CHAPTER THREE – HEAT WAVE

Cassie and Kari sped to school in Kari’s old Corolla. They were on the main two-lane highway that led into town. Cassie tensed and held onto the door as Kari followed the relatively sharp curve in the road. She feared one day the poor Corolla would just rip itself apart. The door panels were only duct-taped to the frame. The windows rattled with each gust of wind and the heater was barely working. Not that this bothered Cassie, because the heat in her was rising again.

 

I think its getting worse. But how much hotter can I get until I burst into flames? Cassie wondered as she clenched her hands over her thighs.

 

“Goddamned defogger. It’s on the fritz again! I swear I’ve got to get some money to fix my poor baby up,” Kari complained as she used the sleeve of her jacket to wipe a circular patch of frost off the windshield. “Sometimes I feel like I’m driving by memory alone. Forget actually seeing the road, use the Force, Kari!”

 

“Maybe I could give you some of my work money to pay for a tune-up? After all, my life is in your hands, too,” Cassie offered.

 

Kari flashed her an impish grin. “You don’t believe in my Jedi powers?”

 

“Ah, not quite, young padawan. You need to get some practice in,” Cassie said, wryly.

 

“I find your lack of faith disturbing,” Kari said, deepening her voice and adding in a little asthmatic breathing to imitate Darth Vader.

 

“Now I know we’re both sleep deprived if we’re doing Star Wars’ imitations in the car,” Cassie said then shifted uncomfortably as a trail of sweat began to slide down the back of her neck.

 

She unzipped her jacket; plucking at the front of the gray hoodie she wore to fan herself with it. She even surreptitiously leant towards the rattling window, praying for some of the cold drafts to reach her. Would Kari notice if she rolled the window down? Undoubtedly. And that last thing she wanted was for Kari to know how weird she’d been feeling lately. Her best friend would have insisted, money or no, that she go to the doctor. So Cassie put on a bright face and ignored the waves of pain and heat when around the other girl, but Cassie’s hope to keep her predicament completely unnoticed failed.

 

“Hey, you sick?” Kari asked. “You’re all flushed and –”

 

“No,” Cassie answered too quickly then gave her a grin. “I’m just smoking hot. Too hot for my jacket. Too hot for my –”

 

“You better not be too hot for your jeans!” Kari teased back.

 

“No, don’t worry, those stay on,” Cassie said and strove not to push the overheated skin of her cheek against the window’s cold glass. Frost covered most of the windshield and now was wrapping around to the side windows. It looked deliciously cool to Cassie, but it certainly wasn’t helping Kari see the road. “Seriously though, Kari, I should help you pay for some repairs.”

 

“No, you are not giving me one more dime of your college money, Cass. You’re already doing enough chipping in for gas,” Kari said, flinging her hand dramatically up in front of Cassie’s face. “I will figure out a way to pay for the baby here. Maybe I will hit up that awesome dad of mine for the money. He’s been asking me forever what I want for my b-day. I’ll just say car repairs.”

 

Kari’s parents had divorced when she was 12-years-old. Even though her father had moved away much like James had, Kari was still in constant communication with him. She is and always will be the apple of her father’s eye, Cassie thought with a twinge of jealousy.

 

“Damnit,” Kari hissed under her breath as once again the cleared area of the windshield began to frost over.

 

Cassie wished she could focus the heat in her body onto the glass and clear a space for Kari to see. Without really thinking about it, she reached forward and lightly touched the windshield. At first, only the ice directly beneath the pads of her fingers dissolved as it normally would, but then Cassie felt a little flare of warmth go from her fingers and into the glass. Quarter-sized sections of frost melted away in less than a second.

 

C’mon, you can do it, Cassie told herself, not sure what she meant by that. She envisioned the windshield completely clear of frost and the car filled with warmth. She pushed that image forward in her mind so that she didn’t even see the car as it actually was anymore, but only as she wanted it to be.

 

“Whoa!” Kari yelled.

 

Cassie jerked back in her seat. “What?”

 

“It just got really hot in here. Didn’t you feel it? Holy cow, the heater must be working! Woo hoo! Look at the windshield, totally frost-free. Awesome, awesome, awesome,” Kari said, as she affectionately patted the Corolla’s steering wheel. “I’ll still ask Dad for the money to make sure the heater keeps going, but damn, this is great!”

 

Cassie looked at her hand pressed against the windshield glass. No frost there or on any of the windows. The dash was wet and steaming. I DID that, Cassie thought. I did THAT. She slumped back in the seat, her mind repeating that thought endlessly, but then screeched to a half as the thought’s content changed to: How did I DO that?

 

She glanced over at Kari, opening her mouth to tell her what had really happened. Right, how exactly am I going to phrase this: Kari, your car’s heater didn’t cause the frost to melt. It was me. I seem to have the ability to generate massive amounts of heat by force of will alone. Forget Star Wars, apparently, I’m like Pyro in the X-Men. But wait, not even Pyro could create the fire he used, he needed a lighter. But not me. No, siree. I can just make the heat happen!

 

Cassie closed her mouth to stop any words or hysterical giggles from popping out and wrapped her arms around herself. She couldn’t tell Kari something this crazy. It was a coincidence that the car’s long dying heating had suddenly kicked on just when Cassie had willed the frost to melt. That was the only explanation that made sense. No one could will heat into being like that. No one. Certainly not Cassie. She’d put it out of her mind. That would be the best.

 

Feeling slightly numb, she turned her gaze out the windshield again. The heat moved around inside of her, but it felt less threatening and friendlier, somehow. She vaguely noted that her headache had tapered off, too.

 

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