Humans: Book IV

XV

"What? When?"

"Twenty years ago. Before we were dating. Back when we barely knew each other."

My brow raises, "What did you take?"

He scrambles into the pocket of his jeans for a while, only to pull out a little wadded foil wrapper. "You know when I offered you gum on the back staircase? Back when we started the Music Appreciation Club?" I nod and he goes on, "I took your gum wrapper from your pocket." He hands it to me and I grin.

I flip it over to see his smudged and scribbled handwriting, "What did you write on here?" I squint to make out the letters in the lowlight.

Ways to get her to like me
1. collect cassettes for her
2. flowers
3. bust out rad dance moves
3. milkshakes
4. tell her I have freaky powers?
5. "your face is good"

I laugh so hard that a tear rolls down my cheek, "'Your face is good'?"

He shrugs, "Well it is."

"You also wrote two number threes."

His face goes red, "I was writing fast! I had to get all the ideas down."

I wipe away the tear, "You carry this around with you?" Peter shyly nods and ambles closer to me, laying his head down onto my shoulder. "You're sweet," I whisper. "Really sweet. I love you."

His hands glide to my back, "I love you so much it kinda terrifies me."

I make my hand glow so I can see his face better, the burnt orange in the sky faded into a sleepy, private blue. "Like the dark?"

Peter shakes his head, "No, the dark doesn't scare me anymore. I like the dark now."

I hold his face, "And why is that Quicksilver?"

"Because that's when you're the brightest." The graceful strands of the willow tree across the pond rustle like soft applause as I kiss him again, holding him by the shoulders. His energy is fluttery and magnetic like a pull in the center of my chest. As I tangle my fingers into his hair I feel it heat, feel it expand with need and attraction and greater depth, like a sun eating him inside out.

It consumes me so much I don't notice someone calling my name behind us, "Firefly." I turn and Hank is there, glasses and brown cardigan and not-blue.

The heat in Peter fizzles out and he groans, mumbling into my ear, "Blue monkey really never cuts me a break, huh?"

"Shut up, you love him," I whisper back. He only responds with a crumpled expression of disgust. I chuckle and turn away, "What's up, Hank?"

"Can you come to the front? Destiny is there and she has some package for you."

"Sure," I answer, pecking the back of Peter's hand before stepping toward the garden, toward the front doors of the mansion.

I hear Peter cough out from the behind me, "Cockblock."

"What?" Hank asks.

"Nothing," Peter states, folding his arms, taking a seat in the cold and damp grass.

I find Destiny sitting on the front porch beneath the yellow lamps, petting along the scruffy leaves of a fern lining the front pathway. I take a seat beside her and she sets a manila folder onto her lap, looking at me with her purple eyes that blend so easily with the night.

"I did some digging," she says, sliding the file over to me.

"Digging on who?"

"Your mom." My eyes widen and I grip the folder tight, the canvas crumpling.

"Where did you...How..."

"I went back to clean out Shaw's stuff. He's been hiding the file on her all these years I guess. It's all yours now." I hesitate at first, then peel back the cover to flip through old and water-stained papers, hospital records and resumes and certificates. "She wasn't a mutant," Destiny tells me. "She was an emotional therapist, worked specifically with kids. She specialized in music therapy."

I start crying and laughing at the same time, still flipping through all of the papers and letters, my mother's handwriting scrawling and swirling across pages, "She sounds amazing." Something slips out and falls to my feet. I pluck it off the ground. It's a Polaroid, yellowed by time, imprinted with the image of a women with my cheekbones and the shape of my nose. She's kneeling in a garden, her hands buried in the dirt and her mouth smiling.

"I guess she gardened on the side, too," Destiny adds.

I close the file for now and hug her, her body settling into the embrace like a surrender as she wraps her arms around me, "Thank you, Destiny."

"Irene."

"What?"

"That's my real name. Irene."

I pull away and my gold eyes meet her purple ones, "Thank you, Irene."

She half smiles, "You look like the picture. You look like her."

I blow out a long breath, a breath that feels like it's been deep down in my lungs since I was born, waiting to be let out. All this time I thought I only came from destructive forces, devouring their way through the world and through the light. But now I know. Now I know that nothing comes from nothing, that I came from someone gleaming and priceless and good.

A glimmer in the night, all stardust.

Author's Note:

Hi lovelies,
Guess what? I'm going to be writing an ✨exclusive chapter✨ for this book. But here's the thing, I'd like your opinion on what you would like to see next from me. To be emailed the ✨exclusive chapter✨ all you have to do is take this short survey by Aug. 1st. This is your chance to request certain genres and fandoms, ask for any writing advice, and learn more about writing contests!

You can access the survey through the link in my bio.

There's a couple chapters left. I hope you're as bittersweetly excited as I am.
That is all. Continue being awesome 😎

-thecatgurl =^._.^=