Part XIV

"So have you tried the exercise yet?" she asked him as they walked out of the food court.

"Exercise?" he asked, blushing.

"Not that kind of exercise, silly.  The exercise to awaken your energy."

"Oh," he said, "no..."

"Then that's what we're going to do today," she told him happily.  "We'll walk back to your dorm and go up to your room and I'll help you with it.  It's easier the first time when you have someone there who knows what she's doing."

"But...my car is here," he said dumbly.

"You can walk back for it later.  Oh, wait, that's uphill?  Wouldn't want you getting all out of breath.  Never mind, you can drive us.  Unlock it, would you?" she asked as she skipped over to his silver sedan and waited impatiently by the passenger door.

Xander swallowed hard, tightly clutching his tin of Sheriece's Christmas cookies to his belly and wondering how he could get out of this.

"I'm not going to bite, Pudge, geez."

He sighed and pressed the button on his remote to unlock the car doors, and Cee hopped into his car.  He followed more sedately, sucking in his belly as he ducked in so that it wouldn't smush into the steering wheel like it usually did.  He wasn't sure why, but he kept it sucked in as he buckled his seatbelt and started the engine.

"Stop doing that," she scolded him.

"What?"

"Sucking in."  She gazed out the window at the sun shining onto the icy trees as she said it.

Xander felt his face burn with embarrassment, and continued to hold his stomach in anyway as he drove away from the food court.

"So how've you been, Xander?  Anything interesting going on?"

"Um, not really..."

"Your parents still bugging you about going to that doctor?  I checked him out, you know.  He's very good at what he does."

"So you think I should do it?" Xander spat bitterly.

"That's not what I meant," she said, looking at him.  "He's very good at convincing people to let him cut them up."

"Uh...oh."

"So it's probably best that you stay away from him, if you don't want to lose that belly of yours.  Which you should really stop sucking in; you're uncomfortable."

He felt his stomach lurch with humiliation.  He gripped the steering wheel tight and said, "Could you stay out of my head?"

She laughed.  "I don't have to read your mind to tell that you're uncomfortable, silly.  It's pretty obvious.  Besides, you looked a lot bigger when you were sitting in the food court, and I don't think you could have possibly lost thirty pounds between there and here."

Mortified, he slowly let his stomach expand to its full size.

"There, isn't that better?"

He pulled into a parking space in his dorm's lot and exited his car, followed closely by Callisto.  He looked forlornly up the hill at his dorm, not looking forward to the effort of climbing the hill and the steps to reach his room.

"Come on, Pudge, let's kick that hill's ass!"

Much less with her there.

Five minutes later, he stood in front of his door, panting and sweating.  Callisto patted him on the back enthusiastically.  "See, you made it!"

"Yeah," he muttered through clenched teeth as he fitted his key into the lock and opened the door.  He instantly regretted it.  His room was strewn with the remains of last night's shopping trip and binge, with empty and full packages of food covering every available surface.  He turned to look at her and caught a strange expression on her face.  She looked almost...excited?  But it was gone so fast that he was sure he'd imagined it.  Besides, if she was excited at all, it was probably just excitement at the possibility of more ammunition with which to make fun of him.

"A little short on storage space, I see," she said as she stepped inside and picked up an empty bag of chips off his dresser. 

"Um, yeah," he mumbled, wishing desperately that he would have cleaned up before he'd gone out this morning.  He swiped the bag out of her hand and stuffed it into the garbage can, hoping that she wasn't reading his mind right now.

"Your room is bigger than I thought it was," she said conversationally, plopping down on his bed and looking around.  He grabbed his pajamas off the bed and shoved them in a drawer, praying that she hadn't seen the size tags.

"So, um," he said, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, "what do I have to do again?"

"First of all," she said, "you have to relax.  Come on and sit down."  She patted the little space on the bed next to her.

"Um, you're going to...have to...move...over..." he trailed off.

"Oh, sorry, Pudge."  She stood up and gestured for him to sit on the bed.  "I guess I forgot that you need a little more room."

He gritted his teeth, but sat.

"Now, close your eyes."

He complied.

"Relax.  I want you to imagine a silver mist swirling up from the floor and around your feet.  As it touches your feet, I want you to release all the tension you hold there.  The silver mist absorbs it and dissipates it.  Once all the stress is gone, the mist moves up around your calves, releasing all pressure and stress there.  Feel your muscles relaxing."  She continued to slowly guide the mist up around his body, and, to his surprise, he actually did start to relax.  He could actually smell the mist: it smelled like a warm spring rain.  By the time she reached the top of his head, he felt cool and clean, his lungs and thoughts clear.

"Now," she said quietly, "I want you to feel the energy around you.  It might feel like a slight warmth or coolness in the air, or maybe like a faint buzzing all around you.  Take a few moments to become aware of it."

Gradually, he could feel his sense of smell strengthen.  Callisto's fiery scent intensified, and he could smell the remnants of Adrian's musky one as clearly as if his roommate were in the room.  He smelled Sheriece's scent, like fresh bread, mingling with the cinnamon and sugar of the cookies she'd given him, and the faint traces of both August's strawberry-sunlight scent and, faintly, his parents' nutmeg and asphalt ones.  Rhys' papery smell was there, too.  And underneath it all, he smelled the clean, clear air scent of pure energy, which felt almost thick and suddenly sent a strange buzzing through him.  He imagined that if he reached out in front of him, he could grab a handful of it.

"Reach out your dominant hand," she told him, "and call the energy into your palm to collect there in a ball."

He put out his right hand, palm up, and concentrated on the thick feeling of the clear air energy.  The air thickened above his hand until it felt as if he were actually holding something.  In a flash a feeling of silliness came over him.  What the hell was he doing?  He opened his eyes and saw a tiny sphere of white light floating above his hand.

"Wha..." he trailed off as it slowly disappeared.

"Aww, Pudge, what happened?  You totally had it!"

"I...that was real?"

"Yes, of course it was real," Cee said, exasperated.  "You were doing it!  Why'd you stop?"

"I...I felt stupid," he admitted.

"Ugh!" she sighed, flopping down on the bed next to him.  "You're going to have to get over that, y'know."

He shifted his mass uncomfortably at her closeness.

"You're going to have to get over that, too."

"What?"

She rolled her eyes at him.  "Freaking out every time I'm close to you.  Now, come on, let's try it again."