Free Bulletproof (Healer) by April Smyth

meet a hazard that I can’t overcome,” I explain steadily. 
                  “Do you worry about that?” Gabe asks. “Your time running out?”
                  I shrug my shoulders and bite my bottom lip. Do I think about a day in the future when I will no longer be Miracle Girl? Yes. Does it worry me? I don’t know. It is evident I’m searching for something that is too perilous; something that I can’t overcome so I can show that I, like everybody else, have weakness. First, the extreme sports magazines and then the avid passion for vampires. Yes, I assumed, I prayed that one day the day would come when I could live and breathe an ordinary life but it didn’t frighten me. When it came I would embrace it like an old friend. “No, I don’t think so,” I say but I don’t explain why and he doesn’t ask me either. We revert to silence but for once it is comfortable. I read my magazine and look out of the window into the blue sky and white clouds which makes me think of Rose’s study. If I ever got to decorate a room, it would be exactly like that. Free as a bird, exploring the world at my own leisure, high in the sky.
     
                 
                    I must have dozed off during the flight because the next thing I know Gabe is digging his elbow into my side and telling me to wake up. “We’re here,” he whispers. 
                  I am dizzy with anticipation of what I will see, smell and hear when I step off of the plane. I am already having conversations in French in my mind with the limited vocabulary that I have. I can almost taste the alien foods on my tongue. The patisseries filled with creamy, spongy, delightful cakes of pastel pinks and yellows. 
                  I wish dad and Shannon were here with me. Especially Shannon. She has fought with my dad for as long as I can remember to convince him to take us away for a long weekend to see the sights we only know from postcards and television advertisements. Before she met my dad, when she was my age, Shannon dreamed of bag packing across Europe but little did she know in three years time she would meet a charming man, settle down and marry him only to discover he didn’t share the same enthusiasm for culture as she. 
                  We are back in another airport and Gabe and I are back in our pretence of couple status. He holds my hand but this time our fingers are completely intertwined. Although it is feigned, I’m comforted by this gesture. I am abroad for the first time. These emotions I’m feeling are as foreign to me as the exquisite food and thick accent. So Gabe’s cooling touch is the weight I need to steady me. 
                  He grabs our bags from the conveyor belt which amuses me momentarily. At the exit, we find a man standing with a piece of card which has the name CASSIE MUELLER and an adorable character of a grinning Frenchman complete with a twirling moustache and baguette in hand. The man is short, round and has a bright red face like he has been running up flights of stairs before meeting us. Gabe appears to know him but speaks to him with minimum interest, “Afternoon Chec.”
                  The plump man named Chec ignores Gabe and shakes my hand which startles me. I decide I must get used to strangers being overly zealous to me because it seems to be happening a lot. “Bonjour my dear Cassie,” disappointingly Chec is not French. “I’m Chester Wright but everyone calls me Chec.” I don’t ask why nor do I care. This man’s excessively cheerful face is infuriating me, I try to attribute this to my travelling as I might just be cranky. And try to be as pleasant as possible.
                  “Hi, it’s nice to meet you.”
                  “Maurice told me you were beautiful but I didn’t think you’d be this stunning,” he chuckles and I feel uncomfortable. It’s strange