Chapter 457: Clearing The Air
Sammy made it a point to slam and bang every single door in her way on her way out of the house. After a quick change, and doing the bare minimum, she promptly slammed her final door, leaving the premises for some deep extensive soul searching, I’m sure.
As she silently rushed by, simmering and fuming under her breath, I noticed she didn’t have her hair braided and styled like Mom’s anymore, instead letting it flow loose and free in the dawning midday breeze.
Now I may be a dumb-dumb at times, but even someone who’s completely colorblind can see the red flags waving and fluttering.
First is the hairstyle to go, then it’ll be the clothes. Next thing I know she’s changing her looks, having a whole new life elsewhere while living under a mysterious alias. I called it here first.
I don’t know, though. If anything, she’s actually being more reasonable and sensible than I was. The appropriate reaction should be anger, it should be outrage.
Me, I was the crazy one. So quick to let his anger fade, so lenient with his outrage. Was I even upset with them at all? Is it just denial? Am I just trying to ignore it while pretending that I wasn’t?
See, I act like I got it all figured out, but I didn’t. I was just as at a loss as Sammy was. How I was supposed to feel, what was the right way to feel... the only thing I did know was that this wasn’t the right time to sort it all out yet.
.....
There’s a job I needed to do first, a person I needed to save, and until that happens, dawdling around trying to figure out my own feelings wasn’t going to do anything for me in the long run.
I needed to just keep working on it for the time being... and so I did. In a silent disquiet, in a family relationship skewed and shattered, I continued to block them out, tempering my focus, my resolve.
Slowly but surely, I could feel bit by bit just a little more pressing back against my palms. There was no way to properly describe the sensation, but if I had to try, then I guess the closest equivalent was like pushing your hands against styrofoam.
Before the air around the house felt like a solid brick wall, completely impenetrable in the beginning... but the more I worked on it, I could feel it slightly denting, my palms pressing in – like styrofoam.
It was progress... if you can even call it that. I didn’t think it was. Unless I could get it rippling exactly how Dad did, I didn’t even sculpt out an inch of headway.
The worst part was – it felt like it had multiple layers. One more brick wall after another, each more impassable than the next and I wasn’t just imagining it either.
Exhaustion crept up on me faster than ever. I was twenty minutes in, a blink of an eye compared to my many other prior attempts, before I felt the crippling pain of fatigue surging across my arms, the nauseating vertigo nearly forcing me into a stumble.
I stopped myself, dropped my arms, took in a long, clearing breath. Undaunted, I tried again.
This time I made it only five minutes before my knees buckled into the dirt. Tingling and numbing, my head, my body... it was actually unbearable now.
She made it unbearable.
Again, my face hovering inches above the grass, I felt the anger in me rising, my anger for her.
Maybe I should shout too, maybe I should scream as well, like Sammy.
It probably felt so cathartic for her, to just let it all out in the open there, no holding back... or did it? She didn’t look the least bit happier leaving, just even more confused.
Then just like it always does, I felt that anger inside me die, these thoughts of mine quickly fade away, and I was back on my feet, ready to try again.
Except...
“Could you come with me?”
That question, and that voice... there’s that anger rising inside me again.
I slowly turned around, tried my best to not let any emotion show on my face, but that just had the inverse effect instead.
He saw right through it, through me.
“There are some things I need to pick up in town today, some supplies,” Dad’s stare was just as blank as my own. “I was hoping you could come with me today.”
Why is it that he’s always showing up at the most unexpected of times? Just when I think I’ve seen the last of him for the day, he just shatters that notion completely.
How long was he standing there anyway? Did he see me struggling, saw me fall? Did he choose to stand by and do nothing as I did?
I spoke out, and as I did, I was surprised at how calm I was, asking, “You can’t go by yourself?”
“No, I can if you don’t want to,” He answered back. “But I would much prefer it if you did.”
“For what?”
“Because you always followed me before you left,” He said. “I thought maybe we could do that again.”
“Nice sentiment...” I said, taking a single step back. “And what’s the real reason?”
He blinked, and in that brief moment of silence, I watched the blue in his eyes slightly dart about searching mine.
Dad was always tough to read... I never knew what he was thinking, even less, how he came about thinking what he thought, if that even makes any sense...
“I just want to spend some time with you,” He quietly replied. “You’ve been gone, and I missed you.”
I didn’t get the sense that he was lying, he meant those words as sincerely as he could. But if he really felt that, meant that...
“I’m kinda busy,” I told him, wiping the sweat from my brow, the dirt from my knees. “As you can obviously see...”
“Yes...” He said, acknowledging it, yet still doing nothing about it.
“You’ve been fine without me all this time, and you’ll be fine without me now,” I said, beginning to turn around again. “Now if that’s all you wanted to say, then please leave me a – ”
“I hunted Elves for a living.”
At once, I froze, midway I was rooted in place... his blank look in the corner of my eyes.
“Before I was who I was, my entire life revolved around capturing and eradicating any Elves I found,” He continued to say. “I don’t know how much you know, I don’t know what you even know, but I was employed by a Church. It was them that honed my skills, made it so that it was the only thing I was good at. They called me an Elf-hunter, but to those I hunted, they know me as – ”
Those who roam in red,” I muttered, recalling Ash’s word, Ash’s story. The people who captured her, the same people who presumably made her into the Knight that she is.
He stiffly nodded, not even surprised how I even knew that. “Ret’hym Nomalda. There were many other things they called people of my profession, but that’s what I tend to hear the most often.”
Numbed, shocked, and barely registering anything anyway, I heard myself say, “So that’s why... with Ash...?”
“I don’t know her... I’ve never met her. Your mother said you claim she’s from a game of some kind. I don’t know her, I only know who she was named after.”
“Who was it?”
“Eshwlyn,” He blinked, the hard expression on his face never once fazing. “My murderer.”
What the f....
It was like an explosion, so many thoughts in chaos racing across my head. There was so much to say, so many words to speak, but there was no way to actually say it. I couldn’t speak.
“I will be waiting in the truck for you,” He said, turning away from me, walking away ever so nonchalantly.
As always... making the decision for me.
“Oh, and... don’t bring the Elf with you.”
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