Chapter 2

It turns out that I was going to be released the day before exams started for Harvard, December 9th. Carl had gone out of his way to arrange for us to get my weekly tests done at the hospital and I’d be doing my exams under his eye, or when possible, with my class. Psych happened to be the only one of my courses I could do with the class and Emma insisted on me attending. It was the first exam on Friday. I was confined to a wheelchair for the next couple of weeks due to the difficulty of getting around with a cane or crutches with the injuries to my chest and abdomen.

When she wheeled me in, there was a murmur through the class and then applause from everyone, including the professor. I was embarrassed, but waved a little with my good arm and then took my place and when the exam started, I was glad to have the distraction of writing.

I knew I’d aced the course because I still had the texts in my head. I could have quoted page numbers, but figured that was cockier than they’d put up with. I finished in about half the time and awkwardly wheeled myself out into the hall to wait for Emma where I could use my laptop to do some reading while I waited. We’d rented a wheelchair that had a folding table and I’d just fished out my laptop to start surfing when Zoe approached me.

“Matt? What are you doing all alone?” she asked, concerned.

“Just wrote psych,” I explained to her with a smile. “Emma’s still in there. What are you writing today?”

“Just an elective. Philosophy. It was kind of a joke. The whole course is more to make you think about things you normally wouldn’t, so instead of a complete final exam, he handed out candies and asked us to evaluate how we liked them.”

“Really?” I laughed, despite how much it hurt to do. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Yeah, except he handed out really AWFUL candies. They’re called double-salted licorice. They taste like salt, they make your tongue go numb and the taste never seems to go away. At the end of the hour, he collected our exams and told us that the flavoring was used in ice cream, vodka, brandy, tobacco and was originally produced in pharmacies that mixed their own cough syrup. He gave us all good marks, but told us to consider it a lesson to consider everything twice. He told us that we’d all eaten at least one thing that used it as a flavoring even if we weren’t aware of it.”

“An interesting way to teach the lesson,” I shrugged. “That your only exam of the day?” I asked.

She nodded. “I have two Monday and one on Wednesday and my last two on Thursday. Then I’m done. Emma said she was done on Thursday too so she’d help me clean up the room on Friday before she went home on Sunday. She’s still going?”

I nodded. “She didn’t want to, but I talked her into it. She misses her family and they miss her. I wish I could go with her, but I have a lot to do here while she’d gone.”

“She’ll kill you if you do anything to pull your stitches,” she said warningly.

“I have plenty of people willing to be my hands when I need to lift something,” I assured her. “Hanna’s here for another few days since she has to stay until they shut down the fitness center for the semester. Lana and Beck have been taking me around a lot and I’ve been getting plenty of offers from other people to help me with anything I need.”

She nodded and seemed to regret that she wasn’t one of the people I was leaning on. “Is there anything you need? Can I take you to get a soda or something?”

“I’m good, thanks,” I said with a smile. “Emma would worry if she came out and I wasn’t here. Besides, she probably won’t be that much longer.”

She nodded and stuck around for a few more minutes making conversation before she had to go finish some studying for her next exam.

I reviewed my exam schedule and had two more that afternoon, so I’d be reporting to Carl for those.

We had lunch on campus and then she left me with Carl and we were joined by Dr. Julie Nichols, to my surprise. I took her hand and she shook it gently, probably aware of how delicate I was.

“Dr. Nichols,” I greeted her. “I wasn’t aware you were joining us today.”

“Is that a problem?” she asked.

“Not at all. I’m just curious if Carl and Victoria have made a decision about you while I was indisposed,” I said with a smile.

“Not that I’m aware of,” she said. “I think they’re really leaving it to you to decide. They said that there are six of us that are up for the position and that a lot of it would depend on personality.”

“That’s true,” I said, letting her take control of the chair and steer me into the lab. “So maybe we can chat a little about you while I write my exams.”

“I wouldn’t want to distract you,” she said, guiding me to a table where Carl was waiting with the cameras set up to observe me while I sat the tests.

Carl chuckled. “This is one boy that lives for his distractions,” he told her certainly.

“Carl’s being too kind,” I said dryly. “He just likes to live vicariously through me. At his age, he gets accused of being a dirty old man for what I get away with.”

“And what do you get accused of for things he can get away with?” she asked dryly.

“Driving without a license, mostly,” I deadpanned.

They sat me with my exam and I looked at Carl in disappointment, “One at a time?” I asked. “I thought you wanted to challenge me?”

“You’re only showing off because she’s here,” he scolded me but he was smiling as he slid the other exam paper over to me. “Begin.”

I looked over both papers and then started writing with both hands. Carl had seen this trick before, but it was new to Dr. Nichols and she was interested in how I did. My eyes ranged back and forth between the two papers as I tracked my answers. “Don’t feel like I need quiet,” I told her as I wrote. “I listen to three lectures at a time. I can comfortably process three lines of thought or conversation at the same time. Most of the time, I use this to concentrate on sex and food while seeming to pay attention to what’s going on around me, but everyone knows I’m preoccupied with sex and food, so there’s really less reason to keep up appearances.”

That got the ball rolling and Carl asked how I was doing.

“I’m okay. I had the last of my incisions closed up Wednesday since there was no additional infection and my fever was down. I’m still on antibiotics for another week, but Samantha assures me that I can resume my normal drinking habits in time for Christmas. Because THAT’S a big concern,” I said sarcastically.

“Carl said that you were the kid in the Captain America incident,” Dr. Nichols said softly, fascinated by the sight of me answering two different exam questions at once.

“Yeah. I’m that guy,” I admitted. “He show you the video yet?”

“Yeah. Pretty much everyone’s seen your YouTube channel,” she said dismissively.

“What’s not in the YouTube channel is that I haven’t been able to do that with the shield outside life and death moments,” I told them. “I also haven’t had a lot of luck making sense of that night. I have fragments, but they’re all over the place. I remember thinking adrenaline could be what was pushing me to throw the shield better than I do when I’m not on edge.”

“It’s possibly helpful in having your perceptions sharpen, but I would say the ability is there all the time. You just have to learn to tap into it,” he said companionably.

I nodded in agreement. “It’s still something interesting to consider at some point.”

We bantered back and forth slowly getting to know each other over the course of the next couple of hours. I completed both exams, reviewed them critically and changed a few things here and there before sliding them back across the table.

“That was quick,” she said, surprised.

“Three words you never want to hear from a woman,” I said dryly.

She gave me a wry smile. “Ranks right up there with ‘is it in’?” she asked.

“Yeah, if there’s any doubt, the answer is no,” I replied. “It’s good to know that you can talk about things like that without getting upset or uncomfortable though.”

“It’s not a big deal. It’s not like you’ve really had time to discover girls at your age.”

I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing and IMMEDIATELY regretted it. I groaned and laughed and whimpered all at once, seeing stars. “Oh! Don’t make me laugh!” I begged. “Stitches will end up tearing.”

She looked at me with what I took to be a kindly sort of pity for my situation. When I was finally calmed down enough to speak, I looked at Carl. “Didn’t you warn her at all?!!? I mean, I get that no one believes the whole story, but not even a word?”

“I felt that observing your initial dynamic would be good for the study,” he said evasively.

“You mean you wanted to see how long it was before we were chasing each other around the lab?” I asked, giving him a dirty look.

“You be careful around my lab equipment,” he said sternly.

“Am I missing something?” she asked, watching the two of us banter back and forth.

I nodded and decided that this was as good a time as any to clue her in. “The normal rules don’t apply to me,” I told her. “I’m not saying that like I’m above laws or anything arrogant like that, but the normal guidelines that people apply to development don’t work on me. I’m dating three incredibly attractive women right now and there’s a waiting list. Not because I’m so incredible in bed, although that’s true too, but because I treat women like gold.”

“I’m sure that’s all very comforting to believe,” she said, patronizingly.

I shrugged. “You watched one of them drop me off today. Ask her if you think I’m making it up. She should be back from her exam in an hour or so.”

We spent the rest of the afternoon planning out my exam timetable and letting me get to know Dr. Nichols a little better. She seemed like a decent fit, but she was still skeptical of my abilities, despite Carl and I trying to convince her.

When Emma came back, I introduced her to Dr. Nichols and asked her to clarify my dating situation.

“Past, present or future?” she asked.

“All three,” I said, interested in what she envisioned the future to look like.

She shrugged. “When I met Matt, he was dating a pair of sisters and a pair of college students. Shortly after school started, someone started a vicious rumor about him that caused all four of them to dump him. I’d been seeing him casually during the summer, but we got serious after that. Just before Halloween, he picked up two more girls, one college aged and one at his high school. Then he picked up a slightly older woman at her workplace unexpectedly and the college girl from Halloween drifted off a few weeks ago. That’s where we are now.” She gave Dr. Nichols a rueful smile. “He’s sort of like that. He could walk into a movie theater alone and come out with a date. He stole his high school cheerleading team and walked out of the school with them. If he was recovered and available to date, the line would go around the block. We ARE going to need a bigger bed, Slugger. Aside from the cheer captain and the four from season one wanting to get back into the mix, you’ve probably got five or six others that’ll want to crawl into bed with us.”

“I can use that as training for what you’re planning on putting me through when you take me out to Malibu this summer. I might not live.”

“Shush. You’ll love every second of it,” she assured me.

“Okay, so you’re popular with the girls,” Dr. Nichols said. “I get it. No need to tell me any more.”

“Carl keeps threatening to make my sexual escapades part of the study,” I confided in her. “I think he’s just hoping I’ll let him set up a camera in my bedroom. Little does he know...”

We chatted about less risque subjects after that, but I saw her give me a few evaluative looks before we left.

We drove to the mall, intending to do some shopping for Christmas. The painting was in the trunk along with the sketches and we took them right to the art store for framing.

The woman serving us was pleasant enough, asking us what size frames we’d need. Emma put the canvas on the project table we were talking around and the woman’s face changed. “Where did you get this?” she asked.

“I painted it,” I said, frowning at her change in disposition. “What’s wrong?”

“That’s Frank and Janice Saunders and their daughter Patricia. This isn’t right though. Janice died years ago. Patricia wasn’t that old when she passed.”

“You know the Saunders family?” I asked. “Tricia is my girlfriend. I painted this as a gift for them both since they both miss her mother so much. I tried to paint it as if her illness had never happened. Like their family should have been.”

She nodded and touched the canvas where Janice Saunders was painted. “I can’t take your money for this,” she said. “Janice was one of my oldest friends. This is beautiful. What else did you have to get framed?” She was a little misty-eyed and the drawings I handed to her didn’t help. She kissed my cheek and told me to come back in a few days and they’d be ready. “They’re gonna love these,” she assured me and shooed me out of the shop.

We went looking for gifts when we left the art supply store. “That was surprising,” Emma commented.

“Yeah. I didn’t expect to run into someone who knew Tricia’s mother,” I said and asked her to stop into the music store.

I bought Lilly an electric guitar, an amp and a set of bat-ears headphones. I hadn’t thought about what a bad idea that would be until the amp ended up in my lap for the trip back to the car to dump it in the trunk before we could continue shopping. Hanna’s collar had arrived while I was in the hospital so that was officially three gifts down. When I got the skates for Gina and Emma, that would finish off the most important gifts. I needed to get something for Dan and Patty, Lana and Beck, Tabby and Collie, Mom and Dad and the spa subscription for Cheryl and small gifts for the other girls who’d come to mean something to me.

I also had to figure something out for Carl and Victoria and Samantha. I had to consider that carefully. I couldn’t just buy something for Carl. Victoria was notoriously difficult about revealing anything she’d enjoy and I owed Samantha too much to do less than my best for her.

We bought a stack of gift cards for the movies for some of the girls that I wasn’t quite as close to, I bought a large basket of premium bath supplies for my mother, an equally large basket of teas and coffees for Patty, I bought necklace and earring sets for Lana, Beck, Tabby and Collie with their birthstones in them, and told Emma I’d have Patty help me by shopping for bottles of premium liquor for the three men on the list. That left me with Samantha and Victoria and I didn’t think anyone could help me with either of those gifts.

“Is there something I could get for Mark and Char?” I asked her as we were poking around. “They saved my life with that shield.”

“Just personalize a card,” she said. “Maybe get them a small bottle of something.”

I nodded and mentally added that to the list.

When we got home, we smuggled everything inside and we started wrapping things. I was doing Christmas with my girls the next weekend since Emma was flying out on Sunday morning. It would just be the four of us and Gina since she was unofficially the newest member.

Tomorrow would be the day we all went in for our HIV screenings. I was clean. The hospital had done aggressive testing on me, Vance’s body, the blood I’d received and all had come back negative. I was still going in with the rest of the girls. We were getting two tests. One was a rapid test that gave results in about 20 minutes but wasn’t as accurate as the full test we were also taking which would take 72 hours to return results.

I was nervous for the girls and hoped that all the news was good. We wrapped and marked our gifts before Emma took them downstairs to the closet. I was tackling the stairs as infrequently as possible due to my limited mobility. When I had to get up and down stairs, I used my crutches from the summer or my cane, to support my injured leg and left the chair upstairs. It hurt like Hell so I avoided doing it, but it helped me regain some of my independence to be able to move around on my own a little.

Lana and Beck were still spending a lot of time around the house as I recovered and we were getting comfortable having them around. I suspected that Emma had spoken to them while I was in the hospital or at least to Lana because the two of them seemed a lot closer than they had been. I was grateful for the help since I seemed to need help with everything right now. The last of my stitches were due to come out just before Christmas and I was hopeful that would start me on the road to recovery.

I turned in well ahead of Emma, feeling pretty tired after the shopping trip. I had a long day tomorrow and wasn’t looking forward to it, but it was necessary. I’d talked the girls out of throwing the party until tomorrow night. They needed it and they deserved it. We were getting pizzas delivered and they had Patty tied up with making a cake. Other snacks were a matter of a trip to Walmart for candy, chips, sodas, party cups, paper plates and napkins. I kind of expected an army, but I had no way of knowing for sure.

Saturday dawned cold, but clear. We’d had snow off and on, but nothing worth talking about. Lana and Beck drove me over to the clinic in the morning where I was spending most of the time I’d normally be at Kung Fu. They were just opening up for the day when we arrived, meeting a lot of the girls. We were all eager to have this behind us. Lana and Beck couldn’t have their final screenings for another month since they’d been seeing the Waterman brothers well into October, but at this point, I was confident that they were as clean as the rest of us.

We kept the clinic busy all morning with the girls coming in to get their screening done. By noon we had our answers. All tests negative and the more accurate tests sent off for processing. We’d know by mid-week. I got a lot of very gentle hugs as girls tried not to squeeze my stitches. When the last of the girls had their results and were on their way home, I asked Lana and Beck to swing by the mall. I still had some Christmas gifts to get.

Getting the skates was easy. I knew Gina’s size from when we rented skates and I knew Emma’s because she lived in my room. It was easy enough to read her size from her shoe when I’d been putting on my own shoes. That left me with gifts left to get for Dan, Dad, Carl, Samantha and Victoria and something for Mark and Char.

I was at a loss for what to get for any of them. “How do you even shop for someone who saved your life?” I said, exasperated.

Lana shrugged. “I dunno. They both deserve something amazing though.”

I nodded in agreement and decided there was only one solution, steering us into the jewelry store to look around. I finally picked out a necklace and earring set for each of them in diamonds. I picked different styles for them that I thought suited their personal tastes.

“I think that’s everyone on my list. I need your mother’s help with the rest of it. I’m thinking about getting some premium liquor for Your dad, my dad and Carl. I wanted to get Carl something he could use and enjoy over the next few months.”

They nodded and we stopped by the food court for lunch before doing a little more shopping for the party and the rest of the holidays.

When we got home, the skates stayed in Lana’s car for now until they could be wrapped. I kept them company while they got set up for the party. This time it wasn’t a surprise and I wasn’t starving and feeling neglected, so I was in much better spirits. Tabby and Collie arrived early to help with the setup and Hanna was there too. There were plenty of hands to do the work. All I had to do was call in the pizza order at 5:30 since guests were due to show up around 6.

They told me that it’d be about an hour for an order that large and I made a note of the time I called and the amount of the order. At ten to six, the doorbell rang and I went to get it while everyone else was busy with finishing touches. DA Forbes was there with Mr. Peterson.

I blinked in surprise, but invited them in.

“We heard tonight was your official welcome home party,” Mr. Forbes said. “It’s probably not a good idea that we stay given the state of the case against Patrick, but I thought you’d want this back.”

He had the shield. It was in a large evidence bag. I took it from him gratefully. “You were able to get them to release it from evidence?” I asked, amazed to be seeing it again.

“They got all the trace evidence off of it, ran the tests they wanted on it and decided that there was nothing else they could learn from it.”

I smirked. “In other words, when they were done with it, they were throwing it around and someone got hurt so I can have it back so they can get back to work?”

He allowed me a small smile. “It’s supposedly very aerodynamic,” he told me diplomatically and offered me his hand. I shook it and he looked relieved. “I know we were at odds over whether the girls should come forward or not, but I don’t want you to feel like the law is the enemy. Some of your remarks when we met last month were fairly bitter toward the process. I hope that’s behind us.”

I nodded. “It is for the most part. I told you there’s another legal matter that’s given me a sore tooth when it comes to state law and it still does, but that’s another issue.”

“Without implicating anyone, can you tell me what the issue is? Maybe I can set your mind at ease,” he offered.