I Wish

Chapter 4

My tongue wasn’t actually that bad. A couple of tiny punctures that would take forever to heal, but apparently mouths are a part of the head and head wounds bleed. The hot water from the shower was amazing. I’d only been in bed, but it felt like I was washing a couple hundred layers of grime off. Which was lovely, but as the air fogged up with steam it left me waaaay too much time to think. Mainly about the big question: did I believe in her? Was she… was she real? I mean I was sick, and probably delirious. There was no way some random forest girl could be real? What would she even want with me? If she was real? Urgh, this was frustrating and obnoxious. She either wasn’t real or she wasn’t, and I can’t believe I’m even debating this. Considering that at this point, I hadn’t even seen her. Okay, I thought about soaping up my loofa, let’s just table that for now. Whatever had scrambled my brain was long gone, but I still felt shaky. The after effects of my fever were very much present. I sat on the shower floor and began to draw designs in the condensation. Let’s just assess where I’m at.

Well, I didn’t like that. There was something in the back of my head, like a string. It pulled from the other end, and instinctively I knew. At some point, some point soon, I am going to make a trip to the rainforest. The bubbles swirled off me and rinsed off the drain. I wasn’t sure what to do with that, so I put it out of my mind and chose to focus on getting clean. Wash my hair, shave – mostly to buy myself a little extra time before I had to go out there and behave normally, and more than that, like myself. I was even going to splurge and moisturise with this yummy smelling coconut body butter, and I was glad I did. When I got out of that bathroom I was… supervised. In fact, I was wrapped in a blanket, parked on the couch with someone to be by my side at all times, and coddled. Even the boys didn’t seem put out by having to watch movies with me all day.

It was quite sobering. The way that they had obviously all been so scared, and the care they gave freely in response to that. I guess there was knowing you were loved, and knowing. Which made me feel pretty crappy about sliding my shoes on, with the full intention of sneaking out. No, I did not ask if I could or inform them given that I was an adult who could do that. Is anyone else laughing at that last bit? No? A bit of context, that’s funny. I pulled on a clean pink tank top and a denim jacket, and wondered what I was doing sneaking through the house and ass-o’clock at night. Dodging my brother's Lego’s on the floor, which I really believe is mum’s security system in place to stop exactly this, and walking the ten minutes to the park. One of the bigger parks I’ve encountered, given that they call it a rainforest, even if it only takes an hour to do a looped circuit. I couldn’t make any sense of what I was doing, or rather why I was doing it. Was it imaginary, and I hedged calling her that even if I shouldn’t, girl? Either way, no matter how I argued this was a bad idea, or tried to logic my way out of it, I couldn’t stop myself. I mean literally couldn’t stop, couldn’t even pause long enough to stop and look at the glow worms littering the path.

“Leave it. You have your own path,” his voice echoed through the leaves of trees that seemed to be somehow intimidatingly daunting. It was not a good feeling, knowing you're being watched. It gave me a little bit of hope though, because if he was here then she... Maybe it was better if I didn't commit to that thought. It was as if they disapproved, or didn’t want me here. That made two of us, but I just… put one foot in front of the other. Over the little wooden bridge, and further up the gravel track before turning and veering to the tree line. My footsteps crunching in my ears as I walked, before I came to the side of the path facing the centre. It looked too dense to pass. The entire way around they’d done their best to stop people wandering off, but if you weren’t very big like I was, and turned sideways after pushing the right branch out of the way, you could bypass it.

It all but closed up behind me, and I swear I felt bile crawl up from my stomach. That should have been a point, yeah? A rational turning point to go – yeah okay, maybe not, let’s go home. My dumb ass just kept walking. It was beautiful, there were glow worms on this side as well and I was glad. They made it a little less dark, but hey, that’s what I get for going at night. The small clearing I found myself in was surrounded by trees so tall that if you looked up you could barely see snatches of the star-filled sky. I stopped. I don’t know why I stopped. It was just here. This was where the X was marked, and this was where we stopped. The sounds of the nightlife were more intense here. Now I could focus on anything besides getting where I was going as fast as I could. Owls hooting, and the scurrying of nocturnal creatures.

“You came,” she spoke and it didn’t sound like the laughter-singing-bells that it had before, “You took your time.” Her voice still sounded beautiful, enchanting, but it was real now. Before, it was like a song, one that called you to find the source, but nothing that you could believe you’d hold a conversation with. Whether you had or not.

“I wasn’t sure you were real,” I returned, not sure of what else to say.

“Won’t you turn and face me?” she asked softly. I didn’t want to. I was stuck on how very confused I was that I had even ended up here or what had led up to that. I wanted to leave, but at the same time I didn’t want to leave her. It made zero sense and was giving me a headache, so I turned around and almost fell over. My first thought was that I should be jealous. She was beautiful. Just… absolutely drop dead stunning, eleven out of ten gorgeous. Long dark brown hair that had so much red to it that if it was any lighter it would be copper, tall, dark berry red lips, and skin so golden it glowed.

“It’s like a perfect tan,” I murmured in awe, eyes fixed on her bare arms. Seriously, this was the stuff that skin cancer-ignoring dreams are made of. Still, it must have been cold in that dress. It was short and sleeveless, a pretty green colour that blended into her surroundings.

“Is that important?” she asked curiously, tilting her chin, “Does that matter to you?” Now about that question, not the question she'd asked, but the one implied.... Mmmn, I didn't know I appreciated girls this much - or you know at all. I wondered if that was going to be a problem when the shock wore off. I doubted it, I hadn't really cared before. I just hadn't ever seen a girl that looked like this, or maybe I had, but I certainly hadn't reacted like this. In hindsight, from where I was standing, I'd never reacted to boys like that either. So no, I didn't think it would matter.

“It’s a describing word for a skin tone,” I told her, hoping my tone conveyed exactly how little I cared where people fell on that scale. “Is it supposed to be important?” I said, babbling nervously.

“So it’s not like a requirement? Cool, I couldn't see why it would be, but humans are weird sometimes,” she answered brightly like she was genuinely unsure. I was busy absorbing the information she'd just given me. Human's are weird? Well, what little Miss Bam-You're-Gay-Now, what are you supposed to be?

“Humans? Sure, whatever,” I said immediately before continuing to just keep speaking without any thought to how much I was telling a stranger or how easily I was giving the information up, “My mum is white. Like English-Irish white, summer is brutal, and my dad is generally considered black. Not that we really know where he's from, and no one else has been able to give us any clue based on physical appearance. My brother likes to call it the best of both worlds. Some people have preferences, but I'm of the opinion that if you're hot, then you're hot.” Way more than I realised, I reconfirmed, watching her bite at her lips. We didn’t know much about dad’s biological side of the family, he’d been adopted and the only person who could have told him where he came from went to the grave with the secret. Not because he refused to tell, dad refused to hear it and had from the moment his family told him he was adopted. He hadn’t wanted any doubt whatsoever about the fact that he felt that they were his family. He was happy and grateful for what he’d had and wasn’t going to go replace them. Nobody would have blamed him, he’d told us about how hard they’d pushed to make sure dad had no regrets. At the end of the day, though, the only woman he’d ever allowed his mother to share the title of that with was his mother-in-law.

Either way. She didn’t seem to feel the need to tell me what category she fell into as not human, there was no ‘Oh yeah, not human. Insert-species-here,’ and I kinda took that to mean that she wasn't particularly interested in sharing. I couldn’t dwell on that, not her standing in front of me and being so very incredibly distracting. So, in light of that, my brain was going to do everything it could to make the whole concept seem irrelevant, damn whoever that offended, because there was only so much strange I could deal with at once. While I was busy thinking about all this, she’d crossed the clearing, and placed a hand on my face. I flinched. I couldn’t help it, and she looked upset. Like it was unusual for me to be all weirded out by a stranger touching me, let alone this stranger who had just claimed not to be human... and I was not thinking about that. It was sad when I felt the need to scold myself into greater sanity.

“You hurt yourself, '' she said softly, stroking my cheek just the once before stepping back. “I’m sorry,” she apologised, and I didn’t get why.

“It’s not your fault,” I rushed to assure her. It seemed really important to do this for some reason.

“It is, I startled you,” she assured me gently, “I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry. I just wanted to know your name.” The unease I felt about her bringing up the name thing wasn’t as extreme as it had been. I wasn’t bleeding and choking for one, but I still didn’t like it. So I ignored it entirely, aiming to go two for two. Focus. Pick a question and ask, we have plenty.

“Why did this happen?” I finally settled on asking her frustration leaking into my tone. I was so tired of not knowing things, not understanding, that now that I had finally asked, I found myself getting really irate about the whole thing. She merely smirked, and it was not kind.

"Because, Little One," she purred, leaning into my personal space, "You wished for it."