by Jaclyn Lewis
“You’re happy.” Zane commented, appearing in human form after I shut the door. He had a look of mock-shock.
Wow, that rhymed.
I nodded, smiling wider because of my thoughts.
“Can I ask why?”
I nodded. “Mom’s home and that makes me happy. I hardly ever get to see her because she’s always working.”
He didn’t ask for me to explain further, and I didn’t really care about it. It was just my life; Mom just wasn’t home, so I was happy when she was. It was simple.
I just sat down on my bed and started on my homework.
“What is that?” Zane asked suddenly.
“What?” I looked around, but I didn’t see anything, not even Zane.
The air shook. “I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you later.”
Then the air shifted again, and I knew he was gone.
“Amy!” Dad screamed from the other side of the house. Zane had only been gone for a few minutes.
This couldn’t be good. Dad usually didn’t acknowledge me unless he wanted to yell at me. He blamed me for his failures, all of them, even though I didn’t do anything wrong.
I walked into the living room, where he was sprawled out on the couch.
He looked up and scowled when he saw me. “What’s this?” he pointed at his plate of food.
I knew what he was saying. I was the one that usually cooked, so he was blaming me if anything was wrong with it.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t cook it.”
He scowled. “That’s not what I mean. Maria was cooking, but you interrupted her. She forgot to add the chicken in chicken stir fry!”
I scowled back. “Then tell her that, Dad! Stop blaming me for everything! It’s not always my fault! Granted, I’m not perfect, but that doesn’t make everything my fault.”
I was shocked with myself. I’d never talked to anyone like that, and it felt so good.
That was when I felt the smack on my cheek. He hit me so hard, and I flew to the ground and practically saw stars. I stared at him in horror.
“If I say it’s your fault, it’s your fault! Don’t EVER talk back to me!” he screamed.
I just stared at him. Before, he’d get mad and scream, but he’d never hit me. He wasn’t that kind of abusive.
Mom came downstairs then. She looked at me on the ground, seeing my horrified look, and looked at Dad. For once, she looked all there when seeing me. “What happened?”
He sat back down on the couch. “Amy talked back to me. I punished her.”
Mom looked between the two of us. When she looked back at me, her eyes were back to their vacant stare. “Amy, go to your room.”
I nodded, accepting the fact that his word was always put over mine. I just had to wait one more month, and then I was out of there.
I was almost eighteen. My birthday's in the beginning of May.
I sat down in my room, contemplating that. I wanted to move out, but I couldn’t. I loved both of my parents, but they weren’t very good at giving me positive attention. Mom had a lot on her mind, and Dad was really stressed about getting a job.
When I looked around my room, at my blank, white walls, I looked at my meager belongings. I wondered if they knew my birthday was in two more weeks.
I wasn’t proud to say that I doubted they would ever remember something as unimportant to them as my birthday. They’d never remembered before, so why start now? If anything, Mom seemed a lot more depressed and sad at this time of the year.
Even as I had those thoughts, I still tried to listen to what Mom was telling Dad downstairs, and I could faintly hear what she was saying.
"I don't want you touching my daughter again," I heard Mom say. "You have no right!"
"Come on, you know me. I was just a little mad, and the little brat had it coming."
"Don't you dare hurt her again," Mom replied, sounding more there than I'd ever heard.
***
I would say that things got better, but they really didn’t. Mari began to terrorize me at school because I had yet to stand up for myself, and Zane was still MIA. Andrew was there though, and that was just terrible. He’d begun to glare at me everywhere I went. If I was in the hallway, I could feel his evil stare.
He was worse than Mari and my parents put together.
I missed Zane more than I thought I would. I thought of him as a friend, and I liked him around. I hoped he thought of me as a friend too.
He’d let me talk to him about anything and everything, and no one else would really do that. Mo always tried to get me to talk, but he wasn’t very easy to talk to. He just didn’t get what I was going through. He didn’t understand.
A week had passed since Zane had left and Dad had slapped me. I was counting down the days until my birthday: six.
***
I walked into the school building, happier than usual. Mom had been home, and she’d made me breakfast for the first time since I was six.
She smiled at me! That never happened!
She also looked at me with clear eyes for a change.
She was probably just making it up to me for what Dad had done earlier. I was still elated nonetheless. Mom had never gone out of her way like that for me.
That was when Mari made me crash right back into reality.
“Hey, Amy,” she greeted me in a voice that was far from friendly. She was standing right behind me.
I walked away from her, not wanting her to ruin my mood. “Amy, don’t be like that.”
I just shook my head at her and continued down the hall.
“Amy, I’m sorry I was gone for so long. Things are happening at home,” Zane whispered as I turned the corner. He rescued my happy mood by being there. “Bad things, like, the queen was attacked.”
“You’re back.” I whispered. I didn’t care about what had happened. He was back.
I swayed a little at the thought of no longer having to brave the world on my own.
“Yeah, I’m back.”
I nodded, happy that he was finally here.
That was when I realized something important.
“Can you distract Mari?” I whispered, knowing she’d be right on my tail. She’d never just let me walk away from her like that. I couldn't let her hurt me now.
“I’m on it.”
As I’d predicted, Mari was walking toward me.
That was when a small breeze pushed her just enough for her to smack her hand painfully into a locker, breaking one of her perfect, manicured nails. She was cursing and was definitely distracted enough for me to get away. At least the nail was only plastic.
“Thanks,” I whispered, grinning at his choice of distraction. I immediately realized that my normal indifference look was far from my face, and students were giving me strange looks.
“Any time,” he replied.
I saw Mari looking at her nail again right before my view was blocked by other students.
I allowed myself a small smile and made it to class without having to deal with Mari, and it was only because I had Zane at school.
***
At lunch, I ate in the library again. Zane talked with me, but again, he never made himself visible unless he wanted to. There was no one in the library other than us, so he could have if he wanted to.
Halfway through, I asked a random question.
“Are we friends?” I asked.
After a minute, he asked his own question. “Do you want to be friends with an alien?”
I shrugged and grinned. “It’s not really what I had in mind, and I only really want to be friends with one alien in particular.”
He suddenly appeared in human form. He hugged me suddenly, grinning. “I’ve never had a friend before!”
I laughed. “Me neither!”
Mo had lost his trust. Thinking back, I’d never really trusted him to begin with. He was never really a friend. He’d never confessed that he’d lied about Zane, and I knew he was still hiding stuff from me. H
e’d never told me about anything personal, and what he did say was always about trying to get me to talk more.
Zane was now in Air form again, so I couldn’t see him anymore.
I finally asked another random question. “Do you know anyone named Mo?”
The air turned colder by a degree or two. “Why?” By that answer, I knew I’d just ruined his mood, but I’d been curious, and I really wanted to know.
I shrugged. “He’s my bus driver, and he told me Andrew was his nephew.”
The air was now. It felt like it was forty degrees. I shivered, not liking the suddenly chilly air. He must have noticed my discomfort because it began to go back to normal. It began to drop again because he couldn’t hide the emotions from the surface like I could.
“He’s my older brother.” Zane muttered. He was back in human form because he couldn’t control the temperature; he’d freeze me, literally, if he was in Air form.
He sobbed suddenly. Then he looked up, a tear sliding down his cheek. “Please tell me his eyes weren’t black.”
I shook my head, sad. Seeing him unhappy made me unhappy, and I didn’t know why. “His eyes are dark brown.”
Zane nodded, accepting that.
He shook his head, his face turning red, but I couldn’t tell what emotion it was that made it like that: fury or sadness? It was maybe a bit of both. “I’m the only one left in my family! I’m the only one on the good side!”
“What?” I asked, startled at his outburst.
He looked at me. His eyes were black. He wasn’t in control of his emotions, and he was letting his anger and sadness consume him. That still didn’t help me understand why his eyes were black. “My parents died fighting for the queen. Both of them were killed by a co-leader of the rebellion, Sakyra Ramón. She died too, but she lived long enough to squeeze the life from them.
“Andrew lost it when they died. He couldn’t handle the fact that they were dead, and that sadness later turned into anger. When we’re really angry and lose it like that, our eyes automatically turn black.
“If they aren’t really one or the other, it means they’re the rare kind of Leem. Their bodies can’t physically, mentally, or emotionally choose a side, and it happens gradually for them instead. They are usually more hazel-eyed if they’re more on the good side, dark brown if they’re more evil. They have advantages, like they aren’t as ruled by their emotions as the rest of us. They don’t have to worry about losing their temper or anything.
“When any of our eyes are completely black for more than a week, it’s permanent. If Mo’s eyes are dark brown, he doesn’t have much time left. He could end up black-eyed too.” He shook his head. “His body could choose it for him at any second in his life, and he doesn’t know how to get all the anger on the inside, trap it like the rest of us do because he's never had to.” He clenched his hands into fists. “It’s only like that when we look like humans, though. If we were on Ellem, you wouldn’t be able to tell at all. You’d have to wait and see if their tempers were under control.”
I shook with fear. Zane’s eyes were still black, and it was like he wasn’t really noticing. “Your eyes are black, Zane,” I said in a quivering voice.
A tear fell from my watering eyes. I just kept picturing Andrew hurting me, since Zane was looking twice as lethal as Andrew ever had.
Zane looked at my cheek, where the tear was making a slow trek down my face. His eyes instantly went back to green. “I-I’m so sorry, Amy,” he apologized, his voice quivering almost as badly as mine had.
I nodded, accepting his apology instantly. He always had to rein all of his anger inside or he’d turn into his brother. Sometimes, people got mad and couldn’t keep it in.
He smiled. “You’re just going to accept my apology that quickly? I don’t have to make it up to you or anything? You’re not making me work for it?”
I nodded, saying, “Yep.”
He grinned, but he still looked upset. He’d made me cry, after all.
I went up and hugged him quickly. “Everyone has a temper.”
Then the bell rang, and Zane disappeared from in front of me. “Talk to you later, Amy.”
“Okay,” I whispered as I walked out of the library. “Talk to you later.”
Mari caught up with me in the hallway. “So, that’s what you do in the library? You talk to yourself?” She laughed. “Do you talk to an imaginary friend or something?”
I shrugged and continued on. She couldn’t faze me; I was done with letting what she said get to me. She could even spread whatever rumors she wanted about me, but that didn’t make a single one of them true.
Her brown eyes followed me as I walked. I could feel her stare.
If she was good at everything, she’d be able to kill me with that stare… and yet there I was, still walking.
The thought made me smile.
Mari wasn’t good at everything.
***
Andrew was standing next to the door when I walked outside later in the afternoon. I’d been walking to and from school lately, and I wasn’t going to ride the bus home, so I knew I’d have to deal with him.
“Amy,” he greeted me, walking beside me.
I just ignored him.
“I know you’ve been talking to Zane,” he stated. There was no question in his mind. I knew he’d find out eventually, but that didn’t mean I wanted him to confront me about it. I knew this conversation was not going to turn out very well.
“I don’t know what he’s been telling you, but he probably made me seem like the bad guy,” he continued, “but, in reality, it’s him. He’s made me seem evil. Everything you see from my appearance: my eyes, my evil grin, and even the strange attitude… It’s all just him manipulating what you see through the air. He’s an Air, after all, and he’s got the power to do that. It’s not even hard.”
I shook my head. I didn’t believe him. Zane was my friend, and he had never given me a reason not to trust him. I wasn’t going to listen to Andrew.
“Just think about what I said, Amy,” Andrew warned. “It’s not going to be my fault when he kills you.” Then he melted into a puddle of water. Right there on the sidewalk, he turned into a puddle.
That just proved it for me; he didn’t care if people saw him because the evil guy never really cared.
I got inside and set my bag down by the front door before I headed up to my room to relax.
“Don’t listen to him, Amy,” Zane said from inside my room. He was in human form, and it was kind of weird to see him like that after talking to ghost him during the day.
Both of their words were twisting around in my head. Andrew said to watch out for Zane; Zane said don’t listen to Andrew. I knew I couldn’t take much more of all that. I’d never enjoyed being in the middle of everything.
“Can you tell me why all this,” I motioned out the window and to him, “involves me? I’m pretty clueless.” I shook my head, a tear sliding down my cheek. I didn’t want to cry, but I just wanted to know why I was even involved. Why would Zane even spend his time with me? Why did Andrew like to bug me?
Zane shook his head. He sat down on the end of my bed, scratching the back of his head. Finally, he looked at me and sighed, defeated. “Amy, I don’t know what to do.” He swallowed. “I was sworn to secrecy, but this isn’t just my life that’s changing because of my assignment here; your life could be on the line, just like mine is.” He closed his eyes. “I want to tell you. It’s your life, and you have the right to know. I just… can’t right now. If I do, I might lose my assignment. Then I’ll have to leave Earth and go back to Ellem.” He shook his head again. “Andrew’s my brother, and he’s my responsibility. If he ever hurt you, and I wasn’t there, I don’t think I could live with myself.” His eyes now had a determined glint to them. “I’m not losing this assignment. No one else can be sent to do my job.”
I didn’t want him to leave. He was my friend; he was the only person that actually heard everything I’d told him. He w
as the person that let me talk.
When he opened his eyes again, they were black.
My eyes widened, and I was very frightened of that lethal look he had on his face.
He shook his head, like he was trying to clear it. “Amy… I’m losing it.”
“Zane…” I whispered, a warning in my voice.
His face turned red, and he had that look he wore when he was mad. “I can’t stand being the one to make you cry. I should be able to tell you, but I can’t leave you and Andrew and Mo; I just can’t! It’s just not FAIR!” he screamed. “I should be able to say what I want and when I want to!”
By that point, I was mad myself. “Zane, life isn’t fair; it’s like that with everyone. You just have to learn to expect what’s coming and just deal with it!” I replied.
He looked stunned. I didn’t think I’d ever yelled at him like that before. I hardly ever talked above a small whisper or quietly speaking. If I yelled, I was really serious about it and very mad.
Finally, after an eternity, he nodded. His eyes were bright green again, and his face was back to normal. He also looked ashamed. He looked down at his hands, refusing to look at me. “I-I’m sorry, Amy,” he whispered.
Finally, he looked back up at me. “I shouldn’t have said that. If any of our lives isn’t fair, it’s yours.”
I shook my head. “No, that’s not what I meant.”
After a minute, he spoke again. “I was only ten when my parents died.” He paused, thinking about it. “It was so long ago that I don’t really remember them really well.”
“What?” I asked. “You’re only, like, eighteen.”
He smiled. “In Ellem, the years are different. Leem are different. The years are twice as long, so we develop half as fast as humans. "He was now grinning widely. “I look eighteen, but in Earth years, I’m thirty-six.”
Chapter 5
Three days had passed since Zane told me his real age. I was shocked with that revelation, but…
Yeah, I was shocked.
So much for having a friend that was my age, huh?
Of course, he'd assured me that he was just like an ordinary, teenage guy. He was eighteen in Ellem years.
It was just three more days until my birthday.
***
It was Thursday, and I really wanted it to be a Friday afternoon. Who didn’t feel like that during any day of the week? Except Fridays, of course, since that’s the day that everyone likes.
