have any relationship experience, so I want to know what they did that made you break up with them. What they did that you liked. I’m not going to try and change myself to be like, or not like them, but I want to know why you dated them. To start off, what’s your type?”

“My type of girl? Sheesh. You don’t have any relationship experience—these aren’t questions girls ask of their boyfriends.”

I shrugged. “I don’t care what’s normal. I want to know what your type of girl is.”

He sighed. “I don’t think I have a type. Or at least not a specific type of physical appearance. My exes have all looked different—all shapes sizes and colors. My first girlfriend was my freshman year of high school. We weren’t very serious and dated for a few months. It was a mutual break up—we were more friends than lovers, I guess, if that makes sense since we weren’t having sex. My second girlfriend was Shelia. We got together junior year. She was my first…” he cleared his throat. “Anyway. We broke up after graduation, though I probably should have broken it off earlier. I think she just wanted to be with me because I looked good on her arm, but like I told you: I was a horny teenager—I wasn’t dating her for the conversations. And if you’re looking for a reason to think less of her as a person, then I’ll tell you that I wasn’t her first.” He searched my eyes, probably looking for evidence that he was telling me too much.

“I’m not surprised by that, but I don’t care. I have enough of my own problems to deal with to bother worrying about others. Anyway, that’s two. Then there was the third who was obsessed with Twilight…”

“We met in college and dated for two years, I guess. She got a bit clingy, like being with me twenty-four/seven would keep me from wanting to date others.”

“And finally the one who cheated?”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We met three years ago, after I’d started on the police force here. We hit it off immediately and got pretty serious quickly. But she is an ambitious woman. She thought that I should schmooze my way to be the youngest police chief ever. I ignored her prodding, since she wasn’t very pushy. She wants to make a name for herself and this isn’t the place to do that. She started looking for work in the big cities, travelling for interviews. She finally got an offer for a once in a lifetime position in California and we were talking about moving there when I accidently intercepted a text from some guy in New York looking for a hook-up. When I asked her about it, she broke down quickly telling me about all the guys she’d slept with on her way to the top, while still dating me. I guess she thought she’d get my sympathy because they were all ‘casting couch’ situations.” He huffed. “I think she wanted me to believe that it was rape, but if that were the case, why didn’t she tell me after the first time? Or at least, why did she let it happen more times? And worse: why did some of the guys have her phone number? Anyway. It didn’t take long for me to break up with her. I kept the apartment--yeah, we were living together--and she moved across the country. That was six months ago.”

“That bitch,” I said simply. He looked happy at that sentiment.

“Wow, that actually felt really good to get off my chest.” He started to pull me against his chest again, but I resisted.

“You shared a lot, so I guess I should share too.”

“Scarlet, you don’t have to.”

“No, I thought about it during the movie. I want to. I think it will make me feel better, too.” Now it was my turn to take the deep breath. “My mom committed suicide. I mean, in the only way one of my kind would, but it was still a conscious decision to do more than her body could handle. My dad was killed in a car accident when I was three—mom never forgave herself for not being able to save him. She didn’t neglect me, but she was never all the way there. We didn’t talk about many of the things teenage girls talk to their moms about, hence why my education about relationships is limited to what I read in books. She taught me the basics of the gift, but mostly left me to figure it out for myself from the bible. I guess that’s because she knew that I wouldn’t have her to lean on later. She mostly buried herself in work, leaving me to deal with my problems alone. The day after my sixteenth birthday she went to the hospital to do rounds and saved a man who was having a heart attack, having it instead for herself. Her files showed that she’d planned to kill herself for years. She’d left a will that dictated that I get everything and a notarized statement from a lawyer saying that she felt that I was capable of caring for myself and that I should be ruled an emancipated minor. Well, this town being how it is, nobody wanted to take me in as a foster kid, nor did they want to publicize to the state that they didn’t care about ‘one of their own’, so a judge here, heavily under the influence of Rev. Brown, ruled in that favor. At barely sixteen I was left alone in the world. But I don’t blame my mom. I only hope that I love…someone as much as my mom obviously loved my dad.” Surprisingly, the tears didn’t come.

Nathan looked stricken. “I don’t care that you don’t blame your mom, that’s horrible.”

“Oh, I didn’t say that it wasn’t/isn’t horrible, but I have clients who are clinically depressed—trust me when I say that it is a terrible existence that no one should have to deal with. I don’t want to be so dependent that I commit suicide, but to feel that amount of love that causes it, just for a little bit, would be wonderful. I guess it’s because I’ve never really felt loved before.” I couldn’t look at his face.

He tilted my chin up until my eyes met his. “I love you. Period. End of statement. And as a man who loves you I can tell you that if anything happens to me, I do not want you to ever hurt yourself, especially if we have a child that needs to be cared for. I’m sorry that your mom went through what she did, but you are stronger than that.”

I held up a hand, “You’re speaking to the choir. It took me a long time to forgive my mom, and my first experience with a severely depressed patient greatly helped me do that. She needed help and she didn’t seek it. I want the love—NOT the mental illness. I think my dad rolled over in his grave when mom killed herself.”

“You have the love,” he said, smiling down at me. I kissed him.

“We’ll see. You haven’t met that tall, skinny, blonde who can have sex with you yet,” but he just laughed at that.

It was nearly midnight when we finally decided to turn in. Nathan went out to his truck to grab a backpack that he’d brought some clothes in.

 “I do not want to sleep in jeans again,” he declared. I went into the bathroom to change and brush my teeth, but was interrupted halfway through the latter when Nathan knocked on the door. “Scoot over,” he instructed. He was shirtless again, wearing a pair of plaid pajama pants and I took the time to marvel at his chest and back while he brushed his teeth. There is only one sink in the bathroom, so we fought over who got to spit and rinse first. He followed me to the bedroom and once again we fell asleep entwined in each other’s arms.