Chapter 2

By mid September Grant was being kept busy. Not only was he Team Healer for a baseball team but also for a football team as well. All the while trying to still attend high school and make passing grades. Two things made it all worthwhile. With the money he had made so far there were already two Lakota students on full scholarships to four year colleges, one in Teaching and one Pre-Med student. The scholarship not only took care of all tuition, books and housing but also gave them a hundred dollars a month. While not a great deal it should take care of incidentals not included in the other AND gave them some pocket money for dating and so on. There were also several scholarships towards an Associate of Science degree in Nursing for their local Community College.

The second thing was that his football team played close enough that he could see Jannie from time to time. He was visiting with her more than trying to maintain a relationship. As he had told her earlier, it was time for her to spread her wings and experience some of what life has to offer. He would normally fly in on Saturday evenings to where ever they were playing and stay with the team until after the game. As a team member from time to time he was given passes that he shared by taking her into the owner's box which was a thrill that she enjoyed. There all the people are treated like royalty and she ate that up. The Boxes was a misnomer. What they really were was small rooms that were heated, carpeted, had very comfortable seats as well as people on hand to pass out beverages, soft drinks or hard as well as finger foods. She even met the owner and as an Athlete herself they had several things to talk about. Grant was not always able to stay with her for the whole game. If a player was injured then he left to join them either on the field or in the locker room to handle healing. The sooner he got to an injury the less healing he needed to do.

With two and three hundred pound players banging into each other the injuries in football were much worse than in baseball so his fees were higher. As it took more for him to make the proper repairs to their bodies he charged more for his services. This was offset however by the quality players being able to stay in the game instead of calling in a substitute with less experience.

As the holidays approached Grant decided to do two things and before taking any active steps he discussed them both with his parents. With their approval he took the GED tests for his High School Equivalency, signed up for and took the SATs, as well as applying for admissions to one of the medical schools for the Spring semester. He let them know from the start that while he wanted as many pre-med courses as he could take that he had no intention of going on to Med School. This helped get him accepted. It also didn't hurt his chances when the two team owners that he worked for, both well respected businessmen, sent the university letters of recommendation for him. The topper was when the two team physicians did the same!

Track like wrestling is one of the fringe sports as it is all individual effort. You are not a 'team' player while you are an athlete. This had kept him from getting all the snide comments that were normally given to the nerds, bookworms and brainy members of the school. The fact that he also was a 6-1 and a well muscled 175 lbs person whose best male friend was the starting defensive middle linebacker didn't hurt either! Standing beside Ted who was 6-5 and 245 however he looked small and scrawny. Unlike what many people think of football players and especially middle linebackers Ted Castleberry was also a member of the Honors Society like Grant. Also like Grant he was seeking admission into Medical school however his goal was to become a Medical Doctor. He was watching with great concern what Grant was doing in order to attend Medical School.

Jannie was home for the holidays and renewed acquaintances. The school Grant had enrolled in was not too terribly far from where she went to school and she was pleasantly surprised.

"Will you be going out for track there?" she asked as she held him in her arms. She had just come inside and he had hung up her coat before turning back to embrace her.

"I really doubt it. I'll be doing a lot of studying and won't have much time for that. I'll still be running for the exercise but track is doubtful. Besides, I have nothing to prove to anyone and if I competed it would feel like cheating to me. I'll just run for the exercise."

"Then you'll miss all the meets and miss seeing me compete."

"Welllll, I might make a few meets just for that. I like watching the way your butt wiggles when you're running."

She laughed as she pulled him closer. "I've missed you! It's not the same. Before I saw you every day and now I only see you on the week-ends once in a while when our schedules coincide."

"How many boyfriends have you had?"

She made no reply but the sheepish look on her face was answer enough.

"'Spread your wings and fly', Jannie. Taste and sample the world and what it has to offer. Explore, look around and decide what you want and who you want. Now's the time for all that, don't waste it."

"AND what if I've found what I want? Do I still look? Still compare it to all the others that are out there? Grant, you're no longer a little sophomore, you're a midterm freshman. Only half a semester behind me. There's nothing wrong with us dating and going out now is there?"

"Are you sure, Jannie? With so many out there you haven't met, haven't seen are you really sure?" he asked softly. "Now's the time to look around and be certain. NO, I'm not trying to run you off and NO, I haven't found someone else. I just want you to be sure that you get what you want, what you deserve. I'd be very proud to call you my Lady. We'll only be about an hour apart now, not the couple of thousand miles of before."

"Grant, you're forgetting something. The sex with you has been great. You have the unique ability to adapt to my needs and fulfill my fantasies like no other person I've ever encountered. But that's only a small part of it. YOU are a unique person also. It was YOU that I fell in love with, not your damn dick! I might have been 'big sister' to you for years but not lately. For the last couple of years you haven't needed a big sister but you needed a friend. Someone to talk with, to laugh with, to share secrets with. It slowly grew from that to something more, something special. Grant, I miss all the time we shared together even more than I miss your big itch scratching dick!"

Pushing back to look up at him she continued, "When you healed me that day, did you do it to get in my pants or because I was someone special to you, someone in pain? Other than joking about it to put me at ease did you even THINK about sex when you were rubbing all over my crotch? The way you were blushing I don't think so! As sexy as it is to think about it now I was hurting too much then to think about sex or anything else. I just wanted the hurting to stop. And THEN you went even farther."

"You helped your friend to achieve her fondest wish, a scholarship to a really good school. It could have gotten you into a LOT of trouble if word had gotten out of what you did but you trusted me to keep your secret. You trusted your friend!"

"You big doofus! How do you think Love starts? It starts by liking someone, trusting someone and then sharing yourself with someone. We've liked and trusted each other for years. Little step by little step until we arrived where we are now. Why should I spend more years looking for and developing that like and trust when I have it right in front of me?"

"Yes ma'am," he said softly as he pulled her back to him and kissed her soundly.

"You two stop that! You're not standing under any mistletoe now so you have to stop," chided Grant's Mom with a big smile as she came into the room. "Hello Jannie, welcome back. I've missed your happy face around here."

"Hello, Mrs. Avery. I agree, I've missed all my friends while I was away."

"Jannie, I think it's time you started calling me Nancy. If this big lug or Doofus as you called him ever wakes up you just might become Mrs. Avery also. People can't be calling us both 'Mrs. Avery', we wouldn't know which one anyone was talking to."

"You really think he's that smart? He's been sleep walking so long I've started to wonder," Jannie replied with a laugh.

"I think he's finally beginning to wake up. He's really missed you these last few months. It was easy to tell when he saw you again because of how he acted the next few days. So I think the light is shining in his eyes, whether he wakes up and realizes it is another matter however."

"Yeah, right! Kick a guy when he's down, give him incentive to get up! Well, I am opening my eyes and I see a lovely vision in front of me, in fact, I'm holding on to her, so there!"

They all laughed as they moved deeper into the house. Sitting at the dinner table drinking coffee the two were able to share what had been happening to them on a deeper level than they had been able to before. Watching a football game with others around was NOT the time for intimate sharing while now they were able to so. From time to time Nancy would step in from the kitchen and share a comment or two with them also.

Grant's team didn't make it to the Super Bowl that year. They got knocked out while playing for the League Championship. Healing all the players and keeping them healthy could only do so much so for this year they were eliminated. There was always the possibility of next year.

It did however help Grant at school. He could spend more time on his studies and not worry about shuttling all over the country to keep the team healthy.

One of his instructors knew the Team Physician for his football team and had been quietly given the word on Grant. From time to time he was taken with the Doctor when doing his rounds at the hospital. His area of specialization was Renal disorders, problems with the kidneys. This was an area that Grant was interested in as well as he had a pet theory that he wanted to work on more.

The blood picks up waste products and impurities from the cells from all over the body and they are then filtered out by the kidneys. This waste is then eliminated from the body when the person urinates. What happens when the kidney becomes 'clogged', worn out or diseased? Could this be one of the aging factors? Would a kidney that was now working at only 95% instead of its usual 100% slowly allowed the body to show the signs of aging more and more? As the body aged did the kidney functioned at a lesser percentage? A vicious circle that leads to old age and death? Could healing the kidney and helping it function at 100% reverse many of the signs of aging and increase both the quality and the quantity of life? Could aging simply be that the body is slowly being clogged with the impurities that the kidney usually filtered out and helped to eliminate? These were some of the questions that Grant hoped to find or help find answers for.

Knowing already the theory that Grant had Dr. Battersly allowed him to accompany him on his rounds of all his kidney patients. At each one he would slowly run his hands over the area, 'reading' the kidney for signs of disease, clogging or disfunction. Later, out of the hearing of the patient, they would discuss his findings and compare it to the medical chart of the patient. They would also discuss the treatment that had been called for and what results it was bringing, what corrections they could make to the treatment to better the condition and the patient. It was a learning time for Grant, each case, even the healthy ones increased his background and knowledge about the kidney and its function.