Mismatch
Page 45
The breeze ruffled my hair, and I clung tightly to Ayrie. I felt nervous being high up in the air with nothing stopping me from plummeting to my doom. Once he started to glide in lazy arcs back and forth on the air currents, I began to relax. Even if I fell, I thought Ayrie would fly down to catch me.
The clouds blew past us, enveloping us in mist momentarily before we flew back out of them into the sunshine. I felt as light as air. Flying was incredible. Humanity had dreamed of flying since we were cavemen. I was glad Earth was helping to save these particular people, but I wouldn’t have a part in it anymore.
Flight came at a cost, but Ayrie said it was worth it. Now that I had experienced it, I believed him. What could be better than soaring in the blue sky away from all the problems on the planet below you?
He started getting too comfortable and began to take chances, swooping and diving through the air. I hung on but didn’t ask him to stop. It was the last time in my life I would ever fly. I wasn’t going to waste it being scared.
When Ayrie returned to gliding on the air currents and only occasionally using his wings, it became silent all around us. My instincts told me it was too quiet up here.
“Elle?�
I wasn’t listening to my gut. I was listening to Ayrie. He was speaking to me for the first time in hours. I couldn’t believe how long he had been flying without getting tired. He seemed built for endurance. I was going to miss him, but I couldn’t let myself get trapped in thoughts about leaving.
“Yeah?�
“What did you mean when you said you were wrong and could never be right? It was a weird thing to say.�
I wasn’t sure how to answer him. “I’m broken. You know, like used goods.� I felt him become tense beneath me, but if I stopped now, I wouldn’t be able to say everything on my mind. My throat was already closing up on me. “Think about it this way. I’m like a crate of fruit that’s gone rotten. Nothing can change that. You can’t turn spoiled fruit into perfectly fresh fruit again. Life doesn’t work that way. It’s okay, though. I’ve finally accepted it.�
“Well, I’m not going to.� Anger underscored his words. “I don’t agree with you at all.�
“I’m not sure you get an opinion about this.�
“Fresh fruit is overrated.� He sounded like he was talking to himself.
I shook my head. No one was going to choose me over someone else.
I heard a frustrated huff of air escape him. “Why are we talking about fruit, anyway? The analogy breaks down almost immediately. I don’t like it, and I don’t think you’re right. You might see yourself that way, but it might not be true.�
How could that be? If Ayrie was right, I was deceiving myself about who I really was. I thought back to the other day when I floated in the water by myself, feeling perfect, like I had never been hurt. At the time, all of the bad things that had happened to me seemed like someone else’s nightmare.
Could he be right? Was I wrong about being unfixable? I wanted to know the truth. “How do you see me?� I spoke in a normal voice, but I wondered if the wind would take my words and whip them away so he never heard them. I remembered Ayrie had asked me the same thing before. How would he answer me?
He was quiet for a long time, pumping his wings lazily. I wondered if he had forgotten the question or hadn’t heard it. Perhaps he was ignoring me.
When he finally spoke, he sounded completely sure of himself. “When I imagine you, I know part of you is shattered. I don’t talk about it all the time, but it’s lurking beneath the surface.�
He did think I was broken, after all. Why did that seem disappointing?
“But to me, that isn’t everything about you. Bad things happened to you and you were hurt. None of us can truly be called normal, but even those who look like nothing’s the matter with them on the outside are hiding things.� He stopped talking. I put my forehead down on his shoulder, listening with all my heart.
“The thing I remember when I think about you is your resilience despite everything you’ve been through. You’re still here, trying, and willing to risk it all. To me, that’s what stands out about you, not all the other stuff.�
I drew in a deep breath. Could Ayrie be telling the truth? He had never lied to me before. I didn’t think he was lying now; there was too much honesty in his voice.
“You’re strong, Elle, and you’re also beautiful. And there is nothing spoiled about you. Don’t ever describe yourself like that again.� I had heard his voice break before he stopped talking. I felt like I was going to cry, but I managed to get myself under control. I didn’t want to start weeping while I was on his back and in the air. I could let everything out when I was alone. It wasn’t the right time or place.
I wondered if I had what it took to leave him. I would let him find someone more suitable. It was the least I could do for the alien who had done so much for me.
I wouldn’t go back to Earth if I had other options. But I didn’t have to, did I? I could stay on Vandwa. Ashlyn was already here, so there was at least one other human. Maybe Jayne could ask her mother to pull a few strings for me and cut through the paperwork. I was sure she had a lot of experience doing that with TerraMates, the company arranging marriages between Earth women and aliens.
It wasn’t ideal, but it was good enough. Vandwa was beautiful. I could be free here. There was always work for starcraft mechanics. My life here wouldn’t be as glamorous as saving Auxem, and without Ayrie, everything might seem empty. On the other hand, I was sure I could make a quiet life for myself, and that was more than I had any right to ask.
I was about to ask Ayrie what he thought about my idea when the wind started to pick up. A gust pushed us sideways, and Ayrie struggled to keep us headed in the right direction.
“Did something change?� He had a worried expression on his face. I looked down at the ocean below us. There wasn’t a sign of land anywhere. If we ran into trouble, we were going to have to handle it in the air or at sea.
The grim sound of his voice terrified me. “A storm’s approaching. We have nowhere to land and no way to outrun it. We’re going to have to let it hit us.�
AYRIE
Elle’s terrible perception of herself had me fuming as I flew toward the land mass I could remember from the map. I thought it was south of our island, but I wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter. I didn’t know where I was going, which direction was correct, or how long I could actually keep flying.
The worst part was I didn’t have a choice. We had to leave the island to find help for Elle. When I began to tire, I started to second-guess myself. Vandwa was famous for storms rising out of nowhere, leaving a path of destruction in their wake. They could disappear as quickly as they appeared, just like the one we weathered on the island.
I started finding it harder to maintain our course in the face of the rough winds. I wondered if we should turn around and go back, but we had been flying for hours. I would have the benefit of a tailwind, but it might blow us completely off course.
I decided to keep moving in our original direction and hope we weren’t far from land. I had been flying all day. Maybe we were out of the dead zone by now.
As I glided, using my wings to keep us on the course and trying to move a little faster, I noticed a wall of dark gray clouds building along the horizon. I could smell the scent of ozone in the air. The towering clouds were huge even from a distance. I saw flashes of lightning and heard the distant booms of thunder. I also noticed several waterspouts stretching from the ocean to the nasty-looking clouds.
I had never been afraid to fly before, but I had always had the option of landing if a
storm became overwhelming. I changed direction and started heading even higher, hoping to fly over it. It wasn’t long before both Elle and I began to gasp from thin air. I had forgotten that Vandwa had a different atmosphere than Auxem. There was no way we could go above the clouds if we wanted to keep breathing, so I dropped back down.
If we flew under the storm, all we would have to deal with was rain. It was hard to keep flying in wet conditions, but not impossible. It was certainly preferable than trying to fly through lightning and waterspouts.
“What are you doing?� Elle sounded frightened.
“I’m going to pass under the storm. I can’t get above it, and there’s nowhere for us to land. If we’re lucky, we’ll only have to deal with rain.�
She clutched me tighter. Unfortunately, it wasn’t our lucky day.
Chapter Fourteen
AYRIE
The wind was getting stronger than I had imagined possible. I had to adjust my flight speed to account for the forces buffeting us around. I needed to flap my wings more often than in calm air. Once I reached the point where continuous pumping was required, I would only have enough strength to keep going for a few minutes before I fell out of the sky from exhaustion. And that was if I only had to worry about supporting myself.
I tried to use my wings as little as possible, using the air currents to guide us.
I needed to stop overthinking things. I would talk us out of the sky in a couple of minutes with negative thoughts like those. An important part of remaining airborne was having the right mindset.
Instead of wondering what was going to happen, I forced myself to think about something else. When we had first learned how to fly, instructors trained us on visualization techniques where we imagined we were as light as balloons, floating effortlessly in the sky. Our scientists had found doing mental tricks could extend our time in the air by thirty to forty minutes. I hoped it would still work if I was carrying someone on my back.
We couldn’t stop ourselves from watching the approaching storm. The dark, gray clouds looked threatening as lightning flashed, illuminating the sky around us.
The waterspouts frightened Elle the most. Every time we saw one rise from the ocean, she would clutch me more tightly and bury her head down on my shoulder to hide her eyes.
When I wasn’t keeping an eye on the storm, I was scanning the horizon. I was certain there had to be land nearby. If there wasn’t, we were doomed. I thought I saw a dark land mass far off on the horizon, but I might have been imagining things.
Rain started to fall, and our visibility dropped to nothing. I was able to fly steadily, but I was blind and struggling to keep our heading without being blown off course. I had nothing to gauge our direction when black clouds hid the sun.
We were drenched in seconds. Elle started shivering, and I felt her wet shirt pressed tightly against my back. I couldn’t help her her. All I could do was keep us in the air until I collapsed. I was now certain we were going to fall into the sea. It was only a question of when.
A new problem was that we had flown out over the open ocean where we would be on the animal side of The Barrier. We were going to be in danger from water monsters as soon as we hit the sea. Considering this, I realized everything was going to end for us in the water. If the wildlife didn’t kill us, we would drown.
I tried to be efficient with my wings to stave off our doom. With luck, we could outfly the storm. I didn’t say anything to Elle. She was scared enough already without the additional burden of our impending deaths on her shoulders. It was going to be a bad way to die.
I could have been happy on that island forever with Elle. We should never have left. It would have been better for Elle to get sick there and risk death than to come out here and die for certain. I hadn’t thought about the consequences of our decisions. I should have known better, and now we were both going to pay the price with our lives.
Minutes passed and the storm grew worse. The rain drove into us and felt like a thousand nails hitting our exposed skin. The wind started to come in gusts. It was worse than a steady headwind because I couldn’t anticipate where the air currents would come from. I had to be vigilant and on guard. The stress was tiring out my mind just like the flight was wearing down my body.
We passed into the thickest, darkest clouds I had ever seen. Lightning flashed all around us every few seconds. I flew around two waterspouts - they didn’t suck us into them.
Through it all, Elle never said a word.
The only thought I could keep in my head now was to keep fighting. I wasn’t going to give in to the fatigue beginning to creep into my flying muscles. I would outfly the storm if I had to.
Every beat of my wings was hurting now. Lactic acid filled my muscles.
I had to keep flying. The thought beat through my mind like a drum. But repeating a mantra couldn’t change reality. A gust of wind blew into us when a waterspout formed and pushed us around. I lost my balance and Elle fell off my back. Her arms were too tired to hold onto me through the violent shaking.
I managed to grab hold of her arm as she fell, but I couldn’t pull her up to me. Instead, she was dragging me into the ocean with her. I didn’t care. I was tired too. There was no point in going on if we weren’t together. If she ended up the ocean, I would be by her side. It was better to die with Elle than live without her.
The thought shocked me but was instantly driven from my mind when we hit. The water felt like liquid ice against my skin. It was nothing like the warm shallow water near the island. I released Elle’s hand as soon as I dipped beneath the surface. If I couldn’t pull in my wings, I was going to drown, and I didn’t want her to die with me. I managed to drag enough of my head out of the water to pull in a deep breath before I went under again. My waterlogged wings were dragging me down.
I heard Elle scream my name before my head sank beneath the waves again. I didn’t know if I could pull in my wings when I was underwater, exhausted, and out of breath. But I had to try. If I failed, Elle would be all by herself.
I tried to pull them in three times, but the water was stopping me, and I was running out of breath. I felt small, firm hands yanking on my arms and pulling my head out of the water. I gasped, breathing in sweet air and unable to think of anything except oxygen.
“What’s happening to you?� She sounded scared, but there was a determination in her voice. She was stronger than she thought.
“It’s my wings.�
Elle was pumping her legs and dragging me to the surface whenever my head sank under the water. She was a great help, but I could tell the effort was becoming too much for her.
“You have to put them away, don’t you?�
“Yes. I can’t do it under water.�
“You can use me. I’ll lift you up.�
She rolled onto her back and tried to position her tiny body in a way that would support me. I had to put my full weight on her. I rolled onto my stomach and lifted my wings out of the water. Elle had taken a deep breath before her head went under the waves. She was still trying as hard as she could to support me.
It wouldn’t do either one of us any good if I started to panic now. I avoided thinking about the possibility of Elle drowning to save me and focused on retracting my wings. It took two tries, but I finally did it, screaming as they came back into my body.
I hoped it wasn’t more than a few seconds but seeing Elle in danger and being the cause of it made the time feel like a million years. I yanked her to the surface, hoping she could still breathe.
“You did it!�
I didn’t have the strength to respond to her. The agony of my wings was more painful than ever before because my body was so exhausted. The water wasn’t an ideal environment for suffering.
Elle saw I couldn’
t swim while I was recovering. She wrapped her arms securely around me while using her legs to keep us both afloat.
Huge waves started to roll over the ocean now. We were trying to stay together, but the seas seemed determined to tear us apart. Sometimes we were in the troughs, and other times we found ourselves in the peaks. As I recovered, I broke away from her and started to swim on my own. I wondered what creatures lurked beneath us and were thinking about us for dinner.
Elle had to yell to make herself heard above the noise of the storm. “I think I saw a ship out there.�
I managed to give her a weak smile. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a sailing vessel? We could die in a watery grave together in the storm. I knew she hadn’t seen anything real. People who were close to death often saw what they wanted to see.
“It was probably a hallucination.�
Something brushed against my foot. I twisted away in the water, looking down to see a dark shape swimming beneath us. It wasn’t alone, either. A pack of creatures must have thought we looked like dinner. I hoped we wouldn’t suffer.
Elle was starting to drift away again. “Ayrie!� She reached her hand in my direction. I stretched toward her and kicked my feet, hitting something in the water that felt like it had teeth. It was scary enough to make me start swimming frantically in her direction.
“I saw something in the water.�
I nodded. I didn’t have enough energy to speak. Did it even matter if I said anything? The creatures in the water were going to eat us, and the only thing I wanted right now was a chance to tell Elle how much I cared about her. I had wasted all the time we spent together.
“Ayrie?� She sounded terrified, but I couldn’t bring myself to answer. I could feel myself starting to slip beneath the water. Something pushed into my body. I knew everything would be over soon.
I couldn’t hear Elle screaming my name anymore.