7 weeks before forgetting
The sound of chirping crickets and the wind rushing through the trees, making the leaves brush each other, filled the night.
In normal circumstances, I would have found it a relaxing sound and I would have fallen asleep within a few minutes. All of this, however, were no normal circumstances. In normal conditions, we wouldn't have to hide from the government. We wouldn't have been hunted by the people that should be protecting us. None of this was normal.
I was lying in a small tent, only big enough for three people, that we managed to get hold of when we passed an abandoned camping shop. It had only a few small holes in the side, but at least we would be protected from the wind and mostly dry in case of rain.
Blaze was softly snoring next to me. I looked at her and I couldn't suppress a smile when I saw that her hair was messily draped around her face, her curls tangled. Her mouth was partially open.
She was probably tired from walking all day. It was the night after Raiden convinced us to stay. The same day that I tripped and cut my hand. After that, we didn't say much to each other. We just kept walking to find new provisions. Blaze and Raiden mainly talked to each other while I silently followed them.
I sat up straight and searched for the zipper of the tent. When I stepped outside, I stretched my arms above my head. I stopped when I saw a silhouette sitting on a tree stump.
"Hey Tarzan," I quietly said while I walked towards him and sat down beside him. "It's a little late for you to be up."
He looked up when he heard my voice but seemed to relax when he saw me."I could say the same to you." Then, carefully, "Did you have another nightmare?"
The fire that we built earlier today still crackled and I was beginning to feel the warmth of it. A welcome feeling on a cool night like that, making me feel less alone.
"Do you have them often?" He asked after my lack of an answer.
I shrugged my shoulders. "Not as often as I would have thought."
He stayed quiet, loaning me a listening ear that told me to continue. "But, you know, don't we all have nightmares? I can't complain. We are all in the same boat, and I know that there are teens that have it worse than me. I can call myself lucky, even, to have been free for all this time and together with my sister."
The darkness of the night comforted me, and surprisingly made it easier to say all of this.
"You know-," Raiden finally answered, his eyes gazing into mine as if he really wanted me to hear and understand what he was about to say, "-just because others have it worse, doesn't mean that you feelings don't matter. You are allowed to feel like shit. Don't let the experience of others invalidate that."
I let it sink in, not sure what to say to that. Even though I was warm enough, his words made me shiver and to distract myself, I looked up at the sky to see the stars.
It was a clear night, making it easy to look at the constellations. I remembered hearing about them in school, but I forgot their names. Learning had never been my priority.
I glanced back down and noticed that Raiden was still watching me.
"What?"
He shook his head and smiled. "Nothing."
I shrugged my shoulders and stared at the campfire that was slowly burning out.
A little later the silence was disturbed.
"Morgan?"
"Hmm?" I turned towards him.
He looked me in the eyes and leaned a little forward. "What happened before? Blaze said before that someone betrayed you before, right?"
I bit my lip and glanced down. "That's not something I-..."
"That's fine. I don't want you to feel like I'm forcing you to tell me. I just want you to know that if you need someone to listen..."
My heart screamed to let the past stay the past. But I came so far already, telling Raiden certain things I wouldn't have usually said to new people. So, telling myself that it won't hurt telling him this, I convince myself to start.
"No, it's fine, I guess. Blaze and I stayed with our grandma for the first three years of IAAN. She kept us hidden. When she-... When she died, we had to start surviving on our own."
I left out the part of our parents and thought about those first six months. They had been hard, so when we found the opportunity of safety, we gratefully grabbed it.
Our safety came in the form of a group of five people: Emily, Blake, Keira, Jazzy, and Maverick.
I looked in the distance and without noticing started to pick my nails.
"One day, Blaze and I were dehydrated and hungry from walking too long without finding a good place to get food. I stupidly proposed to put our bags down and just rest for a moment alongside a road. Incautiously because of our exhaustion, we fell asleep. Soon after, we were woken up by the sound of an approaching group. We tried to grab our bags again and run, but the people had been too close.
"To our relief, it turned out to be a group of teenagers. They surrounded us but realized that we were no threat to them. They offered us water and a little bit of food. "
I shifted on my seat, thinking about it. "Soon after, we agreed to travel together. Blaze grew close to a girl named Jazzy. Blaze was only a year younger, so they got along very well."
I remember being so happy that Blaze found a friend. Someone she could finally play and have fun with.
I hesitated, thinking about the platinum-haired boy with his cheerful indigo eyes. "I grew close to a boy named Maverick. I thought he liked me too."
"Can't blame him," Raiden said with a blank face. I tried to see any emotion, but he seemed like he tried not to show any and was patiently listening to what I was saying.
My friendship with Maverick had been new to me. When I was younger, I never really had any friends. I never met boys like him, so meeting Maverick was... new.
He was smart and calm. He wasn't a butch kind of guy but wasn't afraid to speak up. I could vividly picture him standing there with a nervous smile, his hand in his neck and his hair that had grown long from not cutting it for a long time. He was a little taller than me but wasn't necessarily long. And he was a Blue, just like me.
I felt a little bit of pain thinking about how this group of teenagers felt home. How he felt home.
"Anyway, we had become good friends, but I wanted to be more than that," I continued my story with a little wavering, "but Emily, another girl, also had a crush on him. She grew a little hostile towards me."
The truth is that she would always come in between us and never left us alone.
"She eventually turned the rest of that group against me."
"That sucks."
I observed Raiden. He seemed to genuinely be listening to my story, and that gave me an unfamiliar but good feeling.
"Yeah," I answered, thinking about Emily's attempts to get in between us.
"We traveled together with that group for about three weeks. You can imagine that after traveling so long together, we grew fond of each other."
I took a breath and looked up at the stars again, remembering one of the last nights.
Blaze and I had gone to bed earlier than the rest. She had asked me what I had been waiting for with Maverick. She knew I liked him.
"Maybe he doesn't like me. I don't know what it looks like when a boy likes you," I had answered.
Blaze had just chuckled at that answer and responded: "You won't know if you don't ask."
Raiden shifted on the stump he was sitting on and I exhaled. A cold shiver went down my spine and I shook it off.
"The last few days we were in the middle of nowhere and we didn't have enough food. We were desperate. Honestly, it all came down to luck.
"Blaze had convinced me that night to talk to Maverick about... my feelings. When I got to the group, I heard that they were having a meeting. I hid myself to listen to them. It was Blake, Keira, Emily, and Maverick. They were talking about their lack of food. Suddenly Emily proposed to trade me for money to a skip tracer. Blake, who looked old enough to not be a psi, would be able to sell me to a skip tracer so they could buy food."
Raiden's eyes turned wide and immediately went towards mine.
"To my horror, no one protested. Maverick was even the one to agree to her proposal the first. He didn't even seem to hesitate about it."
I closed my eyes for a second and swallowed.
"Shit, Morgan. I'm sorry. That's horrible."
I nodded, agreeing with him. It was horrible. "After that, I ran to Blaze. I woke her and told her what had happened. We tried to pack as much stuff as quickly as possible and left before they could catch up on us."
There was a moment of silence and I started to pick my nails again.
"When I was in the camp, I started to believe that even though we are being hunted, we could always count on each other. That all the psi would help each other."
"Yeah well, there will always be the ones to help themselves, and only themselves," I responded softly.
"I think that that's why it is important to find people that you can trust. To call your home and to have your back." He looked me in the eyes, as if he was trying to give me some hope.
I had always considered Blaze to be that person to me. It never crossed my mind that there would be anyone else to call home, but maybe it was possible.
I took a breath, a little afraid at the response I was gonna get for asking the question I was about to ask. "What was the camp like?"
Raiden backed down a little. "It was a nightmare that I hope you'll never have to experience."
"How did you get out?"
He became a little reserved and nervously looked behind him, to the tent. I noticed it, and quickly added: "You don't have to talk about it."
He turned to me and seemed relieved. He gave me a smile and answered: "You know what? Let's make a deal. If you are ready to talk, you'll come to me and if I am ready to talk, I'll come to you. We'll be... talking buddies."
I grinned at that."Sure."
He mockingly gave me a surprised look. "Did you just... laugh?"
"I guess I did. Apparently, miracles still happen."
"Don't worry. It suits you. Makes your face look even nicer."
I stood up and rolled my eyes. "Ha ha. If you're done laughing, do you finally wanna come to bed with me?"
My cheeks were turning red at my awkward comment and I was at a loss of words for a moment. Raiden looked at me with big eyes before he started to cackle, trying to keep it quiet.
"For-... for sleeping, that is. Just, you know... because you haven't slept yet. And you should. Not with me, but... well... You know what I mean," I finally say in a annoyed tone.
While Raiden was still laughing at my stammering, I started walking backward to the tent.
When I finally turned my back to Raiden, his voice turned serious and calmly said, "Morgan? If you ever have another nightmare again, or can't sleep... it's okay if you talk to me. I don't care if you have to wake me up for it."
I stepped into the tent and squirmed into my sleeping bag, still thinking about his what he said. And for a small moment, I got a feeling that wasn't all too familiar to me.
Trust.
After a while, I heard the zipper open and the sounds of Raiden going to bed. Only a few moments later his breathing became constant. How did this guy fall asleep so easily?
I thought about tonight. It felt good to talk. I didn't really have that chance before and I felt a little bit of that heavy burden on my chest lifting. It was only a little bit, but it was enough for me.
Maverick's betrayal had left such a painful mark in my life. It had become an invisible scar, hidden between all the visible ones, but was probably more painful.
The idea that someone could betray a person that was so close to him made me disgusted. I could never do that, I thought. And even though I have never seen him again, I have always kept thinking about it. Thinking about that one question:
How could he betray me like that?