1st 5 Pages Oct Workshop - Simon Rev 1

Name: Kelsey Simon

Genre: Young Adult Contemporary Fantasy

Title: The Guilt of Healing

1

Nicco leans out over the second-story balcony as far as he can. The gray of late evening spans out before us, only the faint light from neighboring houses glowing in the distance. The bay sits to the right, with an expensive speedboat rocking next to a small dock. The waves are inaudible, even as I spot them rolling into the reedy shore. The boom of the music and the chatter of the kids as they shuffle around the pool in the yard below us are far louder.

When Nicco slammed my locker shut and told me we had plans tonight, I said what I always say―I’m in―because the best way to make sure Nicco doesn’t do something too crazy is to be with him. It’s a good thing I’m here, because this evening’s party is starting to look like one of those times.

“I could make it into the water,” Nicco says, eyeing the drop from the balcony to the pool. “It’s not a big jump.”

The kids below us have started turning to stare, to watch, and each set of eyes on Nicco is one more reason he won’t back down. But I’ll still try.

“Come on,” I say, a few feet behind him. “It won’t be fun.” The two girls he’d been flirting with earlier stand beside me. They whisper to each other before one lifts her phone high, making sure Nicco is framed perfectly by her camera. He gives her a casual thumbs up, his grin wide.

I refrain from rolling my eyes.

“Why don’t you get down and have another drink,” I say, bargaining. That’s always the first step when Nicco gets a hunger like this one. Bargain first, argue second, get physical third, if the situation is desperate enough to warrant it.

“It’ll be easy.” His eyes widen as he turns to stare down at the pool and the challenge I know he’s contemplating. He’s probably imagining it―the drop down and all the eyes that would be on him as he fell.

“And if you get hurt?” I say. That’s what I’m really worried about anyway. Nicco can drag me to a party two hours from home. He can leave me feeling awkward as I stumble through a conversation with a pretty girl I’ve never met before. He can even drink himself into a buzz while I stand sober, the designated driver. But him jumping from a second-story balcony for a few seconds of adrenaline and fame? That’s likely to leave him with a broken bone or worse? I won’t stand idly by.

“Well, at least there’s a healer here,” Nicco answers, pointing.

“What?” I step forward, joining him at the railing, following his finger to a girl standing at the front of the pool, waiting in line to get herself a drink. “Is that Lacey Stephens?”

She’s tall, her hair the same rich brown, just a few shades lighter than her skin. She looks the same as I remember when she still went to our school at the beginning of the year. We even used to have algebra together before she discovered she had the rare ability to heal and left to attend Kisper High, a school just for healers.

“I’m sure if I get too hurt, she’ll heal me,” Nicco says, shrugging.

She pushes past a dancing couple, and just when she’s about to disappear beneath the balcony where we won’t be able to see her, her eyes flash up and lock onto us.

I jerk back. “That’s a stupid assumption,” I hiss. We didn’t know Lacey, and she didn’t know us. Besides, who knew what she could heal, or how much or how fast. There were rules about those sorts of things, rules neither Nicco or I knew.

“I’m doing it,” Nicco whispers under his breath before he leans forward and shouts, “Do you dare me to jump?!”

“Nicco, Don’t,” I say again with more emphasis, but Nicco is already climbing the railing. He throws one of his legs over and then the other. He’s probably reading Lacey being here as a sign. “She’s not going to heal you if you get hurt. They’ll just call an ambulance.”

“It’ll be fine.” He glances at me over his shoulder, the muscle in his left cheek twitching and his eyes shifting side to side. He’s already feeling the adrenaline pump through his veins. He won’t back down. Not now.

Any whisper of the ocean in the distance is completely drowned out in the chant of everyone below. Their words soar around us. “Do it! Do it!” It grows louder and louder as more and more kids pick up the words. Everyone’s watching Nicco now, some even raising their drinks to the sky, cheering him on.

This is what he lives for. The attention, the rush. It’s probably not even worth me trying to stop him, but I’ll give it one more try. It’s my job, after all.

“That’s the shallow end,” I say, pointing over the railing to the pool just below us, centered in the yard. The deep end is the one farthest from us. He’s got three feet of water to stop his fall. “You’ll break your leg. Nicco, seriously, this is a bad idea.”

I’m judging the distance between us now, judging how hard it would be to grab his arm and yank him back. He’ll be mad. He’ll be roaring with the loss of the rush he didn’t get. He might even shove me down and do it anyway, his determination so solid not even I can break through it.

Let him jump and be there to pick him up and take him to the hospital? Or fight him only to get hurt myself and still see him jump?

He’s done worse than this and survived it.

I hesitate. Just a moment, a stretch, where I can’t decide what would be better.

Nicco jumps.

The crowd inhales like a single giant beast.

“Shit,” I hiss, scrambling to the spot he just vacated, leaning over to see. He pulls up his legs, cannon-balling down, plummeting toward the water. He smashes into it, spraying everyone brave enough not to back away. I release the breath I’d been holding. He made it. Time to get down there and make sure he made it in one piece. I shove past the two girls and back into the house. I take the stairs down two at a time, pushing anyone in my way out of my path. I need to get to Nicco as fast as possible. I need to make sure he’s okay, and if he’s not, I need to get him help.

It’s hard not to see him in my mind, on the ground of his brothers room, a pool of blood seeping from under his chest. I grit my teeth and wipe the memory away. That was three years ago. That was my fault. This isn’t the same. People shout and laugh as I squeeze past them―a good sign. Surely they’d be screaming if Nicco was injured. I jog down the stone path that winds around the house to the back yard, the salty, musty scent of the bay barely distinguishable over the smell of spilled beer, making my knotted stomach flip and bile rise up my throat.

Finally, through the crowd, I catch sight of him.