So hey there again! Don't know when this'll be posted due to my annoying writer's block. I wish writing the chapter were as easy as writing the author's note (sometimes it is).
I wanted to thank you guys for reading and commenting and voting and fanning and just being truly amazingly fantastic!! Bruises of Risk got to number 29 in Action and 52 in Fantasy!! That's the highest it's ever been!! Thank you guys so much!! It's all cause of you guys!
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Chapter Ten
Fantasia
“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” – Lewis Carroll
The fact that he was so angry with me didn’t even make sense! I should be the one telling him to run. I’m the one who’s hurt. But something felt off, as if I was missing something.
I don’t have the time to think about this. I thought as I ran out of the elevator at the bottom floor, not waiting a second to look around and see if Damen was already waiting because I knew he was.
I sprinted out the doors and to the back, straight into the forest. Why was I even running? He wasn’t going to hurt me, I knew that and he knew that. Maybe he was hoping I would get scared and run off, so he could be away from me. We were constantly in front of each other and out jumbled feelings were not reacting well to that.
However, I didn’t stop running at the rapid speed I was at. It was relieving to not have to hear my thoughts over my loudly audible heartbeats, and when I could hear anything else, my thundering footsteps blocked out further noise. Maybe I should’ve tried running quieter but the danger of predators evaded me as I took in the forest’s appearance in the early morning. Fallen, dark orange leaves crunched under me as I followed a brown path illuminated by the morning sun shining through the trees, giving them an unreal bright green glaze. My peripheral vision blurred the red, green, blue, and other different hued plants together as my speed kept and I felt content to be among such beauty.
I passed a golden bush, speckled with dusty flowers and suddenly my heartbeat and footsteps weren’t enough to block out the thoughts, the forest’s beauty could no longer divert my attention because that bush had reminded me of Damen’s eyes, thus reminding me of Damen. My sprinting decelerated and my feelings accelerated and there was nothing I could do to stop it anymore. This whole feelings thing is a major annoyance.
Walking along the windy trail, I found a serene pond a deep cobalt blue beside a red flower bed and I sat down in it, dipping my legs in the lake up to my calves. Was it always going to be like this? Were Damen and I ever going to move away from this weird relationship we had of making amends only to break them later? And why was he so repellant of me? He let Sarah in easily.
Laying down, I stared up at the light violet sky and sighed. Last night had proven that even though our feelings are supposed to be going haywire, this whole attraction was not just one-sided. Even though he didn’t show it, Damen felt it, too, but I couldn’t help but wonder if these feelings were real or just because we were to be “Linked”. Did that mean that the others hadn’t shared real emotions, but rather manipulated ones by the Gods so they could work together comfortably and not ever feel the need to be anywhere else? But if Damen actually liked me, for real, he wouldn’t have left me like he did last night, only to spend the night with Sarah. And to think I’d felt special! I laughed cynically at myself for being such a fool but I stopped once I remembered knowing Damen’s feelings in that moment and I didn’t feel stupid anymore. Something just wasn’t fitting.
“Remember that he only says things to hurt you because he thinks you’ll hurt him if he puts his walls down. They’re not always true.”
I stood up straight. Zarie had warned me, and yet, in my hurt, I’d totally forgot what she’d told me. My eyebrows stayed crinkled because there was still a question that had stayed unanswered. Why?
Falling back down with an exasperated sigh, I continued to stare at the whitish lavender color in front of me, hoping that somehow the answer would make itself clear in the sky, preferably written out because that’s probably the only way I would actually understand what’s going on in that irritating man’s head.
I let my head roll to the side, trying to put off what I knew was coming because I had to think and I didn’t want any of that time wasted, but I gave up and watched my hand shake, beads of sweat forming. I felt them form on my forehead, too, and felt them roll off one by one. I could hear them splash on the flower petals under my hair along with the wind rushing through my ears. My attention went back to the sky but I wasn’t expecting to see the sky in its purple haze; I couldn’t see anything but swirls of motion, as if I was still running. The surreal feeling of disengaging from my body soon followed and I knew I was only seconds away from another vision, and I wish I could tell what color my eyes were morphing into.
Shutting my eyes, I tried to recollect my brain to be prepared for what I would see when I opened them, and to focus only on the piece of information I would be given. Everything felt like slow motion when I took a deep breath in and exhaled, feeling the hair plastered to my face come loose with the breath. When I opened my eyes again, everything was quiet and very dark.
“You know I have to leave,” I heard a voice whisper, and I saw a silhouette of a woman illuminated by the street light coming in through an open front door of a house. I was inside the house and I saw the way her light brown hair lit up and the way the golden light made her skin golden, along with the one eye I could see that was trying not to shed the tear contained in it. There was something very familiar in the way her eyebrows crinkled and the way her mouth was set. I tried looking across to see who she was talking to, but all I could see was darkness and for some reason, I couldn’t move from where I was seated on the ground.
“Why can’t you take me?” Another voice came, a teenage boy with a sweet voice. A teenage boy that was trying not to cry.
“Honey, I want to, but you know I can’t.”
“No, mom, I don’t know why you can’t.”
There was a pause, followed by a long sigh. “I can’t tell you, but you will know one day.”
“But he’ll kill me,” the boy’s voice broke as he couldn’t hold in the fear he felt anymore, and let it leak into his voice as an empty plea for his mother to take him with her.
“He can’t kill you, sweetheart,” his mother tried to reassure him. Who were they talking about?
“But he can hurt me, and he will. He already has so many times before.”
“That’s why I have to leave, baby. I can’t keep living like this,” she sounded tired, thoroughly done with her experiences.
“And yet you can let me keep living like this?” he whispered harshly, “What kind of a mother are you?” He sounded like he wanted to yell, but didn’t, because of some restriction I didn’t know.
“A cowardly one.” She couldn’t meet his eyes when she said that, and instead turned her gaze to the ground.
“Then maybe you should leave,” he said, and it seemed like he’d turned his back to his mother because she reached out to grab his shoulder.
“I didn’t want to leave like this,” she said as she turned him around.
“Of course you didn’t. You were leaving like a true coward, sneaking out, not even saying goodbye to me. It was because I heard you or else I wouldn’t have known you’d left till it was morning.” There was so much anger and frustration in his voice that I felt it radiate to me. I was angry at this woman that I didn’t even know for being such a terrible mother and leaving her son behind to deal with the problems she hadn’t wanted to deal with.
His mother sighed again, “Can I have one last hug?” She looked so utterly resigned and desperate that I spit my anger out for a second to take a real look at her. The wrinkles on her face weren’t from age, but from hardship and pain. The lost look in her eyes showed that she was trying her best to be strong now, but that she was exhausted from being strong. Her hair was raggedy and I could tell that the white wisps in her hair were from her stressful life.
I think the boy saw all this, too, as he looked at his mother for one of the last times because he exhaled and gave a curt nod. His mother smiled brightly and dejectedly before pulling him to her, into the light. I could only see his skinny backside and dark black hair and the way his mother had clasped him so tightly to her, like she wasn’t ready for the hug to end ever, like she’d avoided seeing him because she didn’t want to say goodbye and diminish the little hope she’d kept alive inside her that one day she would meet her son again and even though he’d be mad at her, he’d forgive her and they could be a happy family. She knew that if she let that thought go, she would fully die on the inside, and I could see her dying now. She closed her eyes as the tears streamed down her face and she let him go with arm so she could fist her hand and stuff it in her mouth, to not let the anguished sobs out.
She sniffed quietly, took a deep breath, wiped her tears, and let him go. She clasped both sides of his face in her hands and brought him close. “Promise me you’ll leave him as soon as you can.” He nodded. “Promise me you’ll make sure he gets locked up so he can’t harm anyone ever.” He nodded again. “Promise me you’ll never give up, that you’ll always love yourself.” He nodded another time. “And promise me that you’ll try your best to find me,” her voice broke as a single tear took an existent trail down her face. He nodded once more and she gave him a long, lingering kiss on his forehead before saying goodbye one last time and walking out the door. He followed her out and I saw his outline in the dark yellow light. When he turned around, I wasn’t surprised to see his face, to recognize the much younger, tear stricken Damen in front of me because I’d known from the beginning that this vision was dedicated to him.
I felt something cold and wet on my hand, followed by more drops of the same texture and I looked down to see the water. Touching my face, I felt the mess of tears on it, the heavy feeling in my chest, and the painful numbness that was my brain. I knew I could bawl and he wouldn’t hear, so I did.
<*>*<*>*<*>*<*>*<*>*<*>*<*>*<*>
I couldn’t remember how I exited that vision. If the snippet of his life I was gifted to see was over or if the fact that I hadn’t been able to stop bawling was the reason. Either way, I was glad I was out of it because I didn’t want to see anything else in which Damen was in so much pain. I couldn’t handle it.
“No one will ever be able to love someone like you!”
I shut my eyes tightly to block out the words repeating themselves over and over again in my head, to stop the guilt from making itself a permanent spot in my being. Feeling like this isn’t any kind of redemption. It doesn’t make it okay. The voice in my head was right, but I knew I couldn’t find Damen no matter how hard I tried because Damen didn’t want to be found.
I wanted to get up and find Damen to comfort him, to give him my condolences, to somehow in some way make him feel better, to make him happy, to apologize for everything I’d ever said to him, to especially apologize for saying that no one could love him because that was far from it and I was a terrible person for telling him such a terrible lie because I was very close to it and I knew that once I will, I always would. I’d quite possibly been close to it since the twelfth grade and I was a huge idiot for ever letting James get in the middle of that. It all made sense. Why he was so bitter to me after I started dating James. It wasn’t just because of his mom leaving him and his dad abusing him, but because he’d let me into his world three years before and he’d treated me the right way. He had never been rude to me or made me feel less. He’d always made me feel good about myself. And what had I done? I’d bought into the words of some jealous idiot and dated him on top of that so I could make Damen feel bad, and I’d succeeded. I was the asshole in this situation, not Damen. He’d just been protecting his heart this whole time, not from the world, but from me hurting it again. And I’d hurt it again. I’d hurt him again.
I knew that if I stayed here long enough, Damen would find me, so I stayed. I’d be able to think about other things until he showed up, like the fact that I wanted to know why Damen was like this and I had almost immediately gotten the vision of Damen’s past. Was it because Damen and I were going to be Linked and this was one of the side effects? Me being able to control what I’d be able to look into? It’d also happened a week ago when I had the vision of the kidnapped Atlantic and the people interrogating him.
I groaned, remembering the duties I had to Atlantis and how Damen and I had spent the whole time thinking about ourselves. Yes, we’ve been training our hardest and trying to remember everything we learn at Outside Realm Prep, but other than that, we hadn’t focused on anything but ourselves. What kind of “heroes” were we? We hadn’t even been able to figure out what the prophecy means.
Maybe I can figure it out now. What was it again? Something in my subconscious mind clicked and our part of the prophecy iterated itself to me. When Gold and Emerald join forces, edges will cut to gain what they have come for.
I had an odd sensation, like the meaning to the riddled words was on my tongue, clearly obvious, but I couldn’t quite figure out what anything was. Gold and emerald. Gold and emerald. Gold and emerald. What was gold and emerald? I could feel a bell ringing in my head, pushing against my brain, to unlock some memories that would give me the light, and answer.
I closed my eyes and immediately saw a pair of eyes and I smiled. They were Damen’s beautiful, deep honey eyes. They were so full of light, and now that I was looking at them, they were more of a gold than a hon –
My eyes burst open. Gold and emerald! Damen’s eyes and mine! I’m so stupid! It’s referring to us! Okay, next part: join forces, edges will cut to gain what they have come for. I got a sinking feeling. That means Damen and I have to put our differences aside so we can work together collaboratively. And our differences were that he didn’t want anything happening between us and I wanted everything to happen between us. We’d have to stop thinking about this, constantly wondering what we are if we ever want to get anywhere with helping our people. I stuffed how I felt about that back to a small corner of my brain and thought about the last line. To gain what they have come for. This is for when we go to the Outside Realm and what we have to get is the scientist…who must be the kidnapped Atlantic I had the vision about!
Everything fit together and even though I was terrified of going outside of Atlantis to a place I’d really only heard bad things about, I wanted to as soon as possible, which was in two weeks, on my birthday. I wanted to help the scientist escape and I knew I could with Damen. I didn’t feel frightened when he was around.
It was when I heard footsteps that I realized that it was already night and I’d been staring at the different colored stars: rose red, cerulean blue, and ivory white. I knew who was walking towards me and because of that, I got right up and ran to him, engulfing him in my arms tightly, partially because I didn’t want to let him go and partially because I knew he didn’t want me to.
I felt his shock, but I didn’t break the hug and I didn’t provide any words for my actions because none were needed. When I felt his arms clasp around me, I closed my eyes and remembered what he’d been through at such an early age, through all of his age and I couldn’t hold it back any longer and I started mourning for him again, wanting to take away the pain he still felt today. I’d do anything to be able to carry the burden for him. He probably eventually felt his shirt get wet because he pulled me away from him and I let go reluctantly.
When he held me at arm’s length from him, I couldn’t meet his eyes, especially not after the terrible things I’d said to him. “What happened?” he asked me, but I kept staring at the leaf trodden ground, feeling the tears glide down my face. He let go of my arms and walked towards me until he was right in front of me and he cupped my face, bringing my chin up. “Look at me,” he said with such a tenderness that I was surprised and looked up at him. His golden eyes were trained on me, pools of concern and a hint of sadness in them as his callous thumb wiped the tears from my face. “How’d you find out?” he asked, not threateningly or annoyed, just curious.
“I got a vision,” I replied. “Listen, Damen. I’m so sorry for what I said earlier.”
He smiled a little, but it wasn’t sincere. I could tell he was still hurt by my words and I think part of the reason was because it came from me. “It’s ok, you don’t have to apologize. I’ve said plenty of mean things to you.”
“No, it’s not okay! What I said was a low blow and so wrong,” I held his face between my hands, “Whether you want to believe me or not, you are amazing and even though you try not to show it, you care about everybody and only want the best for them,” I swallowed and continued, “Three years ago, you let me be a part of your world and I fucked it up because of lies James told me, but I should’ve never believed him. I always wanted to be with you…will always want to be with you,” I finished in a whisper, averting my eyes, not sure how he’d perceive my words.
He didn’t say anything, but he enveloped me in his arms and I knew that he believed at least some of what I told him; I just wasn’t sure what parts of it. I didn’t expect a response from him, and I didn’t get one. I was content in staying in his arms like this, even if he might not want to be with me, and if he did, it didn’t matter when he admitted it, as long as he was always by me.
He eventually pulled me away from him again and started berating me, “It’s not safe of you to be out here so late! There are dangerous predators out here!”
I smirked a little and teased, “I know you’re more dangerous than them.”
“That’s not funny. You could’ve gotten seriously hurt,” he was completely serious, and it seemed that he would stay that way.
“You did want me to leave,” I said, letting him know that I knew his threat earlier was an empty one, and this time he broke the eye contact. “We needed the time to think, anyways.”
“And all we’ve thought about is ourselves!” he raised his voice a little, clearly annoyed with “us”, if there was an “us”, “We should be thinking about Atlantis. All we’ve done is think about ourselves ever since we found out that we’re the Destined. How are we ever going to be the saviors our world needs us to be?”
I knew it was what he wanted, that thinking about me and him was stressing him out because he wasn’t ready for an “us”, so I let it go. I wanted to do everything he wanted to, and if it meant never talking about us and focusing solely on everybody else and how we could help them from now on, so be it.
“We have to put our feelings aside to work with each other,” I said as I took a step closer to him. “That’s what our whole prophecy is about. Putting our differences aside so we can work together for the people.” I took another step closer so that I was write in front of him, so close that if I’d been taller, our noses would be touching. “But first,” I paused and wrapped my arms around his neck and pushed up to my tiptoes and continued, “Let’s be selfish one last time.” And I kissed him.
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Song of the Upload:
Can't Remember to Forget You by Shakira ft. Rihanna