Interference (Chapter 6)

May 1, 2089

Dear Diary,

You would not believe what happened today. I scarcely know where to begin. But I guess I should start with the fact that today was Alexander’s and my one-year anniversary. And what a day it was. I danced right through my classes, soaking in every moment I could with him today, and he even seemed to be a little lighter than usual. And easily, I was very excited for tonight, and the unidentified plans we had. Every idea ran through my mind, wondering what our night had in store. It might have been cheesy, but I thought it was sort of sweet.
Natalia was more openly enthusiastic than I thought she would be. Usually, she would say something about how I should pick out someplace to go, what to do, that we should talk it over instead of just having some sort of surprising thing, but she usually is happy for me, even when she gets caught up in the details. Yet, she was a little too happy, which made me suspicious.
I went over to her apartment to get ready for the date that night after classes were finished. Her unfortunate boyfriend had to listen to us go on and on about all this, as I applied makeup, and modeled various outfits, putting together different pieces of Natalia’s much more fashionable and bold wardrobe.
Finally, I selected a dress from the back of her closet, an elegant piece, night sky blue, made of a silky material. It was sleeveless, a v-neck with an empire waistline, which would cinch just below my chest and flow down to right at my knees. I picked a pair of black heels, and exited Natalia’s room.
When I stepped out, both Natalia and Patrik suddenly stared at me. I didn’t understand.
“Um, is something wrong? Is my hair messed up or...”
“You look amazing,” said Natalia, cutting me off. Patrik nodded in agreement, probably deciding against making any comments.
I didn’t know what to say in response. My best friend was always honest with me, didn’t hold back in correcting me sometimes, or giving her opinion, of which she had many, but when it came to this, she always told me I looked good, usually followed by that I shouldn’t care how I looked, because it was my mind that counted. I never really said anything about it, but I never thought she was right about how I looked. Natalia always had it together, she was the epitome of confidence, knowing when to care and when not to care about everything. Nothing got in her way.
Catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I could hardly recognize this person staring back at me. She was beautiful, vibrant, a strange joy resounding in her eyes.
And then there were the knocks on the apartment door, the inside screen revealing that Alexander had arrived.
Natalia smiled, as she hurried me to the door. As she opened it, her words to us were “I hope you guys have a great night”, and she gave Alexander a questionable glance that I hadn’t noticed much then, but remembered now.
And now I knew why.
We went to a ridiculously expensive restaurant, where we talked and hardly ate, reliving every moment of this mostly blissful year together, the lightest we’d been in a long time, and I was so happy to be with him. After dinner, however, was the surprise. I hadn’t expected too much, though my imagination played through various scenarios.
“Close your eyes,” he whispered, as we got to the end of a block. I vaguely remembered this street, though I couldn’t place my finger on why. I did as I was told however, smiling as he led me to our secret location.
As we got closer, I heard soft guitar music and sweet lyrics winding throughout, growing the tiniest bit louder as we began to arrive.
“Now open them,” he said.
His arm left my shoulders, as he moved to be in front of me, and I realized where we were. It was the park, where we’d gone on our first date, with a band playing and the fountain lit brightly, golden lights strung through the trees, spelling out words that I did not even have to read.
He kneeled in front of me, hand outstretched with a sparkling ring in a velvet box, offering to me. He took my hand with the other.
“Michelle Elaine Nichol, I love you,” he started. I could not believe it. “And I want to spend the rest of my life with you... will you marry me?”
The trees seemed to glow even brighter. I was completely breathless at these words, though every part of me knew my response.
“Yes,” I whispered back to him, my eyes welling with joyful tears, as he slipped the ring onto my finger, standing to embrace me.
All of a sudden, another couple stepped from the shadows, as the band continued playing beautiful music for us. And though some might say it would ruin their night, I was so grateful to have my best friend there to share one of the most wonderful moments of my life with.
And I knew she’d known what would happen tonight all along. They’d helped Alexander plan this out, and it didn’t bother me at all. The lights, I found out later, were all fancy and solar, charged from the day before. And the band was led by a few of Patrik’s friends, who specialized in this sort of thing. But the mastermind of it all, had been my now-fiancé. I was impressed.
But these details were nearly trivial for how I was feeling overall. Completely overwhelmed with joy, and now I go to bed tonight with the thoughts of our life together soon to come fresh on my mind.

Kainni

When we got back to the house, I was in a daze. This was so much worse than Romeo and Juliet. Even if we had known each other, this was very fast. The logical part of my brain kept on telling me this. Yet it had felt so good, everything... being with him, him holding me there, absolutely everything had felt wonderful. Even kissing him felt right, nothing like I had ever experienced before.
We sat down on stools by the counter, barely eating as we both thought about the blissful moments in the park. I had never felt like this before. It was impossible to name the feeling right now, but I knew it was the best, most confusing, most conflicting set of emotions I had ever felt before. And it was the best I’d felt in a long time, especially in light of yesterday.
I slowly finished my food, its taste somehow turned amazing simply for what had just happened, and followed Troy, each of us putting our plates gently in the sink.
Just having our arms brush as we did this sent chills throughout me.
Terra and Shane had resumed their places on the couch after lunch, the volume of the TV a little lower than earlier, their voices murmuring to each other, even quieter than that of the television. I wasn’t able to make out their words, but with the way they spoke, it created a privacy that signaled that they did not desire for us to listen.
And at the moment, I really didn’t care.
The hours passed by, as we alternatively crashed in the guest room, or walked around the neighborhood, sometimes talking, sometimes just sitting there, reflectively, as we caught up on the past 12 years. I noticed how we had gone back to our old pattern of conversation, me talking most of the time, and him listening. I tried to get him to say more, but mostly, he kept quiet. I guess I understood why, especially now.
Skimming over those journal pages earlier had told me a lot. Not only had it been a glimpse into his mother’s life, but into his. Words and phrases stood out with intensity, just like the ones in Let it Out. They described, sometimes subtly, other times not so much, what kind of life this character, or this person had.
We’d ended up in the guest room again around 5:30, and when we decided to read some more of the book.
“Why do people read things like this anyway?” Troy said, abruptly interrupting my reading aloud, tearing his gaze from the page he was reading with me, as I got to another violent segment of the book. It was difficult to even see the words, let alone speak them. He seemed a little uneasy again, and I didn’t blame him.
“Well... I don’t know. Maybe to understand something better, or maybe to make sense of something that doesn’t make sense...”
“Or to feel like they’re not alone?” he added.
I nodded, though I still hadn’t entirely wrapped my mind around how he could ever relate to this book. I knew what had probably happened to him. And with that thought, my anger swelled at this man who’d been successful at ruining the world. He had ruined his family as well.
“I... I think we should stop reading for now. Sorry,” he said, staring at the floor now. I was grateful for his suggestion, delicately folding the corner of the page to mark where we’d ended up, and closing the book with quite obvious enthusiasm. It was a good time to take a break. I set it aside and moved toward the door when I heard Terra’s and Shane’s arguing voices begin to inevitably escalate higher than they had this whole hour.
I couldn’t tell what they were fighting about, but all I knew was that it was getting a little too loud to be good for either of them. I warily made my way into the hallway, Troy following with easily detectable reluctance.
I still couldn’t figure out why they were arguing when we get close enough to see them, and it almost seemed like they’d forgotten as well, getting caught up in throwing insults and criticisms at one another. A small disagreement had skyrocketed into this seemingly pointless fight, and I didn’t understand why anyone would do that. But it seemed both of them were easily upset by the other.
Outside, a door shut, and the two of them still couldn’t quit shouting, when Terra’s mother walked inside, right as Shane had raised his hand. Immediately, the two of them tensed as she closed the door silently behind her. Terra glanced at Shane again, and shoved him with all of her might, forcing him backward to the floor due to his previous injuries, and stalked back to her bedroom, either ignoring Troy and I or not noticing us at all.
“Get out,” said Mrs. Sawyer, her voice shaky with a mixture of anger and terror in her voice. “Get out right now.”
Shane pulled himself off the floor, and made his way to the door slowly, his earlier anger subsiding.
“I don’t want to see you in this place ever again. And you leave my daughter alone!” she shouted after him, as soon as he was out of the house.
I reached out for Troy, but noticed he had disappeared. I checked the guest room and didn’t see him there. Trying to look like I had been in there throughout the whole ordeal, I moved somewhat slowly through the hall, trying to portray that I was checking if it was alright to get out. Terra’s mother had made her way into the hall, acknowledging me for a moment before knocking her daughter’s door, as I edged toward the back door again.

Troy

I couldn’t stand being around people when they were fighting. Now that I could actually avoid it, I took the opportunity automatically. There was no substance to that one, and yet they were both so angry... how could anyone live like that, with all of these problems, causing them and just sticking with it? They never seemed to work things out. I could already easily see the pattern of their relationship.
Things I’d witnessed before had never been like this, however. At least Terra had a chance in this backwards relationship. I continued down the block, watching as the sun began to disappear again, the sky’s color changing to be much more fiery, clouds blending into it while they were surrounded by golden light.
SCREEECH!
Tires screamed against pavement as someone narrowly avoided running me over.
What was with me and nearly getting hit by cars?
The driver yelled a swear out the window, followed by
“Can’t you walk faster?!”
That voice was familiar. I glared as Shane drove past me at a ridiculous speed, one that seemed to fast for the old, beat-up looking vehicle, and swerved to narrowly avoid hitting the curb as he sped down the block. I would never in a million years dare to be in an automobile with him driving. How could Kainni have stood it last night?
“Hey,” she called, startling me with her arrival.
“Oh... h-hi... sorry I left the house. I just... didn’t want to be in there during all that...”
“That’s understandable,” she replied, coming up beside me, and taking my hand. I made a weak attempt at a smile for her, as she leaned into my chest, her eyes going from me to the sky. Here we were, watching the sunset, like the sunrise this morning. How much had changed since the beginning of the day. I slid my arm around her shoulders, and I saw her smiling as we watched the sunset. It was a beautiful thing. Once again, the cares and worries I had only moments ago, seemed to diminish once again.
When night had finally come, I kissed the top of her head, reluctant to go back, yet at the same time, knowing it may be in our best interests to be inside during the night. It was different to navigate to Terra’s house in the dark, yet not all that difficult. I had memorized this neighborhood from our inconsistent walks earlier today. This had been one of the best days of my life, excluding a few rather significant moments.
The fence in their backyard was easy to get through, even climb over, which we to do, since it was now locked. Yet the back door into the house, we found was locked. I knocked on the door gingerly. It was answered by Terra’s mother, who looked a lot less angry than earlier, instead, she looked somewhat distraught.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, as she let Kainni and I inside. We walked in, both of us stricken by the silence of this house that still held all the tension from earlier, but had been reduced and increased like pollution thick in the air.
Terra’s cell phone lay on the kitchen counter, possibly surrendered for violating the rule or requirement of her mother about her boyfriend.
“You guys hungry? I could make something,” she said, her voice holding some sort of eternal weariness to it.
“Oh no, I think we’re good,” Kainni said, speaking for the both of us.
“Alright then. I’ll be... in here, if you guys need anything,” Terra’s mother replied, yawning slightly, as she made her way into her bedroom.
This kind of quiet was not the comfortable kind. It was tense, dense, where we wanted to say things but could not bring ourselves to do it. I walked back over to the couch, into the living room where the more alarming events of today had occurred. I pulled the blanket up off the floor, and turned on the TV. Kainni sat down next to me, this time not afraid to close the distance between us. It still amazed me, how quickly things had changed between us.
Unfortunately, as I turned on the news, there was a story about a local man being shot after standing in front of another person, right outside of a bar, and about an accident on 9th avenue, and I changed the channel. This world certainly didn’t cover things up much, did they? Well, I supposed that was a good thing. I hated having to see all of this, though, all this pain. All of these people going through so much. I knew I wasn’t alone in the pain that I felt, in the experiences I had, and I wished I could do more. Kainni moved closer to me again, as I aimlessly flipped through the channels.
There was no way to run from your problems, not without them coming back to haunt you, to consume you, until you either faced them, or succumbed to their power. And I realized now, nobody could do that alone...
She reminded me that I was not alone. And in this not so foreign land, we were all we had to remind us of who we once were. We gave each other the power to become someone different.
Positively, for once.
Kainni placed her hand over mine on the remote, turning off the television.
“We don’t need this,” she whispered.
“Yeah, we don’t,” I replied, just as quietly.
The house seemed a little mellower at that moment, less tense than earlier, with the TV off, and only the dimmed kitchen light on. She was staring into my eyes, asking me something again. I didn’t know what she wanted, but then she moved closer. Still, I did not know how to respond, or, I didn’t want to respond the way she wanted me to. Quickly, a blush on her cheeks, she pulled away again.
“Um... why don’t we talk some more?” she said, her voice back at its typical volume.
“Sure,” I replied. I put my arm around her waist, and faced her. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Anything, really... why don’t you talk, Troy? You’ve hardly spoken all day...”
I swallowed. What was there to say from me? I wasn’t very interesting. And no one in their right mind would actually want to hear my life story, nor did I want to tell it now. I hoped I wouldn’t have to. How did one have a normal conversation? It was awkward for me, trying to talk. I’d always been this way.
As if it were her cue, Kainni picked up for me.
“Why don’t I ask you some questions or something? And you have to give honest answers.”
Maybe not what I was looking for, having always been the listener, and the silenced, but I had to start somewhere.
“Alright,” I said, attempting to sound confident.
“Hmmm...” Kainni tapped her chin as she thought of what she’d like to inquire of me. I was beginning to get nervous.
“I’ll start easy. What’s your favorite color?”
Oddly enough, I’d never really given much thought to this question. I couldn’t say black, or blue, and especially not red...
“White,” I replied.
“Why is that?” she asked me.
This was slightly frustrating.
“How do you answer ‘why’ to your favorite color?”
“I don’t know, you must have a reason for it...”
“I don’t like the other colors. So therefore, I like white.”
Kainni rolled her eyes. “Alright then. What was your favorite book series when you were younger?”
“I’m not sure. I read a lot of things...”
“What did you like the best?”
“I can’t pick a favorite. So, what was your favorite book series when you were younger?” I retorted.
“Hey, I’M asking the questions, not you.”
There was an aggressive, strange noise coming from the counter, Terra’s cellular phone moving around with each injection of noise.
Hurriedly, Terra emerged from her room, picking up the phone in a loud whisper. “Hello?”
Kainni and I were forced into quiet, as we leaned down, each of us eavesdropping.
“Dangit Shane, then why don’t you call frickin’ 911, not my frickin’ phone?!... I’m sorry... no, you can’t come over here... Shane, what is wrong with you?!... Yeah, I noticed... you ditched the place cuz you didn’t want to get talked to by the police?... if you were a witness, you can’t avoid them, that’s a big situation, even if you’re... Shane? Shane, what’s that noise?... Shane?... no, no, no, d***it, no...”
She hung up the phone, digging in her mother’s purse until she pulled out a pair of jingly keys, glancing at us as she passed by.
“Get up, I know you two were listening, get up, we’ve gotta go somewhere.”
We nodded, pulling ourselves off of the couch and complying, pulling on our shoes and following her to her mother’s car. She strapped herself in, and we both climbed into the back, doing the same. As Terra pulled out of the driveway, her cell phone came out again, and she dialed that old emergency number.
“Y-Yeah... hi... my... my friend just called me; he was driving out on the highway, just past 9th avenue, a little ways from that bar... I think he was drunk... his phone got cut off, and it sounded really bad, I think he got into an accident... Oh... yeah... okay, thanks, bye...”
Terra hung up, swallowing, looking a lot less tough than she had been trying to be earlier. Her breathing was shaky, raspy as she drove to where she’d been looking for. There had been so much going on tonight, and now we were intrinsically part of it. And I wanted nothing to do with it. I could see all the terror, pain, and fear running through Terra’s face as she drove.
She was either driving too fast or too slow, as she made her way to the highway, passing by the other accident scene of the night, which had already been cleared, leaving all but the shells of damaged cars and orange cones.
A witness. He’d been a little bit closer to the bar... he had been there during that shooting. And he’d been running, so the police wouldn’t question him, because he was too young to be there and consuming.
When she got onto the highway, there were flashing lights, red, blue, red blue, easily capable of temporarily blinding someone. Terra had already almost lost control herself, as tears had began to stream, uncontrolled, down her cheeks, as we came upon the scene.
She was shaking as she left the car, her door remaining ajar as she made her way toward everyone.
The car was a mess, the windshield cracked, the windows all broken, the doors had their metal smashed in a little, the top even a slight bit crumpled. It appeared that they'd already removed the passenger from the vehicle, because he was not to be seen among it.
Another car was against the barrier separating the middle of the highway from the other segment, looking a little bent up, but somehow, nowhere near as bad as this one.
I tried to look away from this, tried to bury it away in my head, as it matched up images of how horrible this world used to be, and was, right now. And still was, in the future. Kainni looked just as horrified I was, and she took my hand, coming closer to me, as if for protection, and pressed herself against me, trembling. I put my arms around her, holding her closely, never wanting this to happen to her...
Somehow, I felt moved, as I did this, to whisper in my head, to say that those affected would be safe, a prayer, hoping the God my mother always thought was listening truly did, that everyone would be okay. I don't know why I did this, but it seemed like a desperate enough time.
"Ma'am, you're going to have to return to your vehicle right now... come along now," came a voice with a strange drawl, who didn't seem to be panicking, perhaps toughened by seeing such things a lot. Too much.
"N-No, no... I... I... I have t-to go w-with him... he..."
"You can drive to the hospital, miss. It's alright. Calm down now, everything's going to be okay."
Terra shook her head, her body now racked with sobs. I couldn't have seen Shane as they'd put him onto the ambulance, I saw the stretcher, but I couldn't see anything well.
Except for the red, even the tiny specks. That alone was worth concern.
"Come on, now..."
The officer led Terra to the car, not questioning her at all, before returning to the sight, and his own vehicle, as a tow truck arrived for the beat-up cars on the highway.
As the scene was cleared, they asked Terra to leave. She could hardly breathe at that moment, when they'd asked one of us if we could take her home, or something. Why they were not questioning us, was probably a matter of their distractions. Tonight was a busy, miserable night.
Kainni stepped up, though all she could drive was a hover-car, and this was not at all like the vehicles we were used to. Yet she managed, pulling herself into the driver's seat, as Terra moved to the passenger side, and as she started down the highway, she spoke.
"D-Don't go... h-home... go to the hospital."
"Terra, I think..."
"Go to the d*** hospital, d***it!" she shouted through her tears. Kainni took in a deep breath and drove as well as she could in the direction of the hospital, following the instructions that were road signs, and a few mumbled directions that Terra could manage to give.
We eventually arrived, the ambulance having pulled in only minutes before us. Parking had been a difficulty, yet impressively, Kainni had managed.
I had no idea how she could keep a clear head in a situation like this. Terra stumbled from the car, running blindly through the parking lot into the doors of the ER, as we feebly followed.
"H-How did you do that, Kainni?" I whispered, my voice slightly scratchy from the silence and the tension.
"I don't know... I really don't know," she said. Her hand was grasping mine again, tighter than ever, as we entered the waiting room.
Terra was shouting at the attendant.
"I have to see him, right now! Let me in there!"
"I'm sorry, but he just got here and you're not family and..."
"Let me in. Please!" she begged now.
"I... I can't do that right now..."
"He's going to die, isn't he? Isn't he?! Let me in! Let me in..."
At this point, she broke down again. She couldn't speak any louder again, sobbing uncontrollably. We stood there, not knowing what to do, as the woman at the desk did the same.
Kainni came to her side, enveloping her in an embrace, and I followed. This was all we could do for now...
"Terra! Oh dear Lord, Terra, we thought... Terra..."
Her mother, and another figure, presumably her father, entered the room. We pulled away from her, letting her parents have their turn.
"Don't ever do that again... don't EVER do that again... you scared us so much..." she said, holding her tightly, not giving much room for her father to do the same, though he managed.
I shakily sat down, Kainni following suit, and we stayed close to one another. I couldn't believe how much had happened today.
How terribly today was ending.
Eventually, Terra calmed down, her father speaking to her quietly, as her mother sat with her arm around her, having run out of words to say. It was as calm as it could be in this situation, silence consuming more as time when along.
However, at one point, he'd taken her out of the main room, taking her around the corner to speak to her. And we heard Terra's voice rise.
"After all I've been through tonight, and you ask me if I want to go to church with you tomorrow?! How can YOU even do that?!"
"Terra..." he said quietly. "I was just wondering, and it could help..."
"No, no, it couldn't help. It never helps, God never helps, if He really loved me, He wouldn't be screwing up my life like this."
Her anger faded with her next sentence, her voice changing like she had begun to cry again.
"You don't know what it's like, Dad... I lost two of my best friends, may as well have lost the third. He's all I have left. We're all we have left, I can't... I can't live... without..."
"Terra... shhh, Terra... it's alright. You still have us, Terra... you're not alone," he murmured, seeming to leave out the point he knew she wouldn't listen to, though it was like he was praying it the whole time I knew he was holding her.
I could hear her crying again, and I could feel tears developing in my own eyes. I'd tried to keep them back this entire night, but it was like emotional overload had come swept through our day today. And that pain, the so tangible pain that was eminating from this family and maybe even Shane and his family, the others in this anxious, depressing waiting room, had cracked my heart a bit.
Kainni put her arms around my shoulders, keeping me nearer to her.
"It's going to be alright," she whispered. "It's okay... d-don't worry about crying... it's okay..."
I could hear the tears coming to her voice as well. I held her as well. "I'm s-sorry..." I whispered back to her, releasing the tears from my eyes, as she did the same. I never liked to cry. I was always told it was weak, pathetic, girlish, stupid, pointless... but I could never harden myself enough to make it stop from happening. Especially at times like this.
Terra's mother sat silent, her head in her hands, tears running down her face that she simply would not show to anyone. It looked, however, like she was used to feeling, looking like this.
As a nurse started into the waiting room, another person stepped in. He had shaggy, yet short, brownish hair that looked to be slightly graying, and very unkempt man entered before she arrived. He looked distinctly like someone we'd met, and Kainni seemed to recognize him as he came inside.
She immediately came to our group, as Terra and her father filed back in after the man. Terra’s father shot a glance at the man that I didn't understand, and then I knew.
"Hello. Nice of you to show up," he said to him, with acidity. Terra glared at him through her puffy eyes, seeming to tense up more, but not in the way of hysterics; rather, in anger, a blossoming rage.
"Is this the Trenton family?" the nurse asked.
Terra nodded, and Kainni and I did the same. Her parents looked undecided.
"I'm Mitch Trenton, Shane's father," the man said, his low voice ragged, as he cleared his throat. The nurse eyed us strangely, probably wondering who the other adults were if they were not relatives, but it didn’t seem to register as much of a problem.
“Well, it seems Shane’s condition is stabilized, but he won’t be able to take any visitors right now, although the police are speaking to him_”
“Wait, the police? Why are they talking to him, what’s going on?” said Mitch, looking one more level displeased and slightly defensive.
“Calm down, Mr. Trenton, everything’s going to be alright... Shane was a witness of... a crime... tonight, and they’d like to see if he could give them any information,” the nurse attempted to explain, without going into great detail, seemingly surprised that he hadn’t heard about this event yet. I felt a slight pang within me, remembering the news, and how we’d all been just before this man had come in. How he’d suddenly changed the demeanor of the ones around me.

Kainni

The moment he stepped in, my first thought was similar to the venomous tone of the words Terra’s father had uttered. I didn’t like him at all. How dare he even show up. And he may be Shane’s father, but it didn’t seem he acted like it. It could have been him in there, easily. Part of me wished it had been. He certainly had contributed to this situation, whether it had been acknowledged or not.
A pair of officers, a male and a female, walked out of the hall, looking serious like the ones that had been out at the accident. The nurse came over to them, and they spoke in low voices as she nodded, before making their exit.
These officers were nothing like the ones in the future, the ones who sometimes roamed cities, with mechanically changing expressions, sometimes too happy, other times blank, as they followed the commands of the one who sent them to destroy the public rather than help.
I shuddered as I shoved the thought away, when the nurse returned to us.
“May I speak with you, Mr. Trenton, for a moment?” she said, suggesting that they would speak in private, once again, not far enough for us not to hear. We were the only ones listening, as the other distraught families and individuals thought over the ones they were there for.
I noticed a couple of sleeping children and their mother sitting there, staring at the floor, trying to stay strong for her little boy and his younger sister. She held them close, rubbing their backs, as they shared a chair, leaning against her in half-sleep.
“Yeah, and...? What am I supposed to do about it?”
The nurse turned her back from him, walking out of the hall a ways, trying to get away from Mr. Trenton, pulling out her strange radio-item, calling for someone to come to her assistance. The officers soon returned to Mr. Trenton.
She approached us once more.
“You are also Shane’s family, correct?” she said.
I swallowed. Terra nodded, vehemently.
Her mother shook her head.
“No, no, I’m sorry... we... we aren’t really related to him...” she started, her voice still timid and wispy as she spoke, recovering from her earlier tears and never from her constant fatigue.
“But we’re very close to him,” her father stepped in, glancing at his wife questioningly. “If there’s anything going on right now...”
“Do you know of any other relatives of his? His mother, a grandparent, any aunts, uncles, cousins?” she asked us. They had to shake their heads, collectively.
In the corner of my eye, I saw the mother glance over at us, as another nurse approached her, giving the prognosis of whom she was waiting for.
A teenage daughter, her father, both injured in a car accident on the highway. The other car, slammed into the middle barrier.
I tried to bring my attention back to our side, as Terra told the story of his mother.
“She left, almost ten years ago,” she said, her gaze not leaving the officers by the door, as the officers struggled to keep him from physically acting out his defenses.
The nurse nodded, sighing, beginning to see the probable near-futility of this situation. A doctor then approached us, looking a little worn out from a most likely long day of work.
“Trenton family, right?” he said.
“No, just... friends,” the nurse replied, though he’d been aiming his words at us.
“But yeah, we’re Shane’s family,” Terra defended. Her mother seemed to protest, but her father kept silent.
“We may not be related, but we still are,” she said, doing something most might consider ruining her earlier statement, though still seemed to fit.
Knowing what I did of her, I could see she was desperate, I could see she was not at all satisfied with her life, and her family seemed not to be so well-kept either, but they were still somehow glued together. And I could see, that when Shane’s family failed him, Terra was there. Though they often failed each other, and sometimes tried to make it up, they still came back together, even when it wasn’t the same. Like their torn photograph in her bedroom. No matter how many times it got torn apart, scarred, ripped, broken, it still managed to hold together.
Though not all they did was good for them, or even right, that was somewhat admirable. One day, they would be able to come together right again, I somehow knew that it would come.
“Alright... well, I suppose he could have one visitor for now. But he needs to be getting his rest, if he’s going to make a full recovery.”
And again, Terra stood without a word. The doctor and the nurse led her past Shane’s excuse of a dad and down the hall.
“Where is she going? Where is she_, d---it, he’s my son, at least let me see him!” he shouted, tearing himself from the officers, who trailed after him. Terra shot a glare at him as he passed her and the doctor by.
“Sir, if you would just calm down, we’ll take you there, alright? Sorry miss,” said the male officer as they led him into Shane’s room, forcing Terra to stand aside, as the pair and the doctor followed Shane’s father inside. She stared at the floor, sulking, glaring, and fearing all at the same time.
I would never, never, want this to happen to anyone, especially Troy. Troy. I don’t know what I’d do if this ever happened to him. I squeezed his hand, as I noticed motions out of the corner of my eye again.
The mother received some news of those she was waiting on. The doctor speaking to her did not seem horribly grim, though it still didn’t look like things were as good as they would have hoped. Gently, she woke her children, and the trio followed the doctor to the rest of their family.
“Cori, I could take them for a few days... I’m sure Terra will want to stay closer to the hospital for a while. It’s alright with me,” I heard Terra’s father say, having begun to hear their conversation. I guess it wasn’t going too well for her mom, having us there. It seemed we were a burden on this already well-stressed woman. And it didn’t even seem like Terra had told her our supposed reason why were there. It must have been a lot for her to let us stay one night without knowing why, to let us stay at all.
“No, Matt, you don’t have to... I... I can handle them a couple more days, at least until they need to go home,” she replied.
“Honey, you seem tired. Have you been sleeping well the past few nights?”
They paused, as she shook her head, still leaning over like she had been earlier, almost half-asleep already.
“Don’t worry about it, I can take them,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulders and then rubbing her back gently, as she sat up, leaning into him. I wondered why they weren’t... together... anymore, but I would never ask. We may be a burden, I thought, though it was a little out of taste to talk about us while we were sitting right there and acting as if we couldn’t hear them...
“Do you two mind staying over somewhere else for tonight or so? We’re sorry to uproot you again,” said Mr. Sawyer, who, although he’d been just communicating with his wife over us, seemed to be more sympathetic. He wanted to take us in. I knew her mother probably hadn’t wanted us there. Though, last night and today, it had seemed like Terra was caring for us the most. She’d been the one to open up the house, the one who’d rescued Troy from the ditch, and the one who gave in to taking another guest.
Another two guests. I felt my stomach tie in knots at the thought of the other. I hadn’t liked him at first, I had found him quite annoying, but as soon as we arrived at Terra’s, I knew I was going to have to find some amount of tolerance for him. I hated how he acted, and I couldn’t ignore his behavior, but after I’d seen his own home, the tiny glimpse I’d had, I knew there was more to him than I’d first given him credit.
His father walked down the hall as the doctor let Terra inside, looking thoroughly sobered from his earlier mood, his lips pressed together thoughtfully, as he allowed himself to leave with the officers. He’d been found out, and somehow that brief meeting with Shane had made him willing to own up, at least a little bit.
I leaned back, closing my eyes for a moment, yawning. It was another late night for us, and I knew all the rest I’d gotten were those five and half hours this morning.
“Cori,” Terra’s father whispered to Terra’s mother. “Maybe you should head home now... you can talk to Terra in the morning.”
She nodded, tiredly, and he came to her side, helping her stand. It looked like she was tired, much more than even earlier that day. Her husband or ex-husband aided her to the door, his expression for a moment just as tired as hers, and a look of helplessness in his eyes as she trudged away lethargically.
Terra soon returned to the waiting room, wiping tears from her face again as she arrived. She didn’t take a seat, sniffling, as she stared at the floor, thinking. “He...he’s going to be okay,” she announced hoarsely. Her father nodded, putting his arm around her shoulders.
“I guess we should be heading back now,” he said, directing his words at the three of us. Troy and I stood, almost simultaneously, and followed father and daughter to the car.
The ride to Terra’s father’s house was a blur, with Troy and me dozing off, in and out of consciousness. I heard Troy whisper as we finally got there.
“We’re here,” he murmured, rubbing circles with his thumb in the palm of my hand. I opened my eyes slowly, and sighed, letting go of his hand for the moments it took for us to exit the car.
I couldn’t pay much attention to the house as I tiredly walked inside, next to Troy, being led absently by Terra to the guest bedroom. She mentioned something about going back tomorrow to get our stuff from her house, but I hardly heard her as I crashed onto the new guest bed, ready and willing to put away tonight and sleep dreamlessly, yet preferring to get lost in wherever my mind would take me over this grim reality...
My hooded enemy suddenly stood up from the ground, the blood on his clothes suddenly dispersing, disappearing. The hood came down, and revealing who he was. I stood there, shocked in this nightmare, the surroundings spinning rapidly again, with us hanging in the balance, completely unaffected. The force behind me shoved me to the ground where my weapon and the dagger now lay, demanding me to pick up my sword...
“Pick up the sword,” it said into my ear, a voice so easy to follow, and so easy to hate. Yet I followed his command, and Troy mirrored my actions, picking up his sword as well.
As we began to duel again, another layer came into the strange dimension, shouts and screams and scenes reflected where the world had been spinning. We were moving in slow motion, slashing and lunging in circles, as I saw images of people he knew, people I knew, flashing on the world around us, fading and blurring as new images appeared.
My mother, my father. Alexander and Troy’s mother. Friends I hadn’t seen in years, people I vaguely remembered knowing. They jumped out of the surroundings and formed a crowd around us, shouting and stealing my attention. I did not have the time to react, when I heard the force’s voice scream at Troy, who came forward, slashing my cheek. I felt a sharp, sudden pain, and I reflectively touched my cheek. That pain lasted only a moment, before I felt an unbelievable rage as my blood dripped through my fingers. I fought like a madwoman, no longer using a strategy, moving swiftly and wildly, only attempting to bring my opponent back to the ground.
He fought back, still managing to win, before pressing his sword up against mine, and as they were pressed against each other, I was sure one of us would lose grip, as we stared. The crowd shouted louder, but the voices were drowned out, and we stood there, frozen in this position, as the force’s dark voice told us to strike.
Someone else in the crowd yelled for us not to. Told us to drop our weapons and make our peace. This voice, soft, yet clear, and melodic, belonged to a woman. We breathed harder, as our weapons slid across each other, and the crowd’s collective voice shrieked out again. The sound of them grew in and out with our every move. The woman’s voice remained in my head, however, matching the conscience inside of me. But I ignored it, once again working with a strategy, one goal in my mind—to win.

Broken Ice (segment 1)

Inspirations for this story: Evanescence songs (Particularly "My Immortal"), a frozen river, Minnesota winters, and every book I've read involving car accidents (particularly the part of Willow by Julia Hoban that I've read).
YouTube playlist:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=45F867A31374D07F
(unlike the first song suggests, the accident was not on purpose. other than that, I picked it cuz it kinda fit.)
Summary so far: Deidre feels like she's carrying the world on her shoulders, and that she was the one who put it there. In many ways, she has. There was no way to tell what would happen that fateful night, not even a year ago, yet she knew that what happened was her fault. Three lives were over and she, the destroyer, was left behind. With her medical and legal costs piling onto her previously fragile family structure, no friends, nowhere to be but school, home, and sometimes the hospital, it seems like there is no hope for her. Guilt and isolation are all she has and the icy river in the forest, with its cracks and ever-flowing water seems to be the only escape...

Jamie came back home to help his parents move south, somewhere warm and never wintery, or so they hope. Winter and cold and ice and snow only bring back the night of their loss. His brother was one of the three killed in an accident back in January of that year and his family wanted nothing but to forget, though his brother seems to haunt their minds no matter where they go. Jamie had rescued his brother once, but he couldn't this time. There had been no chance, and the boy's life had been cut so short, by someone who'd supposedly loved him. While his parents are gone looking for houses many states away, he must face a week occupying their home, where haunting memories resonate from every corner, especially the infamous river at the edge of their backyard.

Broken Ice

The girl didn't have to go very far to get there. In the past, it had been easier to run, but today, it didn't matter. It was still a quick jog from the house into the forest, and she could be fast if she tried hard enough, making her way through the skeletal trees, the painful heels of what passed for winter boots a lifetime ago crunching against the snow that now covered the ground. She wore a grey trench coat because she had nothing black to wear for a winter jacket. No hat and gloves; it wouldn't matter where she was going.
The cold washed over her with the speed she was going, barely feeling the prickling pain in her right leg as she'd had since the accident, when this sort of pressure was applied. Nothing applied now, where she was going. Running, speeding, like she hadn't in so long. It felt like a rush, numbing everything in her mind.
And soon, none of it would occupy her mind.
She finally arrived. The river flowed so quickly, wide enough to walk across with little trouble and time, long enough to extend from town to more remote parts of the area, and deep enough to bury herself beneath the icy slabs, that looked like smaller scaled, fast-forwarded melting glaciers.
Deidre took one tentative step onto a large slab of ice, before allowing herself to step onto it fully. As the fast-flowing water started moving the ice, knocking it against other slabs, she instinctively dropped to her hands and knees. Like the Titanic preparing to hit an iceberg. But instead of trying to protect herself, she tilted the ice, until there was a large enough crack of water for her to slip through.
Her hands, then her head, then the rest of her, diving in as smoothly as someone crawling into a warm bath. The freezing water began to fill her, wanting to turn her into ice, and for a few moments, she was flailing beneath it, though she told herself not to struggle. Her friends hadn't had that chance.
Even losing breath, filling with this liquid ice, feeling nothing but cold, was less painful than knowing that they were all gone and she was the one to blame.
She closed her eyes and stopped fighting, waiting to meet them all again.
--------------------
His parents were gone for the week. And he was left here alone, and he wasn't going to be able to stand this place for much longer. He'd come back simply to help them move, so he could go back to his studies and occupy himself. Being busy helped him forget.
The place that haunted him the most right now, a place he despises now, but cannot avoid, is the river. It held the most memories, joyful and powerful, of his brother to him. In the spring, when the river was at its highest from the melted ice, they raced handmade boats down to the mini-falls, and in the summer, they would always pile rocks in it to create a freezing pool for them. The fall, when they were younger, they mostly avoided the cold water, and when they were older, his brother would sometimes photograph it. He always had an eye for the arts.
The winter was the most unforgettable time for the river, however. When it got dangerous, they got dangerous. Their favorite activities then were trying to walk across it, or as far enough on it as they could without falling in. Most of the time, they managed to get to either side before the ice could crack.
But one particular, fateful day, when his brother was seven, and Jamie was ten, a day like the ones preceding this one, the ice was too thin, and too slick.
"I want to go first," said his little brother, with a determined look in his eyes.
"Are you sure?" asked the older one, having never seen his brother with this amount of fearlessness before.
"Aha. I'm sure."
"Well, alright. I'll be right behind you, okay?"
The younger one nodded and he started across the river cautiously, but after a few steps in, the ice cracked, and the boy slipped in. He was small, and his swimming skills were not up to date; the river could easily sweep him away. His brother knew better than to panic. This day had been bound to happen sometime. He slowly crawled onto the ice, trying to find a thicker slab, so as to not fall in himself. His brother bobbed in and out from under the water, as the river flowed on.
The boy crawled farther in, strangled cries of "Jamie, Jamie!" coming as his younger brother continued to be pushed farther out. The ice was broken enough. The eldest brother pushed on, struggling not to fall in himself. And then it broke beneath him, right next to his brother, but close enough to the edge to get them both back. He dove under the water, reaching for the little boy's hands, using all his strength shoving and fighting against the current all while carrying the weight of his brother. The first thing he did when he reached the edge was set the boy on the side, out of the water. The seven-year-old coughed and wheezed, spitting out water. His brother then forced himself out of the water, carrying the boy inside with his ice-water numbed body.
He'd been able to save him that time. That was ten years ago. So many things could change in that time. And they had. The young man tried to shake the memories. But he could not. Gradually, he rose from the floor of the living room, away from the warm fire, putting on his winter jacket, a hat, gloves, and a scarf, slipping into snow boots, and made his way outside again.
He despised the river and all it meant to him, though he couldn't keep away from it. As much as it hurt, it made him feel closer to his brother. And it reminded him of a time when things were much simpler and he could be a hero. As he approached its familiar edge, he noticed an obscurity in the water.
A clump of grey and blue and brown... brown hair, a grey coat, and brown boots. A person was in the water. He froze for a moment, considering the implications of this, but he prayed, hoped, forced himself to believe that this person was still living. And he ran, long strides through the snow, leaning toward the water, and dropping his arms into it, pulling the figure toward him. It was a girl, a girl far too familiar, very pale, her lips and fingers blue. Jamie had a moment of hesitation.
This was her, the killer, the girl who'd done so much more than just cut short the life of his brother and two of his friends, but the one who'd caused all this grief and heartache and pain. But he pressed his fingers to her neck, a faint pulse remaining.
He saw the way his brother had looked at this girl, someone who used to be his friend, someone he thought he loved. And he knew what he had to do.

Interference (Chapter 5)

The boy stood at the door of the apartment, holding hands with the little girl as her father fumbled with the lock and his business glasses at the same time. The door opened, but the boy was still looking at the glasses... behind the lenses, information flew across them, just like main monitors on home computer communication systems.
“They give him all the info he needs to do work, even when he’s out getting groceries,” whispered the girl, with a snicker. “Mom says it’s kinda obsessive, but I think they’re cool.”
“They are cool.”
The girl nodded, as she proceeded to take the boy to a mePad. She pressed the button to turn it on, and pulled the stylus from the side of the screen, and also allowed the keyboard to come out, the mePad taking a more laptop-like form.
The boy realized that this was not a mePad, as the girl typed in a safe-coded password. The screen flashed with images of production of a product, lists of sales, locations, maps...
“Um... Are you sure you’re supposed to be doing this?” he asked, beginning to feel nervous.
The girl just giggled a little, as she logged onto some website of very old things, like cats saying silly phrases and people falling off their bicycles and what not...
“Kainni...” came a voice, not sounding very happy. Her father stalked over to the desk the children were sitting at, and slapped himself in the head, sighing exasperatingly. He gently lifted the girl out of the chair, and logged off the website. The boy took a few steps back.
“Kainni, don’t be messing with this, you know this is important...”
She nodded, though there were a smile behind her solemn guilt of her silly prank. “Okay. Sorry Daddy. Can we go to the park now?”
“If you promise not to go messing around on my business top again, you can.”
“I promise.”
Troy followed Kainni into the hallway, as they made their way down and behind the apartment building.
“How did you know you were on his laptop?”
“’Cuz of the glasses. Aren’t they cool?”
“Yeah... does he need them?”
The girl shook her head. “Nah. But he likes to keep up with his work.”
Troy nodded, somewhat understanding.
“Yeah... my dad too. But he doesn’t work at home...”
Kainni responded with a nod, which acknowledged that she actually did not understand; her father worked from home almost all of the time.
“I’m glad he doesn’t work at home,” said Troy, suddenly.
The girl looked surprised again.
“Why would you say that?”
The boy bit his lip, looking down, and nervous, like he’d said too much, guilty, like he regretted saying what he had. Why he didn’t like his father home was supposed to be a secret, something that shouldn’t be shared or burdened onto somebody else.
“I’ll race to the swings this time.”
He took off running, Kainni immediately on his tail. She wouldn’t let Troy Abbort beat her at racing to the swings. It just simply wouldn’t be right if he won.

Troy

I knew it was her. There was no way it wasn’t her. Like I’d said, I almost never remembered the things I wanted to remember, always forget them as they were overshadowed by the sometimes cloudy, amplified horror stories that crowded my mind.
Her eyes were glued to the screen with the music video. That girl in the video might be lucky, if that boy in the video did more than meet her gaze. If he stepped in and did something. If not, like most people, then she was stuck where she was, perhaps forever.
I didn’t like to watch things like this, read books like that, because I could relate to easily. I used to read a lot. Novels where the protagonist always conquers the bad guys. Where there was magic and sword fighting and other lost things, where no matter what happened, the good guys got back up again and won over evil. It didn’t seem to go that way for myself.
And there was Kainni. She’d certainly changed. I’d caught a glimpse of her former self in that storm the other day, completely immersed in her surroundings, taking in the moment for every succulent second it was worth to her. But other than that, the imaginative, talkative girl with her head in the clouds had seemingly disappeared.
This time, when she noticed me observing her, she didn’t tell me to stop. I couldn’t believe this was her. And at the same time, I absolutely could. Something, perhaps many things, had stolen her from the sky and nailed her to the ground.
Terra now opened the door.
“Well, you got here fast... are you okay? You look...”
“Yeah, I know,” Shane said, cutting Terra off. “I was actually on my way here when I called you,” he admitted, as he stepped inside, his gait a little less steady as the night before. “He had a black eye, the mark from the night before much more defined.
Your face...”
“Minor cost. I won this one, though. He was hungover, so it was a lot easier than usual...”
“D---it, Shane, you need to get out of there...”
“One more year, and I’m out.”
“Yeah, I know,” Terra replied, her voice growing quieter as she stared at him. “Don’t forget to take me with you,” she added, nervously. “Do you want some ice or something?”
Terra automatically stood without an answer to get an already-used, sandwich bag with partially melted and refrozen ice cubes contained within it. Probably her own, considering the way her own face looked compared to the night before. He sat down on the coffee table, and Kainni tried not to watch the two, as Terra took a wash cloth and the ice bag, applying it too his cheek...
I tried to keep my own memories from my head...
“Troy, honey, hold still...” she said, as she wrapped my arm with an auto-bandage, holding a pack of ice wrapped with bandage to my cheek. When she finished, I lifted my arms, painfully, to wrap around my back, from hitting that corner of the staircase after being shoved into it...
“M-Mommy... I-I... I don’t wanna live here anymore... c-can we go back t-to... to the apartment, and live with Kainni? P-Please?” I begged, I requested, through tears I tried to hold back.
She sighed shakily, and I knew she wanted the same, but she shook her head. “No, sweetheart... we can’t...”
And then her gaze turned blank for a second. “Your father never hurt you, remember that. He never did and never will.”
I nodded, though I didn’t understand, because he had.
And he would. Again, and again, and again. And he’d hurt her, too. Many times, and twenty times worse than he would ever hurt me.
I rose suddenly, as I blinked back tears for what had begun to flood my mind, and out the back door, not knowing where else I could hide for the few moments I needed. There she was, reaching out to me, desperate to be rescued. I wanted to change her fate, at least make it so she didn’t have to leave...the way she did.
One memory kept itself from coming back completely in perfect detail, though the images came in blurry bits and pieces. And that was of her death.
I was on the ground, I was in pain, but it was nothing, nothing like what I was seeing... the memory came in flashes of light reflecting off of the blade, a technologically advanced glove on a hand, the hand gripping the blade tightly. Blood was the most common, most vivid, picture in my head. The one thing that stained my mind, and it spilled all over the floor. Murmured last words...
I trembled at the thoughts, glancing at the bright sky for a second, before squeezing my eyes shut, shaking my head, trying to keep the tears from falling as things kept coming back, just the way I didn’t want them to. My arms were wrapped tightly around myself, trying to hold myself together.
I jumped slightly when Kainni entered the backyard.
“Hey... Troy, are you okay? What happened back there?” she asked, as gently as possible, looking a bit at a loss for what to do. I kept trying to regain my composure, but it wasn’t working very well. Never had such a simple scene brought me this close to seeing it all over again, with all those searing details.
Breathing had to be made my focus, in, and out, in, slowly, gradually, and out. But my breaths were short and shaky.
“Calm down, it’s okay...” she said. I couldn’t meet her gaze again, staring at the ground.
And then her hand gently found a place on my shoulder. She touched me like I’d been injured, and I had many times, yet almost immediately after this second, I started to breathe easier, began to regain my focus, began to come back to the present.
“I... I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I just...”
“It’s okay,” she replied, quietly. I glanced away from her, wiping my face with the back of my hand, my hair falling into my eyes as I turned back toward her. She seemed to be out of questions, as she stared at me. I hadn’t meant to break down in front of her, or in front of anyone. I felt nearly humiliated, but she wasn’t ridiculing me, she wasn’t telling me to snap out of it, she wasn’t saying I was weak... She was just standing there, staring. Her hand hadn’t moved.
I think I had begun to understand why she didn’t like me staring at her, watching her. She looked a little shaken now.
Her emerald eyes seemed to ask a thousand questions. I looked down. Gradually, she moved her hand away, but her gaze remained upon me, those eyes daring me to look back at her, as if they had the answers to all of those questions.
“Come on...” she murmured. “I... I think it’s okay to go back in.”
She turned around slowly, opening the door, taking a second to let me in before herself. I would have done so for her, but she did this with silent insistence. Shane and Terra now occupied the couch, the ice on the table, melting away, while its users had fallen into a much-needed, gratifying sleep. There was something about them, laying there like that, Terra being held protectively, safe, in the hands of someone who probably had hurt her, the two of them looking content and calm. There was just something about sleep that could either blissfully rob you of your worries and cares, or vehemently remind you of your horrid realities.
Kainni looked tired.
“Maybe you should try to go to sleep again, too,” I murmured quietly.
She tried holding back a yawn that inevitably came, as she shook her head.
“Yeah, I guess I should,” she replied.
I nodded. And she was staring at me again...
“But you look exhausted, Troy. You should be the one getting some sleep. You can have the guest room for now.”
“No, no, you...”
“No, seriously, it’s okay. Give me a second.”
Kainni watched me, waiting for me to move.
“Um, you can go in now.”
“I couldn’t, aren’t you tired? You should have the guest room...”
“Don’t worry about me. Just get some rest.”
She tactfully directed me inside of the room, closing the door seven-eighths of the way shut before her steps trailed off down the hall.
I stared out the window for a moment, drawing the blinds and closing the curtains before awkwardly climbing into the bed of the guest room. I closed my eyes, laying on my back, the blankets pulled up over my nose. I turned onto my right side, finding that I still couldn’t rest in this position, before turning to my left, onto my stomach... nothing worked. She should be here, not me.
I stood up and began to pace around the room... I was absolutely exhausted, but I knew I couldn’t sleep now. A rectangular object with odd plastic film then caught my eye, as it lay on the corner of the bed stand. I opened the blinds, and began to page through the book. Printed novels. I’d always wanted to see one like this, to really be able to feel and page through what I was reading. My mother had a couple of printed books, with real covers and everything. One was very important to her, one she swore upon, that she believed with all her heart was not fiction. I wonder why I hadn’t taken it with me...
Regardless, this book was much different. But it was extremely fascinating. It reminded me of the girl in the music video, of that song on the television earlier... it fit nearly perfectly.
But I didn’t want to read all about her keeping her secrets, or about her mother’s death, her father’s terrible behavior toward her. I felt my heart racing with the memory from earlier, yet I managed to suppress it for the moment as I mulled over what the author had written.
Had my own father’s behavior worsened after my mother’s death? Yes, I realized. Yes, it had. Observing my life with a cold, distant perspective helped. But it was still my life... it worsened, because after his actions, he found that maybe, the person he was supposed to value the most was nothing to him, and I was even less. Or maybe, with this realization, he noticed that I was failing at Abbort expectations and wanted to beat me into shape.
But this situation wasn’t like that... her father had been brought to a breaking point. My father seemed to have been the way he was for a long time now.
Calculated, coldness, and distance were all part of the way he was now. But he still “snapped” every now and then. I shuddered. But my mother’s diary told me the whole story... my father had been the way he was before I even knew he was like this. And his father before him.
And from what I assumed, his father before him, and his before him. Each had the same agenda in the end. Take all the power, from whatever source, which was robbed from them to begin with, and once they got it, they were consumed.
I didn’t want to be that person. I read through the book absently. Her day to day life seemed so normal, and yet she hid. She lashed out at her father, for once getting some of her power back, before having it knocked out of her. I wondered what would become of Olivia Lainie.
Would she grow up with bitterness at her father? Would she grow up, have children, and discover she carried more from her father than just genes she wanted to disregard? Would she even make it that far with him violent?
I read on. Her friends who stuck by her cared so much for her. It was lovely for her.
I’d only ever had one friend outside of my mother. And I now became distinctly aware, that I was not alone any longer. I edged toward the door of the guest room, opening the door cautiously, and to my surprise, Kainni met me right as the door opened.
“Oh... y-you’re awake. I... see you got a hold of the book.”
I smiled weakly.
“Yeah, guilty as charged. You can have it back if you want to read it again. It’s... pretty well-written,” I said, for lack of a better term. It was well-written, perhaps too well-written.
“No, you can keep reading it if you want, I don’t mind...”
“No, really, here.”
I handed her the book, our fingers brushing for a fraction of a second as we made the exchange. She looked into my eyes, questioning again, and I returned her gaze, wondering if I gave her any of the answers she was looking for. I wonder if she knew, too. If she remembered who we used to be.
Why would she hate me if she remembered? Or did she hate who she thought I’d become? Who I know I would have become?
“Thanks,” Kainni replied, quietly, her emerald eyes never leaving mine. Still it seemed she hadn’t gotten answers. Neither had I.
“You... you can have your room back if you want. I’m probably not going to be sleeping anymore today.”
She nodded, not really having anyway to argue against that, and I could tell, though she might be as exhausted as I was, she wouldn’t be able to sleep either. Taking the book, she walked into the room and got onto the bed, opening it almost immediately. It must have been pretty interesting to her.
I started walking out the door of the guest room, before remember Terra and Shane sleeping. I knew I probably wouldn’t wake them up or anything, but...
“You don’t... have to leave, you know...”
Turning around, I knew it was my turn to be surprised. Kainni didn’t want me to leave? She wasn’t telling me to leave her alone? This was quite a lot of progress from yesterday. Cautiously, I entered the room again, taking a place on the floor, closing the door three-fourths of the way this time, not feeling all too comfortable with shutting the door exactly.
Kainni looked back down at the book, devouring the pages quickly. I don’t know how someone could read a book like that as quickly as she was. I decided not to interrupt. I looked around the room. It was rather plain, with neutral colored walls and curtains, an accordion-like door signifying a closet, a dresser, and the bed stand with a simple lamp upon it. The blinds behind the curtains filtered in a good amount of light from the outside.
Looking around this plain room allowed made me feel boredom beyond relief. With such boredom usually came thoughts that often creep into my head while I am alone. Yet the sound of the rhythmic sound of a book’s pages turning reminded me that this was not the case.
“You certainly look entertained,” Kainni said, sarcastically, breaking the silence suddenly. She peered over her book at me on the floor.
“Oh yes. Historical interior design is fascinating,” I replied, a similar tone in my voice. She laughed half-heartedly, before returning to her book. I liked her laugh, even if she didn’t put all of herself in it one-hundred percent of the time. Her face slowly dimmed though, as she become more absorbed in the serious book. I watched her closely, registering the change in expression and emotion as she read on.
I wish I could remember more about her... when she was younger, what could have brought her to the way she was today. Thinking about this, I pulled out my mother’s mePad, and stared at the pages where there were locked, “erased” words in its crowded, flimsy, virtual pages. They were mostly coded for the safety of those who were covered behind. And then I rolled the digi-pen over one of the erased words... Natalia, my mother’s friend, her name had been erased before. I discovered her name, after falling half-asleep, only two days ago, pressing my hand onto the button that released the keypad, accidentally pressing a random code of buttons. The code just happened to be 6-2-8-2-5-4-2, which on an old phone would be where the letters of Natalia’s name would be listed.
I opened a page where there was another locked word. My mother’s best friend was Natalia Sawyer-Ceiltra, and she had a daughter whose name was also omitted and replaced by her respective pronouns.
I keyed in a code, taking a wild guess at the spelling of her name, 5-2-4-4-6-6-4. And then the name appeared.
Kainni Crystal Ceiltra was her full name. I felt a little bit strange finding so much out so quickly, so easily, having read of every detail of her life that my mother had known from her friend until we’d moved...
“You writing in your diary or something?” said Kainni, putting down her book and hopping off the bed, strolling over to me, crouching down to my level on the floor. I tried to hide it, but it was too late... the details were there all over the page, open.
“What the...” she breathed. She snatched it out of my hands, flipping madly through the pages. Her eyes were wide as she scanned over some of them. I reached for it, pulling it back and shutting it, grateful that digital books were at least sturdier than printed ones.
Kainni stared at me, wide-eyed. I sheepishly compacted the book and tucked it into the pocket of my pants, not yet daring to look up at her. Apparently she hadn’t remembered. Until now.

Kainni

My mom was in that journal. My mom's name was written about a hundred times in that journal. My name. My life before I was born was freaking written about in that freaking journal.
I was in that. And Troy was. I couldn't read it very much, although I wanted to read so much more, I wanted to know everything in it. Because although it told the story of someone else, my family was intricately involved in those early entries I'd scanned
And I was almost afraid of those diary entries. Why? Why were we in there? Who wrote them?
Why did they write them? How did they know my mother?
I stared at Troy, my eyes wide. How, why? Who?
He stared back again, finally. Still I had no answers to those questions.
Sighing, he finally broke the dense silence.
"It was my mother's," he murmured. "She... she knew your mom, I guess."
I swallowed, taking this in. He was the kid. He was the kid in my memories, the one I raced to the swing set. The one I gave the flower too, the one who looked depressed when it rained in school. He was the kid I showed my dad's busiTop too.
He was the kid I cried for when he left and never came back.
Troy Abbort had been my best friend. When I met him again just yesterday, I'd hated him. I'd just hated my best friend.
"My gosh. It's you?" I rasped, not intending to speak out loud. I couldn't believe it. It was him, this whole short time.
It had been 12 years since I'd seen him.
In my head, flashed the images of the Abborts, such a happy web-TV family, such a lovely group. My mother had always looked strange while watching them on the news.
In my head, I saw Alexander giving speeches ridden with propaganda that no one ever noticed, that everyone accepted blindly.
And in my head, I saw Alexander Abbort, pretending to be miserable. I saw Alexander Abbort and his officials announcing the death of the First Lady, Michelle Abbort.
I saw my mom in her bedroom, struggling to keep it together, taking a week off from work for unknown reasons, because some famous guy's wife died. For someone I assumed she hadn't known.
But she had. Being left in the dust for years without any contact, except for the times on the TV screen, and then truly, left in the dust, left behind.
She'd lost her best friend too, in a way I'd never even known.
And mine stood before me right now, alive. But not well.
Slowly, I began to walk toward him, closing the distance between us, and threw my arms around him.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you so much!” I remembered us in the park again.
He’d accomplished the dream I’d forgotten, the one I had regretted all but a few hours ago, and that I now couldn’t bring myself to regret.
Slowly, just like so many years ago, he embraced me, too. It was unbelievable. And I wanted to hold on forever. I didn’t want to lose this, I didn’t want to lose him, like I had for 12 years.
Like Mom had lost Michelle. I didn’t want to waste any moment, any longer. I began to feel that sick feeling of remorse again, for my terrible treatment of him earlier.
“I’m... I’m really sorry, Troy... for earlier. Again. I... I just didn’t want to take... it was easier to just...”
“It’s okay,” he whispered. “I understand.”
He always understood. He always used to listen.
Who was he now? Would he understand now? Would he listen now? Who was he now? Who had he become?
And I, who had I become?
Could we still be like we had been before? Best friends... what did this 12 year separation mean to us?
And being stuck here. We were still stuck here.
“I am so sorry... you... you must have been... going somewhere with... the time machine, and I...”
“It’s not your fault, Kainni,” he said, trying out my name, yet it sounded as natural as the sun rising this morning.
The manual said no one could help time machine interference. But time machine interference interferes with a whole lot more than the location of your machine’s landing. I held onto him tighter. I had hated him less than an hour ago.
I’d splashed hot coffee onto his chest, I’d hated him less than an hour ago. I’d wanted him gone less than an hour ago.
He was my best friend. Now why was he here?
“Troy... why... what were you using your time machine for?” I whispered, staring up at him. His eyes were beautiful... he was an incredible sight up close. I’d never wanted to acknowledge the attractiveness of an Abbort before, many girls at school had shallowly fantasized themselves with this one here... and he was my best friend. And he was beautiful.
Troy swallowed, looking away from me for a second. Slowly, he pulled away from me again, sitting down on the bed. I came to his side, draping my arm around his shoulders as he stared into his lap.
“What is it? Why were you using your time machine?”
It must have been violating his father’s rules, the rules he enforced on every single being under his rule... more so, probably, his own son.
I felt like I was being stabbed at that second, considering that situation. What would it be like to live under a tyrant father’s rule? I nearly shuddered at the thought. It was just like the girl in the book, with her miserable life.
Though she only toyed for a moment the idea of escaping her life, for the pain it might bring others. And his mother had died... his father’s officials were hypnotized...
He continued staring, now at the floor, still not answering.
“Troy,” I whispered. “You... you wouldn’t...”
He shook his head, before staring at the ceiling, and slipping out from under my arm, standing up abruptly.
I stood up with him.
“Troy... I...”
“You think you know everything about Alexander Abbort? Everything you said... it was true. It was true, I wanted to say it, I wanted to scream it out at him every single second... but I couldn’t. It wouldn’t have mattered. It doesn’t matter now. I would become him.
An Abbort is destined to become what his father was, no matter how much he detests it. It’s like a curse. I don’t know how it happens, but no one can break the cycle... the women never make it.
I was going to save her, Kainni. I was going to make her safe, take her away from Alexander.
She’d be living happily, fully, having some real reason for all that happiness and joy she had. And I’d be safe. Far away. I would never have to worry about becoming him, becoming that monster. I am that way, Kainni. You were absolutely right. I still have to... I...”
I swallowed, shocked at all his words.
“No, no, Troy... you... you don’t...”
I didn’t know what to say. But my entire chest ached at the thought, although it still felt like I was just meeting him, of him being gone... having never existed, or at least, never been born. Losing a best friend again. Yet worse, never meeting him.
Surely it would make life a lot less complicated. Perhaps it would make things easier... but I couldn’t accept that kind of thought, not now, not after all this.
“Troy...”
I didn’t know what to say. How to say anything to him now. Uncharacteristically, as much as I tried not to, my eyes filled, and I turned away, pressing my sleeve to them, trying to keep the waterworks from running. I was not like this. I didn’t like this.
“Kainni... don’t... don’t cry, please...” he begged, his own voice cracking a little. “Please... I...”
I shook my head. And then his arms were around me again, like they had been, catching me yesterday, from falling. Perhaps preventing me from forgetting him forever. Maybe I was being a little dramatic. And I honestly didn’t like being dramatic, being emotional like this, yet, it seemed appropriate right now. I couldn’t help it after all this time and knowing that there had been a chance that... he would have made his goal. There was a chance that he still could. The thought alone sent chills down my spine.
I held him tighter, nearly forgetting what had happened earlier this morning. How couldn’t I have known? How could I forget something like this?
Someone like him?
I had to keep that out of my head. He was still an Abbort, wasn’t he? He was still...
How could I still think that? After all he’d just said to me, opening up so wide, when he’d been shut off for such a long time? How could I even consider that my best friend was lying to me? It may have been 12 years since we’d last seen each other, but regardless. All this time I kept seeing the bad side of the Abborts, and all I could do was hate and complain in secret bitterness, never doing a thing to change the world I was in until yesterday. And I had never considered that not all of them were the same.
Slowly, I looked up at him again, and he was still trying to look away, like he had been earlier, forcing his eyes shut as he tried to hold back his own tears. It wasn’t working. He started to pull away from me again, but I only took one hand to wipe a tear from his cheek. He opened his eyes, staring down at me. His eyes truly could speak, could tell you everything about him.
They were heartbreaking, they were beautiful, intense, innocent... I remembered, looking into them, how they could never hide a thing. I felt my own well up again, and as tears fell again, he wiped my tears as well. He knew he couldn’t hide anything from me any longer, and I knew we were too far in to get back out. I couldn’t hate him anymore, I couldn’t ever again. I couldn’t ever hurt him again.
Now instead of pulling away, he pulled me close again, and I stayed there in his arms, completely disregarding all the thoughts I would have had about this just yesterday. So quickly, things had changed for me.
I never thought of how alone he could have been.
He was given private schooling at home, the rationale most people assumed was just because of his father’s position, and what it would be like being “famous” in a public school. But maybe it had been something more. And if his father’s officials being entirely hypnotized. And his mother gone...
I couldn’t possibly imagine how horrible it would be. And now he was here, far away from them. We were both here, away from that corrupt time, having been dislodged into a different corrupt time.
Now neither of us was alone. Not anymore.
We stood there in silence. I was not comprehending that this was strange, that this was wrong, that he was an Abbort, that he was lying to me, that I needed to get away right now... this felt so natural, being here in his arms. Wiping tears away, tense remembrance, silent words spoken through the looks in our faces, as I slowly leaned my head on his chest, hearing his heart, ours beating in harmony with one another.
I would have time to wonder why about everything later. Right now, I just wanted to savor these moments we had.
But eventually, we had to pull away. I felt a strange cold, and hollowness, not being in his arms, not holding him. The logical side of my mind got a hold of me before I could reflect on this, however.
Dangit, Kainni, you are not like this! I thought. You don’t act like this, EVER, with guys, EVER, especially not in the first dang day you meet them...
But I knew him. I know him. It might have been a while, but...
No, no... remember that he is...
Who cares? He’s nothing like his father. He never was.
I wouldn’t let these old thoughts get the best of me. I would let the older ones take me. Ones from a childhood long ago, before I realized how screwed up the world I lived in was.
Troy sat down on the foot of the bed, pulling out the mePad, opening it quietly, scanning over the pages with a somber expression on his face. I hesitantly sat down next to him, watching as he read, my gaze wandering to the pages. When he noticed me reading and didn’t put the book away or hide it, I continued.
I’d never have thought that Michelle was like this. I’d thought she was just stupid, following Alexander, maybe just because he was the “man”, just because he seemed to be making the world “better”, that she covered for him when he was screwing everything up... but there was more, so much more to her. From a distance, she didn’t seem like a person my mother could ever stand.
But in this true, raw, journal, revealing herself, although she was very different than my mother, I could see how they’d been friends. She probably balanced her out. I could have probably known all of these things in depth, yet Troy was turning the pages too quickly. I understood if he didn’t want me to see too much too fast... I already had.
And so had he. My stomach started to twist at the thought of why this journal was so important... why Troy had wanted to save her...
How she could have died, and why.
I looked over at him, in wonder. He stared down at the floor, trying to cover himself again, his own eyes dim. It seemed like he might be trying to forget something, shove some memories down.
I thought of history class. I thought of old statistics of murder, rape, abuse, of vehicular accidents, of disease, cancers, of suicide rates, of all these screaming voices in the past that had been seemingly turned into history.
But how were we to know that they were gone or significantly minimized, if everything was being covered up by our “Leader”?
How were we to know if people went back in time and erased their births?
And how were we to know if we never reached out to people, gave them our friendship, let them in?
I put my arm around him again, watching as he broke down again. What had he seen? What had he felt? All I knew were the cold, hard, stats, cold, old, facts. Things that still existed where I was from, but worse, hidden, trying to disable us from doing anything.
But behind every fact and statistic, there was a face. There was a family, there was a person’s body lying in the ground, there were the scars covered and healed by a bandage that could only do so much.
And Troy sat right beside me, unable to keep all these things in any longer. I don’t know how he did for so long. I don’t know how I could have been so blind.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”
I walked toward the boy, Troy, who was sitting the swings at the park, looking very upset. He looked like he was crying. I hurried toward him.
“What’s wrong?” I repeated. He sniffed. “I... I...”
“What?”
I looked at him, very worried. I climbed into the swing next to him.
“What happened?”
I swung side to side, moving closer and then farther from him.
Another sniff. I noticed now he had one of those little skin-colored bandage thingies on his arm. And another one on the other.
“I wanna run away. Can you go with me, Kainni? Do you want to go too?”
He looked at me desperately. I felt like crying now too. I didn’t think of how he got here, a ways away from his own house. I grabbed his wrist, not aware that it would probably hurt him more, and started toward the entrance into the apartment building.
“I’ll take you to mommy first, she can help us. And she can take you to a doctor too...”
“No, no... I... I don’t want...”
“Oh my gosh, there you are!”
Another person walked toward us, a woman with clear blue eyes and dark brown hair. I vaguely recognized her as my mother’s friend.
My mother had joined us as well.
“I’m sorry I didn’t reach you earlier, Michelle.”
I let go of the boy, but he didn’t seem to like that.
His mother kneeled down next to him.
“Hey, honey... we need to go home, okay? Please don’t run off like that again...”
The boy nodded, sniffling again.
“Come on. It’s going to be alright,” she said, patting his head gently. He didn’t look convinced, but he followed her to the hover car anyway.
The boy looked back at me, a desperate look in his blue, blue eyes. His mother gave a similar glance to my mother.
Warning signals.
I myself then began to bawl, crying harder than the boy had on the swing.
There was an unfamiliar warmth beside me, as I slowly began to awaken, my heart beating slowly with the stabbing pain I felt at this memory. And then I realized what was there, who was there. It was him... we must have fallen asleep at some point. Immediately, I rose, disentangling myself from his arms, surprised at myself. I started to remember, our conversation... the journal... the revelations.
Things seemed to be going in fast-forward to me some reason, one-hundred years in the past, with all these things pouring into my head, information overload. And now I’d fallen asleep...
I nervously eyed the digital clock on the bed stand. In bright red numbers, the clock unapologetically stated 12:24 PM.
We’d been here for at least five and a half hours. Most likely sleeping. Though I admit it felt better to have finally slept, that particular memory did not ease my rest. It was wonderful to see him still there, however. To know that all that had happened was not just part of that terrible dream.
And yet I couldn’t comprehend how pivotal all of these things had been, turning my entire world upside down to know these things. All because of this guy, one I had hated by association. Now I watched him, sleeping, his breathing even, so peaceful, childlike as he took his time away from this outside world. It didn’t seem like he was being haunted now, like our old nightmares may have come.
Cautiously, I laid back down, running my fingers through his smooth black locks, wondering what lie inside his mind now, what his expressive eyes would tell me if he were awake. All of a sudden I wanted to know everything about him, I wanted to understand. Other thoughts came to mind... like why I hadn’t remembered in the first place.
Why I had been capable of hating someone I had so obviously loved as a child. And now these questions took center stage, and all the dark places in my mind threatened to reveal their answers...
“Knock knock... you two lovers done with the ‘kissing’ and making up?”
The guy’s voice was accompanied by obnoxious knocks on our now-closed door, and I could feel my cheeks turning red. Troy started to awaken. “Hmm?” he said, slowly, regaining awareness of his surroundings.
“Hey...” I whispered to him.
“Guess not...” said Shane again, and I could easily imagine him turning on his heel, to the disapproving voice of Terra, “Just leave them alone”, I could hear her say.
I wondered if I wanted to be left alone again. It was already so strange, thinking of all of this. So terrible, what I knew now. And yet, so wonderful at the same time, this reunion.
“Hey,” he murmured, and smiled again, that weak, gentle smile, so rare. I loved it then, and I did now. I couldn’t help but smile back. If only there was an automatic time machine button, with fast-forward, and rewind, functions for everyday life. Especially now.
My logical brain, as usual, was screaming, shrieking at me to get out and away from here, and it was all going too fast, and we had only been friends, and we hadn’t seen each other in 12 years, and he was an Abbort, dang it, an Abbort! What on earth could I possibly be thinking? What could drive me to such sudden and illogical insanity?!
I ignored it again, the second time in my life since 12 years ago, the second time within about six hours, and stared into those beautiful eyes. He stared shyly back into mine. And then suddenly tore his gaze away from mine, looking away, his cheeks turning red.
Just like that time in the park, 12 long years ago.
“W-Well, I suppose we should go see what’s going on now... you know, out...-side of the g-guest room...” he said.
I nodded in agreement, standing up quickly again. I combed my fingers through my hair, before going to the door of the room, my hand on the doorknob, meeting another’s without warning.
I couldn’t hide the rose color appearing on my cheeks once again. I let go, and he opened the door, waiting for me to pass through, and we didn’t meet each other’s eyes again. I knew he was blushing again too.
Gosh dang, what was happening to me? This was worse than that terrible, ancient Shakespearean play, Romeo and Juliet, it felt even faster than that.
We made our way to the kitchen, where Terra was standing by the oven, its light glowing as something seemingly “convenient” (probably had been frozen; the toppings including little round, red circles, meat, I assumed, and cheese, crust... things I would never get to eat at “home”, what with my mother’s aversion to such foods) and capable of being baked within 20 long minutes sat within it. She seemed to be much better than she had been earlier, as did Shane, though his face didn’t look seem to have the same effect, although it seemed some swelling may have gone down with the ice.
It made me feel uneasy, knowing why...
“Soo... I’m assuming you guys are doing better?” Terra inquired, as she looked over at the oven’s timer. Man, things took a while back then. I was glad she wasn’t looking at me, however. What they would have assumed was... ugh, I shoved the thought away.
“Yeah, we are,” I said, trying to keep up the act from earlier, that with the new information crowding my head made me nearly forget. I elbowed Troy subtly, for his re-affirming response.
“Oh, yes. Yeah, we’re doing much better than earlier. Very much so...”
Another elbow to the ribs to cut him off. He was absolutely horrible at acting and at lying. True, we were doing much better than earlier. But the couple was now looking at us, probing stares. Ha, they would know too much too easy if anything had happened.
How did anyone keep a relationships like that anyway? Certainly something to ponder some other time...
“Well, that’s good,” said Terra, glancing at the timer again. Shane was now watching her, and she didn’t seem to be paying much attention to him. They didn’t seem to be the most awake and alert of the moment either, yet, I was sure they’d been up quite a bit longer than Troy and I had been.
“When’s your mom gonna be home again, Ter?” Shane asked, moving to stand next to Terra by the counter.
“Six o’clock. Probably going to be more around six-thirty, though, with her working so far into town and all. Don’t worry about it,” said Terra, waving the time away with her hand, stating her and Shane’s mantra. Don’t worry about it.
That torn picture on her mirror, what did he think of it? Perhaps he’d ripped it apart a couple of times as well. But it was in her room. However, they could share it a whole lot more than I’d like to know.
I realized now, that I did not like to look at Terra, or to look at those photographs of her. Because although her hazel eyes, light brown hair, and slightly tanned skin defied the physical characteristics of her, and her actions were not nearly the same, she reminded me of my mother.
And of course, that dreaded last name. She looked at me for a second, thoughtfully, before speaking again.
“Hey, anything you two wanted to do today? I mean, my place isn’t all that exciting, and... I guess you’re trying to get away from some people, but...”
“Oh, we’re fine,” I said, a little too quickly. I really did want to get out of here. But there was that act, that stupid act, the only one that would make sense in this world.
It wasn’t as though I could just outright say, “We’re actually from the future, and our time machines crashed, so now we’re stuck here, and sure, I’d love to get out of this place right now!”
No, that just would not do. So this would have to do for now. Terra focused back onto the oven again, Shane watching her for a moment, with some unidentifiable emotion on his face, before shuffling with a few faltering steps back to the couch, to watch the continuously energy-wasting television again.
Terra now had her gaze on him, sighing, before getting back to the laggy piece of technology her attention now focused upon. Some sort of distraction from some thoughts she might want to keep from her mind. Yet when her glance left to stare at us, Troy’s arm was suddenly around my shoulder. What was he doing?
Well... I guess if we were supposed to be a couple who had just made up from something... did they all act like this when they made up? And what problems were we going to pretend to have? I didn’t like this act, but I guess we should figure out how to be thorough...
A thought crossed my mind, one I wanted to store away quickly, for fear that the stupid, childish blush that had appeared on our faces only moments ago would return to me in public. And yet I still leaned closer to Troy.
Perhaps it shouldn’t be an act. My cheeks felt hot at the thought returning. Dang it, I just can’t push it away... I couldn’t push him away again.
It sure would have been awkward in this place, I realized, if there hadn’t been the background noise of the “T.V.” The other two seemed to be absorbed in their own reflections, that oven seemingly so fascinating, the images of the television screen incredibly interesting. Or so they wanted to convey.
“Well, I guess we could walk around the neighborhood again for a while, if that’s okay...”
“Um, okay,” said Terra, her concentration broken for a second. “Sure. Uh... I can call you guys in when lunch is ready, if you want.”
I nodded. “Sure. Well, see you two later.”
Shane shot us a “thumbs up” from the couch, waving us off absently, as Troy and I turned toward the back door. He opened it again, beating me to the handle again. I passed through, pettily resenting the action for a moment, because I had wanted to open the door this time, but I disregarded it. He was just being... nice, I guess. I wouldn’t expect any less from him.
In spite of this, I picked up the pace a bit to the gate of the flimsy fence out of Terra’s backyard, unlocking and opening it with unnecessary enthusiasm. I knew my face had to look a little smug. Troy just smiled, laughing a little, much more lighthearted than I expected of him, as he ran through the gate.
"Maybe you haven't changed all that much since you were little," he commented. I glared at him slightly, maybe making him regret what he had said. But I wondered if he was right. Had I changed, or had I not? Did I want to?
"And what do you mean by that?" I said, my hands now on my hips. My gosh, I hadn't changed a lot since I was little... or, maybe it was just him restoring my youthful, competitive side back to where it had once been. I associated it with being immature, with being childish, simply because I'd only been that way when I was young.
"I don't know. You still think you're faster than me," he replied, smiling again. I'd never seen Troy Abbort this cheerful before. It made me suspicious. But I couldn't let him get away with that comment.
"Troy, I don't think, I know," I replied, with mock superiority, smirking.
"Is that a challenge?"
"Maybe it is."
And with that, I took off running, to no particular point of interest, speeding up as I passed the tree from earlier that morning, and down past some signs, across streets, still used to the activity for my mother's own physical activity requirements for our family, which was enough to make up for my lack of athletic-academic involvement. I ran, ignoring this reminder of her for once, keeping my spirits high with this competition, unwilling to lose, just like I hadn't back when we had been much younger.
Soon, unfortunately for myself, I heard Troy's steps catching up with mine, and I sped even faster. I didn't know how far from Terra's we were now, just that I was determined not to lose to Troy Abbort. He didn't win races with me, never had, determined not to let him now. We began nearing a park, not unlike the one that had once been behind our old apartment building, and I raced onto the grass, around the playground equipment and through the clearing.
What I had not taken into account, however, was obstacles that I could not see. My foot unexpectedly got caught in a stray root, and I came crashing to the ground, gratefully not on pavement. I struggled to get up again, my pride not wanting me to let go of this, when another joined me on the ground in a similar manner, less than an inch from landing on top of me.
We both had the wind knocked out of us, both struggling to keep our breath, but ignoring the pain, somehow, chimes of laughter echoed from within us, this lightness I was sure neither of us had felt in years.


Troy

Crashing onto the ground anywhere, at any time, was never very pleasant, yet at this moment now, it seemed to be the happiest thing in the world. Already out of breath, we laughed on the ground, unable to stop, just laying there, simply unceasing, and despite our lack of breath, a lightness had consumed us.
If I had ever felt like this before, I didn't remember it. And the only time I could ever imagine feeling this way, would be in a very similar situation.
Eventually, we had to stop to breathe, but by this point, we were sitting up again, and I looked over at her. I had never felt this way before. Such joy just didn't seem to be the way that I was ever made to feel. Yet all my cares, all my terrors and fears and pain seemed to exit me for these full, lovely moments.
And to have her staring back at me, those green eyes so bright like they once had been, just as I remembered them. She was still smiling. I loved that smile, so much. And it had just been so long... I had to cherish these moments now, because something tugged at my heart, telling me that there may not be much time for us, that we could be separated again, so quickly, so easily.
I reached for her hand, intending to help her stand up with me, but rather, we remained planted on the ground. She took my other hand, and stared me in the eyes, shifting to sit right across from me, her eyes bright and beautiful, yet intense on mine now.
We began to come closer, compelled to move closer, closer, until there would be no space in between our faces. My heart raced, and I knew it was early, something inside screamed it was too early, but logic and common sense had deserted me the moment she realized who we were.
Our eyes closed slowly, and our lips met, our fingers interlocked, before we let go, and we pulled away for all but a second to stand, and my arms came around her waist, hers around my neck. Once again, she had stolen my breath.
Those moments were wonderful, even as we pulled away, and I was left with the ghost of that feeling of her lips against mine, but I could not, would not, ever, forget this. She stared up at me, a mixture of surprise and similar, dazed wonder on her face, and I hoped she felt as good as I did then.
Speech would ruin these moments, so I swallowed my words, taking her hand, silently agreeing to go back to Terra's home, yet I knew we were not the same fake "couple" we had been before.
We took our sweet time, time I suddenly felt like I had, our silence comfortable with the memories fresh in our mind. I'd never known we'd become this way so soon.
Part of me wondered, if I'd never moved, if we'd ever have ended up like this. With the sparse memories I did see, I was sure we most likely would have. A slight bit of guilt threatened to ruin this time for me, thinking of how quickly this was going, too quickly to be good or realistic, but I tried not to let myself care. Should I care? Was it too fast?
With the guilt, the thoughts of my lack of immunity from the disorder that was being an Abbort crept into my head, images of the destructive person that could come from me wishing to overthrow what had seemed to be so wonderful.
No, I told myself. I would never become that way. Not here. Maybe I could be immune here. Maybe I could resist it here.
The hope that had seemed low and lost the other day had somehow sprung up in me again. Maybe I COULD resist it here. And everything would be pure bliss, with my best friend... someone even more than that now.
I almost regretted it as we arrived at the gate into Terra's backyard, stepping back to allow Kainni to decide whether she wanted to open it or I, and surprisingly, she stepped back as well, and I opened it for her, while she hurried away from me again to go open the back door, smiling playfully again. I laughed slightly, and followed her lead back inside.