Lightning Kissed (23 page)

I applauded her straight answer and even
more, answers that seemed easy. Well, the first choice seemed
easy.

“So, I figure out how to lock the path and
that’s it. Jeez, you would’ve thought I had to throw myself into a
sacred volcano the way you two stayed so cryptic.”

Collin stood and excused himself from the
conversation, dragging a very unwilling Ari with him.

Pema closed her eyes while she spoke the
next words, “In order to seal the path between
Paraíso
and
Earth, you must close it from the inside. After all, the Almighty
opened it from heaven’s side, it must be closed in the same
way.”

“Meaning, I won’t be able to return.”

She parroted me, “Meaning you won’t be able
to return. I’m going to get some fresh air. The two of you should
talk.”

Pema expected me to talk to Colby about the
two grave options we had, both choices left much to want. But I
couldn’t even look at her, much less talk to her about which path I
would take. Needing an anchor to stop my swaying, I reached out for
her—but she recoiled in an aggressive huff.

“Don’t, Theo. You promised.”

“Which promise was that? I’ve made millions
of promises to you.”

“The one where you promised not to leave
me.”

My own anger decided that this was the time
and place to seek an outlet. I roared at her, “Colby, really? Does
it look like I chose this? Is this a promise I’m breaking or a life
that chose me regardless of what I want? I don’t want this life.
You know what, Colby? This is not about you! For once, this is not
all about you and that’s what you can’t stand! All my life I’ve put
you above myself and was glad to do it and now this happens to me
and you can’t take the heat.” My own eyes dilated in repulsion of
what I’d just said to her.

I expected tears or screaming. I expected
slapping and pinching or something equally as violent. Instead I
became the receiver of a rebuttal I never thought Colby was capable
of—silence.

It turned out that silence was the sharpest
knife she could’ve stabbed me with. It was beyond hurtful, what I’d
said to her. I’d like to deny the whole thing, but Colby had always
been a tiny bit self-absorbed—but it was one of the qualities I
found endearing about her.

“Colby, I’m sorry.”

My apology didn’t really even cut it.

“I need to breathe.”

The tones of burgundy in her wake told me
all I needed to know. More than angry, she was hurt. In this time
when we needed each other most, I’d pushed her away with callous
accusations. I was certainly not fit for being an Eidolon.

The so-called answers Pema and Collin
provided me, answered the issues about who I was and what was
expected of me. But I now knew, firsthand, Eivan’s great
dilemma.

In the cavity of my chest, her path
travelled through me, making me aware of her traveling direction.
She must’ve been really pissed at me, because she hit all the
places I hated. I hated Antarctica. I hated Easter Island. I wasn’t
really fond of the Cayman Islands. And one by one, she hit them
all.

She could never be contained, even in anger.
Her love of the Earth and all it encompassed would remain the same
even if she were in hiding. So, hiding her would be like killing
her.

I could fight the Synod, but that would put
Colby, her mom, and my family in danger.

I’d rather them be in hiding than in
danger.

One way or the other—I was screwed.

THE ESCURO
MUST NOT BE SPOKEN OF.

Why was this happening to us? Why was Theo
chosen and why in the name of all that was holy couldn’t all this
just end in a big, gushy, happily ever after?

I wanted to throw myself on the ground and
beat my fists on the dirt in a dramatic, childish show of ‘this
isn’t fair’.

Because it wasn’t fair. The Synod just got
to live their hoity-toity lives, cooped up in that hallway of
horrors. Pema got to be set free, and Collin probably wanted to
give her his Viking Sasquatch babies. The two of them would live
happily ever after, and I would be stuck here without the one
person I needed more than air.

Why us?

I flashed to all the places I could think of
that Theo didn’t particularly like, places that I didn’t
particularly like either. I wanted to make myself hate traveling.
Place by place, I went, convincing myself that being in hiding for
the rest of my life was better than having to travel to all those
places.

Except it backfired on me.

Even the places he didn’t like—even the
places I didn’t like—I would miss.

The reason I got angry at him was not
because his words were hurtful. I mean, they were completely
hurtful and they stuck in my chest like a briar that refused to
budge.

I was angry because he was right.

He was so right, I could barely breathe.

When I reached Argentina, a place that we
neither loved nor disliked, I landed on a roof that ran along a row
of houses, perched on the side of the curve of a mountain. There
was no care in my conscious about whether or not my lightning could
be seen. I just didn’t care.

For hours, I people-watched from that
rooftop.

But everything reminded me of Theo. A group
of children in little tiny blue and white plaid uniforms
highlighted that Theo and I would never have the opportunity to
pursue twelve children like Eivan and Sevella had. Then again, when
they were in hiding, there probably wasn’t much entertainment.
Apparently, they wrote incessantly in journals and made babies.

It just went downhill from there. Everything
I saw made me aware of something Theo—or Theo and I—would never get
to experience.

I was fine with giving it all up to go in
hiding. I would deal with the impulsion to travel.

Who was I kidding?

Traveling was like my heart beating.

***

Hours later, I travelled back to
Portugal.

I had to face him one way or the other.
Plus, if he made the choice I didn’t want him to make, then I
needed to spend all the time with him that I could.

Every garden was void of him. I looked
everywhere, until I finally found him in the kitchen of all places.
He was sitting on the floor, surrounded by every Slush Puppie
flavor invented and a bucket of fried chicken. He wore nothing but
boxers and socks. His hair was a mess, strewn every which way.

It was the funniest damned thing I’d ever
seen.

“What the hell? Are we binge eating?”

He was encircled in some cultish circle of
Slush Puppie worship, yet none had been drunk from and the chicken
hadn’t been touched. The Slush Puppies were for me, I knew that
much.

“Theo?”

“I went nuts. I flashed to every slimy gas
station I could think of and got them all. It was the lamest
attempt at apologizing ever.”

“No, it’s actually really sweet. But the
fried chicken?”

He shrugged and kicked it away from him. “I
couldn’t even tell you.”

In his eyes, I could already see the
struggle.

“The voices?”

“Yeah, they’re quiet now that I’m not in
that garden, but they’re still buzzing.” He tapped the side of his
head.

“How about we just go to bed and before
anything is decided, we just rest. I—I feel like you haven’t held
me in weeks.”

He got up and gave me the look. Even through
everything, the decisions looming over his head, the weight of our
people on his shoulders, and the voices in his head—that look meant
that I was in real trouble.

“
Eu vou segurar você todas da minha vida,
Querida
.”

“In here.” He took my hand, placed it over
his chest, and translated what I already knew were sweet words. “I
have held you all my life.”

He exhaled and his shoulders slumped. He
could sweet talk me still, but everything about his posture told me
that he was way beyond exhausted. I often forgot how tiresome
flashing could be for some of us.

“Come on,” I said, grabbing his hand and
leading him to the bedroom at the very top of the stairs. He was
already undressed for the most part and climbed into the enormous
king-sized bed. Xoana’s house was open to all. It always had been.
It was a retreat of sorts, a timeshare, shared by all Lucents. We
used to have to make reservations, but in the past decade or so,
people just stopped coming. I couldn’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t
want to visit Xoana’s home.

Well, it wasn’t her original home. Her
father was, as we knew, a farmer, and not a rich one at that. But
Xoana was smart. So smart that she realized her gift allowed her to
begin the first Lucent delivery service. Of course, hers wasn’t
software or vaccines—more like rare spices and fabrics. In fact,
there are said to be several non-native species of plants and other
creatures present in Portugal that no one knows the origin of.
Science blames evolution, but the Lucents know better.

All this trading of exotic goods made Xoana
a very rich woman.

Climbing in the bed, I could hear Theo’s
deep, elongated breaths, signaling he was already asleep. I
chuckled a bit to myself. Nothing ever seemed to bother him like it
did me. I would stay awake all night until the early hours of the
morning demanded I get at least a few hours of sleep when something
was bothering me. And whatever it was plagues me with my first
blinks of awakening.

But not Theo.

That boy could sleep through a damned
earthquake.

Only seconds after I’d gotten comfortable, I
heard noises downstairs. It was probably Ari drinking all my Slush
Puppies or Collin eating all the fried chicken—the beast. Looking
over at Theo, his eyelids were fluttering. I decided not to worry
about whoever was downstairs until I heard a dish break.

I padded down the stairs to find Ari and
Pema, eyeball deep in some kind of argument. Whatever Pema had
done, she had no idea what she was getting into with Ari.

Ari wouldn’t hesitate to kick another girl
in the uterus for me—or anyone she loved. As I got closer, the
conversation became clear.

“So, you just dump the choice of a lifetime
in his lap and now—oh, I think I’m gonna go away for a while.
Bullshit—you’re gonna keep your shaven-haired, skinny ass right
here until this is all sorted out. You are straight up shady-fied.
I mean it.”

Pema looked like she was working harder at
figuring out Ari’s street slang than she was actually being
offended.

“I am trying to help them, no matter how
shady-whatever you find me, child. I am their friend just as much
as you are.”

Ari reached out and flicked Pema in the
forehead. “That’s where you’re wrong. Those are my best friends in
the whole world and there’s no two people on Earth who deserve
happiness more than them. I’m only gonna say this once. If you
screw with either one of them—I will hunt you down and strangle you
with my own bare hands. So, you go, do whatever you think you need
to do. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Whoa,” Theo whispered in my ear, nearly
making me jump through the ceiling. “Since when am I Ari’s best
friend?”

I snorted. “That’s what you got out of it?
Who knew Ari was so thug?”

“Not me, that’s for sure. Where’s Pema
going?”

“I don’t know.” I was turned to face him
now. He almost looked in worse shape than just minutes ago. I
questioned him with a confused face.

“Voices. They started again. There’s no
predicting when they’re going to start talking. I feel like I’m
losing my mind.”

He grabbed my hand in the middle of
explaining. As soon as we touched, he slumped against the wall next
to him. It was borderline comical how they quieted when I touched
him. They probably all knew what a loud mouth I was and decided it
wasn’t even worth the battle.

We turned our attentions back on Ari who was
picking up Theo’s mess—grumbling the whole time about love-struck
idiots and stupid Icees. She always called them Icees.

I moved to help her, but Theo stopped me.
“Let her. She needs to learn some humility.”

***

That was the last time Theo slept a full
night without being woken up. We didn’t speak about the
inevitable—we didn’t really need to. I knew Theo—I knew the second
the choice was put before him how this all would go down. Theo
wouldn’t have me hide for the rest of my life any more than I would
ask him to.

I stayed sick to my stomach, knowing that
these days, filled with unspoken words, living in the shadows of
what he would do, were the last days we had together. Theo was
honorable beyond anyone I ever knew.

I wished it was me. I deserved to have to
make a decision like this. With my constant ill repute and blatant
rebellion of authority—you’d think that the Almighty would give a
treacherous task like this to someone like me.