Free At First Touch by Mattie Dunman

I might never have found out what happened to you.” His lips tightened with emotion and I felt tears spring to my eyes. Suddenly I didn’t feel so bad about what I had done. The thought of never seeing my dad again, knowing what it would do to him if he lost me wiped out any consideration I might have had for Fitz.
    “You’re right, Dad. I guess I was just freaked out.” He nodded and released my hand.
    “Now tell me more about this Carey,” he said and I blushed. “Hmm…well, maybe we don’t have to talk about him right now.” He gave me lopsided grin and I laughed, relaxed and happy in his company. He always seemed to know what to say.
    “Do you want to order pizza for dinner?” I asked. We did a lot of takeout since we kept our cooking supplies at a minimum for ease of packing. We hadn’t found a decent Chinese restaurant in town yet, so pizza seemed like the best option.
    “Yeah, that sounds good. Pineapple on yours?”
    We discussed our options and then he called the town’s only pizza joint and we settled in front of the TV together to wait. The rest of the evening followed our usual pattern; we ate and he told me about his new job, he watched TV while I did my homework at the kitchen table, then we went out to the garage to go through our training session. This month we were working on kickboxing and used a punching bag Dad had managed to find at a yard sale in Cleveland. Finally around nine-thirty, I took a bubble bath and put on my pajamas. It occurred to me that I hadn’t heard from Carey, but as I didn’t have his number I couldn’t do much about it, so I curled up in bed with a Gwen Bristow book I’ve read about a hundred times and read until I fell asleep.
     

Chapter 5
    The alarm went off at six-thirty and I moaned. My sleep had been restless and interrupted by noxious dreams. Koko was sitting firmly on my legs, so I cuddled him to me and took a few moments to tell him what a smart kitty he was. The cat was one of the few things I had left from my old life, before the accident. Dad banged on the door and told me to get a move on, so I placed Koko on my pillow and dragged myself out of bed.   
    I shuffled across the hall and threw myself in the shower, letting the warm water bring my skin into tingling wakefulness. I washed my hair and scrubbed clean with jasmine scented body wash and felt much more human when I got out of the shower and wrapped a towel around my hair. Dad shouted goodbye, and told me to call him if anything strange happened today; he would have his phone turned on, and would be home before I got back from school. I told him to have a good day and then poured myself a bowl of cereal as he went tramping noisily out the back door. I had just finished breakfast when my cell phone rang; I answered it anxiously since there was only one other person besides my dad that knew the number.
    “Hello?”
    “Hey, Liz. It’s Carey.” I felt a grin stretch my face and rolled my eyes at myself. Really, I had to nip this in the bud.
    “Oh, hi Carey. What’s up?” I tried to keep my voice nonchalant, but I couldn’t help the twinge of excitement I felt at hearing his voice over the phone.
    “Um, I told you I’d call about what happened yesterday.”
    “Right.”
    “Do you have a ride to school, or can I pick you up? We could talk about it on the way.”
    “No, I was just going to catch the bus. Are you sure you don’t mind?”
    There was a pause and I heard him laughing softly. “No, I don’t mind. I’ll pick you up at a quarter to eight. Where do you live?” I gave him directions and we said goodbye.  Grinning wide enough to split my face, I cleaned up my breakfast and rushed into my room to brush and dry my hair. I laid flat on my stomach and blow dried my hair with my head upside down; a little trick my mother had taught me for giving my hair more body.  It took about ten minutes to get it dried and styled just right; glancing at the clock I saw I had thirty minutes