Chapter 18

"Is there any possibility that I'll get an explanation for what just happened?" Kenny asked. His face was very pale, making him look as though he just swallowed his own stomach.

"I don't think so." I replied smugly. "But feel free to ask anyways."

"How did we," he began, stumbling in his speech as he searched for the right word, "get here?" He finished, looking expectantly at me.

"I moved us." I told him.

"That's it? You just moved us?" He asked, exasperated by my smart ass response.

"Pretty much." I nodded reassuringly.

Kenny gazed at his surroundings in total amazement. "How the hell is this possible?"

"I don't think I could explain it if I tried." I told him honestly. "I just can, and I know I can, and that's enough for me to do it." I waited for him to settle down and look at me again. "But I need you to do much just one favor." I told him. "Don't tell mom; she wouldn't understand and she'd just get upset over this."

"If that's really what you want?" He said, looking at me with measuring eyes.

I caught his question and replied. "It is."

"Alright then, but I think you're underestimating your mother. She might take it better than you think." He told me.

"You're handling it better than I thought." I told him.

"I've learned to just take things in stride. You just need to smile and nod." He told me. "Smile and nod." He finished under his breath, more to himself than me. I noticed he was grinning and bobbing his head slightly. Then he barked out a loud laugh. "At least that's what I always tell everyone."

"Seriously, I thought you'd make a much bigger deal out of this."

"I really haven't decided how I want to react yet. Ask me again tomorrow." He told me, and I promised myself I would. "Meanwhile let's get inside and get some sleep. You might be off on the weekends but I'm not."

I nodded and followed him inside. Almost as soon as we opened the door my mother was there, asking all sorts of motherly questions. "What did they find? Did they want to talk with you again later?"

"Nothing." My stepfather told her. "They didn't find anything. And they started getting aggressive on Jason so I told them to bugger off."

That gave my mother pause. "Are we going to have a problem?" She asked.

"I don't know, but I'll talk to Henry at work tomorrow and see what he suggests." Kenny replied. Henry was a close family friend and a retired lawyer. "He might have some fresh ideas on how to take care of this before it gets out of hand."

My mother looked at me, as if to ask what I was still doing there. "Why don't you go to bed young man." She ordered me. Kenny looked like he wanted to say something, but when I nodded and turned to head for my room he chose to stay quiet.

My room was dark and silent when I stepped inside, and instead of turning on the lights I made my own, forming a field of ambient light to fill the room. Everything was so neat and clean; the girls had done a good job this afternoon. I wandered over to my bed and threw myself upon it, letting the light fade away as I stared at the ceiling.

Closing my eyes, I started thinking about how different my life was going since I wished for these powers. I gained a wonderful girlfriend who threw herself at me, and promised to love me forever, all without any compulsion on my part. I saved a stranger in the park and healed the children at a local hospital. I freed a genie and became a power of the realm. I lost both a mentor and a good friend in Haller, and made a lifelong enemy in Kabal. I taught my sister and her bitchy friends a lesson they wouldn't forget for a long time, and hopefully improved their attitude towards everyone else. I intervened in the abuse of a teenage girl by her overly zealous religious fundamentalist parents. I had my first date with my new girlfriend and we had fantastic sex together on a sandy beach.

And all of it happened in a single day. The entirety of my life before today wasn't as meaningful or exciting. As I drifted closer to sleep I wondered what tomorrow would bring.

I slowly began to wake when the daylight filtering through the windows became too bright to ignore. That isn't to say I didn't try. Rolling over gave me another ten minutes, and pulling the blankets over my head held off the inevitable for almost a half hour. By then the rest of the house was awake and making noise, so no effort on my part could keep wakefulness at bay. I ceded the battle and started moving around.

After the necessities were taken care of I checked my messages and caught a new one from Amber. She wanted to know if I could get together with her this afternoon. I sent off a reply that I'd love to do something today, and told her to let me know the time.

I cleaned up and headed down for breakfast, which my mom was busy making. I caught a careful glance from Kenny as I walked in the room, but he seemed to let the matter drop. Karen came down a few minutes after me, but she was already dressed to leave, wearing a beautiful blue skirt and a tight white shirt. I could tell she had makeup on, but not heavily like she would put on before a date.