Airel - Aaron Patterson [84]
I ended up sitting in the wet grass in the meadow, glances of which I had stolen so often from my room, from the ballroom. I was a candle burnt from both ends, completely spent. My eyes filled with tears as I felt the dark woods surrounding. Superhuman? I was just an average girl. But the things I wanted the most were out of reach, permanently, and they were foolish too.
I became overwhelmed with one thought, and words fail to describe it even near to what I felt, because it soaked into the marrow of my bones in that moment. What I felt, stronger than anything I had ever felt, what faded literally every other concern into the background including my family, my future, and Michael, was that I had woken up today to find that I was… a superhuman… thing… but all I felt was frail. My mind was firmly trapped in the difference between the two.
Shoulders shaking and shivering with chills, I sobbed and cried for what seemed like an hour. I didn’t care what Michael or that horrible man thought. What did it matter anyway? What did I have to look forward to? Days, months, years, decades, centuries, lifetimes of loneliness—if what he had implied about immortality was true—and knowing that I was not only different, but also different in a way no one would ever understand.
Feeling like, at seventeen years of age, I had cried enough tears for many lifetimes already, the ripples in the little pond of my life began to subside. I felt as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders, which I needed desperately.
I looked up at the huge house that was embedded in the mountainside. It was so beautiful. I could see the tall windows that looked out over the lush green valley, and the patio where Kale and Michael still sat. I was glad they let me be alone; it would have been embarrassing to have cried like that in front of Michael.
But I wasn’t alone. She was there with me, and for once, I felt her almost tangibly. I was glad that She seemed to show up when I most needed her. She helped me think of something I never would have come to on my own: “You cannot change this. You are who you are. Live. Live, Airel.”
She was right, of course. I couldn’t change who I was or what I was, as my stalker had informed me an eternity ago. I was here for a reason. Maybe Kale knew, or he could help me discover it. As I steeled myself to it, it began to occur to me that there had been times before when my answers had proved to be inadequate. I decided that I had more to lose in sticking it out by myself than I stood to gain by asking for help. It was time to find out why I was here, and I needed to cast aside everything that made me comfortable.
I returned, ascending the winding gray stone steps, and rejoined them on the fringes of the patio space, awkward and self-conscious. I hid a little behind my hair, sticking my hands in my back pockets, and managed a weak apology. My chair was overturned, just as I had thought, but Kale stood as I approached and righted it, holding it out for me in a gesture of peacemaking. I got the very strong sense that Kale was like a gift from God. It may have seemed like a radical change in my thinking. It was.
I sat down. Still, I had an axe to grind with Kale, especially if he was indeed friend and not foe. I decided to cut right to it: “My parents—“
“—Are fine,” he finished for me.
I wanted to believe him, but I desired proof. I was thrown. All I could manage was, “But—” I didn’t like how these negotiations were going. It was worse than asking my dad for the car keys on a Friday night.
“Airel, you need to learn how to trust me, and how to be patient as you wait for the answers you seek.”
“But what does that have to do with my concern for my parents, for my life?”
He was briefly taken aback, I could tell, but he dodged the question a little. “You may not be ready to see the answers yet. And what good would it do you to see anything that you cannot understand?” His eyes spoke volumes of kindness and empathy.
I gave up. It was obvious that Kale wasn’t going to tell me anything but what