Three days passed without a sign of waking up from Jamie.  He just slept and slept.  I checked on him every morning, but I saw the same thing every time - Jamie, sleeping peacefully in his bed.

I decided to ditch my classes today.  Jamie needs some source of food and I’m his guard, it’s my job to keep him alive.  

At breakfast, I grabbed two extra trays, expecting him to be hungry and eat a lot of food.  I walked down the hallway and when I opened the door I almost dropped the trays.

His bed was on fire, but he looked untouched.  I set the trays down and rushed to him with a glass of water.  When I threw the water on the fire, nothing happened.  I squeezed my eyes shut and reached out to try to get a hold of him, waiting to feel the burn of a flame, but it never came.  I opened my eyes to find that I was indeed touching the flames, but they weren’t hurting me.

The flames danced between my fingers.  They were beautiful.  I reached out to pick up Jamie and get him out of there, but the flames followed him.

It hit me.  

He was creating this.  These were his powers.

I carefully set him back down on the bed and shook him awake.  His eyes peeled back slowly and the fire dissipated.

“Is it time to go get breakfast?  I’m starving.”

I looked at him, dumbfounded.  He has no idea - no idea that he has been sleeping for days, no idea that Michael told him not to go to classes for a bit, no idea about his powers!

“You’ve been asleep for three days.  I brought you some food to eat here.  Michael wants you to rest instead of going to classes for a bit.”  I went to get the food from the desk and bring it to the bed.  When I turned around, I found Jamie staring at me with his jaw dropped.

I placed the food in his lap, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

I pulled a chair over and watched him eat in silence.  He was really pewny, but I guess I could beef him up a bit.  

And that power.  It’s truly incredible.  There is no one here that has the power to control flames.

“Don’t you have classes?” He asks suddenly.

“Yes, but I’m ditching.”

He stared at me, really stared at me right in the eyes.  I wonder what he’s thinking.

“Do you know you activate your powers during your sleep?”  I blurt out.

“Um, no.  Is that why you woke me up?”

“Yes.  You also needed to eat something.”

“Thank you.  Um, I think I should start going to classes tomorrow or I’ll be really behind.”

“I’ll let Michael know.”

There was an awkward silence again.

“Is there any place I can shower?”

“Of course.  Grab your clothes and I’ll take you there.”  I led him through the twisting hallways, “You’ll learn your way around soon enough.”

When we got to the showers, he just stared at me.  “Aren’t you going to shower?”

“Not with you in here.  Get out.”

I pulled my shirt off, “Well, I need to shower, too, and these are the only ones.”

He put his hand over his eyes, “Can’t you wait and go after me?”

“No, and you better get used to it.  There is almost always someone in here unless there are classes going on.  And if there are classes going on, you should be in class, too, not here showering.”

“Fine,” he sighs and pulls his hand away from his eyes and looks at me.  I can see that his cheeks are lightly dusted with pink.  He’s embarrassed for me to see his stick figure of a body when I have a body like this.  I’ve always known I have muscle, but he shouldn’t be embarrassed.   Just ashamed.  He shouldn’t have that power with such a pewny body.  He pulled his shirt off and I realized he wasn’t as bony as I thought he would be, more like skinny and femenine. 

I realized I was staring too long, now it’s my turn to blush.  “We should probably shower quickly, they’re probably looking for me since I ditched.”

He nods and we strip down the rest of our clothes.  I head to the closest stall and turn around to see where he goes.  He’s walking towards the stalls with doors.  Of course he is.  I start to shower until I hear a yelp.

“How do you turn this thing off!”  He shouts to me.  I grab my towel and wrap it around my waist.  I walk down to his stall.

“You’ve gotta unlock it so I can get in to help, idiot!”  I shout over the rushing water.  Steam is coming out over the top of the stall.  The door clicks open and I step towards the knob to turn the water off.  “What happened?”

“I turned it on and it was super hot and I couldn’t turn it off.  I’m sorry.”

He was huddled in the corner of the stall, his arms hugging his legs.  “Be more careful next time.  Sometimes they get stuck, you just gotta jam the knob in and pull it out and then you can change the temperature.  Finish quickly while I go get us lunch.  I will come back here to get you.”

I started to walk away, but he called out to me, “Wait!  I think the water burned me.  Can you get something to help.”

“Where?”

He stood up and showed me the side of his stomach.  There was, in fact, a large burn mark down the side.  “I’ll get bandages and ointment.  Shower and be careful this time.”

I walked out of the stall, trying to explain why I stared at him for so long.  I was probably just examining his burn.  Yeah, I was examining his burn and checking the rest of his body for injuries.