The Otherkind Book One:Heart

~*~ 33 ~*~

It was a long time before dad came up the stairs and when he finally did I heard him stand outside my door for a few moments before his footsteps turned and went to his own room, his door closing with a soft click.

Moving like this was becoming a trend. The first time because my mom quit on me, the second, because everyone else that mattered to me quit on me.

Oh sure, I could reason that it was 'all for my good'. I heard that often enough. But at the end of the day, none of them thought I was old enough, or smart enough, to live my own life. I wasn't even given the time to say good bye to my friends or even clean out my locker at school. I punched the keypad on my phone flouncing down on the chair that was still sitting by my bed where Grayson had put it. Maybe if I talked to Sarah. And then I folded my phone shut. What could I say? How could I tell her where she could understand, when I didn't even understand?

The twin hearts were on my night stand. Walking over to them I pushed them a tiny bit with my finger so I could see both hearts laying side by side, interlocking each other. Reaching in my pocket I took out the ring I'd worn when I was someone else and set them by the hearts that were made for someone else.

Seeing the rings and hearts together hurt. Scooping them up, I dropped them unceremoniously into the bottom drawer of my jewelry box and closed it.

Walking to my window I lay my forehead upon the cool glass of the sliding door that went out to my balcony and watched the snowflakes that had just started falling, big and fluffy as goose feathers. I cried hard for the first time slowly sinking to my knees. Letting out some of the anger, the frustration, the desperate longing for something that I wanted more than the air I took in with each breath.

Turning I got ready for bed, sliding under the blankets. I lay looking at the spot that had once been occupied by those carved hearts for a long time and then finally turned my back resolutely. If they all could push me out of their lives so too could I. I cried again. Deep wracking sobs followed by a soul deep coldness that left me shivering under my blankets. Sleep eluded me.

After a while I gave up the pretense of even trying. My whole world had turned upside down. I was too afraid of dreaming of Grayson. I was too afraid of falling asleep and missing him if he did come to me. A tiny part of me still wished for a miracle even though the rest of me lived with the knowledge that all was gone to me. He had made his choice. Not fighting for anything that could be, nor even for anything that had been. Gone.

Sitting up I went through my things packing them absently. Once again I was being forced to fold my entire life into a box, in this case, a small travel bag. I pushed the chair that he once had sat in back to its spot by the window where it belonged, before he had come in and turned my world upside down. His leaving had torn it apart.

Packing and repacking I pared myself down to one bag determined to make a statement that this was not forever. I would only go as long as it took me to come back. If I came back and there was still nothing, I would find a way to do something. Anything. I would ask Archer or Tina to take me to Ber' Sador if I had to. I pushed even darker thoughts away from me. It was not that time yet. Not yet. But I still peered over the edge of that precipice wondering at its silken, siren beckoning.

Resolutely I pushed away from that edge, I would deal first with this, go somewhere I didn't want to go. Somewhere that I had not been since I was a very small girl. Somewhere in all honestly, that I was probably not even wanted. Then I would explore other options. There was still hope right now. The barest glimmer of it, but I clung to it tightly. To do anything else would be just to end it all right now and I wasn't ready for that. Not yet.

I saw my jewelry box that contained the twined carved hearts and the ring that symbolized something from too long ago to salvage. It hurt to look at it. I took a sweater that I had opted not to bring and tossed it on top the box so I would see it no more.