THE OMEN GIRL | Wattys 2020 Winner

𝟐𝟎

#

The only thing I ask for as champion is this:

Don't send me out until Naqi is healed and well. And they grant it to me.

By the time I am released from the hearings and the courtrooms and the mess of the city, by the time I can finally return to the hospital with Yashi, a woman and a man are by Naqi's side, and they are weeping.

It's his mother and father.

They cradle over and around Naqi like petals that have not yet bud, that will not bud, because how precious is the thing they have between them.

The boy's eyes have been unbandaged. There is no stain over his eyes and nose anymore, only a faint iridescent shimmer when he tilts his head this way and that. His eyes, when he opens them, are a pale blue.

The stain had taken his sight for good.

In the hallway, through the window of the room, I watch them, though not for long. Their faces are overblown on love, love, love, and it is not something I have permission to see.

So I turn and leave. I give them their space.

#

In the middle of the hall with the sunlight streaking, as I am overlooking the courtyard, Naqi's mother and father finds me, and the mother says, "Sozo? It is Sozo, right?"

I turn to them and draw in breath, and nod. My face and name has been blasting over all the news networks lately.

The mother—smiles, though it's a hard thing for her to pull on.

"Hello," she says. "Yashi has been translating for our son, and he's told us everything."

I swallow hard, and nod again.

The father sets a hand on the mother's shoulder and says, "You've been his eyes and ears in his time of need. So, thank you."

The mother says, "And ko-ang speaks of you so highly. He says you were great friends in the temple."

"So he knows?"

I had wanted to tell him myself, that the Sozo he met through his hands is the Lumi he befriended in the temple, that it's me. It's me. I never once left your side.

The mother and father look at each other, and then they shake their heads.

"We haven't told him," he says. "Rather, we were thinking it—may be better, if he didn't know."

I don't understand.

My frown is my question.

The mother answers. "We've talked to Yashi as well, and asked her not to tell him. We've said that no one knows the Omen girl's name – your name – but have told him the truth otherwise, that she won the race and made a wish, and helped put a stop to all that madness."

"Just," the father continues, "his mother and I think it would be better for him, easier for him, if the friendship was left on that note. He's—very fragile, right now. And you're leaving soon, for so very long. It would hurt him more than necessary, to say goodbye."

"So," the mother says. "So."

And then the father steps up to me. He squeezes my shoulder and it doesn't hurt, not really, but looking at his contrite smile does, because I understand.

They're afraid of me. They're ashamed of me.

I was the one that hurt their son, and those hurts will never heal. I am everything a parent would fear for their child, a bad influence, an evil influence. And though Naqi tells them about me, they would know me mostly from the things they hear on the news networks, the ones that continue to malign me as the Omen I was, or am.