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“Oi, Kelly,” Lenny said weakly. They were in the teachers’ lounge, the weekend after the incident with the mimic had happened. Elliot Kelly was just getting ready to pack up his stuff and move to his own quarters so Lenny felt like he couldn’t put his question off any longer. “Do you- I know you’re really busy with the students and stuff, but do you think you got time to, y’know, therapise me? Cuz I think I might need it.” He tried to be nonchalant about it, but saw in Kelly’s expression that he had failed in making it sound like not a big deal.
“Yeah, yeah, of course! Yeah, no problem, I’ll find a spot for you in my- eh…” Kelly thought for a second. “I have the fourth years tomorrow afternoon and most of them- well, last week most of them were fine. Of course, with the whole incident… Maybe I can make it a group session for them, then talk to… there’s one or two that I need to speak to individually, but the others, I’m sure they won’t mind having some extra free time. Does that sound good?”
“So tomorrow then, yeah?” Lenny asked, trying to confirm if he had understood Kelly’s rambling correctly.
“Yes! I’m not quite sure yet what time, but I’ll let you know tomorrow morning, is that okay?”
“That’s perfect, you’re a real one,” Lenny said and then he frowned. “I don’t wanna take any time away from the kids though. They been through it, for real. Are you sure it’s fine?”
Kelly nodded and tried to put his hand on Lenny’s shoulder, but Lenny took a step back. He really didn’t want anyone touching him right now. Who knew what might happen? Kelly smiled compassionately.
“It’s fine. Getting you back into healing shape is more important in the long run than talking with each individual kid tomorrow.”
That Monday afternoon, Lenny walked up the stairs to Elliot’s classroom, keeping his hands in his pockets. He was legit afraid to touch people, which sucked, because it was a huge part of his job. It was just Roland Thudberry who had been a problem, he knew. He had talked about it with Hinks and Singh and they were smart guys. Still, what if something like that happened again? And how would he heal Thudberry in the future? Because he couldn’t let the kid run around, getting hurt and not knowing how to deal with it.
The door to the classroom opened and Elliot let the fourth years out.
“Don’t forget your homework for next week,” he told them as they walked past him towards the stairs. “Especially now, journalling can be very helpful! And Darren,” he pulled one of the boys aside and lowered his voice, “I’ll see you in an hour, okay? You’ll be fine.”
“Thanks, Mr. Kelly,” Darren said, quickly looking over at his classmates to see if none were staring before giving Kelly a hug.
“Now, enjoy your free hour, do something you enjoy, yeah? What are you going to do?” Kelly asked, patting Darren on his back.
“See if I can help Mr. Hebden out with something,” Darren said. “We’re working on a really cool project together!”
“I wanna hear all about it in an hour!” Elliot promised. “Now, I have some things to discuss with nurse Lenny, so you go find Mr. Hebden.”
Darren nodded and ran off. Kelly watched him leave and then turned to Lenny.
“Sweet kid,” he said. “Very talented too.”
“Haven’t seen him much,” Lenny said and Kelly shook his head.
“He’s eh… not much of a risk-taker. Bit nervous. Anyway, you’re here for you, not for him. Come in.”
It had been a while since Lenny was in Kelly’s classroom. He didn’t visit the towers much, had no need to. Every now and again, he was called in if an accident happened, but that was usually in Control, not Respect. It was a real nice place, Kelly’s classroom. Cozy, with a circle of chairs, probably because they had just done a group thing, and house plants and dream catchers and pillows and that kind of shit. It was cute. Dusty, but cute. Kelly got busy putting the chairs in a corner and Lenny helped, even if Kelly protested that he didn’t need to.
“Let’s go sit somewhere comfortable,” Kelly suggested when the chairs were all stacked and put to the side. He pointed towards two armchairs in the corner of the room. “Do you want tea?”
“Do you got coffee?”
“I don’t, sorry,” Kelly held up a thermos. “It’s tea or water, I’m afraid.”
“Tea then, thanks.”
Kelly poured two mugs of tea and gave one of them to Lenny. He sat down on the other armchair and took as sip.
“So, how are you doing?” he asked.
“Shit,” Lenny said and Kelly nodded.
“I feel like asking ‘why’ sounds a bit ignorant,” he said, “but what I mean by that is: what makes it the most shit for you? What do you want to talk about?”
“Just-” Lenny looked at the ceiling and sighed, “fucking everything, mate. I’m afraid to heal, cuz I don’t want that shit happening again, know what I mean? And I- I hate that I hurt people. I’m not supposed to hurt people, that’s not my thing.”
“Has your curse never hurt anyone before?” Kelly asked.
“Nah mate, just me. Like, the puking up coal isn’t great and all, but it’s just shit for me. Sorry I’m swearing so much, I’m just-”
“No problem, there are no kids around”
“It’s just shit is what it is,” Lenny said, letting his head sink into his hands. Tears were welling up in his eyes. From the corner of his eye, he saw Kelly get up to comfort him and instinctively shrunk as if to dodge him. Luckily, Kelly was an observant guy and sat back down.
“Don’t you want to be touched?” Kelly asked and Lenny shook his head.
“As a kid I puked coal whenever I touched someone. I dunno man, who says that won’t happen again now that I’m in this shit shape?”
“Only one way to find out,” Kelly said, a lot more cheerfully than Lenny felt. “Ranjit and Matt said it was Roland’s curse that was the trigger, right? So it should be alright with mine.” He snickered. “Worst case scenario, we have a cute little coal goat.”
“Not funny, mate,” Lenny said.
“Sorry. I do think I’m a relatively safe person to try it on, though. Seriously. When you’re ready, of course.”
“Maybe.”
It was silent for a while. Lenny sat straight up again and took a sip from his tea – some kind of herbal mix. Wasn’t bad, he preferred black tea though.
“So many kids hurt people, or even kill people,” Lenny said after some more tea and deep breaths. “How do they deal with it?”
“It takes time,” Kelly answered. “Some never fully get over it. I… Well, this is just my observation, not something I was told or know for sure, but I’m pretty sure Ranjit is still dealing with it.”
“What, Singh?”
“Yeah, well, I shouldn’t go into it too much, because I’m just assuming and if he had told me, I shouldn’t be going into it either… but I feel like he was one of those boys who just made being a monster part of their identity to make sense of everything and he’s really trying to be a good and functioning guy and he’s doing a great job, but… I’m pretty sure it’s still in there. That monster identity. Anyway, we were talking about you, not Ranjit,” Kelly laughed. “What am I doing? I’m supposed to be good at this! So yeah, that is one of the coping mechanisms I see a lot, to accept the monster, but it’s not the healthiest way to deal with this. There are better ways.”
“Like how?”
“I think it’s important to realise that you never intended to hurt anyone,” Kelly said, leaning forward towards Lenny. “You were just doing your job and healing people.”
“That’s the scary part,” Lenny countered. “If I had intended to, I could just stop, you know?”
“I don’t think you need to ‘stop’ anything. You’ve never done any of this before and you’ll probably never do any of this again, right? It was just a weird interaction with Roland’s curse.”
“I hope so…” Lenny sighed.
“I know that Matt is dying to learn more about your curse too. That will help you as well,” Kelly said. “Then you know what went wrong and how to prevent that in the future. Lenny,” Kelly looked him in the eyes, “nobody blames you, okay? At least, I know I speak for the entire staff when I say you would’ve never done any of this on purpose. You’ve been a great healer for as long as you’ve been working here and now something unfortunate happened. We all have the potential to be dangerous, that’s just part of being cursed. I sometimes miscalculate my own strength – I broke a student’s nose by excitedly opening a door straight into his face. And even without curses… Kerry has sent students to your office before by clumsily tackling them or missing with her bola. We can’t let one mishap define us, okay?”
“Not quite the same,” Lenny said.
“Not quite, you were just a little more unlucky. But just let Matt do his research, I’m sure he’ll figure out what went wrong, he has a Master’s in this stuff after all, and don’t be afraid to knock on my door either. Alright?”
Lenny nodded slowly.
“Thanks, you’re too good for me, mate, for real.”
“You deserve it.”
Lenny shrugged.
“But you’re right that maybe I should, you know, get back on that horse,” he said. He tightened his lips, thinking for a second and then got up. “Can I hug you?”
“Of course!” Elliot exclaimed, jumping up. Lenny wrapped his arms around Elliot, who turned his head away to make sure his horns weren’t in the way.
Lenny focused hard on not letting his curse get the better of him, but after a second or so, he realised that it really wasn't that hard. He wasn’t 11 anymore, he got this. He leaned against Kelly, letting his chin rest on Kelly’s shoulder. A hug was something he had been needing for days now.