Free Protected by the HERO by Kelly Cusson

scar that went along the right side of his head.
    “Hey Melina…who’s your friend?” Jayden said. He had pale skin and big eyes. He could be handsome if he wasn’t so gaunt and lanky. Jayden’s eyes were glued to Melina though. He clearly saw me there, but she was his only focus, almost as if she were his lifeline.
    “Jayden, this is Caleb…we’ve been dating for a few weeks now and I really like him. I wanted you to meet him,” she said slowly and Jayden’s eyes swung over to me.
    “Caleb…yeah, she’s spoken about you. I think she might love you already, but she’s too hardheaded to admit it.” Jayden spoke bluntly and I glanced down at Melina whose cheeks were turning red.
    “Well it’s no secret how I feel about Melina,” I said and glanced down at her with sincerity in my eyes.
    “And how is that?” Jayden asked. He leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms over his chest. I honestly didn’t imagine he’d act so normally. Melina said his memory was bad, but clearly he remembered her talking about me. I grew a bit nervous and glanced down at Melina. She was looking up at me with her eyebrows raised.
    “Calm down man, I’m just rattling you. Come on in,” I think both Melina and I breathed a small sigh of relief. I knew I was done for when it came to her, I knew she had my heart. But I didn’t know how she’d react to me telling her I loved her. Jayden lived alone, though Melina had mentioned that he had a nurse who came to help him occasionally.
    Things were going perfectly fine while we visited with Jayden. He was funny, even though he sometimes lost sense of time or his surroundings.
    Of course I got too comfortable though. Jayden wanted to cook dinner with Melina, and they needed pasta and sausage. I was supposed to run down to the store a couple of blocks away and instead decided to jump from the hallway. I got the food and jumped back to Jayden’s door. Melina was waiting outside in the hall for me with her arms crossed and her face deathly pale.
    “What are you?” she asked me, her tone and expression both horrified. My heart thundered in my chest and I gripped the plastic bag in my hand tightly as my mind raced. How would she take it all, would she freak out and bolt if I told her the truth? Melina continued, “I was running out after you to tell you to get ice cream and I saw you holding out your hand and then…you stepped forward and just disappeared . So I stayed out here to make sure what I saw was real and then you just…you just reappeared out of thin air with the groceries! Did you… teleport ? Can you teleport?” Melina demanded and I took a deep breath and nodded.
    “Yes…I can teleport…and I can time travel,” I said in a low voice and Melina’s mounting anger froze as she digested all of that.
    “Why didn’t you tell me before? Why did you hide such a big part of yourself from me? You don’t have like a family on each continent or something do you?” she asked, her tone again horrified. I took a step towards her and she backed up against the door. I stopped and then took a deep breath to explain everything to her.
    “I’ll tell you the truth then, because I don’t want to lose you…I—well I saw you get hit by a truck. It’s supposed to happen in a couple of hours. I was leaving the sports bar a couple blocks down and you were walking to the subway. Your scarf blew off of your shoulder and into the street and you didn’t see the truck coming. You were hit and you were dying. I knew I could save you if I went back in time so I did…” I trailed off and then took a cautionary step towards her.
    “I was dying…? And you came back to save my life?” she asked slowly and I nodded.
    “I did, I couldn’t just let you die, it was unfair, it would have been too soon,” I said. She looked up at me with tears in her eyes. I became unsure and wondered how the hell I could have made her cry with any of that.
    “So all of this, you spending time