A Cosmic Misunderstanding (COMPLETE✔️)

4 || Impossibilities

(song: "Shark" - Oh Wonder )

Green surrounded me completely. I found myself following Marcel deep into the woods. Such vibrant colors and smells surrounded me. The sounds of the birds echoed from the tops of trees and I could see the clouds overhead slowly moving against the sky. The smell of morning mist mingled with grass, leaves and flowers.

Each step I watched his back, the way he moved and knew just where to step. Mist swayed near his feet as his hair glowed under the suns luminescence.

It was all so hauntingly beautiful.

After a few minutes he came to a complete stop. It was so suddenly I bumped into his back and nearly tripped. His reflexes were so fast, he reached out his arm protectively to keep me from falling.

"Thanks," I told him as I regained my footing. There was just something strange I felt when he touched me. The same tingling sensations from the night before in front of the telescopes.

"Look down there," he gestured with his chin towards something below us.

I turned my head to see a small crater below us. The earth surrounding it looked scorched and no plant-life grew anywhere near it. Wire fencing surrounded the site and a few signs were posted stating to keep off the property.

"That's where the meteor fell. There's nothing about it in the news, or online, only our local paper and news station mentioned anything about it. I was told researchers came, looking to test the meteor to see if it was real or just a rock."

"And did they?"

"They found fragments of it, but not the full meteorite." Marcel then turned to face me. "Lily, look, I'm not teasing or lying to you. I am not saying that I believe the rumors, I'm just trying to figure out what happened that night. Your Nana was my only lead and she's. . .well, she isn't here anymore."

I felt the sincerity in his voice. I wanted answers too. I had access to Nana's house and anything that might explain her connection to Marcel was probably hidden in the house. So, against my better judgment, I made an offer.

"I'll help you," I said quietly at first and then I got louder. "If you answer my questions, then I'll help you solve your questions."

Marcel smiled at me in a way that made dimples form against his cheeks. As I watched his smile I could suddenly remember a face from my past. I remembered a small boy with dimples coming over to Nana's house. I remembered the boy offering me a tiny piece of rock.

Were these the memories of Marcel that I'd forgotten?

"Deal." Marcel offered out his hand for my to shake.

I hesitated to offer my hand out to him, but I shook away the hesitancy as me just being silly. I held his hand to shake it firmly.

The feeling was back, the bizarre electrical pricks against my skin when we touched. It felt partly like static electricity, and partly the way my foot feels when it falls asleep. It was like his body generated more electricity than was normal for a human being.

"You say you sense things when you touch people, right? What are you sensing from me now?" I tested him.

"Nothing. For once, I sense nothing," Marcel looked relieved and kept hold of my hand a little too long. "There's something about you that makes it hard for me to completely read you. I just get bits and pieces."

"So like a psychic? You're saying you're a psychic?" Not that I believed in psychics either, but that was an easier stretch than being an alien.

He turned over my hand to stare into my palm. He pressed his palm flatly against it. I wanted to pull my hand away, but I was curious. I needed as much evidence as possible if he wanted me to believe even for a second that he may have been psychic.

"With you, I seem to only pick up on your strongest emotions. The rest is a mystery to me. I really like that. I hate knowing everything about everyone, it's the reason why Daniel is my only friend in town."

It seemed awfully convenient that suddenly he couldn't sense anything from me anymore. Maybe his grandmother has brainwashed him so much with 'star boy' talk that he'd actually started to believe it.

"I remembered something about you," I told him to change the topic. I slowly retracted my hand away from his. "You also gave me a rock when we were little, didn't you?"

"It was a piece of meteorite and you gave it back to me when we were little. You said it was ugly."

I smiled. That definitely is something I'd have said.

"Why did you give it to me then?" I asked.

Marcel began to continue our trek through the woods. I wasn't sure exactly where we were going next, but I followed anyway and listened to him speak. "Because you were the only kid in town who treated me like I was normal, I needed that."

I pushed a branch away from my face. "There's no reason to treat you any other way. You're a unique individual, but you aren't an alien. You're just a guy with a strong passion for astronomy and you are hyper perceptive, kind of like Sherlock Holmes or a mentalist. Mentalist appear like they are psychic, but really they are so perceptive that they can read people based on their eyes movements and body language."

"Have you ever seen a waterfall?" His question caught me by surprise.

"No. . ."

Marcel parted the shrubs in front of us and allowed me to step through first. I could see a small brook flowing with water and to the left of it a rocky ledge with a modest sized waterfall feeding into a small swimming pond.

It was beautiful, it wasn't spectacular, or life changing. It felt small and private, like a secret.

He sat against the rocks beside the small brook. "I like to come here to get away from everyone."

I joined him and sat carefully at his side. "I thought you were going to show me the impossible."

"Do you believe in the impossible? You have to believe it in order to understand it."

"Show me," I persisted.

Marcel stretched down his fingers into the water. He sways his fingertips gently against the cool running water. Soon I could see a small fish approach his hand and sway along with the motions he created.

"That fish really likes you," I said not thinking much of it.

One fish quickly turned into two, then three, then four and finally seven. Seven random fish, swaying and following the specific hand motions of Marcel.

At this point I started to realize, maybe Marcel really wasn't normal. . .