Soul Fire (10 page)

We volunteer every year through the swim club. Last summer we did aqua therapy with young children, so the routine this year was almost the same. The size and age of the patient was the only difference.

Celeste was waiting by the pool. “Still can’t get over how different you look, Ashla, oops, I mean Janine. I had better remember that or I’ll blow your cover. Anyway, you look pretty cool. Maybe I should get a new look—dye my hair red and get some green contacts.”

I pushed her playfully. “Knock it off. Besides, your parents would disown you.”

“Yeah, Dad would stand me up in front of the church and requisition an intervention.”

I agreed. “At the very least.”

She examined my disguise. “Don’t get water in your eyes. Contacts and pools don’t mix. And try not to get the wig wet. It’s liable to fall off or slip out of position. Nothing like crooked hair. ” She thought for a moment. “ Maybe you should dye your hair so you don’t have to worry about that.”

“Not a bad idea. It would be embarrassing to have Justin find me out. Couldn’t imagine what he’d do. Or what I’d do for that matter.” I could feel myself flushing at the thought. “Thanks for the heads up.”

“You ready?” Celeste asked.

I looked nervously at the door.

Celeste fidgeted. “You sure he’s coming?”

“That’s what they said. The casts came off a week ago. Time for hydrotherapy.” Just then, two wheelchairs came through the glass doors. Justin’s was last. My heart started to pound. What if he recognized me? “Here we go,” I said shakily. Our job was to meet the patient, help them get onto the aqua lift and down into the water, and then go through a routine of strength building exercises. Justin rolled up to the lift, his upper body muscles rippling from months of lifting himself with his arms. Wow! He looked hot. Then, I glanced down at his legs. Spindly, scarred, white. A wave of nausea washed over me. When I looked back up, he was staring at me.

“You the magazine girl?”

Oh, no he remembered. My face burned. I swallowed and tried to find my voice. Think of something, quick! Why would the magazine girl be in the pool? “All part of my volunteer work.” Does that sound dumb or what? Try something more professional. Forget it. Change the subject. “I’m Janine,” I pointed to my waterproof badge. “We’ll be working together for the next while.”

“Well then, let’s get on with it.”

Whew, he obviously wasn’t looking forward to it. I motioned to the hydraulic lift chair and rotated it. He slid onto it. I lowered him into the water and joined him a moment later, pointing out the grab rail that ran around the perimeter of the pool. “Grip the rail and let the water take your weight. Here, take my hands and I’ll help you.” As his large hands wrapped around my small ones, I felt a sudden energy fire through my entire body. I shot him a look in surprise. It was all I could do not to pull back. I caught my breath and struggled to compose myself. “Alright,” I had to clear my throat before I could continue, “How does it feel so far?”

He nodded. “Kind of strange.”

I found myself distracted by his upper body build.

“Now what?” he asked.

“Oh, sorry. Put your arms on the bars and let your feet touch the bottom.” I looked up at him. “Is this the first time you’ve stood upright with your weight on your legs since the accident?”

“How did you know I had an accident?”

I gulped. “Is there another way to break both legs?”

“Good point. Okay. What’s next?”

I backed away from him. “Walk toward me. Good. Keep coming.” I went around behind him. His back was so toned. “Okay, now turn around and do the same thing again.” When we reached the end of the pool, I took a couple of deep breaths to get control and asked, “How does that feel?”

“Fantastic. When do I get to run?”

I ignored the remark. “Ready for another round?” As he worked his way back, I glanced over at Celeste who was going through the same routine with the older man. We exchanged a meaningful look.

Justin worked hard, harder than I thought he should have. He pushed himself through every routine until he mastered it. “Hey,” I said, watching him work through the last set, “There’s no set schedule. You could go easier on yourself.”

His eyes fell on mine and lingered. “I plan to walk by summer and be on the ice by fall. You up for that?”

I was taken aback. Did he think I was his dedicated therapist? “We’ll see,” I said softly.

He studied me. “You must spend a lot of time volunteering.”

I replied truthfully, “Not any more than the other members of our swim team. Harborside Medical is one of our sponsors, so this is our way of paying back.”

He continued to stare. “Ah. I didn’t realize that.” His eyes lingered on mine. “You know, there’s something familiar about you.”

I almost choked. “Well, we met at the hospital…”I turned away from him and retrieved the lift. “Our time is up for today,” I told him, hoping not to sound too relieved.

Up on the pool deck, he asked: “Where’d you learn to do this?”

“Hydrotherapy?”

“Yeah.”

“I did it last year for little kids. It was really rewarding.”

“You get paid?”

“Lots of smiles. They loved it.”

“So you do this for free?” He seemed fascinated by that concept.

“Uh-huh. I do some volunteer work each season. Don’t you?”

He thought about that. “Well, I didn’t really think of it in that way, but I guess so. Every spring our team arranges gear for groups of challenged kids, so we can put them on the ice and have a few games of hockey with them. They love that.”

“So, there you go. It’s the same thing.” I plucked two towels from the stand, shook them out, and handed him one. I used the other to dry his back, using a slow circular motion, and suddenly my heart rate shot sky high. He sat perfectly still. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Am I hurting you?”

He shook his head. “No, not at all,” he replied without turning around. “Thanks for the work out.”

“See you Thursday,” I replied.

He pushed the wheelchair over to the men’s change room, but before he went inside, he turned and looked at me. I had this terrible feeling he could see through my disguise, that he knew who I was. “If you get a chance,” he said, “bring some more magazines.” He smiled and disappeared.

I almost collapsed and looked over at Celeste, who had long since helped her patient out of the water and into the change room. She’d been watching intently.

“What?” I wanted to know.

“He liked you touching him.”

“I doubt it.”

“Seriously.” She grabbed my arm. “He’s gorgeous, Ashla. Too bad about the legs.”

“Don’t worry, I intend to fix that. He’s going to skate again, if it kills me.”

Normally, the locker room was a whirlwind of activity, laughter, and talk while our swim team showered and dressed. But not today.

The team consisted of a core of twenty of us. We worked our tails off at practice, dedicated most of our in-water time to perfecting techniques and race times, won metals and titles repeatedly, and gave back to community often. We prided ourselves on what we did and who we were.

Or, so I thought.

Obviously, there was a limit I hadn’t known existed until this moment. Not one member of the team, including Tara and Brenna, would acknowledge Ashla. She had become invisible. Years of practicing together, hanging out, enjoying midweek pizza, competing, and now she was being ostracized! The distain in the locker room was heavy, and because I was Ashla’s best friend and standing up for her, I was included in this unfamiliar snubbing. How could we, as a team, go from sharing such close friendships, to this, almost overnight? Competition was coming up and I wondered how this attitude would affect us.

I looked over at Ashla, who was dressed and eyeing each girl in turn. Finally, her eyes rested on mine. There was a deep message in them and I didn’t like what it said.

Tara and Brenna left first. We followed shortly after. Normally, the four of us rode together, but there was no sign of Tara’s van outside. “Wish I brought my car,” I told Ashla as we walked toward the bus stop. Then, to our surprise, the van pulled up beside us. Tara’s mom, Kim, a teacher at Queen Anne Middle School, lowered the window. “Hi girls. Jump in.”

We glanced through the smoky glass. Neither Tara, nor Brenna would look our way. “Thanks anyway,” I said, “but I don’t think we’re especially welcome.” We started to walk away.

The van door flew open and Kim jumped out. “Look,” she said, “this whole thing has gone way too far.” She ducked her head back through the driver’s window, “You girls come out here. We’re going to settle this right now.”

Slowly, reluctantly, our teammates and long-time friends joined us on the sidewalk. The wind was bitter and neither Ashla, nor I had blown dry our wet hair, so we pulled our hoods up and shivered while we waited for what I knew was going to be a really uncomfortable few minutes. Tara’s mother was glaring at her daughter. She blew us away by saying: “I didn’t realize that I raised a snob.”

Tara’s jaw dropped, along with ours. Kim moved directly in front of her daughter. They were toe to toe. “What makes you think you’re so special, Tara, that you never make a mistake or do anything wrong?” She grew thoughtful. “Come to think of it, you’ve messed up big time more than once, and we both know it.”

Tara was quick to reply, “But that was different. And I’m not a snob!”

“What do you call yourself?”

Tara slipped a sidelong glance at Ashla. “It’s not that.”

I switched my gaze to Brenna to see how she was taking this. Her face was flushed crimson, her eyes fixed on the van. I glanced at Ashla. She flashed me a look that screamed, “Let’s bail.”

Kim was unrelenting. “So, is this how you treat your good friend? Turn your back on her?”

“Can we talk about this in private, Mom?”

“No. Your actions are anything but private, so we’re going to talk about it now.”

There was a long, miserable silence. It was obvious that not one of us girls wanted to be there. Eventually, Tara mumbled, “It’s just that we didn’t want to be, you know, tarred with the same brush.”

Her mom nodded knowingly. “Ah-h, I see. You didn’t want to be on the receiving end of all the name-calling and—”

Brenna interrupted, “Who would? And we weren’t part of any of that.”

Kim turned to her. “Maybe not, but neither of you girls had the courage to stand up for Ashla. In fact,” she looked at me and I wanted to melt into the sidewalk. “Celeste seems to be the only decent one of you three friends.”

Tara finally looked right at me. “I guess we just don’t have her courage. Everyone has been cruel. Beyond cruel. Who wants to be the receiver of that?”

Kim nodded. “I heard about all this from a teacher I know at your school. She said Ashla’s been the target of some pretty brutal treatment. I realize it would take tremendous courage for all of you to stand up against that, but maybe if you did, if you present a united front, it would help Ashla, and this thing will die off.”

Tara shrugged, “I don’t know. It exploded out of nowhere and it’s seems to be spiraling out of control. It’s going to take a lot more than four of us to stop it.”

Kim considered this. “What about the rest of the swim team? Surely they’ll support you guys?”

Tara shook her head. “Ashla and Celeste have been frozen out. All four of us will be outcasts by the end of the week.”

“There must be something you girls can do.”

Brenna suggested, “Change schools?”

Ashla and I remained silent. What they were saying was true. At best, we were being frozen out. At worst, Ashla was called names, taunted, pushed around, and punched…and things were getting worse by the day. The problem sure wasn’t going away. I shuddered. We’d seen kids, usually a loner with issues, tormented, chased, cornered, kicked to the ground, and beaten. Those poor kids would stagger home only to go through the same thing another day. It usually took some kind of dire action to end it, like involving the police or them moving away. Or worse. So what could four of us do?

Brenna, who seemed to be tearing up, reached over and hugged Ashla. “Sorry, Ashla.”

Tara looked from me to Ashla. “Me too. Mom’s right. We should have stood by you. We’ve all been friends so long.” She took Ashla’s hand. I’ll be there, Ashla, no matter what. Promise.”

Tara’s mom rubbed her hands together, as though trying to thaw them. “Great. Now, everyone get in the van before we all freeze.”

The next morning at school, Tara and Brenna joined us at our lockers and we made small talk, although it was strained. We sat together for lunch, like always, and I noticed that it was as Tara had said. We were all being painted with the same brush. The looks we got were brutal and so was the body language. The taunts were scary. We tried to present a strong, united front, as Kim had suggested, but when we left the school that afternoon, we were followed by a Tarantula called Mako—a guy known for pitching a wicked hard ball. I never knew how he got there, but all of sudden he was ahead of us. “Hey, Cameron!” he yelled.

An object flew at Ashla so hard and fast I barely saw it. It struck her smack on the forehead where she’d been injured in the ski accident. The sound of that impact was sickening. She reeled and sank to the ground. For a moment, we were too stunned to move.

Delta, who had been walking ahead of Mako, turned around and came running. He saw Ashla go down and yelled, “Hey, Mako, you freaking moron! What are you doing?”

Mako hollered back, “Traitor!” and then walked off.

Delta knelt down beside Ashla. She lay so still. Her eyes were closed and I wondered if she was breathing. Delta squeezed her hand. “Ashla! Can you hear me?”

I knelt on her other side and watched as he pulled back one of her eyelids. She had turned dead white.

“Call 911,” he said to me. “Looks like a concussion.”

I whipped out my cell. It was a number I’d never called before. Ashla looked deathly and I hoped they would hurry. The 911 operator kept me on the phone, asking questions about Ashla’s condition. Delta seemed to know what he was doing, so I passed the cell to him. He gave fast, terse responses, while taking her pulse. I was impressed. You’d think he was the paramedic. So, Tara, Brenna, and I held back and let him handle it. Inside of twenty minutes, the paramedics had arrive and assessed her condition. It was as Delta said—concussive. They put her in a neck brace and slipped a backboard under her before putting her on the stretcher.