Disconnected

Ian and Logan pulled up to the school on their bikes and walked them into the cage to lock them up. They had both moved near each other the year before and had become friends when they met in 7th grade. Last year they had only had a couple of classes together, but this year they had lucked out and were in all the same classes. They were real happy about that. Over the summer the boys had gotten closer to each and they had spent a lot of time together. At the beginning of 7th grade they had separately come to the realization that they liked boys a lot better than girls. In the showers after PE, they found that they had to get through them quickly because since they were surrounded by naked boys in the showers, they found that they had to focus their attention on the fittings in front of them and kept their heads down as they made their way to their lockers to get dried off and dressed. Occasionally they did look around surreptitiously. Sometimes that almost got them in trouble as they started to feel stirrings below and they would hurry out of the shower, keeping their eyes averted.

That is how they met in the late spring, the year before.

Logan and Ian made their way to the homeroom class of Miz McGowan. They had gotten there a little early and watched as the rest of the class entered. They saw that some of the boys in the class had switched seats with some of the other students. The guy that had been sitting in the back row of the class had moved to the middle to sit next to a couple of the other students. It seemed like he had made friends with them. Before class started they saw that the long haired guy was turned around in his seat and was talking to the smaller guy who was sitting behind him. They appeared to have become another new pair of friends. They noticed that they seemed friendly with the other three.

Later that day, the two boys had just left the locker room and were on the way to the cafeteria when Logan stopped suddenly with a frown on his face. He started looking around as if he had heard something, like someone called him and he was trying to find where it came from.

"What is it Logan?"

"I don’t know? I…wait, c’mon Ian."

Logan walked quickly past the lunch shelters as he made his way to one of the buildings. He led the way inside the building and stopped just inside the entrance. He looked around as if he was searching for something. Then he quickly hurried to the other end of the building and went into the boy’s bathroom, Ian followed close behind. Once he was in the room, he started opening the doors to the toilets. At the second one he paused a moment before going inside.

"Ian!"

Ian hurried over to join Logan. When he could see inside the stall, he saw Logan helping a boy up from beside the toilet who was bleeding from his nose. Ian joined them and pulled a wad of toilet paper from the dispenser. He knelt down next to the boy.

"Tilt your head down."

The boy tilted his head down and Ian held the tissue to his nose. The boy cried out, "Ow!"

Ian pulled the tissue back for a moment and saw that the boy’s nose was starting to swell. His nose was still bleeding so Ian pressed the tissue back against the boy’s nose. As he held his hand against the boy’s nose he felt something that pulled on him, in a way. It was a weird feeling. As he looked at the boy, he suddenly felt like he was looking inside the boy. He shook his head and blinked his eyes a couple of times before looking at the boy again. He felt that pulling again, this time he went with it. He closed his eyes as he concentrated on what he was feeling. The feeling pulled him and soon he could feel something wasn’t right, uneven. He concentrated some more and he felt the uneven parts smooth out until they were even. He next felt some heated areas and he cooled those heated areas down until they matched the temperatures of the surrounding areas. After that he felt his mind pull back again.

"Hey, what did you do?"

"Huh."

"My nose, it doesn’t hurt anymore."

The boy pushed Ian’s hand away, "It’s not bleeding either."

Logan helped the boy get up and they all went over to the sinks where the boy cleaned the blood off his face. Ian shook off a slight spell of dizziness as he got up. When they saw him cleaned up, they recognized him. It was Sean from their classes. He was the guy who they had seen was friends with the Indian kid, Dakota.

Sean looked at Ian and then at Logan, "I’ve seen you in class, haven’t I?

"Yeah, we’re in all the same classes. I’m Ian and this is Logan.

"Nice to meet you guys, I’m Sean. What did you do anyway?"

"I don’t know what you mean. I only held tissues to your nose."

"But, there was something else. I don’t know what, but for a moment my nose felt weird and kind of tingly and then it didn’t hurt anymore."

"Well, uh, I didn’t do anything, but I’m glad you’re feeling better. What happened to you?"

"I was just coming out of the stall and someone slammed the door into my face hitting me in the nose and causing me to fall back down beside the toilet. I was dazed and didn’t see anyone but I did hear someone laughing before they left the room."

"It’s too bad you didn’t see anyone. Come on, it’s lunchtime, I’m hungry."

The three boys left the restroom and made their way to the cafeteria. When they got their lunches, Sean led them over to where his other friends were sitting.

Dakota saw them walking up, "Hey Sean, where’ve you been?"

"I went to the restroom. Hey guys, I want you to meet a couple of my friends. This is Logan and Ian. You probably know their names, since we all share the same classes, but just in case, this is Dakota, and that’s Dylan, Josh, and Jamie."

Everyone bumped fists in greetings. Sean gestured for them to sit down and they joined the group. The seven boys talked about their classes and home. Logan and Ian expressed their sympathy for both Josh and Jamie for losing their moms. They asked about Jamie’s dad and he told them what his mom had told him, that he had died when he was a baby.

"What is your foster family like, Jamie?"

"They’re alright. They have two kids, Shane and Mark. Shane is ten and Mark is seven, no eight, he just had a birthday. They’re cool kids. We play catch and video games. Maggie and Tom are okay, too. They’re not my mom, but they’re nice enough. My case worker though, she’s a bitch. I don’t think she likes kids much, which is strange since that’s who she deals with all the time."

"Well, at least you have a nice home. You’re not in one of those group homes. I’ve heard those can be bad."

"Yeah, I’m glad too. That would have really sucked…"

"What’s that Sean?"

Dakota was pointing at something on Sean’s collar. Sean looked down and saw that it was a drop of blood that had dripped just on the inside of his collar.

"It’s, uh, some blood, I guess."

Dakota frowned, "What happened Sean?" Dakota’s voice held a tone that threatened vengeance.

"Someone slammed the toilet stall door into my face and hit me on the nose. So it bled a little bit and that’s where Ian and Logan come in. They helped me."

Dakota looked stormy as he stood up from his seat and looked around.

"I’ll bet it was that bastard Calvin. Where is he? I’ll kick his ass."

"Dakota, I didn’t see who it was."

"Well, I’ll bet it was him anyway."

"Who’s this Calvin you’re talking about?"

"Calvin Grantham, he’s a fucking bully and he’s always messing with Sean, at least he used to. Although, since I’m usually around he hasn’t gotten much of a chance of doing anything lately."

"Well, we didn’t see anybody."

"I swear I’m not letting you out of my sight Sean."

"I don’t need a babysitter Dakota, so chill."

Dakota held his hands up in surrender at the heat in Sean’s voice. "Sorry. Just be careful and watch out for the bastard."

"I know, just…don’t worry, okay?"

"Okay, okay."

Logan looked over at Ian and raised an eyebrow and Ian gave him a knowing smile in return. The bell soon rang signaling the end of the lunch and they all split up to go get what they needed from their lockers before meeting up in class where they all sat together. Ian and Logan were now accepted as a part of the group of friends.

Later, on the way home, Ian and Logan were talking about Dakota and Sean.

"So, Dakota and Sean, are they a couple?"

Ian nodded, "Yeah, but I don’t think they’ve really admitted it. Dakota seemed really protective of Sean."

"I wonder when they’ll admit it to each other."

They both giggled as they continued on home. They stopped at Ian’s house and went to his room. Logan dropped his backpack on the floor and flopped down on the bed to watch as Ian got changed out of his school clothes. Logan liked the view of his boyfriend of course.

"Ian, so what happened with Sean in the restroom?"

Ian didn’t answer right away. He wondered if he should tell him what he had felt and then he thought of something else. He had forgotten about it until just then. He turned around with a speculative look on his face.

"What about you? Why did you go to that restroom?"

Logan looked down and picked at his fingernail for a little bit, before he looked up again. Ian was standing and leaning against his dresser looking at Logan with his arms crossed.

"I don’t know what it was, but when we came out of the locker room, I saw in my mind, Sean lying on the floor of the bathroom. I knew he was hurt and that he needed some help. Now you’re turn."

Ian nodded and came over to lie on the bed next to Logan. Logan rolled up onto his side and propped his head up with his hand. He waited until Ian decided to answer him.

"My mind did something too. When I was holding the tissues to his nose I felt something drawing me toward him. It felt like I was going inside him. I could feel something was wrong with his nose and something inside me…smoothed it over. Then I felt…heat around the area and I…I don’t know…cooled it down or something."

Logan rolled back so that he was looking up at the ceiling. Both of them were silent as they thought about what they had just told each other. After several minutes of silence they both rolled up on their sides so that they could look at each other.

"Ian, I think we should keep this between each other. I don’t think people would believe us for one. Well, maybe Sean would since he was the recipient of whatever you did, but I think we need to keep quiet about this."

"Yeah, but what does this mean? What is it?"

"I don’t know, but do you think it will happen again? I mean, whatever it was that I felt or saw or whatever, allowed us to help Sean. I mean, if it helps us help people, that’s pretty cool."

Ian nodded and then he scooted over and gave Logan a kiss which was returned with enthusiasm. When they broke apart a few minutes later, Logan gave Ian a regretful look, and got up.

"I guess I better get home."

"Okay. I’ll walk you out."

Logan retrieved his backpack from the floor and left the room with Ian behind him. Just before they opened the door, they exchanged one more kiss.

"See you tomorrow and if you have any more of those feelings or whatever, tell me, I want to know and I’ll do the same."

"Of course, see ya."

Logan hopped on his bike and rode home. Ian went back inside and went to his bedroom to work on his homework. Later that night, after dinner, he was in his room absently flipping through the channels, not really watching much of anything. Then he landed on the A&E channel and it showed a couple of teenagers who were walking through a house with a couple of older people. He watched and found out that the show was called Paranormal Children. He watched as these two kids were telling the older couple what they were feeling and seeing. It seemed that they were somehow able to connect with some people who had died and were sort of communicating in some way.

When the show was over, he turned the TV off and went over to his desk to get onto the computer. He wanted to check a couple of things out. He opened up Google and typed ‘Paranormal’. Millions of sites came up. He looked at the first page and nothing jumped out at him. He typed ‘Paranormal Healing’. There were millions of results on that, again he read the first page, he saw things about natural healing, spiritual healing. On the next page he saw something about psychic healing and thought that sounded interesting. He cleared the search and changed it to ‘Psychic Healer’. That narrowed the search to a few million instead of tens of millions. He got results on psychic healing and readings, spiritual healing and energy healing. He chose one website and opened it.

For the next hour he looked through several sites that talked about the different types of healings and readings. He found one that had a place where you could ask questions about psychic healing. He read through some of the questions and answers that were on the site, but nothing there seemed to tell him anything. He saw a link that said Psychic Healing Chat Room. He moved the mouse over it and hesitated for a few moments before clicking on it. The link led him to another website. The title at the top read:

‘Psychic Healers Chat

He looked over the page and saw a link that said: Join Chat.

Again, he hesitated for a moment before he clicked it. A window popped up and he was asked to enter a name. The instructions in the small window said that a person’s real name was not necessary; it was just something that he could use in the chat room. There were also warnings about giving out personal information unless you knew the person you were chatting with, etc. He thought about it for a moment and then typed ‘Row’ which was part of his last name.

He found himself in the chat room. For several minutes he just read what other people were talking about in there. There were people asking questions about if it really worked. He hoped someone would ask about how someone knew that they could do this. He again didn’t find anything and he didn’t want to look weird by asking so he was getting ready to logout when an IM window popped up.

Ian was shocked for a moment but then he figured that maybe this person was a moderator or administrator or something and could see who was in the chat room and the person’s job was to help people take part or answer their questions about taking part. He almost got out right away but something kept him on the site. He wasn’t sure but, he was real curious yet he wanted to be careful.

Ian looked and saw that there were a couple of different colored buttons there. The IM window blinked out. He waited for a moment and then clicked the blue button. The small IM window popped open again.

Ian was waiting for Psyealer to continue when his Dad came to his door.

"Ian, its late son, you need to turn the computer off and get to bed."

Ian turned around in his chair and nodded.

"Okay Dad."

His dad patted the door frame a couple of times and walked away. Ian turned back to the computer and started typing.

He logged off and shut down his computer for the night. Once in bed, he couldn’t shut his mind off as he thought about what Psyealer had told him. He wanted to talk to Logan about this. He couldn’t wait until tomorrow. He wondered if he could learn to use this gift better. All these thoughts kept him awake for a little longer than normal, but he finally got to sleep.

---

The person called Psyealer looked at his computer screen for a few moments, before logging out and opening a file on his computer. He started typing something into a file on his computer before he shut down his computer and went to bed himself.