for you to take in. Believe it or not, you have already made a lot of progress.”
Caitlyn dropped her head to her chest, wallowing in her defeat, before slowing raising it again. “Can I take a break, just for a minute, and then we can try our last attempt?”
Her teacher smiled. “Of course. I am going to check to see if Katie has the details on my meeting with Councilman Riley. I’ll be right back.”
The door closed shut behind her and she pulled at her hair with her hands. Caitlyn could not grasp why she could not do this. She knew that it was right there, right in front of her. She needed that barrier to break. But the question remained on how? What was she doing wrong? When Caitlyn felt the barrier, she pushed and she had pulled, and… nothing. She paced around the room thinking of a solution.
Garrett re-entered the room, her mood no better than she was before. He placed a sympathetic hand on Caitlyn’s shoulder, patting in lightly. “Ready to go one more round?”
“Yes.”
She grasped the ball in her hand, the image of raising it clear in her mind. She felt the obstruction at that moment. As she pushed at the barrier, she again pushed harder, to try to lift the ball, only to find the resistance got stronger and harder. Finally, a thought occurred to her. What if she didn’t push? What if she did not do anything? She let her body relax, the stress built up in her melting away. The barrier then released.
Caitlyn surged forward when she felt it, visualizing the ball high in the air. She felt it leaving her hands gently, and she opened her eyes. The ball was floating directly in front of her. Caitlyn gasped in surprise that it worked, losing her concentration, and she heard the soft clang as the ball hit the floor.
Garrett’s eyes were wide. It appeared that he was talking to himself. “Remarkable.”
Caitlyn grinned. “Nothing to it!”
“No, Caitlyn. Actuals don’t…” he squeezed his eyes shut. “Actuals don’t just levitate on the first day of training. It just doesn’t happen.”
Her elation deflated. “Is there something wrong with it?”
He forced himself to smile at her. “No, of course not! It’s just… very unexpected. Sorry, it sounded like I wasn’t excited by it. I really am! It’s an amazing feat. Really!”
“Can we try again?”
“Not tonight. But I promise, first thing in the morning we will begin right where we left off.”
As they left the building, Caitlyn felt as if she was the one floating only a few minutes before. That night, she went to bed truly believing that all of this was real; that it was not just a dream or something she made up in her head. Caitlyn was beginning to feel that for the first time in her life, she truly was where she belonged.
Chapter 7
The weeks flowed by and Garrett and Caitlyn fell into an easy pattern. They met in the mornings to train, working all day, and several evenings a week they would get together to have dinner or watch a movie. Caitlyn enjoyed the time she spent with Garrett; not only was he a good mentor, but she liked him genuinely as a person.
There were times that she felt the lines of friendship blur. It was obvious to note that while Garrett was a flirt by nature, he never actively pursued any woman he rained his attentions on. As far as Caitlyn knew, she was the only person that he spent any quality time with.
When they were in the training facility, he was overall professional. But outside of it, Caitlyn saw the Garrett that she met back in North Carolina return. He was relaxed and fun. The evenings they would have dinner, there were often seemingly innocent touches or hugs, as she would leave. Lately, she had been finding herself trying to make those hugs linger or finding ways of accidently brushing by him.
It was a strange kind of dance she was performing, and she was not quite sure why she was doing so. She was attracted to Garrett’s looks and had been from that first night she saw him. But he was her mentor, and she did not want anything getting in the way of that most crucial relationship.
Caitlyn’s success on the first day of training continued. She could tell that Garrett was bewildered by the fact that she could so readily pick up on the things he was teaching her.
First, it