Empath (Book 1 of the Empath Trilogy) Read online

  Copyright 2010 by HK Savage

  Staccato Publishing

  Zimmerman, MN

  First US Edition: December 2010

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  ISBN: 978-0-9835742-1-7

  Printed in the USA

  Empath

  by HK Savage

  Ch. 1

  My head felt like it was going to burst. “It’s part of the whole college experience Mom,” I fell back on the same argument I’d given a thousand times as I wandered around my room. Packing my things, I tried to ignore the sense of failure accompanying the stabbing pains in my head and wrenching in my stomach, reminding myself none of them were mine.

  “Claire, I just don’t know why you can’t stay here with us while you ease into college life. There’s no need to rush. So much is going to be changing for you and I want you to do well. You know how hard it is for you to make friends.” Jeanette, my mother, was overreacting as usual as she sat on my bed playing idly with a loose string on my comforter looking like she was going to cry. Again. Great. My eyes welled up.

  She was right. It was hard for me to make friends but not for the reasons she thought. She was under the impression I was a loner by choice not out of necessity. But it was that necessity that was giving me a headache right now and making me feel like I wanted to cry. I didn’t want to cry, she did. That was my problem, empathy and too much of it.

  I can feel what others are feeling so strongly that it’s not just a “feeling” it’s a real feeling. I can feel it like it’s mine, which makes being around other people really hard for me. I would describe it as being at an incredibly loud 3-D movie that is turned up so loud you can’t hear yourself think and everything seems like it’s just all around, so there isn’t any sort of break or relief from all of it. What I have is not a choice but an affliction and I have been this way ever since I can remember. The only way I have ever found that I can limit the effect on me is to avoid being close to people. Proximity is difficult, but touching is terrible and that is yet another reason my mother was so upset with me at the moment. She thought I didn’t want to touch her or hug her. I wanted to, I just couldn’t.

  Now, here she was about to cry. That’s always one of the worst things I have to deal with, it’s so raw and painful especially when it’s because of me. To stay was to keep the cycle going and leaving made me insensitive. Either way we both lose. It has been slowly driving me insane for the past nineteen years and most of my family thinks I’m socially retarded. Now, I had my chance to escape right here in front of me and I was taking it whether she was okay with it or not, it was the only hope either of us had for a somewhat normal relationship.

  “Mom, you can’t cry about this,” I tried gently to disparage her fear while I wiped at my nose now running just like hers. “I will be fine and you know it. You’ve always said you wished you could have gone off to school and now, here you are, trying to keep me from doing it. If I stay here while I go, it’s no different from the last twelve years of school.” As expected I felt the stab of guilt and knew I’d hit home.

  My mother had grown up in Iowa with parents too busy with farm life and duties to see their daughter needed their attention and love. As soon as my father, a relatively handsome and gentle man with plans to enlist in the army after school had shown some interest, she had latched on and they had eloped at seventeen.

  The life of an Army wife suited my mother quite well. My father was usually relocated every few years and she got to try on all sorts of different towns and lives for herself. Always searching for something that would make her feel complete whether it was new friends, running, reading circles, quilting groups, anything to take over her attentions and make up for the fact that her family was not what she had hoped. She had grown up dreaming of a big, happy family with lots of kids and their friends always at the house and filling it with their noise and energy. She was made for that kind of thing, with the chasing after and busy of it all. Instead she got me, a socially limited kid who didn’t go out much except for the few outings to movies and dinner a few times a semester I could muster with the relatively small group of girls who were not completely weirded out by my odd behavior.

  Because I have never found anyone else with a curse like mine, I have never been able to talk about it or figure out if there’s any way to shut it off. My only defense has been to keep my own emotions wrapped up tight and keep a safe distance from everyone else. Oh, and I hold my breath a lot. It seems to help when physical contact is unavoidable.

  Not understanding the phenomenon myself, I can’t explain it. Now that I am older, I still don’t. But the whole, “it’s not you, it’s me” argument didn’t carry a lot of weight when I tried to have it with her a few years ago. I saw how her perceived failures were eating her from the inside and adding to her growing substance abuse problems. How could I not feel responsible? Since that discovery, I have actually had to withdraw almost entirely from her if I am to keep even a small part of my sanity and I have no idea how to heal the rift that now stands between us.

  The best thing I can do now, for both of us, is to get away. I have been waiting for this day my whole life although my enthusiasm is of course tempered by a few of the hurdles I can see standing readily before me. School has never been very hard for me. Little social time leads to lots of study time. However, living in a dorm with a pack of overly emotional girls who are finally getting a chance to be relatively unsupervised with a pack of overly hormonal boys. Oh the joy that is going to be. The difference is that I am better able to insulate myself from strangers’ emotions. I can feel anyone, but I’ve noticed that it takes some exposure and personal connection for me to feel them intensely. Once I have their feel, I can’t even lose it in a crowded room. It is just there, on my periphery until I put some actual distance between us. Thus, the need for my own room on campus. A roommate would be a nightmare.

  Now, here I am about to head off to Augsburg College, a small, private school in Minneapolis. As much as I would like to move far away, I just couldn’t do that to Mom. She needed me to come home on weekends and holidays and I am terrified (probably because she is) of heading off to some strange state, too risky if I completely fall apart. I chose a private school not because of the prestige but because of the small classes. As one could imagine, crowds are pretty hard for me to handle.

  “Any more boxes? I don’t know how much more will fit in the van,” my father, Doug’s voice drifted up the stairs and with it a welcome sense of calm I eagerly tapped into feeling my nose and eyes clear at once. A life of barking orders had never transferred to his volume in the house, thank goodness. Dad came through the doorway to the bed where Mom was still sitting. He rested a hand lightly on her shoulder with a nervous glance at her face. Poor Dad. Mom was going to be difficult for a while if her current state was any indication. Her despair was increasing by the minute. I could taste it and feel the air being squeezed from my lungs as I suffocated on her need to keep me close.

  “Just this one more bag Dad and I think we can go.”

  “Okay, I’ll meet you down at the car. “ He pulled away gently from my mother with a last lingering pat on her shoulder which she did not acknowledge, grabbed the bag from the bed and gave me a slight, tight lipped smile that did not reach his eyes. His anxiety was growing in direct response to Mom’s grief and I was relieved when he went downstairs before both of them were a wreck.

  I needed to leave this sick cycle before I officially went nuts!

  On the surface, they looked like such a normal couple. Dad was balding a little o
n top through his crew cut brown hair but always had a strength in his hazel eyes that I relied on for stability in my darkest times. Mom was a brunette like me with her hair just past her shoulders in the typical mom bob. Her eyes, light brown, were always a little pinched at the edges, too tight for genuine warmth.

  Dad was great at locking down his emotions. It made us work pretty well together. The bummer was that I didn’t really know what he was thinking unless I tried. It must be what normal people have to put up with when interacting with others. It was not a bad thing, just different. Dad had been shutting down emotionally for years what with a bit of an emotionally crippled wife and distant daughter who could blame him. Then, there was a lifetime of military training. Not really a breeding ground for warm and fuzzy behavior. I did feel bad for him though, now that he was retired, he had nothing to do with himself except for his woodworking. It was no wonder he spent so much time in his workshop.

  We live in Richfield, Minnesota. Minnesota is a state with a surprisingly lively boutique furniture trade. Dad had always found woodworking comforting and constant in his perpetual job transfers over the years. He had developed quite a knack for furniture design as well. A crib for a friend, new chair for a co-worker, he was always working on something. It just surprised us when it turned out the local boutiques were able to sell his designs for a pretty penny, which let him supplement their retirement income and help send his only daughter to a nice school with minimum need for student loans. I would also be working on campus in the library but that was okay with me. My first love was books and I felt perfectly at home in a library.

  I made a last inspection of my now relatively bare room I had spent the last few years in and looked at Mom. I couldn’t think of anything new or comforting to say to her. Whether she knew it or not this was the best thing for all of us. Hurriedly I held my breath and touched her shoulder. She closed her eyes as the tears started and I walked quickly out the door.

  Things just have to be better away from here. At least they’ll change.

  ****

  It was Sunday evening. Dad had left a few hours ago after helping me unload the few boxes of “must haves” that I brought with me to start my college adventure. He was more than happy to help set up my confusing electronics for me in a very dad like way. Stereo, microwave and mini fridge were now all set up and, being a good daughter, I pledged that the fridge would never hold an alcoholic beverage. No worries there, I had yet to sample alcohol beyond a sip or two. The lowering of inhibitions made my curse all the more difficult to bear so I pretty much shied away from it or anyone under the influence.

  So, here I sat on my newly elevated bed which was perched on a very sturdily, and stylishly built, wooden loft by my dad. From this vantage point, not only could I look all around my ten by ten room, but I could also see out my rather large window on the far wall. The easily four-foot wide opening overlooked the freeway on the far edge of campus near me but was so high up, I kind of liked it. It made me feel like I was removed from it all. My own little penthouse suite, I smiled to myself.

  With classes starting tomorrow, it probably wasn’t a bad idea to get the lay of the land before I would have to perform under pressure. I figured now was as good a time as any to go find the cafeteria. I could vaguely remember from orientation this summer that it was in the main building which seemed to house everything such as the bookstore, student services, and of course food. The self-guided tour would give me an excuse to wander around and give this experiment a test run. What would it be like to be around this many strangers in an anonymous setting? And, could I really hope to be more sane away from home or was I going to crack up before I turned twenty?

  ****

  Dinner hadn’t been extraordinary. There were a number of students getting food when I reached the cafeteria at seven. They mostly looked like freshmen, also trying to get their bearings.

  I wasn’t very hungry; I’ve never been able to eat when my stress level is up. Instead of a real meal, I grabbed a yogurt and an apple. The apple was portable and could easily accompany me to my room for later. The yogurt gave me something to do with my hands while I watched as all of the lost and scared droves came through in tightly bunched groups, not unlike sheep. They milled about together as they grabbed trays, grouped while the last of their number got their trays filled and then shuffled over to the tables together.

  The good news was I discovered that by sitting a few feet away and ignoring eye contact, I was able to ignore most of the emotional output around me. Because I didn’t know any of these people, their emotions remained at a relatively low hum. My optimism grew.

  Ch. 2

  Freshmen 101 classes. My biggest fear. Large, auditorium type setting with way too many people all crammed together and not caring enough about the class to sit quietly and focus. When people focused on their note taking in class, obviously, their ability to emote was greatly reduced. For this reason, I wished all of my classes could be Calculus.

  First up on the menu for the day was Psychology 106. This class was going to be a challenge. Not only were we going to sit in an auditorium once a week for over an hour, we would also be expected to break into smaller groups to discuss emotional subject matter according to the syllabus I’d gotten with my class assignment.

  Girls were usually more honest about how they felt on their feelings, but make no mistake, the guys were equal parts trouble for me. I once threw up in tenth grade Psychology when Todd Adams, my seat partner, had a strong response to our discussion on the effects of violent crime. We were too close together and I couldn’t get away quite in time to avoid his strong flash. The first gut-wrenching wave had taken my breath away and hearing it, he had put his hand on my arm pulling me into his emotional memory with him. I felt his terror tied up with his memory of being held at gunpoint with his mother when he’d been young. Knees weak and unable to stand, I had thrown up right there in the aisle. Thank goodness I had turned my head at least and avoided hitting anyone though the damage to my reputation had been permanent.

  I was hopeful that by college my peers would be better able to control themselves just as I hoped I was as well. As class was released, I took my time to gather my books giving me the opportunity to avoid the crush of a mass exodus, plus I had a few hours before my next class and I was in no particular hurry. When I did leave the lecture hall just a few minutes later, the hallway was nearly empty with just a few lost underclassmen jogging to make it to their next class on time. I wandered down the hall and turned to go down some short stairs toward the doors leading out into the quad, the open park like square in the center of the main cluster of buildings. University Center was my goal, it was the main building housing the bookstore where I had seen some books I might want to kill some time with over the next few weeks in my anticipated free time and it was only a few yards across the quad from me.

  I was pretty well in my own head and at peace due to the crowd control and stranger factor allowing me some much needed quiet time. I was reveling in it actually. It had been a long time since I had enjoyed such a reprieve from the typical static of my curse.

  So, it was like a shockwave hitting me in the chest as I came around the corner at the bottom of the stairs and felt the terror and fury clashing before I could hear it. They were speaking so quietly I’m sure no one just walking past would think it was more than a minor disagreement and not even worth a second glance. However, given my sensitivities, I felt the underlying intensity and it took my breath away.

  There was a slight, borderline delicate looking student with honey colored hair holding his books in front of his chest like a shield. His huge hazel eyes were staring impossibly wide at his antagonist.

  Sturdily built with a muscular frame that had to come in over five foot seven and no visible fat on her she was a formidable woman. Her thick mane of honey colored hair was the same shade as the boy’s but long enough to be pulled into a sloppy bun. She was clad basically, wearing a pair of jeans, and a baggy black
t-shirt that did absolutely nothing for her light coloring and large size. But it wasn’t only her size that made her frightening. It was the rage and threat of violence undetectable to an outsider in her hushed tone. Her upper lip curled over her teeth in a snarl as she pointed at him from about two feet away and spoke low and intense.

  The two were similar enough in coloring that I thought they must be related and maybe it was a dust up between brother and sister, but even if they were family, this felt like it was getting scary and I was being tossed about between her fury and his terror beating against me like an ocean’s undercurrents. It was completely disorienting.

  Maybe that was why in an entirely uncharacteristic move, I stepped up to the boy and interposed myself with my back to the girl and asked with concern. “Can I help?” The boy looked at me suddenly and tried to hide his worry by looking down and shuffling his feet. He was embarrassed. With my ability to feel his turmoil, anything he said wouldn’t hide what I really saw. What I felt. This kind of emotional intensity cut right through my precarious armor of anonymity.

  “It’s alright, I’m alright,” he mumbled quickly as he pushed an invisible pebble with the toe of his black Converse.