Six

Bobby

Cole passed me the food I'd ordered and the two of us settled in to eat while watching everyone else either order their food or eat in their cars like we were. I'd lied when I said my dad was okay with me taking him to the hospital. He was worried, but he was also concerned we'd lose the new contract with the small company in Hickory Crossing.

"What do you do in Hickory Crossing?" I asked. This whole situation was strange. We hadn't really talked at all on the way to the hospital since he was injured so badly, and then after what happened while he was there . . . I decided I needed to not think about it for now. There would be time for us to figure it out later. Maybe.

"I work at the sporting goods store."

"Do your parents own it?" I asked. Since moving here, I'd found out most businesses in the small towns that surrounded Sugarfield were family owned.

"No, but a family friend does." He took a big bite of his burger and groaned. He'd been through it that's for sure, but I couldn't lay to rest the feeling that he still wasn't okay. There was a strange energy I could feel from him that felt a lot like a warning. "I started working there in high school, and now I manage it. It's okay I suppose, I mean it could be worse." It seemed there was a story there, but if he wasn't willing to offer more information, I wasn't going to keep pushing.

"That is true. I once worked for a cleanout company that cleared out apartments after someone moved out. You would not believe the shit people leave behind." I wasn't sure why I told him that. I hadn't thought about that job in years. It had been an attempt to go get my own job and not be so dependent on my family business for work. But after a few weeks I realized the printing business was much better than sorting through belongings that were both sad and disgusting.

"How was that?" he asked and stopped midchew to listen.

"Horrible," I said, and we both laughed.

"I can't even imagine." He took another big bite of burger and we both went back to people watching.

"Did you want anything else?" I asked after the two of us had finished eating, which took less than ten minutes.

"Nope, I'm good." If he wasn't dressed like an escapee from a hospital and still looking like he'd been blown up, I would have thought we were just out for the day. I couldn't understand how he could seem so unaffected by it all.

"Let's get you back home then," I said, and after the server came out to take our tray away, we were back on the road. It was a short twenty-minute drive back to Hickory Crossing. I took the tree-lined backroads and stayed off the busy freeway. It was still overcast but the sky wasn't as angry as it had been earlier.

"When you were out, there was a strange noise and wind that ripped through the hospital. I would have sworn it was a tornado," I said and hoped he didn't just shut me down.

"We don't get tornadoes here," he said.

"I thought the same thing."

"I heard it. The humming, and the wind. Everything flying around in the room before the electricity was coursing through my body."

"I could see it moving over your skin. There were pulses of energy, but I couldn't feel it. It should have electrocuted me, but it didn't," I said. That was one of the stranger parts of the whole experience. How it seemed to encase him in the blue electric glow of the surge of power, but none of it touched or harmed me. "The hair on my arms stood up, but there was no pain."

"Was it stranger than me levitating off the bed?" Cole asked and shot me a look. I wasn't sure if he was testing me to see if I really was okay with everything I'd seen or if he needed to say it out loud to himself.

"I didn't think you remembered that. I've never seen anything like that in my life. Or heard of it either. That only happens in movies or in magic acts."

"That's what I thought before today, but now I don't know. Everything was strange about that storm. It moved in really fast, and I would have sworn I saw the clouds glowing blue just before I was struck."

"I saw that too, and the lightning that hit you glowed blue."

"But what does it mean?" he asked.

"I have no clue. But if you want me to, I'll help you find out," I said before I had time to think about what I was offering. I had zero clue about any of this stuff, but I meant what I said, I'd help him.

"I think I need help," he admitted, and his head slumped forward. "It was probably stupid to leave the hospital, but they can't help me with this."

"While I understand you wanting to leave, and honestly I think the hospital was relieved to see you go, I do think you need to have a doctor check you over to make sure there's nothing wrong."

"You're probably right. My parents are going to lose their shit," he said, and for a moment looked like a teenager bracing for a scolding.

"There is no good way to say you were hit by lightning. I'd be surprised if one of the people that live out there didn't see it. It looked like an electrical explosion from where I was."

"I don't remember that part. I was jogging and then it started to rain really hard. The next thing I remember is you standing there. But I don't know how I got there, and I didn't have any pain. Which is surprising since it melted my shoes and socks off. How can that happen?" he asked.

"I'm not sure. But I am glad you weren't hurt any worse. I watched a show about people who'd been struck by lightning. If it goes through your body, it usually blows apart the area it comes out of. You got very lucky." I had shoved that information into the back of my mind but what happened to him was not like what I'd seen happen to any of the people on the show.

"Me too, but it feels like I should have been."

"Let's just focus on the fact that you weren't, and we'll try to figure out why the lightning was blue. How does that sound?" The more we talked about it, the stranger I knew it was. But none of this was normal, and I still had no clue how I was really going to help him other than to be there and assure him that it really had happened. I thought about the strange pulse of power that danced so close to my skin I could feel it like a caress. My eyes threatened to close at the sensation, then I realized I wasn't just imagining it, it was true.