Chapter 10 "Recovery"
When we're pained, either emotionally, physically, or mentally, the next step to heal. But people say there are some wounds that there's no healing from.
- Michael Mules, Journal Entry
From the rooftop of the warehouse, Wendy watched hopelessly as Michael continued walking in circles, yelling in all directions with strong force in his voice. He was behaving historically, but she couldn't really blame him.
"Come on! I know you're listening to me! Where are you!" he shouted again with all the power of his nostrils. "I'm right here, waiting for you!"
"Michael, you've been at this for too long now," she argued to him. ⌠Nobody is going to come."
"That's because they're chicken! If they don't have the lurking in the shadows scenario they have nothing!" Michael continued spinning around to different directions.
He was paranoid now. He told Wendy that he knew they were watching him every minute of everyday; that he could feel it in his bone. He was beginning to scare her.
"Come on, already!" he yelled out. "Let's get this show on the road!"
It was pointless, yelling out like this. Wendy knew it and she figured that he did as well, but he needed to get all these bent up emotions out of his system. The fact that he was being followed and manipulated into helping people with his abilities made him scared, delusional, and distrusting.
"Are you afraid I'll beat you in a straight-forward fight?" he rambled.
No answer came.
If they were being watched right now, the stalker was not going to respond to this. Wendy wondered if this person - or these people were getting a kick out of making her pour Michael act like this.
The distraught young man buried his head in his arms for a moment before letting out a loud cry of distress, shooting it out of himself and into the sky. She walked up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder cautiously. He stuttered a bit as she moved her arm around his neck and placed her other hand on his chest.
"I know you're scared, but I'm with you on this," she said to him as softly as she could be. "I promise we'll figure this out."
He didn't look at her or say anything.
"I'm scared, too," she added.
Michael looked up to her and allowed Wendy to pull him into an embrace. She kissed him on the cheek and tightened her hold on him.
"What am I supposed to do? I can't pretend like nothing's wrong," he said. "What if this keeps happening, but next time I'm not able to save the person. I need to find out who is doing all this."
"What do you want to do?" Wendy was a bit afraid of what answer he might give, as it would most-likely lead to danger.
"Doctor Suresh still hasn't returned any of my messages. Something might have happened to him." Michael stepped out of her embrace and began to pace. "That night I blacked out, there might answers in that missing time. I need to remember."
"Okay. How do we go about doing that, then?"
Michael spun around back to her and raised his arms in ignorance. "I have no clue."
Angela was replacing the table cover in the kitchen when Michael walked in a sweat, and went to the refrigerator without a word to her; Angela wondered if he had even noticed his mother standing here.
"Don't forget to say hello," she blurted.
Her son took his head out from the refrigerator with a cocky expression mixed with annoyance.
"Sorry, I didn't really see you," he insisted. He then went back to examining the inside of the refrigerator.
"Well that seems to be turning into a habit for you," Angela said bluntly. "It's not a good habit."
Michael didn't respond to that comment.
He wasn't really responding to much of anything from her or anybody else in the family lately. He always had his feuds with his father and older sisters, but never with her. They had always shared such a close bond.
Now things weren't the same. She would have liked to blame this on the sudden existence of a certain girl, but she couldn't hold it against her son for starting a romantic relationship, something that he was supposed to do.
"Where were you all afternoon?"
"Out with Wendy," he told her as he finally closed the refrigerator and sat down on the table with a can of soda. Angela grunted under her breath.
"What were you two doing?" she dared to ask, knowing he would probably not give her a straight-forward answer.
"We were just hanging out." Michael stared out of the kitchen window to the great view they had of Los Angeles, thanks to their residency on a hilltop. Dodger's Stadium could even be seen from their spot. Angela remembered how she would find her son staring out this window for an endless amount of time as a youngster, but nowadays it seemed rare if he gave her a quick glance.
"By hanging out, what do you mean?" she knew she was pushing it, but didn't care.
"It means what it means."
"Hanging out doesn't really specify to anything."
Now her son's face became completely irritated. "Why are you being so poky? You know I went out and you can reach me on phone if you there's an emergency."
"I still would like to know where you're going and what you're doing," she argued rather agitated. "And I'm glad you made it home early, because your little sister is coming home a day early from her school trip, so the family is going out to eat after we pick her up."
"Okay." Michael paused for a moment before continuing to talk. "But mom, I'm not eight years old anymore. You don't have to monitor me every second of everyday, You know I feel like I don't have any control over my life if people do that. What, you don't trust me?"
"I didn't say that," Angela pointed out. This wasn't going well. She changed her frustrated tone to become friendlier. "It is not like you're a kid anymore, but don't try and become completely independent right away."
"I'm responsible. I can hold a job. I come home before curfew, I do my chores. I'm graduating high school in less than a month, but you still insist on the same rules from when I was thirteen," Michael argued. "You don't get how frustrating things have been for me lately. How much pressure there's been to be prepared for everything that's supposed to change in my life."
From this Michael stood from his seat and left the kitchen.
Angela sighed. That had gone well. Maybe once his little sister was home, she would be able to reach him.
Even though his little sister was returning home, Michael wasn't really that drawn into it; the fact that he was being stalked was occupying all this thoughts. Wendy had come along with him and his family to the bus station, per his mother's request.
"What's your little sister like?" she asked him.
"She's alright for the most part." They stood a short distance away from the rest of his family so they could talk privately. "So I was checking on the internet, and I found something about Hypnos therapy. That might help me gain my memory back."
"Michael, I don't really want to talk about any of this right now," she admitted. "And you shouldn't either. I mean look: your family is here, spending time together. Please just put this out of your mind for tonight, at least."
He slowly gazed at her in a frown. She couldn't blame him for being distracted, but if he didn't come out of this bad state of mind, he could become worse than he already was.
"There she is," Michael's mother announced from the station's gate. Wendy took Michael's arm, dragging him towards his family at the gate. "Tracy, honey, welcome home."
Angela embraced a young girl of eleven years of age. Wendy thought the girl to look very much like her brother; she had brownish-blond hair with a pale complexion that bonded well with her features. When she met Tracy's face, she also saw the same hazel-green eyes as Michael.
After her parents and sisters were took their turns hugging her, Tracy then walked up to her brother and wrapped her arms around his waist.
"Hey big brother. Anything new going on with you?" she asked in a sort of dreamy tone.
Finally, Michael's grim face became softer and he smiled slightly. "Well yeah. Tracy, this is Wendy. My girlfriend."
Tracy looked at Wendy with an expression of curiosity - no, not curiosity, more like judgment. The girl was obviously protective of her brother and was trying to contemplate on whether or not Wendy was somebody she could trust with her Michael.
"Hi Wendy." she offered her hand to the older girl. "Nice to meet you."
Wendy took it and felt the firm handgrip youngest of the Mules family had.
"So are we going to eat now?" Tracy asked anxiously.
Michael's grin became wider. "Yeah, we're going now. Come on."
He took Wendy's arm and Tracy went to stand on his other side as the family left the station.
We all want to be Ok. That can be a hard thing, though, when you're life is part of a big picture. Maybe what we need to think about rather than recovering from wounds is learning how to live with them.
- Michael Mules, Journal Entry
To Be Continued