Gather the Sentient by Amalie Jahn

lot longer so I could heal without feeling the pain, but I woke up,” she explained, her voice raspy from the recently removed intubation tube.  “The doctor said I’m pretty messed up.”
    He felt an immediate pang of guilt for causing her to experience undue suffering, but he consoled himself with the knowledge it would be short lived.  “You got hit by a car, Andrea.  You’re lucky to be alive.”
    She lowered her eyes, obviously not wanting to speak about the accident.
    “It’s not your fault.”  He reached out to touch her hand.  Her fingers were like ice.
    She shifted uncomfortably beneath the sheet, but he refused to let her pull away.  “It was actually all my fault,” she said at last.  And then she met his gaze.  Her lids drooped under the weight of the medication.  “I told him I was done.”
    Jose couldn’t hide his anger, crying out far louder then he’d intended.  “So he hit you with a car?!”
    She yanked her hand away then, the beeps from the heartrate monitor on the wall increasing in speed.
    “I knew how he’d react, and I still took your misguided advice to leave.  I’m not at all surprised this is where I landed.”  She looked down the length of the bed at her mangled body.  “It would probably be better if I was dead.”
    He didn’t like listening to her speaking so matter-of-factly about her own demise and knew he needed to intervene.  “What if I could take away the pain?  What if I could make you better?”
    She scoffed.  “Last time I checked you weren’t wearing a white coat, Jose.”
    He’d never shared his secret with anyone else.  Not his parents.  Not his sister.  Not his best friend.  He wasn’t sure he wanted to share it now, but he couldn’t think of any other way to save Andrea’s life.  And although she probably wouldn’t believe him initially, she would realize he was telling the truth once she was cured.
    “When I was nine, I found a bird and unintentionally saved its life by simply holding it in my hands.  Then there was this hurt dog I completely cured just by touching it.  After that, I healed everything I could find – animals hit by cars, my family’s cuts and bruises while they slept, homeless people in the park.  I don’t know how it works, and I don’t know why I can do what I do, but when I say I can heal you, believe me that I can.”
    She studied his face, as if to distinguish whether he could be trusted.  “Bullshit,” she said.
    He shrugged, not the slightest bit offended by her disbelief.  “Why do you think you came out of the coma?  It’s because I needed to talk to you.”
    “Oh, fabulous.  Thank you.  I’m so much better now that I’m not blissfully unaware of how much pain I’m actually in.  You’re a terrific doctor.”  It was obvious by the sarcasm in her voice that she didn’t believe a single word he’d said.
    He scooted his chair a few inches closer to the bed and took her hand again.  She surprised him by not pulling it away.  “I’m sorry you’re in pain and I can make it go away, but only if you promise me you’re going to let me help you get out of the abusive situation that keeps landing you in the hospital.”
    She squeezed his hand condescendingly, the way an overbearing adult might do to a naïve child.  “Listen, Jose, I don’t know why you’re even here.  Is it because I confided in you the other day and now you think you’re going to swoop in and rescue me?  Because let me be the first to tell you, I don’t need another knight in shining armor.  I already had one of those, and he ran me over with a car.”
    He was starting to lose confidence.  Maybe convincing her to take his help was going to be harder than he thought.  Maybe there wasn’t anything he could do to change her mind.  He would continue to see her month after month in the ER.  Until she showed up one last time in a body bag.
    And that wasn’t an option.
    “I don’t want to save you.  I don’t