The Medium Kid

Chapter 9

Koda stared for long enough to make Alfie open his eyes.

"Are you thinking about her?"

"Yes." Koda closed his eyes and wrapped his fingers around Alfie's wrist in return, feeling his heartbeat. It was calm but started to spike. Then Koda dived into the memories he tried to avoid over the past few weeks. His mother. The memories he thought about were her last ones, and it tugged on his composure.

He tried to think about the good times, but they were always shadowed by the bad. His mother had been careless, bad tempered, cold. Rarely, she would be in a loving mood. Koda only cherished the good times because there was very few of them. He did love her; he just wished she tried harder to be a mother.

There was one memory that stuck with him since he was six years old. When Koda was younger, his mother used to take drugs in front of him. He didn't know that it was wrong and she assumed he wouldn't notice because he was so little. Koda's mother was addicted to paracetamol. Every morning, she would stand in front of the mirror and stare herself in the eyes as she took pill after pill.

Koda noticed a rise in her mood every time she took them, and he thought they were pills that made people happy. So one morning, he tried them himself, taking as many pills as his mother did.

Koda would never forget the look of horror when his mother entered the bedroom. He almost died, and his mother vowed never to retake them. Of course, that was a lie. She was taking them only a few weeks after six-year-old Koda got out of the hospital. That's when he learned never to trust a single word she said.

Alfie's fingers gripped him harder, and Koda opened his eyes. The short kid's pupils embedded into his own. He stared so profoundly, it felt like their faces were only centimetres apart. Did he see the memory Koda was thinking about to summon her?

"How did your mother die?" Alfie asked. His voice was softer than usual and a lot quieter.

"Overdose."

Alfie nodded to himself like her death slotted into his theories. "That explains my dream," Alfie mumbled, thinking back to his nightmare where he was drowning in a room full of little white pills. He squeezed Koda's wrist, either for comfort or from shock. Alfie had seen the vision his crush shared with him. "You fed me enough emotion for me to find her spirit. She is standing in the left corner of this room."

Koda's throat closed up immediately. A painfully cold shiver trickled down his spine. He was still a non-believer, but it was creepy when Alfie said that so casually. He braved a glance at the corner of the room. He didn't see anyone, but the air felt heavy.

"Your son is still a sceptic. Can you say something that only he would know or remember?" Alfie asked. Her face was painted with shame, and he was glad. He wanted to yell at her and verbally abuse her for the way she treated Koda but now was not the time. Koda looked for closure. Opening up new wounds wouldn't heal him any faster.

While the medium listened to what she had to say, Koda stared at him. The heat from his fingers was getting warmer with each beat of his heart.

Alfie turned to his classmate when she finished. With a small frown, he said, "as white as cotton, as gentle as his touch, the dove hasn't forgotten, he loves you so much."

Koda then lost his composure. The heat from his fingers rushed to his eyes, building the tears. He pulled his hand away and covered his face when the first tear fell. He broke down and sobbed.

Alfie didn't understand his mother's words, but they had clearly meant a lot to his crush. Koda's quiet cries stabbed him all over, spilling out the empathy he stored for clients who grieved. Though, he was not prepared to see Koda so distraught and had to fight down his own tears.