Want to know how to break a person's sanity?
Give them a reality that doesn't exist.
For over three years I have lived with the story, with the experience, of Jake nearly dying. Long story short, he was in a plane crash in an eastern country (which will remain nameless due to current iffy relations) and called me before he went into surgery because he didn't want me to worry. See, I knew when things were wrong. I would get this sick feeling in my stomach and 99% of the time, I was right on and Jake or someone else would check in on things. But most of the time, it was about Jake.
So I thought.
The night of the crash he went into surgery, and I was trying to keep my calm. I felt so sick, so....not even here, if that makes sense. My roommate Ellen sat with me over supper and ate half of my food, since all I grabbed were hot dogs, root beer and an insane amount of chocolate chips to up my endorphins. She ate most of the chocolate, explaining that it was for my best interests that I don't overload.
At 5:30pm my time, I grabbed the edge of the table. My heart was not just pounding, it was slamming against my rib cage and at a faster rate than I've ever experienced. You know how a person's heart has that steady thump-thump, thump-thump? Double the thumps. It grew stronger and stronger until it slammed so hard, I gasped and then.... it stopped. All was normal. All was well.
On the opposite side of the world, a naval ship was speechless. The young man on the table had broken three ribs, punctured his lung, drowned his liver, and despite attempts to save him his heart stopped and he couldn't be revived. After 10 minutes the presiding doctor sighed and checked his watch. "Time of death-"
Where he was it was in the darkest hours of the night, but it was 5:30pm in Chicago. And before the doctor could finish his sentence, the patient came back to life. His heart was beating again, he was breathing again, and from that moment on he would be regarded as someone who couldn't be killed. The Organization, mainly the people in it, would regard him as something far more than human.
For three years I lived with the knowledge that it was Jake, and when I told him what had happened on my end he silently mused over the facts. We realized that somehow, I was connected to him and when his heart stopped beating, mine started for the both of us until he could do it on his own. How, why, we didn't know, but it was a revelation that would both help and confuse us in figuring out the purpose for this connection. It wasn't the first time I felt something, it wasn't the first time I had correlated with events in his life. This just confirmed the suspicion.
Three years I've thought I was connected to Jake.
But last night, I found out it was actually Tristan.
How much more has Jake lied about to me? I remember him saying he knew I was connected to one of them, he just didn't know who. I didn't understand because I thought it was freaking obvious, but he said it's probably not himself. Why wouldn't it be? I wondered what he was getting at, but now I know. The more I get to know Tristan's story the more I find out what Jake meant the whole time we were together.
The other events that had correlated between my physical reaction to something dangerous in Tristan's life, well, it seems that this whole time I may have actually been connected to Tristan. And still am.
I think it is a cruel joke of fate. This is one of those things I blame the cosmos for, not God, because I know He has a reason for everything and this definitely has a good reason. I just don't know what it is, or why He would pair me up with someone who doesn't want to be paired up with me, so instead of blaming Him, I blame the cosmos. The chaos. I have to scream at something, for this is almost too much to bear. If things were different, if Tristan still.... I don't know.
It was so much easier thinking I was connected to Jake because haha, he actually wanted me. At least he made it seem so. He LIKED being around me, a lot, and I didn't get judged or ridiculed or constantly lectured or get the eye-roll or get pushed away when all I need is a hug.... But again, it was easier, which is probably why it's not the case. Nothing is ever allowed to be easy, so I am discovering.
What am I to do with this new information? What will Tristan do? I know he will read this, I just don't know where to go from here. Maybe he will have some ideas. Or maybe he'll just brush it off.
2.28.2011
2.26.2011
Two shots and a chaser
I shouldn't blog after two shots of vodka chased by Dr. Pepper, but I can't do to myself what I've been doing, which is technically worse than drinking.
No, I don't do stupid things like drugs or sex or whatnot. I just....I don't know. Tristan warned me not to blog but I feel like if I don't write, I'm just going to self-implode.
Do you know what it's like to see the light on the other side of a door, to feel hope at finally being able to walk through as someone beckons you in, only to have it slam in your face at the last second? I feel like I'm sitting against the door, sobbing and trying to bang it hard enough for someone to hear me. I know I can just stand up and walk away, ignore what's on the other side of that infuriating barrier, but.... I want what's there. I want it so bad and I hate that I can't have it.
Gosh I sound like a little kid.
Miracles happen, right? Like, the impossible becomes the possible. I keep thinking, if God can bring the dead back to life even after they're mummified (Lazarus, for those of you scrunching your brows wondering who the heck I'm referring to) why can't He reverse the one thing that's slowly destroying me inside?
I hate being so mean to Tristan, and I know why I am. I tease him with his schizophrenia and for a long while he'd laugh, and even today he did when I said I didn't see the snow falling (I did, just felt like messing with his head). But he hates it, and he told me. I felt way bad when I realized how much it actually scares and hurts him, and I've apologized over and over. Then when I think about it, I realize I do it to swing the pain off of me, as a sort of preservation trick that backfires. I try to keep him at arm's length by being an absolute witch-with-a-b.
Mix two shots of vodka and a shared can of Dr. Pepper into things and that's what makes me crawl out of bed to blog. I don't even want to write what exactly happened. Nothing "happened", don't worry. Ugh I hate knowing this blog is public. There's so much I want to write but I don't out of fear of ridicule and more pain. I'm in so much pain. The other day when Tristan and I were fighting, at a calming point he asked me why I was crying. He was gentle about it, I mean, I knew what he meant when he asked. So I explained to him how Second-humans feel internal pain in the chest from emotion, unlike Gorans. It's so physical, so tremendous, and we have to find safe ways to channel it out or it can get worse and make us do things we will regret. So some, like myself, cry.
I want to cry. I'm in so much internal pain. And I allow it. Maybe because every day is a new day, a new chance at something to change. Something to not only give hope, but fulfill it.
I told Tristan how much I hate that he's gay. He said it's not just sex, it's the companionship. I wanted to scream at the ceiling and break all the mirrors in the room. Not out of anger or sadness, but the pain. So much pain. Questions filling my head, screaming at me, "Am I not good enough? Am I not good enough? AM I NOT GOOD ENOUGH????" But I know well enough to keep it in, to control it, to tell myself I tried, and even though I then remind myself how much I sucked at trying no matter how many chances I got, I push it down like dirty clothes in a laundry basket and cover it with sweet thoughts. Like....well, like the thoughts that bring the pain.
This sounds so ridiculous, but the Backstreet Boys know what I'm talking about. Listening to them is nice, it helps me to know that someone can express the pain in something other than tears and destruction. "Incomplete" is kind of my mantra. My complaint. And surprisingly enough, I'm complaining to God more and more. Is THIS what He had in mind?
No, I don't do stupid things like drugs or sex or whatnot. I just....I don't know. Tristan warned me not to blog but I feel like if I don't write, I'm just going to self-implode.
Do you know what it's like to see the light on the other side of a door, to feel hope at finally being able to walk through as someone beckons you in, only to have it slam in your face at the last second? I feel like I'm sitting against the door, sobbing and trying to bang it hard enough for someone to hear me. I know I can just stand up and walk away, ignore what's on the other side of that infuriating barrier, but.... I want what's there. I want it so bad and I hate that I can't have it.
Gosh I sound like a little kid.
Miracles happen, right? Like, the impossible becomes the possible. I keep thinking, if God can bring the dead back to life even after they're mummified (Lazarus, for those of you scrunching your brows wondering who the heck I'm referring to) why can't He reverse the one thing that's slowly destroying me inside?
I hate being so mean to Tristan, and I know why I am. I tease him with his schizophrenia and for a long while he'd laugh, and even today he did when I said I didn't see the snow falling (I did, just felt like messing with his head). But he hates it, and he told me. I felt way bad when I realized how much it actually scares and hurts him, and I've apologized over and over. Then when I think about it, I realize I do it to swing the pain off of me, as a sort of preservation trick that backfires. I try to keep him at arm's length by being an absolute witch-with-a-b.
Mix two shots of vodka and a shared can of Dr. Pepper into things and that's what makes me crawl out of bed to blog. I don't even want to write what exactly happened. Nothing "happened", don't worry. Ugh I hate knowing this blog is public. There's so much I want to write but I don't out of fear of ridicule and more pain. I'm in so much pain. The other day when Tristan and I were fighting, at a calming point he asked me why I was crying. He was gentle about it, I mean, I knew what he meant when he asked. So I explained to him how Second-humans feel internal pain in the chest from emotion, unlike Gorans. It's so physical, so tremendous, and we have to find safe ways to channel it out or it can get worse and make us do things we will regret. So some, like myself, cry.
I want to cry. I'm in so much internal pain. And I allow it. Maybe because every day is a new day, a new chance at something to change. Something to not only give hope, but fulfill it.
I told Tristan how much I hate that he's gay. He said it's not just sex, it's the companionship. I wanted to scream at the ceiling and break all the mirrors in the room. Not out of anger or sadness, but the pain. So much pain. Questions filling my head, screaming at me, "Am I not good enough? Am I not good enough? AM I NOT GOOD ENOUGH????" But I know well enough to keep it in, to control it, to tell myself I tried, and even though I then remind myself how much I sucked at trying no matter how many chances I got, I push it down like dirty clothes in a laundry basket and cover it with sweet thoughts. Like....well, like the thoughts that bring the pain.
This sounds so ridiculous, but the Backstreet Boys know what I'm talking about. Listening to them is nice, it helps me to know that someone can express the pain in something other than tears and destruction. "Incomplete" is kind of my mantra. My complaint. And surprisingly enough, I'm complaining to God more and more. Is THIS what He had in mind?
2.25.2011
Polar Shifts
Tristan felt compelled to write an entry in his own blog about how I'm in some fantasy trying to live my life through his. How his friends hate me, how I slap "demon" on everything I don't like....
Oh well.
Alex called me today, after reading my blog, and apologized for the rift that was caused between Tristan and I. Wow. I was extremely impressed, touched and she definitely gained some deep respect from me. We had a great talk, smoothed over the misunderstandings and miscommunication (gossip is a horrid thing and all of us are guilty of believing it at one point or another), and made a solid goal to get to know each other, to make an effort to be friends. And to my surprise and sheer relief, she not only listened to my warning about the "bad things coming" that I feel, she believed me.
I REALLY like her.
Tristan refused to believe I was trying, and he made it so freaking difficult. He said some things that I won't repeat because, as we all learned, Tristan Keller tends to say things he often forgets, especially when he is angry or frustrated. So, seeing as we're all going to forget it, there's no point in bringing it up. Point being, I spent an hour crying and sobbing and asking God (and Mom) if I was such a bad person as Tristan claimed I was. I wanted to throw him out of the house, I wanted him to go back to whatever spaceship he came down from, I wanted him to forgive me and for everything to be as it was.
By the time we got to work, he was using me as an arm rest and teaching me how to develop film in the photo lab. He even helped tidy up the shelves in my department but if I thanked him for it, he denied he was doing anything of the sort. But I know he was, and I thanked him anyways. When he wasn't around to hear it.
I wanted to let you know that things are going well, and that Alex may indeed be further included in our world of secrets. For her sake I hope it's only to the surface levels, as the deeper you go the more dangerous you become. And dangerous people always have someone trying to destroy them, whether they're good or not. It doesn't matter what moral code you hold to if someone wants to keep you from bringing their stains to light. I don't want anyone hurt, let alone a friend.
I'm tired, very sleepy and want to talk with Tristan about what we've discovered tonight. After watching a presentation (a small seminar that was taped and posted on Youtube which I will link sometime soon), he decided to go to bed and said it had made knots in his stomach. We had paused and discussed theories, paused and tried to decipher symbols in the sand, paused and realized that a long string of symbols may actually be a map of our solar system and a brief account of the migration to Earth. But it was the talk of war, of how evidence of craters and 90 degree shifts of Mars' poles suggest a cataclysmic explosion that could have very easily destroyed all life....
Oh well.
Alex called me today, after reading my blog, and apologized for the rift that was caused between Tristan and I. Wow. I was extremely impressed, touched and she definitely gained some deep respect from me. We had a great talk, smoothed over the misunderstandings and miscommunication (gossip is a horrid thing and all of us are guilty of believing it at one point or another), and made a solid goal to get to know each other, to make an effort to be friends. And to my surprise and sheer relief, she not only listened to my warning about the "bad things coming" that I feel, she believed me.
I REALLY like her.
Tristan refused to believe I was trying, and he made it so freaking difficult. He said some things that I won't repeat because, as we all learned, Tristan Keller tends to say things he often forgets, especially when he is angry or frustrated. So, seeing as we're all going to forget it, there's no point in bringing it up. Point being, I spent an hour crying and sobbing and asking God (and Mom) if I was such a bad person as Tristan claimed I was. I wanted to throw him out of the house, I wanted him to go back to whatever spaceship he came down from, I wanted him to forgive me and for everything to be as it was.
By the time we got to work, he was using me as an arm rest and teaching me how to develop film in the photo lab. He even helped tidy up the shelves in my department but if I thanked him for it, he denied he was doing anything of the sort. But I know he was, and I thanked him anyways. When he wasn't around to hear it.
I wanted to let you know that things are going well, and that Alex may indeed be further included in our world of secrets. For her sake I hope it's only to the surface levels, as the deeper you go the more dangerous you become. And dangerous people always have someone trying to destroy them, whether they're good or not. It doesn't matter what moral code you hold to if someone wants to keep you from bringing their stains to light. I don't want anyone hurt, let alone a friend.
I'm tired, very sleepy and want to talk with Tristan about what we've discovered tonight. After watching a presentation (a small seminar that was taped and posted on Youtube which I will link sometime soon), he decided to go to bed and said it had made knots in his stomach. We had paused and discussed theories, paused and tried to decipher symbols in the sand, paused and realized that a long string of symbols may actually be a map of our solar system and a brief account of the migration to Earth. But it was the talk of war, of how evidence of craters and 90 degree shifts of Mars' poles suggest a cataclysmic explosion that could have very easily destroyed all life....
2.24.2011
Half-apology
Tristan is STILL pissed at me.
He read the blog. He didn't say a single thing before Alex read it. He is only angry because his friend is offended. I'm sorry? What am I supposed to do? And if I did things the way he does (which I pretty much did in the last entry), I'd continue to say tough, deal with it. But when I throw his own attitude back at him he only gets more pissed because, as he put it, "It's only okay when I do it." Bull.
Did anyone consider that maybe I'm not writing this for him, or for anyone we know? No, I wasn't too happy to find out people we actually know (aside from my mother) read this blog. It's not just that they read it, it's that they know who is writing it. There's a reason why you don't see a photo of me, or why it's a pen name instead of my real one. ANONYMITY. So I do get upset when someone both Tristan and I know, doesn't matter who, reads this and gets offended by this. As if the world will actually know who you are by this single blog. I use fake names for a reason.
And another thing, a good psychologist would be able to figure out from at least one entry that I'm bitter, that this is not normal, that MAYBE I need someone to actually freaking listen to me. The other day when we were in the car with Alex I started to think that maybe I could trust her, maybe this WOULD be a good thing, maybe she could help both of us. Now there's this Great Wall between Tristan and I, and while I honestly don't want to blame Alex, there is that fact that had she not said anything to him, that wall wouldn't be there.
I get encouraged by friends and family, and even Tristan, to find a companion who will love me and who I can have that dream life with. It could happen. If I kept 90% of who I am a total secret for the rest of my life. I mean, it's not just the relationship, it's the genetics that worry me. My children will have gifts no matter who I mate with, and how the heck am I supposed to explain that? I don't want them to turn out like the last Goran we discovered, whose parents repressed everything so much he's snapped somewhere deep in his mind and is virtually useless beyond second-human functions. Not his fault, I know, and I feel horrible for him because he is such a good person. But when you tell someone born like us that it's all satanic, it is against God, and we live to serve God (at least I do, Tristan is iffy), it messes with our genetic makeup pretty bad. My mother is still trying to reconcile 20+ years of hiding from the church who she is, and it's taking a toll on her.
No way am I saying I totally plan on mating with Tristan and breeding little 75% Gorans. What I mean to say is, he is the only contact I have with any Gorans aside from my mom. He's the only one alive and present who understands who and what I am. Tristan is the only Goran who has any connections to the culture, the people, the language.... If this wall stays up.... I don't even know what.
This was supposed to be an attempt at an apology. I'm honestly not feeling it, nor do I really want to apologize no matter how much I want Alex to feel better. Why? Because I can apologize for something I really don't feel sorry for, and no one is going to apologize to me for any of this. I'm not sorry I wrote what I wrote, I AM sorry I'd forgotten to mention it was a past discussion between Tristan and I in which he agreed with me on everything I said because we were arguing and he was being an ass.
Will anyone apologize for causing a rift between me and my closest friend?
He read the blog. He didn't say a single thing before Alex read it. He is only angry because his friend is offended. I'm sorry? What am I supposed to do? And if I did things the way he does (which I pretty much did in the last entry), I'd continue to say tough, deal with it. But when I throw his own attitude back at him he only gets more pissed because, as he put it, "It's only okay when I do it." Bull.
Did anyone consider that maybe I'm not writing this for him, or for anyone we know? No, I wasn't too happy to find out people we actually know (aside from my mother) read this blog. It's not just that they read it, it's that they know who is writing it. There's a reason why you don't see a photo of me, or why it's a pen name instead of my real one. ANONYMITY. So I do get upset when someone both Tristan and I know, doesn't matter who, reads this and gets offended by this. As if the world will actually know who you are by this single blog. I use fake names for a reason.
And another thing, a good psychologist would be able to figure out from at least one entry that I'm bitter, that this is not normal, that MAYBE I need someone to actually freaking listen to me. The other day when we were in the car with Alex I started to think that maybe I could trust her, maybe this WOULD be a good thing, maybe she could help both of us. Now there's this Great Wall between Tristan and I, and while I honestly don't want to blame Alex, there is that fact that had she not said anything to him, that wall wouldn't be there.
I get encouraged by friends and family, and even Tristan, to find a companion who will love me and who I can have that dream life with. It could happen. If I kept 90% of who I am a total secret for the rest of my life. I mean, it's not just the relationship, it's the genetics that worry me. My children will have gifts no matter who I mate with, and how the heck am I supposed to explain that? I don't want them to turn out like the last Goran we discovered, whose parents repressed everything so much he's snapped somewhere deep in his mind and is virtually useless beyond second-human functions. Not his fault, I know, and I feel horrible for him because he is such a good person. But when you tell someone born like us that it's all satanic, it is against God, and we live to serve God (at least I do, Tristan is iffy), it messes with our genetic makeup pretty bad. My mother is still trying to reconcile 20+ years of hiding from the church who she is, and it's taking a toll on her.
No way am I saying I totally plan on mating with Tristan and breeding little 75% Gorans. What I mean to say is, he is the only contact I have with any Gorans aside from my mom. He's the only one alive and present who understands who and what I am. Tristan is the only Goran who has any connections to the culture, the people, the language.... If this wall stays up.... I don't even know what.
This was supposed to be an attempt at an apology. I'm honestly not feeling it, nor do I really want to apologize no matter how much I want Alex to feel better. Why? Because I can apologize for something I really don't feel sorry for, and no one is going to apologize to me for any of this. I'm not sorry I wrote what I wrote, I AM sorry I'd forgotten to mention it was a past discussion between Tristan and I in which he agreed with me on everything I said because we were arguing and he was being an ass.
Will anyone apologize for causing a rift between me and my closest friend?
Empath
Apparently my recent post offended some people.
You know what? Deal with it. Yes, Tristan and I had a conversation regarding how he hangs out with people who don't care because that makes him feel better knowing no one cares just like he doesn't care, and yes I said that must be why he likes hanging out with Alex so much, because she doesn't care about him enough to kick him in the ass when he does stupid stuff like get arrested for pot. And you know what? He agreed! And now he swears that part of the conversation never happened, just like how half of his current life has never happened.
What I write here is my story, my life, and if some people don't like what I tell then maybe they should reconsider their role in it. Tristan started hanging with Alex and I was fine with it, until it became very excessive. Until he started meeting people through her that facilitated the wasting of his life and encouraged getting into trouble so far as to get arrested and thrown in jail for a night. Has she once tried to be my friend, to include me in her life? No. Oh, wow, we played a game once at Tristan's old place with his other roommates. But how am I supposed to be sympathetic to someone I don't know because they never gave the effort to know me? And don't think I didn't try. I tried, she politely declined, that was that. Heck, I still tried just a few days ago. Progress was made, I think. I hope.
The whole time I have said over and over and over again something is just not right. I've sought guidance because I am very well aware of the fact that I have been experiencing territorial jealousy because I was essentially replaced as...practically everything. But even taking that out of the equation, something is not right! I told Nicks, I told Tristan, and no one listened to me! Now she knows all about us, our species, our existence, and even though she's a nice person who I like as a person, nothing has rid the horrible feeling that something very, very bad is going to happen. It's going to happen through her. I told her to be careful because something bad is going to happen, and I want to think she listened. Someone has got to listen before it's too late!
Where the hell are you, Jake? Tristan cares more about Alex being offended about my last post than about how I've felt for months! (He even confirmed it.) You were always the only one who listened to me, who believed me, who took what I saw and felt seriously, and remember what happened? No one believes me anymore. Tristan doesn't think I did anything at all those years he was gone, those years you and I spent going through hell and back. I wouldn't have known who or what I was without you. We learned how to read my instincts, how to work with my visions; you taught me how to listen to the voice I always ignored that warned us of danger.
That voice is screaming at me. I'm seeing the same vision over and over again, I feel that horrible sickness that always came before an attack, before getting your calls that you were dying (on a more humorous side note, how many times did that happen? 20?) This isn't right. None of this is right. I can't see the shadows moving but I feel them this time. Last time I said the shadows were moving and no one believed me, the security alarms went off 30 seconds later and we had to throw out our food because it was poisoned.
I offended Alex with what I wrote, and in some small way I am sorry that she took offense. Will anyone listen to me now? I challenge everyone to prove they care about Tristan. Prove themselves as friends. Yeah he drives me up the wall with his hypocritical carelessness and yes, I can accurately say he treats me like shit half the time. But guess what? He kicks me in the ass when I do something stupid, and I kick him back when he's an idiot, because that's what friends do. If you can sit there and not say anything to someone you consider a friend who is skateboarding off a cliff on purpose, then how much of a friend are you truly?
Once upon a time I was sensitive to how people felt. I watched what I said, how I said it, I made sure that everyone knew I was a nice person who you could talk to and trust, someone who wouldn't lord over you with status or whatever. Then I met this girl who started vying for Tristan (who, at the time, was portrayed by Jake). At first I didn't care, I ignored it. Then when he and I started dating, she started crossing major lines, stomping all over me and pitting my closest friends and mentors against me (fortunately they knew me well enough to let me share my story, which they believed). She even tried getting my mother to prod me in her favor for a stupid part in a play I wrote! Something inside me just....clicked into place. No more doormat, no more Ms. Smiles, and definitely no more pacifist. I established clear boundaries and reinforced them.
To this day she tries to spread rumors about me, like when Tristan and I moved across the country, apparently I was pregnant because I'd gained so much weight. Everyone forgot, conveniently, that I had just recovered from a very severe virus that weakened me so much I gained 60 pounds in under a year. I reminded her of that, which got an, "Oh, yeah, that's right. I forgot." I haven't talked to her since. Tried being friends, tried sticking it through, but you can only be stabbed so much in the back before yanking the knife away and keeping it as defense.
I like Alex, a lot. Totally disregarded the fact that she met Tristan through the aforementioned girl, as we all share a common disdain for the drama. I've NEVER been comfortable or approving of the excessive time Tristan spends with Alex, and mainly for his safety. Nicks disregarded my warning and made me tell her all our little secrets because "she will be useful". I agree; it's to who that troubles me.
And yes, I will openly admit, I FREAKING LOATHE being replaced as the one Tristan Keller confided in. I mean, he's freaking out because she's offended? Has anyone ever once considered the absolute pain I have to endure every fricking day?! Okay, take Tristan out of the picture, send me away to a remote corner of the planet with two oceans and a disagreement between us...NOTHING CHANGES ANYTHING. Jake is still gone. My worth to the people I never knew I shared blood with continues to decline, and do they even know about me? My whole life I've spent wishing I belonged somewhere, and I finally had the one friend I've always wanted, who made me feel like I mattered. Jake protected me because I was worth something to him, to the Organization, to the world. He cared if I was hurt, from paper cuts to falling tears. And he wanted me to be happy.... I know he meant the best. He always wanted the best for me. I just wish he could know how horribly things turned out to be, how much I need him home. Jake, if you're reading this, I'm begging you to come home! At least let me know you still remember me, please.
This whole life is so terribly messed up. I finally find a people I belong to and their prince, my friend and roommate, doesn't care. Forget the prince part, my friend doesn't care how I feel. Plain and simple. He could be a dog poop-scooper from Nowhereville USA, he still doesn't care about how I feel. Not anymore at least. I do remember a time when he cared very much, or at least tried to. I am grateful for that.
I am sorry someone took offense. I am never sorry for what I write. No one should have to apologize for telling their own story, and I thought Tristan would be the first to understand that.
I guess not.
You know what? Deal with it. Yes, Tristan and I had a conversation regarding how he hangs out with people who don't care because that makes him feel better knowing no one cares just like he doesn't care, and yes I said that must be why he likes hanging out with Alex so much, because she doesn't care about him enough to kick him in the ass when he does stupid stuff like get arrested for pot. And you know what? He agreed! And now he swears that part of the conversation never happened, just like how half of his current life has never happened.
What I write here is my story, my life, and if some people don't like what I tell then maybe they should reconsider their role in it. Tristan started hanging with Alex and I was fine with it, until it became very excessive. Until he started meeting people through her that facilitated the wasting of his life and encouraged getting into trouble so far as to get arrested and thrown in jail for a night. Has she once tried to be my friend, to include me in her life? No. Oh, wow, we played a game once at Tristan's old place with his other roommates. But how am I supposed to be sympathetic to someone I don't know because they never gave the effort to know me? And don't think I didn't try. I tried, she politely declined, that was that. Heck, I still tried just a few days ago. Progress was made, I think. I hope.
The whole time I have said over and over and over again something is just not right. I've sought guidance because I am very well aware of the fact that I have been experiencing territorial jealousy because I was essentially replaced as...practically everything. But even taking that out of the equation, something is not right! I told Nicks, I told Tristan, and no one listened to me! Now she knows all about us, our species, our existence, and even though she's a nice person who I like as a person, nothing has rid the horrible feeling that something very, very bad is going to happen. It's going to happen through her. I told her to be careful because something bad is going to happen, and I want to think she listened. Someone has got to listen before it's too late!
Where the hell are you, Jake? Tristan cares more about Alex being offended about my last post than about how I've felt for months! (He even confirmed it.) You were always the only one who listened to me, who believed me, who took what I saw and felt seriously, and remember what happened? No one believes me anymore. Tristan doesn't think I did anything at all those years he was gone, those years you and I spent going through hell and back. I wouldn't have known who or what I was without you. We learned how to read my instincts, how to work with my visions; you taught me how to listen to the voice I always ignored that warned us of danger.
That voice is screaming at me. I'm seeing the same vision over and over again, I feel that horrible sickness that always came before an attack, before getting your calls that you were dying (on a more humorous side note, how many times did that happen? 20?) This isn't right. None of this is right. I can't see the shadows moving but I feel them this time. Last time I said the shadows were moving and no one believed me, the security alarms went off 30 seconds later and we had to throw out our food because it was poisoned.
I offended Alex with what I wrote, and in some small way I am sorry that she took offense. Will anyone listen to me now? I challenge everyone to prove they care about Tristan. Prove themselves as friends. Yeah he drives me up the wall with his hypocritical carelessness and yes, I can accurately say he treats me like shit half the time. But guess what? He kicks me in the ass when I do something stupid, and I kick him back when he's an idiot, because that's what friends do. If you can sit there and not say anything to someone you consider a friend who is skateboarding off a cliff on purpose, then how much of a friend are you truly?
Once upon a time I was sensitive to how people felt. I watched what I said, how I said it, I made sure that everyone knew I was a nice person who you could talk to and trust, someone who wouldn't lord over you with status or whatever. Then I met this girl who started vying for Tristan (who, at the time, was portrayed by Jake). At first I didn't care, I ignored it. Then when he and I started dating, she started crossing major lines, stomping all over me and pitting my closest friends and mentors against me (fortunately they knew me well enough to let me share my story, which they believed). She even tried getting my mother to prod me in her favor for a stupid part in a play I wrote! Something inside me just....clicked into place. No more doormat, no more Ms. Smiles, and definitely no more pacifist. I established clear boundaries and reinforced them.
To this day she tries to spread rumors about me, like when Tristan and I moved across the country, apparently I was pregnant because I'd gained so much weight. Everyone forgot, conveniently, that I had just recovered from a very severe virus that weakened me so much I gained 60 pounds in under a year. I reminded her of that, which got an, "Oh, yeah, that's right. I forgot." I haven't talked to her since. Tried being friends, tried sticking it through, but you can only be stabbed so much in the back before yanking the knife away and keeping it as defense.
I like Alex, a lot. Totally disregarded the fact that she met Tristan through the aforementioned girl, as we all share a common disdain for the drama. I've NEVER been comfortable or approving of the excessive time Tristan spends with Alex, and mainly for his safety. Nicks disregarded my warning and made me tell her all our little secrets because "she will be useful". I agree; it's to who that troubles me.
And yes, I will openly admit, I FREAKING LOATHE being replaced as the one Tristan Keller confided in. I mean, he's freaking out because she's offended? Has anyone ever once considered the absolute pain I have to endure every fricking day?! Okay, take Tristan out of the picture, send me away to a remote corner of the planet with two oceans and a disagreement between us...NOTHING CHANGES ANYTHING. Jake is still gone. My worth to the people I never knew I shared blood with continues to decline, and do they even know about me? My whole life I've spent wishing I belonged somewhere, and I finally had the one friend I've always wanted, who made me feel like I mattered. Jake protected me because I was worth something to him, to the Organization, to the world. He cared if I was hurt, from paper cuts to falling tears. And he wanted me to be happy.... I know he meant the best. He always wanted the best for me. I just wish he could know how horribly things turned out to be, how much I need him home. Jake, if you're reading this, I'm begging you to come home! At least let me know you still remember me, please.
This whole life is so terribly messed up. I finally find a people I belong to and their prince, my friend and roommate, doesn't care. Forget the prince part, my friend doesn't care how I feel. Plain and simple. He could be a dog poop-scooper from Nowhereville USA, he still doesn't care about how I feel. Not anymore at least. I do remember a time when he cared very much, or at least tried to. I am grateful for that.
I am sorry someone took offense. I am never sorry for what I write. No one should have to apologize for telling their own story, and I thought Tristan would be the first to understand that.
I guess not.
2.23.2011
Tragedy
"Give me a hero and I'll give you a tragedy" is a very accurate summary of who Tristan is currently. We went hot-tubbing last night at his adoptive family's home, and got into some meaningful conversations about whatever we could think up. And then we got into the subject of water bending.
"I think I know why you can't water bend," I said, holding my hands to pretend I was making it flow and bubble and not the jet streams beneath the surface.
"I can, it's just..."
Okay here we go, I thought. "Ooo! Can you show me?"
Tristan waded very close to me until his face was inches from mine. "How...many...times...do I have to say it?"
As he swam back to his side of the tub I remembered what he meant. He doesn't bend anymore. What happened in the past stays in the past. Sorry, I just don't take that as a valid reason for letting go of everything you are. "I get it, you don't bend anymore." I sighed and gave it a try myself, but as he reminds me, being able to move a speck of pepper is a major feat in itself, a first in many steps towards being able to lift an entire body into the air. Secretly I want to learn how to lift a man twice my size so the next time certain individuals feel insistent on being dumbasses, they would think twice after being pinned by an invisible force. Then I wake up from this wishful thinking and wonder if it's best for me to just not know how to do any of that, and then I remember all the shit my family has gone through and continues to go through, being almost strangled by Tristan in an "episode", subduing a very unstable and clinically mental former friend who loves to smash things with his fists.... I don't know. It could be useful.
Tristan was deep in thought, the blue light of the pool illuminating his expression. Have you ever heard of the term "tragically beautiful"? Well, that's what he looks like when his hair has that mussed up look and his eyes are far off in some memory. Once in the Chicago Field Museum I saw this bust of a Greco-Roman man beloved by his emperor, and his face was tragically beautiful. Now I'm not about to say Tristan resembles a marble bust from the ancient days of unrealistic artistry, but there is something not quite human in his expressions. Something almost angelic, and in times like these, I would dare to say one could accurately paint a picture of a fallen angel and use his face as a muse. Sad, pained, angry.... It's an interesting mixture.
"I couldn't save him," Tristan said. "The one time I actually needed to use...this," he held up his hand, "and I couldn't. I couldn't do anything to save him."
No matter how well my mind can travel to places I've never been and see things I would otherwise not see, I cannot imagine the horror Tristan went through as the waves of the tsunami in Indonesia swept over him and his companions. Truth be told, their location and timing was just so very bad. The waters came in, and not even the Goran prince could save one of his protectors from drowning.
"You say it's a feat to make so much as a bubble of water," I replied, attempting to comfort him with reason. "No one would expect you to be able to hold back a tsunami wave."
"I didn't want to hold back the whole wave! Just..." He shook his head. "Just to save him. So no, I don't bend water anymore."
"That's it?" What I meant was, is that the only event that has caused this aversion from element-moving? But the only words that came out were, again, "That's it?"
"That's it?!?" Tristan couldn't believe me, and I couldn't find accurate words to correct my badly chosen inquiry. "That's it?!?" He calmed down and gentled his expression, and I said a silent prayer of thanks that he didn't try to kill me over something as stupid as my lack of explanation. "Believe it or not, Mira, but Gorans are very emotional people-"
I burst out laughing, one of those inappropriate yet uncontrollable fits of laughter that get me into trouble more often than not.
"I'm serious." He looked a bit hurt, and I immediately sobered.
"I know, I'm sorry, just let me get it out. I'm sorry," I said as I took a breath to calm the weird nerves.
"As I was saying, Gorans are very emotional people, but they express it differently. It's outer, it's physical, they express emotion through...well, bending. And when we think of something related that pains us, or makes us sad, then we can't do that one thing anymore. Whenever I try to bend water I think of that moment when I couldn't and....I can't." Tristan shrugged slightly and ran his fingers through the water.
Between fight and flight, I am a fighter all the way. So is Tristan, which is why I instinctively push him back up when he feels like sitting on the side bench after being winded. And I mean, full-out shoving. "That's...well, that's kind of...ridiculous."
He did not like that.
"Look, what happened was horrible," I explained, "but you can't let something, one event, hold you back from doing so much more!" My mind flashed with phrases like "if he was meant to live he would have lived", "if you were meant to save him you would have saved him", "sometimes we have to be reminded of how powerless we really are in order to become greater in ourselves"...but all of it seemed useless to someone hell-bent on blaming himself for another's death. "I just think that it's foolish to run from what can make you stronger."
I like to think his deep decent into thought was over that phrase, which to my ears sounded wiser than I intended to be. Weird, is how it sounded in that sense. But again, many things will make him go into the "tragically beautiful" mode so I let it be.
One of the many subjects I had thought about getting a degree in was psychology, mainly so I could help Tristan recover from his years of, well, absolute hell. The more I thought about the assignment I was given by CO and Jake, the more it occurred to me that while I am to make sure Tristan lives and is looked after, my main part of being his protector is the care and keeping of his mind. His greatest enemy is himself, because no one can bring him to his knees in surrender faster than he can. Two entire civilizations, both occupying entire planets (or a ship the size of one), depend on him to bring "peace and prosperity". Prophecy and expectations aside, I can't just sit by and watch someone as great of a person as he is fold in on themselves and disintegrate into nothing.
Tristan was a bit skeptical of this theory when I shared it with him in the hot tub, but more in a joking way than actual flat-out "hell no". And I admit, I haven't handled him as well as he deserves, and it's taken some work on myself to get past the many obstacles that flew in my face upon finding out who he was in the minimal sense. Before I could be any help to him I had to get over the fact that Jake was really gone, that Tristan is someone entirely different, and that he tried to destroy every bit of my sanity so I would be committed and forever imprisoned in a padded room. That last part kind of makes me laugh just a little. His one mistake was sending Jake to do the job, for instead of destroying me Jake taught me how to be stronger, how to fight back. But then by returning home Tristan forced Jake to leave (which is up for debate because Jake didn't have to leave the state entirely, he could have assumed a new identity and stuck around), and that is what cracked my self-control. I told/yelled at Tristan repeatedly that he now succeeded in his goal to make me insane because he took away the last bit holding me together.
After about a year of dealing with that, I somehow got it together and numbed myself to the capitulation that is Tristan. He swears he never uttered anything close to the words, but about three months ago after taking me by surprise and thoroughly kissing me, he told me he loved me and even though his primal sexual attraction was to men, I had his heart. We established that even though we weren't dating and probably wouldn't for a long while, we loved each other very much. Heck, he even told my best friend he still loved me, always has always will, days before he told me himself. Some time later we discussed having children together, something we'd wanted for a long while; events that threatened to send him away again made us seriously look at developing a more intimate relationship and having children or at least a child.
Two months later he denied the entire thing ever happened, except for the kissing part. When I'd asked him at the time it happened why he did it, he said it just felt like the right thing to do. When I asked him two months later why he did it, he said it was because I wanted it and he just kissed me to give me what I wanted so I wouldn't bug him. I highly protested that, since at the time I had zero intentions or expectations especially after he'd declared his hatred for me only a few months before THAT. I don't remember what his response was, and frankly I couldn't care. This was just typical. I don't even bother to ask why the hell did he want to have kids with me because I know the response would be something along the lines of "I want to do it with someone I actually know", "you're genetically compatible", "at least that way if something happened to either one of us our kid would have a parent who could train him as a Goran"...all reasons I'd come up with when we were discussing the matter.
I was "forced" to tell his new friend Alex about who we are. Nicks ordered it, and after a week of protesting Tristan tricked me into doing it. So yay, yet another person who doesn't need to know now knows we're not entirely normal humans. My family is excluded from that list, by the way, because haha we all happen to have the same genes. The only person aside from Alex who doesn't need to know, but does, is Tristan's old roommate who we've mused could be Goran but is a 100% waste of a perfectly good person. You can't do much with a highly impressionable personality and completely repressed Goran mind. Alex, however nice she is, has a dark shadow hovering by her that I can't put my finger on.
But apparently I suck as a therapist and since she's studying psychology Tristan can talk to her about his problems. He says I judge him and she doesn't. He says it's easier for him to tell her things because she doesn't get on him for being stupid and selfish (okay that's my own wording). I said ya she's easy to talk to because she doesn't care about anything at all, just like he doesn't care. Unfortunately he agreed.
You know, everyone is so freaking worried about the Goran prince and not once, ever, has anyone offered routes of support for his guardian. Nicks emails me and I email him, and the interim CO that stepped in after our CO's death was super nice and offered her support since her brother had similar mental conditions, and I am grateful. But seriously people, am I invisible? Had no one noticed that I might actually be someone to watch out for? Well, yes, but those people tried to kill me.
I bury myself in human studies to get away from my own pain. Tristan knows how much I hate being a half-breed but no condolences there. To feel pain and loss and heartache, hopelessness and despair, on the INSIDE where it grips your lungs in an iron clasp and drives you to lash out so fiercely at the people you love.... I hate it. And I just can't let Tristan waste himself away because we need him, I need him, to be something more. To be a reassurance, to be a leader, to be everything he once was and even greater. I'm a lost and confused half-breed living with my own species' prince and waiting for resolution, for vindication, for something to make this all worth it. I used to think just being loved would make it all worth something, but now that I don't even have that, I don't know what to do.
God is my everything, He is my salvation, my Advocate, my Father, my all. I was raised to make Him so, and we have a real, deep relationship going all the way back to my birth. This loneliness I feel is what makes me realize why He would come to Earth as a human. To say it's not enough just to be fulfilled on a spiritual level would get me lectured by my parents and church leaders, but there's something to be said for physical human contact. We are beings who need it. Who crave it. And to even shake hands with God Himself as you stand in a furniture store looking at tables he made, well, words cannot suffice. I see His smile and I feel reassured, vindicated, appreciated, loved.
And then I get nudged back to Tristan to continue what God has chosen for us and I feel abandoned, betrayed, and so utterly lost. Which parts of the past have we not remembered? The part where he hated me, the part where he tried to kill me, the many parts where he shattered my heart to pieces and stomped all over them? How about the fact that he refuses to be who he is? Or that he's wasting his life surrendering to temptation and giving in to weakness?
God turns my head back to see Tristan and I hate what I feel inside. It's what destroys me, it's what kills me slowly but surely from the inside out. I try to fight and seal myself from the pain but I can't, it's not who I am, I cannot shut off compassion and empathy which always leads to that horrid state of being that, again, is the most destructive thing of all. I used to think that Jonah was an idiot for not wanting to go to Ninevah, but nowadays I can understand him. Why go to a place where you know you will die?
Because we don't know we will die. Because God always has surprises in store, like when Ninevah suddenly listened and turned around their ways and became amazing. I keep trying to run and God keeps reminding me that there's always a surprise coming and if I run, I'll miss it. And I grumble that it better be good, and He just laughs and smiles and makes me watch Tristan for that glorious surprise.
So that's why I believe in him, in the Goran prince. Because I have to, because he needs to somehow, someway, someday just snap out of it and became who he is. I shy away from saying "who he/she is meant to be" because if they were meant to be, then they already are.
He just has to realize it.
"I think I know why you can't water bend," I said, holding my hands to pretend I was making it flow and bubble and not the jet streams beneath the surface.
"I can, it's just..."
Okay here we go, I thought. "Ooo! Can you show me?"
Tristan waded very close to me until his face was inches from mine. "How...many...times...do I have to say it?"
As he swam back to his side of the tub I remembered what he meant. He doesn't bend anymore. What happened in the past stays in the past. Sorry, I just don't take that as a valid reason for letting go of everything you are. "I get it, you don't bend anymore." I sighed and gave it a try myself, but as he reminds me, being able to move a speck of pepper is a major feat in itself, a first in many steps towards being able to lift an entire body into the air. Secretly I want to learn how to lift a man twice my size so the next time certain individuals feel insistent on being dumbasses, they would think twice after being pinned by an invisible force. Then I wake up from this wishful thinking and wonder if it's best for me to just not know how to do any of that, and then I remember all the shit my family has gone through and continues to go through, being almost strangled by Tristan in an "episode", subduing a very unstable and clinically mental former friend who loves to smash things with his fists.... I don't know. It could be useful.
Tristan was deep in thought, the blue light of the pool illuminating his expression. Have you ever heard of the term "tragically beautiful"? Well, that's what he looks like when his hair has that mussed up look and his eyes are far off in some memory. Once in the Chicago Field Museum I saw this bust of a Greco-Roman man beloved by his emperor, and his face was tragically beautiful. Now I'm not about to say Tristan resembles a marble bust from the ancient days of unrealistic artistry, but there is something not quite human in his expressions. Something almost angelic, and in times like these, I would dare to say one could accurately paint a picture of a fallen angel and use his face as a muse. Sad, pained, angry.... It's an interesting mixture.
"I couldn't save him," Tristan said. "The one time I actually needed to use...this," he held up his hand, "and I couldn't. I couldn't do anything to save him."
No matter how well my mind can travel to places I've never been and see things I would otherwise not see, I cannot imagine the horror Tristan went through as the waves of the tsunami in Indonesia swept over him and his companions. Truth be told, their location and timing was just so very bad. The waters came in, and not even the Goran prince could save one of his protectors from drowning.
"You say it's a feat to make so much as a bubble of water," I replied, attempting to comfort him with reason. "No one would expect you to be able to hold back a tsunami wave."
"I didn't want to hold back the whole wave! Just..." He shook his head. "Just to save him. So no, I don't bend water anymore."
"That's it?" What I meant was, is that the only event that has caused this aversion from element-moving? But the only words that came out were, again, "That's it?"
"That's it?!?" Tristan couldn't believe me, and I couldn't find accurate words to correct my badly chosen inquiry. "That's it?!?" He calmed down and gentled his expression, and I said a silent prayer of thanks that he didn't try to kill me over something as stupid as my lack of explanation. "Believe it or not, Mira, but Gorans are very emotional people-"
I burst out laughing, one of those inappropriate yet uncontrollable fits of laughter that get me into trouble more often than not.
"I'm serious." He looked a bit hurt, and I immediately sobered.
"I know, I'm sorry, just let me get it out. I'm sorry," I said as I took a breath to calm the weird nerves.
"As I was saying, Gorans are very emotional people, but they express it differently. It's outer, it's physical, they express emotion through...well, bending. And when we think of something related that pains us, or makes us sad, then we can't do that one thing anymore. Whenever I try to bend water I think of that moment when I couldn't and....I can't." Tristan shrugged slightly and ran his fingers through the water.
Between fight and flight, I am a fighter all the way. So is Tristan, which is why I instinctively push him back up when he feels like sitting on the side bench after being winded. And I mean, full-out shoving. "That's...well, that's kind of...ridiculous."
He did not like that.
"Look, what happened was horrible," I explained, "but you can't let something, one event, hold you back from doing so much more!" My mind flashed with phrases like "if he was meant to live he would have lived", "if you were meant to save him you would have saved him", "sometimes we have to be reminded of how powerless we really are in order to become greater in ourselves"...but all of it seemed useless to someone hell-bent on blaming himself for another's death. "I just think that it's foolish to run from what can make you stronger."
I like to think his deep decent into thought was over that phrase, which to my ears sounded wiser than I intended to be. Weird, is how it sounded in that sense. But again, many things will make him go into the "tragically beautiful" mode so I let it be.
One of the many subjects I had thought about getting a degree in was psychology, mainly so I could help Tristan recover from his years of, well, absolute hell. The more I thought about the assignment I was given by CO and Jake, the more it occurred to me that while I am to make sure Tristan lives and is looked after, my main part of being his protector is the care and keeping of his mind. His greatest enemy is himself, because no one can bring him to his knees in surrender faster than he can. Two entire civilizations, both occupying entire planets (or a ship the size of one), depend on him to bring "peace and prosperity". Prophecy and expectations aside, I can't just sit by and watch someone as great of a person as he is fold in on themselves and disintegrate into nothing.
Tristan was a bit skeptical of this theory when I shared it with him in the hot tub, but more in a joking way than actual flat-out "hell no". And I admit, I haven't handled him as well as he deserves, and it's taken some work on myself to get past the many obstacles that flew in my face upon finding out who he was in the minimal sense. Before I could be any help to him I had to get over the fact that Jake was really gone, that Tristan is someone entirely different, and that he tried to destroy every bit of my sanity so I would be committed and forever imprisoned in a padded room. That last part kind of makes me laugh just a little. His one mistake was sending Jake to do the job, for instead of destroying me Jake taught me how to be stronger, how to fight back. But then by returning home Tristan forced Jake to leave (which is up for debate because Jake didn't have to leave the state entirely, he could have assumed a new identity and stuck around), and that is what cracked my self-control. I told/yelled at Tristan repeatedly that he now succeeded in his goal to make me insane because he took away the last bit holding me together.
After about a year of dealing with that, I somehow got it together and numbed myself to the capitulation that is Tristan. He swears he never uttered anything close to the words, but about three months ago after taking me by surprise and thoroughly kissing me, he told me he loved me and even though his primal sexual attraction was to men, I had his heart. We established that even though we weren't dating and probably wouldn't for a long while, we loved each other very much. Heck, he even told my best friend he still loved me, always has always will, days before he told me himself. Some time later we discussed having children together, something we'd wanted for a long while; events that threatened to send him away again made us seriously look at developing a more intimate relationship and having children or at least a child.
Two months later he denied the entire thing ever happened, except for the kissing part. When I'd asked him at the time it happened why he did it, he said it just felt like the right thing to do. When I asked him two months later why he did it, he said it was because I wanted it and he just kissed me to give me what I wanted so I wouldn't bug him. I highly protested that, since at the time I had zero intentions or expectations especially after he'd declared his hatred for me only a few months before THAT. I don't remember what his response was, and frankly I couldn't care. This was just typical. I don't even bother to ask why the hell did he want to have kids with me because I know the response would be something along the lines of "I want to do it with someone I actually know", "you're genetically compatible", "at least that way if something happened to either one of us our kid would have a parent who could train him as a Goran"...all reasons I'd come up with when we were discussing the matter.
I was "forced" to tell his new friend Alex about who we are. Nicks ordered it, and after a week of protesting Tristan tricked me into doing it. So yay, yet another person who doesn't need to know now knows we're not entirely normal humans. My family is excluded from that list, by the way, because haha we all happen to have the same genes. The only person aside from Alex who doesn't need to know, but does, is Tristan's old roommate who we've mused could be Goran but is a 100% waste of a perfectly good person. You can't do much with a highly impressionable personality and completely repressed Goran mind. Alex, however nice she is, has a dark shadow hovering by her that I can't put my finger on.
But apparently I suck as a therapist and since she's studying psychology Tristan can talk to her about his problems. He says I judge him and she doesn't. He says it's easier for him to tell her things because she doesn't get on him for being stupid and selfish (okay that's my own wording). I said ya she's easy to talk to because she doesn't care about anything at all, just like he doesn't care. Unfortunately he agreed.
You know, everyone is so freaking worried about the Goran prince and not once, ever, has anyone offered routes of support for his guardian. Nicks emails me and I email him, and the interim CO that stepped in after our CO's death was super nice and offered her support since her brother had similar mental conditions, and I am grateful. But seriously people, am I invisible? Had no one noticed that I might actually be someone to watch out for? Well, yes, but those people tried to kill me.
I bury myself in human studies to get away from my own pain. Tristan knows how much I hate being a half-breed but no condolences there. To feel pain and loss and heartache, hopelessness and despair, on the INSIDE where it grips your lungs in an iron clasp and drives you to lash out so fiercely at the people you love.... I hate it. And I just can't let Tristan waste himself away because we need him, I need him, to be something more. To be a reassurance, to be a leader, to be everything he once was and even greater. I'm a lost and confused half-breed living with my own species' prince and waiting for resolution, for vindication, for something to make this all worth it. I used to think just being loved would make it all worth something, but now that I don't even have that, I don't know what to do.
God is my everything, He is my salvation, my Advocate, my Father, my all. I was raised to make Him so, and we have a real, deep relationship going all the way back to my birth. This loneliness I feel is what makes me realize why He would come to Earth as a human. To say it's not enough just to be fulfilled on a spiritual level would get me lectured by my parents and church leaders, but there's something to be said for physical human contact. We are beings who need it. Who crave it. And to even shake hands with God Himself as you stand in a furniture store looking at tables he made, well, words cannot suffice. I see His smile and I feel reassured, vindicated, appreciated, loved.
And then I get nudged back to Tristan to continue what God has chosen for us and I feel abandoned, betrayed, and so utterly lost. Which parts of the past have we not remembered? The part where he hated me, the part where he tried to kill me, the many parts where he shattered my heart to pieces and stomped all over them? How about the fact that he refuses to be who he is? Or that he's wasting his life surrendering to temptation and giving in to weakness?
God turns my head back to see Tristan and I hate what I feel inside. It's what destroys me, it's what kills me slowly but surely from the inside out. I try to fight and seal myself from the pain but I can't, it's not who I am, I cannot shut off compassion and empathy which always leads to that horrid state of being that, again, is the most destructive thing of all. I used to think that Jonah was an idiot for not wanting to go to Ninevah, but nowadays I can understand him. Why go to a place where you know you will die?
Because we don't know we will die. Because God always has surprises in store, like when Ninevah suddenly listened and turned around their ways and became amazing. I keep trying to run and God keeps reminding me that there's always a surprise coming and if I run, I'll miss it. And I grumble that it better be good, and He just laughs and smiles and makes me watch Tristan for that glorious surprise.
So that's why I believe in him, in the Goran prince. Because I have to, because he needs to somehow, someway, someday just snap out of it and became who he is. I shy away from saying "who he/she is meant to be" because if they were meant to be, then they already are.
He just has to realize it.
2.20.2011
Rain
It's raining outside, for the first time since last fall. It's been raining all night, with thunder and lightening, and I love it. Rain is like a global bath, it washes everything away.
Sometimes I just want to give up on this whole protector thing and just leave Tristan to his own self-destruction, but the goodness in me won't allow it. Last night he told me he was going for a walk, I asked if he was going to meet anyone (last time he went on a walk, I heard him talking to someone and he tried to be all secretive about it; how the heck is anyone supposed to keep him safe if he pulls that?) and he yet again tried to lie about it, but he admitted it and all was fine. And then I heard the car leave, but I tried to believe he would definitely not have pulled that.
Three hours later, I went upstairs and saw that his car was gone. Son of a bitch.
He came back not too long after I yelled at him in a text message, wondering what was wrong. I wanted to scream, cry, laugh hysterically and destroy things. Tristan swears even now that he really did mean to go on a walk, but last minute changes occurred.
"So your fingers weren't working on the text buttons?" I tried to give him the look of death but I'm still groggy from sleep.
"I wasn't thinking about texting you," he scoffed.
"You could call...."
"Look, I don't think about you at all when I have to go do stuff, alright?"
I gave him what hopefully was a stern look. "Then change that so you do! I can't just sit here and let you run around like that! I almost contacted Jakes to have him send people after you!"
What drives me up the wall with anger is Tristan's total disregard for anyone but himself. He thinks I did absolutely nothing those four years he was gone, and it's partly because Jake hid a LOT about me from prying eyes. But what the hell, man? Everything I ever did, every life I saved, every drop of blood I cleaned up, was for what, some selfish prince?
Oh. My. *** I want to punch his teeth down his throat.
Sometimes I just want to give up on this whole protector thing and just leave Tristan to his own self-destruction, but the goodness in me won't allow it. Last night he told me he was going for a walk, I asked if he was going to meet anyone (last time he went on a walk, I heard him talking to someone and he tried to be all secretive about it; how the heck is anyone supposed to keep him safe if he pulls that?) and he yet again tried to lie about it, but he admitted it and all was fine. And then I heard the car leave, but I tried to believe he would definitely not have pulled that.
Three hours later, I went upstairs and saw that his car was gone. Son of a bitch.
He came back not too long after I yelled at him in a text message, wondering what was wrong. I wanted to scream, cry, laugh hysterically and destroy things. Tristan swears even now that he really did mean to go on a walk, but last minute changes occurred.
"So your fingers weren't working on the text buttons?" I tried to give him the look of death but I'm still groggy from sleep.
"I wasn't thinking about texting you," he scoffed.
"You could call...."
"Look, I don't think about you at all when I have to go do stuff, alright?"
I gave him what hopefully was a stern look. "Then change that so you do! I can't just sit here and let you run around like that! I almost contacted Jakes to have him send people after you!"
What drives me up the wall with anger is Tristan's total disregard for anyone but himself. He thinks I did absolutely nothing those four years he was gone, and it's partly because Jake hid a LOT about me from prying eyes. But what the hell, man? Everything I ever did, every life I saved, every drop of blood I cleaned up, was for what, some selfish prince?
Oh. My. *** I want to punch his teeth down his throat.
Genetics
My father isn't the most supportive of the theory of colonization after Mars. Or aliens. Or anything that would get me close enough to telling him what I've discovered about myself and my mother.
My parents divorced when I was 2. It was a violent time, filled with screaming and shouting and physical violence. I can remember my mother holding me when I was born, I can remember smacking my head against a coffee table, I can remember learning how to talk, but when it comes to life with my father, my mind draws blanks. All I see is a haze of red, some guy who most definitely wasn't my father but looked like him, and all I hear is the noise. The clearest memory is of this man standing over me where I'm laying on my back, crying and squirming because I hear Mom screaming, and he has a knife above me. Then Mom throws herself over me and shouts, "You can take me but not my baby!" He looks at us, lowers the knife and leaves.
I grew up learning to not trust my father, and that was the only memory I carried of him. I do remember looking at his picture when I was little and asking if he was going to come home tonight. Mom would start sniffing and she'd tell me very quietly that he doesn't come home anymore, he has other places to be. I asked for a few times but then decided he really wasn't coming home. I saw him a few times, once when I was three, once on my seventh birthday and once on my eighth. Then we moved and I never saw him again until three years ago when I found him on Facebook.
But Jake.... Jake explained a LOT of things to me, and the more I looked into it the more I discovered what he was saying is true.
My father had a double. Almost all of us have one; mine got pregnant over a year ago so I don't think she has her job anymore. Jake was Tristan's double. And my father's double was the one who tried to kill me and my mother.
There is a continuous pattern with Gorans and half-breeds that Tristan and I are coming across. Every Goran and half-breed we've found has been taken from their father. Some were taken from both parents. My father loved us so much, he loved my mother with every fiber of his being. I was his gift, his pride, his absolute happiness. But when he had to go on missions, when he had to save lives (and Mom didn't know because he was in the Organization, which has remained secret for over 20 years), his double stepped in and attacked us, tried to kill us. Dad would come home to a mess and to Mom yelling at him to get out, to leave us alone, and he didn't understand what had happened. Mom says that whenever he held me, I would start crying hysterically. It broke his heart that I didn't know him.
He left for a long while, where to know one knew. They were divorced, Mom was so hurt and angry and confused, and there was a man in church who offered to help take care of us. He moved in so fast, so cleverly, and they were married only 6 months after my father left.
3 months after the wedding, Dad returned to fix things with Mom.
I remember that day. For some reason it stuck in my mind for the rest of my life. He walked down the small hill to the church sanctuary where Mom and I were sitting outside. I hugged him, I was so happy to see him, I knew it was my daddy. He hugged me back and told me he wanted to talk with mommy, and I ran to tell my stepfather that my daddy was here. I didn't know.... Had I known then what I know now, I would have begged Dad to save the day, make Mom go back with him, for everyone's sake just fix it all. But I was so innocent, so trusting. The three of them stood, talking, and I just wanted to be with my daddy.
"Honey, you shouldn't call me daddy anymore," he told me before he left.
"Why not?"
"Because...." I couldn't tell something was wrong, but he was trying very hard to smile and be a good friend. "You can call me Clarky. Want to do that?"
I wanted to call him "daddy" but I also wanted to be his good girl, so I nodded. I tried it out but it seemed strange. He waved to me before he vanished over the hill, and something inside me just felt wrong about the whole thing.
Well, long story short, in the span of ten years my stepfather turned out to be an abusive bastard who we had to run from, now with my little sister (for whom I am grateful, despite the idiotic mistake of marrying the guy), and to make matters worse it has recently come to light that he may have been abusing her in the worst ways.
After all hell broke loose with the douchebag (who shall remain nameless), I started looking for my father. He HAD to be better than this. But nothing came up, no records, no trail, nothing. At some point it was thought that he may have died.
Jake was the one who told me. Actually I think it was more of a slip that turned into a lengthy explanation. According to the stories, my father became a trainer for new recruits into the Organization, teaching them how to fight and survive with strength and skills, brains and brawn. One of his students was a young boy, rebellious and stubborn, who quickly became a favorite. They bonded, and my father became like a father to him. Tristan admired, looked up to and trusted him, and my father made sure to make him the best in life and in war.
All that time, he was right here. I was looking for him all over the world and the whole time he was only a few towns away. When I moved, so did he. When my family moved across state about 8 years ago, to Tristan's hometown (talk about fate...), my father requested to become a regular agent and to work with Tristan in the area.
They refused.
Jake said that the fear has never been about what I can do or who I am, it's about what I could do and who I could become. If I learned from my father, I would be unstoppable. I am the only agent we know if who does not have a tracking device imbedded in the neck; one switch can literally turn a person off and drop them like flies, but not me. My father always said that he obeyed God's law above man's, he would obey commands only up to a point. I had broadcasted the same morale, and without knowing my own father. I guess people connected the dots and discovered my father's traits, everything that made him incredible, was genetically passed to me. And this time, there was Goran blood mixed in.
To this day I will swear that my father's double is the guilty one. It took Tristan a long time to entertain the thought that my father might actually be innocent of our commander's family slaughter. I can't imagine the horror and pain of coming home to find your wife and two small children murdered. Even moreso, I can't imagine in a million lifetimes my father committing the act. They had his fingerprints, his DNA, everything to convict him of genocide. But my father, my real father, would bawl his eyes out if he hit a rabbit on the road. How in the world could he harm a family, let alone children?
They gave him two options. Erase his memory of everything, including his years of work, and live a normal life as a civilian, or imprisonment/execution. He took the memory loss. Now he has a beautiful wife and two small children, a great job and our relationship is amazing. When we found each other after so many years, we spent Thanksgiving together and it was one of the best times of my life. He was my father, my dad, my daddy again. And he wanted me to call him all those names, and when I did his eyes would sparkle with emotion and I knew everything was right again.
Now when I need to talk to him, to find out what he knows, he skirts the issue. Tristan and I determined long ago that the memory loss either failed or was complete bull. He won't say it, he tries not to let on, but Dad knows waaaaaayyyy more than he admits. He has perfect aim with my little brother's nerf gun. I'm pretty sure average medical techs do not know how to shoot the petals off a daisy across the room with a sucker dart.
Can I tell him what I can do? Should I? I need my father, I need to know if he knew about my mother all along, if he can train me how to control myself so I don't blow up a bank or whatnot. He worked with Tristan and Sean and Elijah and so he KNOWS how to handle who and what we are.
I just don't know if he will.
My parents divorced when I was 2. It was a violent time, filled with screaming and shouting and physical violence. I can remember my mother holding me when I was born, I can remember smacking my head against a coffee table, I can remember learning how to talk, but when it comes to life with my father, my mind draws blanks. All I see is a haze of red, some guy who most definitely wasn't my father but looked like him, and all I hear is the noise. The clearest memory is of this man standing over me where I'm laying on my back, crying and squirming because I hear Mom screaming, and he has a knife above me. Then Mom throws herself over me and shouts, "You can take me but not my baby!" He looks at us, lowers the knife and leaves.
I grew up learning to not trust my father, and that was the only memory I carried of him. I do remember looking at his picture when I was little and asking if he was going to come home tonight. Mom would start sniffing and she'd tell me very quietly that he doesn't come home anymore, he has other places to be. I asked for a few times but then decided he really wasn't coming home. I saw him a few times, once when I was three, once on my seventh birthday and once on my eighth. Then we moved and I never saw him again until three years ago when I found him on Facebook.
But Jake.... Jake explained a LOT of things to me, and the more I looked into it the more I discovered what he was saying is true.
My father had a double. Almost all of us have one; mine got pregnant over a year ago so I don't think she has her job anymore. Jake was Tristan's double. And my father's double was the one who tried to kill me and my mother.
There is a continuous pattern with Gorans and half-breeds that Tristan and I are coming across. Every Goran and half-breed we've found has been taken from their father. Some were taken from both parents. My father loved us so much, he loved my mother with every fiber of his being. I was his gift, his pride, his absolute happiness. But when he had to go on missions, when he had to save lives (and Mom didn't know because he was in the Organization, which has remained secret for over 20 years), his double stepped in and attacked us, tried to kill us. Dad would come home to a mess and to Mom yelling at him to get out, to leave us alone, and he didn't understand what had happened. Mom says that whenever he held me, I would start crying hysterically. It broke his heart that I didn't know him.
He left for a long while, where to know one knew. They were divorced, Mom was so hurt and angry and confused, and there was a man in church who offered to help take care of us. He moved in so fast, so cleverly, and they were married only 6 months after my father left.
3 months after the wedding, Dad returned to fix things with Mom.
I remember that day. For some reason it stuck in my mind for the rest of my life. He walked down the small hill to the church sanctuary where Mom and I were sitting outside. I hugged him, I was so happy to see him, I knew it was my daddy. He hugged me back and told me he wanted to talk with mommy, and I ran to tell my stepfather that my daddy was here. I didn't know.... Had I known then what I know now, I would have begged Dad to save the day, make Mom go back with him, for everyone's sake just fix it all. But I was so innocent, so trusting. The three of them stood, talking, and I just wanted to be with my daddy.
"Honey, you shouldn't call me daddy anymore," he told me before he left.
"Why not?"
"Because...." I couldn't tell something was wrong, but he was trying very hard to smile and be a good friend. "You can call me Clarky. Want to do that?"
I wanted to call him "daddy" but I also wanted to be his good girl, so I nodded. I tried it out but it seemed strange. He waved to me before he vanished over the hill, and something inside me just felt wrong about the whole thing.
Well, long story short, in the span of ten years my stepfather turned out to be an abusive bastard who we had to run from, now with my little sister (for whom I am grateful, despite the idiotic mistake of marrying the guy), and to make matters worse it has recently come to light that he may have been abusing her in the worst ways.
After all hell broke loose with the douchebag (who shall remain nameless), I started looking for my father. He HAD to be better than this. But nothing came up, no records, no trail, nothing. At some point it was thought that he may have died.
Jake was the one who told me. Actually I think it was more of a slip that turned into a lengthy explanation. According to the stories, my father became a trainer for new recruits into the Organization, teaching them how to fight and survive with strength and skills, brains and brawn. One of his students was a young boy, rebellious and stubborn, who quickly became a favorite. They bonded, and my father became like a father to him. Tristan admired, looked up to and trusted him, and my father made sure to make him the best in life and in war.
All that time, he was right here. I was looking for him all over the world and the whole time he was only a few towns away. When I moved, so did he. When my family moved across state about 8 years ago, to Tristan's hometown (talk about fate...), my father requested to become a regular agent and to work with Tristan in the area.
They refused.
Jake said that the fear has never been about what I can do or who I am, it's about what I could do and who I could become. If I learned from my father, I would be unstoppable. I am the only agent we know if who does not have a tracking device imbedded in the neck; one switch can literally turn a person off and drop them like flies, but not me. My father always said that he obeyed God's law above man's, he would obey commands only up to a point. I had broadcasted the same morale, and without knowing my own father. I guess people connected the dots and discovered my father's traits, everything that made him incredible, was genetically passed to me. And this time, there was Goran blood mixed in.
To this day I will swear that my father's double is the guilty one. It took Tristan a long time to entertain the thought that my father might actually be innocent of our commander's family slaughter. I can't imagine the horror and pain of coming home to find your wife and two small children murdered. Even moreso, I can't imagine in a million lifetimes my father committing the act. They had his fingerprints, his DNA, everything to convict him of genocide. But my father, my real father, would bawl his eyes out if he hit a rabbit on the road. How in the world could he harm a family, let alone children?
They gave him two options. Erase his memory of everything, including his years of work, and live a normal life as a civilian, or imprisonment/execution. He took the memory loss. Now he has a beautiful wife and two small children, a great job and our relationship is amazing. When we found each other after so many years, we spent Thanksgiving together and it was one of the best times of my life. He was my father, my dad, my daddy again. And he wanted me to call him all those names, and when I did his eyes would sparkle with emotion and I knew everything was right again.
Now when I need to talk to him, to find out what he knows, he skirts the issue. Tristan and I determined long ago that the memory loss either failed or was complete bull. He won't say it, he tries not to let on, but Dad knows waaaaaayyyy more than he admits. He has perfect aim with my little brother's nerf gun. I'm pretty sure average medical techs do not know how to shoot the petals off a daisy across the room with a sucker dart.
Can I tell him what I can do? Should I? I need my father, I need to know if he knew about my mother all along, if he can train me how to control myself so I don't blow up a bank or whatnot. He worked with Tristan and Sean and Elijah and so he KNOWS how to handle who and what we are.
I just don't know if he will.
2.18.2011
Stamina
After a 2-year hiatus on fitness, I'm fighting to get back into the game.
I am SO out of shape.
Fitness is a catch-22. For example, I hate running. It's uncomfortable, I'm slow as it is, and the terrain is never right (either too flat or too steep, not enough traction, too much traction, etc). But running is the fastest way to shed pounds. I hate knowing I'm not only internally out of shape, I LOOK out of shape, but in order to get fit again I have to go in front of other people to do so and that makes me want to avoid the whole situation altogether.
What's my main motivation? Two things, the first one being I was once in amazing shape and therefore I know I can be again. The second one is, without flexibility, strength and stamina, I'm a pretty useless half-breed. I will never openly admit to Tristan that he's right when he asked if my only discernible ability at the moment is staring at people. (It sounds lame but somehow it works every time to get them to do what I want. I don't use it for much more than calming wild children into taking a nap). Once upon a pre-college life, I could fight, I could blend, I could withstand a heck of a lot thrown at me. Post-college-virus, I had nothing and I gained 60 pounds, lost my muscle definition and motivation for life itself.
Getting to my fitness goals requires a bit of creativity. When asked by a trainer what my goals are, I have to say something along the lines of, "Oh, I just want to get back into shape, regain my strength and maybe shed a few more pounds than I had before." To say the truth, "I need to get into excellent shape so I can protect an intergalactic prince from assassins, stalkers and other nasty folk" would not only be disastrous, but may lead to big men in white coats carrying me away in a snug jacket.
Tristan refuses to teach me the skills he has because "what happened in the past stays in the past". And despite my inner voice agreeing that should I know how to do everything he can I would be more likely to abuse the abilities, I wish I could learn it. Again, it takes incredible stamina to withstand the energy draining such an ordeal causes, but it's extremely useful for throwing people off track. Should we train together...well, I think that's one big thing people are afraid of. Tristan and I are difficult enough on our own; get us together or with more of our kind and good luck quelling our endeavors.
I am SO out of shape.
Fitness is a catch-22. For example, I hate running. It's uncomfortable, I'm slow as it is, and the terrain is never right (either too flat or too steep, not enough traction, too much traction, etc). But running is the fastest way to shed pounds. I hate knowing I'm not only internally out of shape, I LOOK out of shape, but in order to get fit again I have to go in front of other people to do so and that makes me want to avoid the whole situation altogether.
What's my main motivation? Two things, the first one being I was once in amazing shape and therefore I know I can be again. The second one is, without flexibility, strength and stamina, I'm a pretty useless half-breed. I will never openly admit to Tristan that he's right when he asked if my only discernible ability at the moment is staring at people. (It sounds lame but somehow it works every time to get them to do what I want. I don't use it for much more than calming wild children into taking a nap). Once upon a pre-college life, I could fight, I could blend, I could withstand a heck of a lot thrown at me. Post-college-virus, I had nothing and I gained 60 pounds, lost my muscle definition and motivation for life itself.
Getting to my fitness goals requires a bit of creativity. When asked by a trainer what my goals are, I have to say something along the lines of, "Oh, I just want to get back into shape, regain my strength and maybe shed a few more pounds than I had before." To say the truth, "I need to get into excellent shape so I can protect an intergalactic prince from assassins, stalkers and other nasty folk" would not only be disastrous, but may lead to big men in white coats carrying me away in a snug jacket.
Tristan refuses to teach me the skills he has because "what happened in the past stays in the past". And despite my inner voice agreeing that should I know how to do everything he can I would be more likely to abuse the abilities, I wish I could learn it. Again, it takes incredible stamina to withstand the energy draining such an ordeal causes, but it's extremely useful for throwing people off track. Should we train together...well, I think that's one big thing people are afraid of. Tristan and I are difficult enough on our own; get us together or with more of our kind and good luck quelling our endeavors.
Fight or Flight
I gave Tristan the same talk Jake gave me, and at the end he said I sounded an awful lot like Jake. That made my night. :)
There are two types of people in this world: those who, upon colliding with a wall, walk away in disappointment, and those who throw a grappling hook over the edge and climb. Jake taught me to not only have a grappling hook on hand at all times, but also have a good arsenal of weapons to take down any opposition and for pete's sake, remember to clear the area before advancing.
Tristan is walking the fine line between being cautious and being paranoid. I told him what Jake told me: You can't live your life looking over your shoulder, worry about the what-ifs and maybes. You'll miss out on wayyyyy too much!
Yeah, maybe we're being constantly watched (okay that's not a maybe, that's a definitely), maybe we're being hunted, maybe we're being listened to and tracked and conspired against.... But you know what else? We're definitely alive, we certainly know how to defend ourselves and I for one refuse to live in a corner of a padded room just because things that go bump in the night give me the heeby-jeebies. My mother taught me when I was a little girl, and honed it in to adulthood, that it doesn't matter if there are monsters in the closet or under the bed or hiding in my toys, what matters is what I'm going to do about it. Most kids hide behind the covers while their moms show them nothing bad exists. I sat up and stared it down while my mom taught me how to fight back and chase them away.
Jake was my trainer, and although I was the worst possible student any trainer could ever have, he was successful in more than he probably thought. I suck at classroom performances, and that was apparent in our training sessions. I complained, I slowed us up, I refused to follow orders, and just overall made every last minute a pain in his kertoosh. And then we got to the hand-to-hand combat section, and instead of teaching me moves he came at me with his own. Surprisingly to both of us, I blocked, parried and dodged like I'd been at this for years. Now I'm not going to say I'm the next Chuck Norris, but Goran instinctive foresight helps a TON in combat situations. That and my past experiences with self-trained kickboxing. Yeah, I have to be honest, I WAS at it for a couple of years. I just didn't stress that to him.
But he taught me so much more than how to fight, how to build shelters, how to distill water, etc. Jake taught me how to live my life with the knowledge of and despite of the fact that people want me dead. He never told me half the stuff that really went on because had I known, I would have freaked. Even finding out years after the fact that a few shootings have been because of my existence has shaken me, and sometimes I wish I could take it all on to spare the innocent civilians the pain. But my caution also saved so many lives, and balancing between caution and paranoia is a difficult but doable and necessary skill. Be aware that someone is following and watching, but keep moving forward. Just make sure your knife is tucked away close so any would-be attackers wisen up before doing anything stupid.
I need to go to bed so I can get up early to take his Royal Highness to work on time. Yes, even hunted-down intergalactic royalty has to rise with the dawn to work a cash register.
There are two types of people in this world: those who, upon colliding with a wall, walk away in disappointment, and those who throw a grappling hook over the edge and climb. Jake taught me to not only have a grappling hook on hand at all times, but also have a good arsenal of weapons to take down any opposition and for pete's sake, remember to clear the area before advancing.
Tristan is walking the fine line between being cautious and being paranoid. I told him what Jake told me: You can't live your life looking over your shoulder, worry about the what-ifs and maybes. You'll miss out on wayyyyy too much!
Yeah, maybe we're being constantly watched (okay that's not a maybe, that's a definitely), maybe we're being hunted, maybe we're being listened to and tracked and conspired against.... But you know what else? We're definitely alive, we certainly know how to defend ourselves and I for one refuse to live in a corner of a padded room just because things that go bump in the night give me the heeby-jeebies. My mother taught me when I was a little girl, and honed it in to adulthood, that it doesn't matter if there are monsters in the closet or under the bed or hiding in my toys, what matters is what I'm going to do about it. Most kids hide behind the covers while their moms show them nothing bad exists. I sat up and stared it down while my mom taught me how to fight back and chase them away.
Jake was my trainer, and although I was the worst possible student any trainer could ever have, he was successful in more than he probably thought. I suck at classroom performances, and that was apparent in our training sessions. I complained, I slowed us up, I refused to follow orders, and just overall made every last minute a pain in his kertoosh. And then we got to the hand-to-hand combat section, and instead of teaching me moves he came at me with his own. Surprisingly to both of us, I blocked, parried and dodged like I'd been at this for years. Now I'm not going to say I'm the next Chuck Norris, but Goran instinctive foresight helps a TON in combat situations. That and my past experiences with self-trained kickboxing. Yeah, I have to be honest, I WAS at it for a couple of years. I just didn't stress that to him.
But he taught me so much more than how to fight, how to build shelters, how to distill water, etc. Jake taught me how to live my life with the knowledge of and despite of the fact that people want me dead. He never told me half the stuff that really went on because had I known, I would have freaked. Even finding out years after the fact that a few shootings have been because of my existence has shaken me, and sometimes I wish I could take it all on to spare the innocent civilians the pain. But my caution also saved so many lives, and balancing between caution and paranoia is a difficult but doable and necessary skill. Be aware that someone is following and watching, but keep moving forward. Just make sure your knife is tucked away close so any would-be attackers wisen up before doing anything stupid.
I need to go to bed so I can get up early to take his Royal Highness to work on time. Yes, even hunted-down intergalactic royalty has to rise with the dawn to work a cash register.
2.15.2011
Balance
"I'm going to go blog for a bit." I rolled onto my side and sat up in bed, swallowing hard. I didn't want him to see me cry, or to ask why I was. Mainly because, heck if I knew, and partly because I did know.
"I'd wait a while," Tristan replied, stretching an arm behind his head. "I'm telling you a lot of stuff, opening up a bit more."
Moments like this, where Tristan almost seems to talk about himself in third person, ALMOST sharing my own perspective, are rare and far between. He was right, I needed to milk this golden opportunity for what it was worth. "Yeah, you're right." I lay back down and curled up under the quilt, turning to face him.
"No, no, it's okay...." He turned to face the wall, pulling the covers up over his face like he does when he's really going to sleep, but I wasn't going to believe that move until I heard some real, deep snoring.
We talked for another hour or so, about things which I hesitate to write here. And the more we talked, the more pissed at myself and the universe I became. Self-loathing is never a desirable trait in anyone, and I was determined to find the good in the situation, but I couldn't.
Many nights ago I had a dream that Tristan and I were travelling to a new home, a new city, and it resembled something out of a science fiction book series I once read. Ancient but futuristic, made of clay and brick and stone but populated by modern people in older dress (doesn't make sense when I write it, but it makes sense in my head). When we had reached the outer gates, there was a sudden attack by warriors scarred and painted with blood and soot, and they were attacking civilians trying to get into the city, immigrants like Tristan and myself. The city's leader came out to fight, and it was a friend of ours (don't laugh but he reminded me of Lando from Star Wars but in more Romaesque gear). We fought alongside him, taking down the invaders, but in the midst of the attack our friend was killed by several arrows. Tristan and I were captured.
Images blurred in my dream, and what I could make out was a small adobe village, much like a pueblo, in which the prisoners were kept. One prisoner per room, and Tristan was below mine while I was below a priest. Sometimes men, more like thugs, would come to my room to "breed" but they could not get past the door. I would either fight them out or just stand there and scare them out by staring.
Then one night (in the dream) Tristan and I were taken to an arena, an amphitheatre made of bones and illuminated by the deep red of the setting sun. We were bound and placed upon a high platform made of bamboo, flexible and flimsy that teetered when either of us moved. The leader came out, and he had me yanked forward, my feet extended, and bear skulls were placed on either one. In my dream's mind I remembered seeing other prisoners, mostly priests and other clergy, screaming as their feet were cut and/or burned off and replaced with animal skulls. I thought for a moment my feet were gone, but somehow I had managed to hide them in my pants and the bear skulls were fitted to my legs.
"The whip! The lash! The forever sting of pain on our backs!" The leader yelled into the dusk and brought a flogger down on my "feet", cracking the bone and grinning with sick pleasure at my ensuing pain. But I didn't feel anything. I just watched until Tristan nudged me, and I realized I'd better show signs of pain before they caught on, so I faked groans and cries of agony.
"Don't over-do it," Tristan hissed in my ear. I fought the urge to roll my eyes and did as he said.
The bear skulls were taken off and replaced with wolf skulls. "The rock, the bashing, the stone on our heads!" The leader began smashing a large rock onto my fake feet, and in the amphitheatre skeletons of wolves rose on all fours and howled at the sky. "Always bashing, always smashing, always pounding on our heads!"
I was filled with a sadness for the wolves, who howled in lament and yearning for life. I wanted to give them life again, flesh and blood, but I couldn't do it at all even if I was untied. This display made me realize the purpose of the torture: they wanted me, wanted the prisoners, to feel their pain and devastation at being forever dead, forever apart from the world of the living. They wanted us to suffer as they suffered, but try as they might, I just couldn't.
Finally Tristan had formulated a plan (who, by the way, wasn't touched in any of this and mainly because the leader began to assume he was just as dead as the rest of them). "Act up," he whispered as the leader turned away to get the next set of torture instruments. "Get him to focus on you."
I started to protest but he gave a slight nod to the left, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a rescue party sneaking into the amphitheatre and heading towards us. So I gave it my best and struggled to get free of my bonds just for the sake of drawing attention. The platform wavered and swayed, but Tristan used his weight to keep us balanced. He reassured me that he wouldn't let us fall, and a grim smile crossed his face when the leader started to climb the ladder to personally punish me. We counted down from ten and when the leader's chest was above the platform, we both kicked as hard as we could with both legs. This sent the leader, and the platform, flying forward, but Tristan threw himself back and the platform rocked back making the leader fall but not us. Tristan somehow worked his hands free and helped me with mine, and we peered over the edge to see our rescue party engaged in battle with our captors.
The next thing I remembered we were safe in a camp, on our way back to the city. The men who retrieved us treated us kindly and made sure we had everything we needed. Then one of them asked us what happened in the three months we were captured, and in a blur we were back in the ghetto to get the other prisoners. It was there the repressed memories came back to me, and I cried in agony as I told of the blood that dripped through my ceiling every night, the screams I would hear coming from the priest above me as he was beaten and tortured every day. I swiped my hand against the adobe wall and the blood was still fresh. I felt myself snap. I went into a frenzy of screams and sobs, and someone behind me came up and pulled me into their arms to keep me from hurting myself. Amidst my own screams I thought I heard Tristan telling me we were safe, we would be all right, but I blacked out.
Sometime later in the dream we were back at the city, but as we approached the gates I suddenly remembered doing something just as the attack had begun. "My baby!" I looked at Tristan, panic welling in me. "I had a baby! I need to go get my baby!" And in my mind I remembered handing my baby daughter to a couple who were fleeing the attack and on their way to a city, and they were the only ones who'd escaped without harm. I turned and ran to the other city....
When I woke up, I was shaken. It had been over a year since my last vision. Before I met Tristan, I had visions every night. I could even know what was going to happen the next day, all the mundane details from what the school cafeteria was going to serve to what was going to happen on the small field trip to the nursing home. But after meeting and talking with Tristan, I prayed to God for a reprieve and shut myself off. Once in a while I would have a vision to set me on the right path when I got confused, but nothing like this.
Mom talked with me about it, and helped me interpret what I was being told. Tristan keeps me balanced, saves me from myself, and in the midst of death and under the pressure of those who are already dead from their own deeds, we keep each other alive. He is close to the cold numbness that the death of a soul experiences, but he's not dead yet. And even though there are times where I swear he's a heartless corpse, I know he's a good man and when he admits it, he's on my side.
The pain I experience, the absolute fury, is that ours would be a fantastic story if it wasn't so effed up.
"I'd wait a while," Tristan replied, stretching an arm behind his head. "I'm telling you a lot of stuff, opening up a bit more."
Moments like this, where Tristan almost seems to talk about himself in third person, ALMOST sharing my own perspective, are rare and far between. He was right, I needed to milk this golden opportunity for what it was worth. "Yeah, you're right." I lay back down and curled up under the quilt, turning to face him.
"No, no, it's okay...." He turned to face the wall, pulling the covers up over his face like he does when he's really going to sleep, but I wasn't going to believe that move until I heard some real, deep snoring.
We talked for another hour or so, about things which I hesitate to write here. And the more we talked, the more pissed at myself and the universe I became. Self-loathing is never a desirable trait in anyone, and I was determined to find the good in the situation, but I couldn't.
Many nights ago I had a dream that Tristan and I were travelling to a new home, a new city, and it resembled something out of a science fiction book series I once read. Ancient but futuristic, made of clay and brick and stone but populated by modern people in older dress (doesn't make sense when I write it, but it makes sense in my head). When we had reached the outer gates, there was a sudden attack by warriors scarred and painted with blood and soot, and they were attacking civilians trying to get into the city, immigrants like Tristan and myself. The city's leader came out to fight, and it was a friend of ours (don't laugh but he reminded me of Lando from Star Wars but in more Romaesque gear). We fought alongside him, taking down the invaders, but in the midst of the attack our friend was killed by several arrows. Tristan and I were captured.
Images blurred in my dream, and what I could make out was a small adobe village, much like a pueblo, in which the prisoners were kept. One prisoner per room, and Tristan was below mine while I was below a priest. Sometimes men, more like thugs, would come to my room to "breed" but they could not get past the door. I would either fight them out or just stand there and scare them out by staring.
Then one night (in the dream) Tristan and I were taken to an arena, an amphitheatre made of bones and illuminated by the deep red of the setting sun. We were bound and placed upon a high platform made of bamboo, flexible and flimsy that teetered when either of us moved. The leader came out, and he had me yanked forward, my feet extended, and bear skulls were placed on either one. In my dream's mind I remembered seeing other prisoners, mostly priests and other clergy, screaming as their feet were cut and/or burned off and replaced with animal skulls. I thought for a moment my feet were gone, but somehow I had managed to hide them in my pants and the bear skulls were fitted to my legs.
"The whip! The lash! The forever sting of pain on our backs!" The leader yelled into the dusk and brought a flogger down on my "feet", cracking the bone and grinning with sick pleasure at my ensuing pain. But I didn't feel anything. I just watched until Tristan nudged me, and I realized I'd better show signs of pain before they caught on, so I faked groans and cries of agony.
"Don't over-do it," Tristan hissed in my ear. I fought the urge to roll my eyes and did as he said.
The bear skulls were taken off and replaced with wolf skulls. "The rock, the bashing, the stone on our heads!" The leader began smashing a large rock onto my fake feet, and in the amphitheatre skeletons of wolves rose on all fours and howled at the sky. "Always bashing, always smashing, always pounding on our heads!"
I was filled with a sadness for the wolves, who howled in lament and yearning for life. I wanted to give them life again, flesh and blood, but I couldn't do it at all even if I was untied. This display made me realize the purpose of the torture: they wanted me, wanted the prisoners, to feel their pain and devastation at being forever dead, forever apart from the world of the living. They wanted us to suffer as they suffered, but try as they might, I just couldn't.
Finally Tristan had formulated a plan (who, by the way, wasn't touched in any of this and mainly because the leader began to assume he was just as dead as the rest of them). "Act up," he whispered as the leader turned away to get the next set of torture instruments. "Get him to focus on you."
I started to protest but he gave a slight nod to the left, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a rescue party sneaking into the amphitheatre and heading towards us. So I gave it my best and struggled to get free of my bonds just for the sake of drawing attention. The platform wavered and swayed, but Tristan used his weight to keep us balanced. He reassured me that he wouldn't let us fall, and a grim smile crossed his face when the leader started to climb the ladder to personally punish me. We counted down from ten and when the leader's chest was above the platform, we both kicked as hard as we could with both legs. This sent the leader, and the platform, flying forward, but Tristan threw himself back and the platform rocked back making the leader fall but not us. Tristan somehow worked his hands free and helped me with mine, and we peered over the edge to see our rescue party engaged in battle with our captors.
The next thing I remembered we were safe in a camp, on our way back to the city. The men who retrieved us treated us kindly and made sure we had everything we needed. Then one of them asked us what happened in the three months we were captured, and in a blur we were back in the ghetto to get the other prisoners. It was there the repressed memories came back to me, and I cried in agony as I told of the blood that dripped through my ceiling every night, the screams I would hear coming from the priest above me as he was beaten and tortured every day. I swiped my hand against the adobe wall and the blood was still fresh. I felt myself snap. I went into a frenzy of screams and sobs, and someone behind me came up and pulled me into their arms to keep me from hurting myself. Amidst my own screams I thought I heard Tristan telling me we were safe, we would be all right, but I blacked out.
Sometime later in the dream we were back at the city, but as we approached the gates I suddenly remembered doing something just as the attack had begun. "My baby!" I looked at Tristan, panic welling in me. "I had a baby! I need to go get my baby!" And in my mind I remembered handing my baby daughter to a couple who were fleeing the attack and on their way to a city, and they were the only ones who'd escaped without harm. I turned and ran to the other city....
When I woke up, I was shaken. It had been over a year since my last vision. Before I met Tristan, I had visions every night. I could even know what was going to happen the next day, all the mundane details from what the school cafeteria was going to serve to what was going to happen on the small field trip to the nursing home. But after meeting and talking with Tristan, I prayed to God for a reprieve and shut myself off. Once in a while I would have a vision to set me on the right path when I got confused, but nothing like this.
Mom talked with me about it, and helped me interpret what I was being told. Tristan keeps me balanced, saves me from myself, and in the midst of death and under the pressure of those who are already dead from their own deeds, we keep each other alive. He is close to the cold numbness that the death of a soul experiences, but he's not dead yet. And even though there are times where I swear he's a heartless corpse, I know he's a good man and when he admits it, he's on my side.
The pain I experience, the absolute fury, is that ours would be a fantastic story if it wasn't so effed up.
2.14.2011
Freedom
It's difficult to describe what I would qualify as freedom.
Not to say that I don't enjoy Tristan's company...for the most part...but I'm tired of being on my own as a woman. When I threw myself at CO for a position in the Organization it was when Jake and I were together, when I was under the strongly emphasized impression that we were solid, we were forever. I wanted to save lives, to stand by his side, to be his partner in everything. Equal. Unified. One.
Sometimes I loathe the fact that Jake was a good man. Too good. So unselfish, so caring, so sensitive, he couldn't bear to see me cry. He kept so much from me, protected me from everyone and everything, and in the end he spared me the pain of saying goodbye. I tried finding him, I searched everywhere, even Tristan helped me pick up the trail and close in on his possible locations. But by the time we found someone who had direct contact, Jake was dead.
I try not to think of myself as being "stuck" with Tristan. For a while I was wholeheartedly with him, and even after secrets came to light I still held onto hope. But facts are facts, and a big one is he's gay. Nothing that a second-human female possesses attracts him, even on the most base, primitive levels (aside from breasts, but go figure). Pheromones are a bust. Tell-tale signs in females go unnoticed. He's repulsed by the thought of sex with a woman. And that leaves me in the middle of effing no where. I give him props, he tried giving me a good, ideal relationship. We just couldn't handle each other.
I just want to smash my head into the wall. Or keyboard. When I think of freedom, I think of exploring through the deepest woods, dancing in rivers, hiding within the emerald leaves of a large tree, rolling on a cool green patch of grass in a fit of giggles, racing across amber fields in the autumn after singing a song. All these I used to do with Jake. He challenged me to live a little, to enjoy the planet I call home. When I was afraid of falling into the warm, shallow water he pushed me. When I wasn't sure if I could go to Chicago on my own to study, he found a way to make it happen.
Maybe that's why he had to leave. Things were just too easy with him, too fun, too wonderful. I needed to toughen up, to fight back, to stand on my own.
I freaking hate it.
Not to say that I don't enjoy Tristan's company...for the most part...but I'm tired of being on my own as a woman. When I threw myself at CO for a position in the Organization it was when Jake and I were together, when I was under the strongly emphasized impression that we were solid, we were forever. I wanted to save lives, to stand by his side, to be his partner in everything. Equal. Unified. One.
Sometimes I loathe the fact that Jake was a good man. Too good. So unselfish, so caring, so sensitive, he couldn't bear to see me cry. He kept so much from me, protected me from everyone and everything, and in the end he spared me the pain of saying goodbye. I tried finding him, I searched everywhere, even Tristan helped me pick up the trail and close in on his possible locations. But by the time we found someone who had direct contact, Jake was dead.
I try not to think of myself as being "stuck" with Tristan. For a while I was wholeheartedly with him, and even after secrets came to light I still held onto hope. But facts are facts, and a big one is he's gay. Nothing that a second-human female possesses attracts him, even on the most base, primitive levels (aside from breasts, but go figure). Pheromones are a bust. Tell-tale signs in females go unnoticed. He's repulsed by the thought of sex with a woman. And that leaves me in the middle of effing no where. I give him props, he tried giving me a good, ideal relationship. We just couldn't handle each other.
I just want to smash my head into the wall. Or keyboard. When I think of freedom, I think of exploring through the deepest woods, dancing in rivers, hiding within the emerald leaves of a large tree, rolling on a cool green patch of grass in a fit of giggles, racing across amber fields in the autumn after singing a song. All these I used to do with Jake. He challenged me to live a little, to enjoy the planet I call home. When I was afraid of falling into the warm, shallow water he pushed me. When I wasn't sure if I could go to Chicago on my own to study, he found a way to make it happen.
Maybe that's why he had to leave. Things were just too easy with him, too fun, too wonderful. I needed to toughen up, to fight back, to stand on my own.
I freaking hate it.
2.13.2011
The Quest
Is it stupid to wish someone would give me a quest?
Mainly just so I have an excuse to explore the world. But the moment I typed that, I realized I've already been given a quest, a reason to explore, a ticket to a world of adventure. Funny how God answers prayers before we pray them.
Tristan will often challenge my role as his protector, and sometimes I agree with him. Then I reread the letter our commander gave me two years ago clearly stating that I was Tristan's protector, the outlines of what I would have to do and the responsibilities that come with guarding a man's life, and not only do I feel empowered to fulfill the task my late commander and friend gave me, but I feel a sense of purpose. I feel like.... Like my life hasn't been a total waste just yet.
No, at the time I had no clue that the one person I was charged with guarding would be from a colony spaceship let alone intergalactic royalty. Actually I thought he would be Jake, minus most of his memories. And we'd gone through that before. Kind of. But then I found out who it really was, and as time went on I found out WHO he really was....
And despite the hell we've gone through, the crap I've dealt with, the absolute pain at losing everything I'd ever wanted out of life, I don't regret this. You have to go through hell to get to heaven.
Mainly just so I have an excuse to explore the world. But the moment I typed that, I realized I've already been given a quest, a reason to explore, a ticket to a world of adventure. Funny how God answers prayers before we pray them.
Tristan will often challenge my role as his protector, and sometimes I agree with him. Then I reread the letter our commander gave me two years ago clearly stating that I was Tristan's protector, the outlines of what I would have to do and the responsibilities that come with guarding a man's life, and not only do I feel empowered to fulfill the task my late commander and friend gave me, but I feel a sense of purpose. I feel like.... Like my life hasn't been a total waste just yet.
No, at the time I had no clue that the one person I was charged with guarding would be from a colony spaceship let alone intergalactic royalty. Actually I thought he would be Jake, minus most of his memories. And we'd gone through that before. Kind of. But then I found out who it really was, and as time went on I found out WHO he really was....
And despite the hell we've gone through, the crap I've dealt with, the absolute pain at losing everything I'd ever wanted out of life, I don't regret this. You have to go through hell to get to heaven.
2.12.2011
Litterbox
I haven't written in a while, sorry. Sometimes I tend to think there's always something far more important than what I should do, and sometimes I'm right. Like cleaning the kitty litter in high school. I got chewed out sooooooo bad by my mom for not cleaning the kitty litter like I'm supposed to, and all I could think about was how cat litter is so freaking trivial compared to what Tristan and I had to do. In hindsight I realize that soldiers and agents and even firefighters still clean the cat litter.
Maybe you're wondering why this blog is called The Goran Prince. Well, it's because from what information we can gather, there's a very high (as in 90% chance) probability that Tristan Keller is the Goran Prince. What that means exactly, we have no clue.
There is a series of encrypted letters known as the Goran Letters which the government has been trying very hard to decipher. Tristan and his Organization partner Elijah were the only two who could read the letters; now his old roommate has a good idea as to how to decode the jargon and did so with one letter: "The answer to life lies with the Goran prince."
Tristan doesn't like the idea of being the Goran prince. I'd guess he kind of hates it. Most of the time, I don't blame him at all. What does it even mean? Is it an actual political title? And to carry the responsibility of the message, to be the "answer to life".....give me a litter box instead!
But at the same time, there is so much potential, so much good that can come from being a prince of his people. For one thing, he was born on a ship (something like a colony ship, from what I can make of the description) and lived there with his parents for a few years; then he was sent to our planet after their deaths and grew up for the next 17 years as one of us. This makes him and excellent representative of both worlds, a sort of diplomat that would come in handy whenever our government decides to establish official, PUBLIC contact with the colonies floating in space. And should there ever be a war.... well, I'd like to think he's on our side.
He's gone for the weekend, on a trip across state with friends. I'm uneasy about it, given everything he has to endure (and everything I have to watch out for), but he needs a getaway. As for me, I'm enjoying this time to just relax, do whatever, not worry about responsibility for a little while. I cracked open a bottle of blackberry merlot last night and am almost finished with it. At some point I'll be cleaning the room and doing laundry, since it is a necessity despite more pressing matters.
Everyone has to clean the litter, even an intergalactic prince.
Maybe you're wondering why this blog is called The Goran Prince. Well, it's because from what information we can gather, there's a very high (as in 90% chance) probability that Tristan Keller is the Goran Prince. What that means exactly, we have no clue.
There is a series of encrypted letters known as the Goran Letters which the government has been trying very hard to decipher. Tristan and his Organization partner Elijah were the only two who could read the letters; now his old roommate has a good idea as to how to decode the jargon and did so with one letter: "The answer to life lies with the Goran prince."
Tristan doesn't like the idea of being the Goran prince. I'd guess he kind of hates it. Most of the time, I don't blame him at all. What does it even mean? Is it an actual political title? And to carry the responsibility of the message, to be the "answer to life".....give me a litter box instead!
But at the same time, there is so much potential, so much good that can come from being a prince of his people. For one thing, he was born on a ship (something like a colony ship, from what I can make of the description) and lived there with his parents for a few years; then he was sent to our planet after their deaths and grew up for the next 17 years as one of us. This makes him and excellent representative of both worlds, a sort of diplomat that would come in handy whenever our government decides to establish official, PUBLIC contact with the colonies floating in space. And should there ever be a war.... well, I'd like to think he's on our side.
He's gone for the weekend, on a trip across state with friends. I'm uneasy about it, given everything he has to endure (and everything I have to watch out for), but he needs a getaway. As for me, I'm enjoying this time to just relax, do whatever, not worry about responsibility for a little while. I cracked open a bottle of blackberry merlot last night and am almost finished with it. At some point I'll be cleaning the room and doing laundry, since it is a necessity despite more pressing matters.
Everyone has to clean the litter, even an intergalactic prince.
2.08.2011
Ina rabum zazu
Tristan and I are at odds over my last blog. He says it's okay, but not how things really happened. Mainly he doesn't agree with how I stated that a "strong belief in God" was a requirement to the new governance of civilization.
Any civilization needs some aspect of a spiritual life in order to flourish emotionally. When the Gorans colonized ancient Earth (according to the stories shared by Tristan and his contacts), there would have been SOMETHING akin to a religious order. By examining the artifacts and literature left behind by the Sumerians, who are the oldest group of humans on this planet that we know of (and as some, myself included, think, also the first or at least main group of Goran colonists), it is obvious that religion was a big chunk of society. So I was not specifically saying that the Gorans were strictly worshipers of God, since evidence suggests a polytheistic theme prevalent in Sumerian remains. As I told Tristan, I was just showing what happened by explaining how it could happen to us.
And just so we're all clear on this, 90% of Earth's human population believes there is a God, and yes, God with a capital G. So anyone who feels strongly about me referencing God, Jesus, or anything to do with religion, please remember I am also an anthropologist with a double minor in archaeology and international relations. RELIGION IS AN IMPORTANT KEY FACTOR IN ANY CIVILIZATION. In fact, it's the absence of spiritualism that leads to social decay.
Which I think was what led to the destruction of Mars.
What you believe is up to you. Just keep in mind that whether you believe this computer in front of you is real or not does not change the fact that it IS real. I have heard of people who truly, firmly believe nothing exists until it enters their range of vision and then goes back into nonexistence once unseen. Does their belief mean that everything disintegrates and reintegrates at will? No. It would be very cool, but basic science proves that matter is matter whether you believe it or not.
I stress this firmly because a person's belief system can get very arrogant. I am Christian, but I am also very scientific. I have been a Christian since I was a child, but my faith evolved from pure trust to trust in faith AND evidence. I love my fellow Christians and non-Christians, but I have to admit, things have been pretty sketchy lately within the churches. It's the pride that keeps us from opening our minds to new possibilities, new evidence. For example, what I tell you here does not contradict Scripture in any way. In fact, I encourage you to check any information I share with whichever faith you hold. Oh, and definitely watch "Ancient Aliens" on the History Channel. FANTASTIC stuff.
Any civilization needs some aspect of a spiritual life in order to flourish emotionally. When the Gorans colonized ancient Earth (according to the stories shared by Tristan and his contacts), there would have been SOMETHING akin to a religious order. By examining the artifacts and literature left behind by the Sumerians, who are the oldest group of humans on this planet that we know of (and as some, myself included, think, also the first or at least main group of Goran colonists), it is obvious that religion was a big chunk of society. So I was not specifically saying that the Gorans were strictly worshipers of God, since evidence suggests a polytheistic theme prevalent in Sumerian remains. As I told Tristan, I was just showing what happened by explaining how it could happen to us.
And just so we're all clear on this, 90% of Earth's human population believes there is a God, and yes, God with a capital G. So anyone who feels strongly about me referencing God, Jesus, or anything to do with religion, please remember I am also an anthropologist with a double minor in archaeology and international relations. RELIGION IS AN IMPORTANT KEY FACTOR IN ANY CIVILIZATION. In fact, it's the absence of spiritualism that leads to social decay.
Which I think was what led to the destruction of Mars.
What you believe is up to you. Just keep in mind that whether you believe this computer in front of you is real or not does not change the fact that it IS real. I have heard of people who truly, firmly believe nothing exists until it enters their range of vision and then goes back into nonexistence once unseen. Does their belief mean that everything disintegrates and reintegrates at will? No. It would be very cool, but basic science proves that matter is matter whether you believe it or not.
I stress this firmly because a person's belief system can get very arrogant. I am Christian, but I am also very scientific. I have been a Christian since I was a child, but my faith evolved from pure trust to trust in faith AND evidence. I love my fellow Christians and non-Christians, but I have to admit, things have been pretty sketchy lately within the churches. It's the pride that keeps us from opening our minds to new possibilities, new evidence. For example, what I tell you here does not contradict Scripture in any way. In fact, I encourage you to check any information I share with whichever faith you hold. Oh, and definitely watch "Ancient Aliens" on the History Channel. FANTASTIC stuff.
A Brief History of Mankind
6,000 years is long enough for anyone to forget.
It's definitely enough time for things to happen which make my story that much more difficult to tell. Where do I begin? The dawn of time seems a little too far back, but starting five years ago seems too soon to the present. The truth is, it all began somewhere between the two points in the history of mankind....and I don't mean on this planet.
Tristan told me to get to bed before 4am this time, so I will try to paint for you a brief timeline of events in human history so I can crawl under the covers long enough to drive him to work without crashing.
Imagine this.....
North Korea has snapped. They mean war, and the world's defenses are going up. Russian secrets are being exposed, and we discover concentration camps did not end with the Holocaust. Europe is at ends with itself, Africa is just, well, getting worse, and South America is scrambling in this arm's race. And as the world turns to the United States of America, the people of this great and powerful nation have successfully disintegrated the infrastructure through greed. With no agreed-upon central government, chaos ensues.
While tension fills the atmosphere, a few scientists and astronomers launch their hidden arsenal of spaceships capable of carrying hundreds if not thousands of people into space, and after successful tests and further research, it is determined that should nuclear war actually occur, we would be able to maintain a sufficient number of people to repopulate and colonize surrounding planets and moons. Since, by the way, we have been able to terraform Mars, Titan, and some parts of the Milky Way we didn't know had planets with oxygen.
No one knows who pushed the first button, because once the nuclear rocket launched, no one cared. It was do or die. Those who knew of the space ships scrambled to escape the radiation that has evaporated Paris, Ankara, St. Petersburg, most of Kenya and half of the western USA. The stupid ones in governments try to outblast each other. The smart ones do everything they can to preserve our world in the few minutes we have before the planet dies.
Imagine watching the earth turn to dust from the safety of space. You are safe, you are on one of the ships, you are with your people and most of your family. In a few weeks, maybe months, you will begin rebuilding civilization on Mars. It is the closest planet to Earth, has ice caps that can be used for water and irrigation, and rumors are buzzing that an area unknown at the turn of the 21st century is practically a Garden of Eden. But in the time that it takes to get there, you gaze out a window and watch your beloved planet, your home, turn into a swirling marble of red dirt. No one will be able to go back for centuries, and even when the radiation fades, without plants or any surviving ecosystems, the oxygen will be depleted. An entire planet consumed by greed for "the bigger stick".
There are new rules on the new planet. Technology is at a minimum, limited to shuttles between ground and space stations. Outside the landing perimeters, you have to start from scratch. This means growing your own trees so you can build your own homes. Those of you who settle in the rather expansive oasis, you must learn to adapt to all new ecosystems. This world is filled with new dangers, new food chains, new means of communication. Life fills this planet beyond anything your minds ever imagined. Your children are born with traits you do not possess, like the ability to smell certain plants. Your grandchildren are becoming a part of a new governance, one set by morals and ethics and spirituality, everything that the people of Earth lost before the Great Dust. Your new leaders determine that by a strong faith in God, a strong sense of morals, we can avoid ever repeating the great tragedy that killed billions of humans and almost every last living thing.
But 6,000 years is long enough for anyone to forget.
It's definitely enough time for things to happen which make my story that much more difficult to tell. Where do I begin? The dawn of time seems a little too far back, but starting five years ago seems too soon to the present. The truth is, it all began somewhere between the two points in the history of mankind....and I don't mean on this planet.
Tristan told me to get to bed before 4am this time, so I will try to paint for you a brief timeline of events in human history so I can crawl under the covers long enough to drive him to work without crashing.
Imagine this.....
North Korea has snapped. They mean war, and the world's defenses are going up. Russian secrets are being exposed, and we discover concentration camps did not end with the Holocaust. Europe is at ends with itself, Africa is just, well, getting worse, and South America is scrambling in this arm's race. And as the world turns to the United States of America, the people of this great and powerful nation have successfully disintegrated the infrastructure through greed. With no agreed-upon central government, chaos ensues.
While tension fills the atmosphere, a few scientists and astronomers launch their hidden arsenal of spaceships capable of carrying hundreds if not thousands of people into space, and after successful tests and further research, it is determined that should nuclear war actually occur, we would be able to maintain a sufficient number of people to repopulate and colonize surrounding planets and moons. Since, by the way, we have been able to terraform Mars, Titan, and some parts of the Milky Way we didn't know had planets with oxygen.
No one knows who pushed the first button, because once the nuclear rocket launched, no one cared. It was do or die. Those who knew of the space ships scrambled to escape the radiation that has evaporated Paris, Ankara, St. Petersburg, most of Kenya and half of the western USA. The stupid ones in governments try to outblast each other. The smart ones do everything they can to preserve our world in the few minutes we have before the planet dies.
Imagine watching the earth turn to dust from the safety of space. You are safe, you are on one of the ships, you are with your people and most of your family. In a few weeks, maybe months, you will begin rebuilding civilization on Mars. It is the closest planet to Earth, has ice caps that can be used for water and irrigation, and rumors are buzzing that an area unknown at the turn of the 21st century is practically a Garden of Eden. But in the time that it takes to get there, you gaze out a window and watch your beloved planet, your home, turn into a swirling marble of red dirt. No one will be able to go back for centuries, and even when the radiation fades, without plants or any surviving ecosystems, the oxygen will be depleted. An entire planet consumed by greed for "the bigger stick".
There are new rules on the new planet. Technology is at a minimum, limited to shuttles between ground and space stations. Outside the landing perimeters, you have to start from scratch. This means growing your own trees so you can build your own homes. Those of you who settle in the rather expansive oasis, you must learn to adapt to all new ecosystems. This world is filled with new dangers, new food chains, new means of communication. Life fills this planet beyond anything your minds ever imagined. Your children are born with traits you do not possess, like the ability to smell certain plants. Your grandchildren are becoming a part of a new governance, one set by morals and ethics and spirituality, everything that the people of Earth lost before the Great Dust. Your new leaders determine that by a strong faith in God, a strong sense of morals, we can avoid ever repeating the great tragedy that killed billions of humans and almost every last living thing.
But 6,000 years is long enough for anyone to forget.
2.07.2011
My Roommate
I've learned over the years to question what he needs my car for.
After your family SUV gets "borrowed" by government agents in the middle of the night only to find it completely incinerated the next morning, you learn to ask more questions when one of these agents smiles sweetly at you and asks for the keys.
He told me, I gave him the keys, and he left to go do what he does best. I wanted to go with, but his main protest for telling me what he's up to was that I would want to go with. So I didn't ask to, I didn't bug him, and I surfed the net until he came home. I listened to him pop something in the microwave and shuffle around for a fork, and he emerged into the living room with a warmed enchilada and plopped down on the couch where I was relaxing.
I saw the blood on his knuckles. It was thin, a light red, almost pink. His blood, or he punched someone of his own kind. Once I would have grilled him for answers, but now I resisted the urge to know and let him eat in silence until the curiosity ate at me. "I take it the other guy looks worse?" I asked.
"Huh?" He looked up from his meal and followed my gaze to his hands. With a faint smile that he always got when trying to hide something he wiped his knuckles across his nose and groaned. "Crap. Is my nose still bleeding?"
This was a new one. Tristan Keller never let an enemy get close enough to punch his face. "Let me see." I sat up and tilted his head back, noting the caked blood inside his nose. For a brief moment my mind flashed to a time when this would have been filled with tenderness, when I would have been far more concerned and eager to clean him up. I can't let emotions control me. I swallowed hard and shook my head. "It looks fine, it's all dried up."
He sighed and continued eating his nuked enchilada while I sat back and fought the ever-constant war within me. Tristan is my roommate. He is my friend, my confidante, my only link to a past that has eluded me and my mother for over 20 years.
He is also my ex-fiance, my ex-boyfriend, and my almost-lover.
I've never been one to be involved in several relationships in her young life. The average girl I went to school with entered college with three relationships under her belt. I had one, and was in it at the time. My best friend has an anthology of tales regarding approximately 10 different men she was in serious relationships with. I have a few crushes, two near-hits and one actual serious relationship.
That one serious relationship ruined my life forever. And he who was so kind to be the instigator of what would ultimately ruin me for any hopes of a normal life sat next to me munching on Lean Cuisine with blood on his hands. He usually always ate in the dining room, so his being here meant he needed company. In his stubborn, silent way, he was letting me know he needed me.
In about 3 minutes I went from comforting him to being royally pissed.
"You did what??"
Tristan shrugged. "Nicks said he had someone who knew about CO's death. We just wanted to find out what he knew, so we questioned him."
"And you didn't take me with?"
Now he looked at me, that annoying look of incredulity stamped on his face. "What, now every time I have to question someone I'm supposed to bring you along?"
"When it has to do with CO's death, yes!"
He scoffed. "Why?"
"I'm the freaking analyst here. Duh."
"Yeah, you work in your office while we-"
I flipped my laptop back open and blocked my view of his face. This was the one way I could think of to flip him off without actually giving him the birdie. CO was my case...well, to me. He had assigned me a stack of photos to analyze when I was pestering him for a position in the Unit, I gave him back my first analysis, and next thing I knew I was emailed more work and unbeknown to me, designated as one of the top three analysts in Headquarters. Rumor has it I was number two.
So when OCO (Overseeing Commanding Officer) emailed me two autumns ago detailing CO's death, I went to work analyzing every last inch of information so we could at least have the right trail to his killer. OCO ruled it as a tragic accident. I knew immediately, and told her, that he was murdered by the front end of a very large vehicle. This contradicted her version of him being accidentally backed into by a truck, and after I clearly stated in my last email that in no way shape or form was he in a "tragic accident", she never contacted me again. Figures.
Tristan didn't understand why I was upset. And in a moment, I really wasn't upset. "So why did you punch him?" I asked.
"He hit me first!" Tristan rubbed his nose gingerly with a pout. "We just wanted to ask him questions about what he knew and I was really nice to him, but he freaking hit me! I even said, 'Alan, we're not here to hurt you'-"
"Whoa whoa whoa. Wait." My lungs forgot how to function for a moment. "Alan what?"
"I don't know."
"What did he look like?"
Tristan leaned back and thought a moment. "Tall, thin-"
"What color hair? Did he wear glasses?"
"I don't know, he wore a hat. Brown, I think. Dark brown. And I don't know, maybe, maybe he had contacts."
"Were his lips kind of full? Like yours?"
"He had a wide mouth."
Crap. "Would you say he was around 25? 21?"
"About my age. Maybe a year older than you."
Double crap. "Okay. Now I am officially pissed at you."
Tristan blinked at me. "What? Why? What the hell for?"
I took a deep breath so the following words would be spoken instead of screamed. "Not only did you not tell me you were questioning someone about CO's death, I could have gotten you valuable information with....my skills."
"Uh huh." He rubbed his brow and sighed. "And what skills are these?"
Back up went the laptop. "Just forget it."
"See? You wouldn't make a difference at all-"
Down went the laptop and my patience. "There's a reason Jake didn't notify the government of every single thing I can do, okay? Only him and CO knew. And one of them is....well...." I closed my eyes for a moment because I knew it would sound ridiculous. "I don't know how it works or why it works, and it usually only works on males, but I can look someone in the eye and get information out of them just by staring."
"It doesn't work on me," Tristan said proudly.
"Well yeah it doesn't work on you because we're of the same species. It does work on...how do I say this....well, second humans like Alan. Plus with our romantic history he'd be much more vulnerable to my-"
"Hold up." Now it was Tristan's turn to interrogate me. "Romantic history? You KNOW him? And you have a romantic history with him?"
"Not like-"
"I thought Jake was the only one you dated before me, or was this.....oh, this was just a one-way crush, huh?"
I narrowed my eyes at him and made a mental note of his body language between revelations. Tristan Keller would go to his grave declaring he had zero feelings for me. I am not one to ruin his beliefs by pointing out his rather obvious displays of territorial claiming, from telling his guy friends that he's the only one who can tease my hormones to jumping on me about possible having a "romantic history" with Alan to relaxing when he realized it was mostly just a crush from afar. Telling Tristan how everything about his behavior contradicted his firm statements of stoicism would just ruin the fun.
"For your information, Alan happened to be the one that got away. Everyone and their mother, including his girlfriend, was convinced he was in love with me. He and I were actually close friends, we adopted each other as brother/sister; I had no male to protect me and he wanted someone to protect. I was 14 and noticed one day that he was really cute, and developed feelings for him. Then when he had the chance, he ditched me." I grit my teeth at the memory. "He promised he'd never forget me. Then one day he forgot my name. Next thing I knew he was moving to California and he cut off all ties, well, as far as anyone I knew goes. But the last I saw him before he left, the night before he left actually, he looked at me in a way that had me puzzled to this day." I shrugged it off, shaking my head to dust away the memory of those eyes piercing into mine with such sadness and resolve. Alan never spoke, but he didn't have to. I knew what he was saying.
Tristan didn't respond. Then he smiled gently and started gathering his dishes. "Hey, I had a couple ideas for you earlier that I think you should do."
Uh-oh. I was wary of where this was going, since it usually had something to do with how out of shape I am or how pathetic my social life is. "What?"
"You should start a blog. Write about how your roommate is a secret agent. Tell the world the truth, just not in a way that can be traced to you." His smile grew and he glanced at me over his shoulder. "Maybe write another one about how your roommate is an alien."
I smiled and bit my tongue before reminding him I was also both those things. Sort of. "I think I'll do that right now, actually. Good idea!"
"Just don't use your pen name."
Frack. I'd overused it enough for it to be traceable to me without problems. This was going to be a tough one, but I always love a challenge. "Okay, okay, I'll figure something out. I'm still pissed at you, though."
The smile dropped from his face and he rolled his eyes. "Ugh, fine then. Whatever. I'm going to bed."
As he put his trash away and turned out the lights, I began brainstorming a good pen name for a blog that would inform the wonderful world wide web of virtually every secret we have been forced to keep since birth, every piece of information we have hidden from our own families. I liked the name Mira, which was the name of the main character in a play I wrote that was produced and sold out its first (and only) night. And Willis, that was my mother's birth-name. It is the surname for a family living on an island in the Pacific, cut off from traditional rights as a tribe because of their blood. Because of their origins, or lack thereof.
Because they're like me, they're my relatives, and we're all just....something not quite human.
I should go to bed soon. Tristan is hopefully asleep. I like to think he has progressed from constant night terrors that he would get if he slept alone to being able to sleep normally no matter what the circumstance. We both know people think we have sex, but after the first clarification of the arrangements we just don't bother trying to correct them. He prefers guys, and I'm a virgin. We just happen to sleep better next to each other; he heats up the room like a space heater and my presence calms his mind.
I ignore my observations of how handsome he is. I shove aside any thoughts of what could have been and focus on what is. If I don't, I will go insane with the heart-ripping pain the entertainment of such thoughts brings. It took me three years to numb my heart enough to endure everything about him with a cold, objective eye and not the warmth of love I have felt for him for just as long. Jake had feared I would fall in love with him, and now I know why.
But when Tristan is the only man I know who not only understands what I can do, but knows why and what I am, and is of my kind, everything becomes so much harder. I lived my childhood thinking everyone could hear conversations about people who weren't in the room, or have dreams about what would happen the next day, or know who a person was and what they were going to become with a single thought. I went through adolescence learning I was, in fact, very much alone. My mother and sister are the only other ones I know, but my sister Raye did not get the training our mother provided me. She was swept up into "reality" by her abusive father, who as my adoptive father not only successfully hid me from those who wanted me eliminated but provided himself as a practice target for defensive skills. Raye hid from her nightmares within herself. I ran to Mom and instead of telling me there was nothing to be afraid of because nothing existed, she taught me how to fight. By the time I entered college, I knew 100% no one else was like us.
And then I met Tristan, and he changed everything.
After your family SUV gets "borrowed" by government agents in the middle of the night only to find it completely incinerated the next morning, you learn to ask more questions when one of these agents smiles sweetly at you and asks for the keys.
He told me, I gave him the keys, and he left to go do what he does best. I wanted to go with, but his main protest for telling me what he's up to was that I would want to go with. So I didn't ask to, I didn't bug him, and I surfed the net until he came home. I listened to him pop something in the microwave and shuffle around for a fork, and he emerged into the living room with a warmed enchilada and plopped down on the couch where I was relaxing.
I saw the blood on his knuckles. It was thin, a light red, almost pink. His blood, or he punched someone of his own kind. Once I would have grilled him for answers, but now I resisted the urge to know and let him eat in silence until the curiosity ate at me. "I take it the other guy looks worse?" I asked.
"Huh?" He looked up from his meal and followed my gaze to his hands. With a faint smile that he always got when trying to hide something he wiped his knuckles across his nose and groaned. "Crap. Is my nose still bleeding?"
This was a new one. Tristan Keller never let an enemy get close enough to punch his face. "Let me see." I sat up and tilted his head back, noting the caked blood inside his nose. For a brief moment my mind flashed to a time when this would have been filled with tenderness, when I would have been far more concerned and eager to clean him up. I can't let emotions control me. I swallowed hard and shook my head. "It looks fine, it's all dried up."
He sighed and continued eating his nuked enchilada while I sat back and fought the ever-constant war within me. Tristan is my roommate. He is my friend, my confidante, my only link to a past that has eluded me and my mother for over 20 years.
He is also my ex-fiance, my ex-boyfriend, and my almost-lover.
I've never been one to be involved in several relationships in her young life. The average girl I went to school with entered college with three relationships under her belt. I had one, and was in it at the time. My best friend has an anthology of tales regarding approximately 10 different men she was in serious relationships with. I have a few crushes, two near-hits and one actual serious relationship.
That one serious relationship ruined my life forever. And he who was so kind to be the instigator of what would ultimately ruin me for any hopes of a normal life sat next to me munching on Lean Cuisine with blood on his hands. He usually always ate in the dining room, so his being here meant he needed company. In his stubborn, silent way, he was letting me know he needed me.
In about 3 minutes I went from comforting him to being royally pissed.
"You did what??"
Tristan shrugged. "Nicks said he had someone who knew about CO's death. We just wanted to find out what he knew, so we questioned him."
"And you didn't take me with?"
Now he looked at me, that annoying look of incredulity stamped on his face. "What, now every time I have to question someone I'm supposed to bring you along?"
"When it has to do with CO's death, yes!"
He scoffed. "Why?"
"I'm the freaking analyst here. Duh."
"Yeah, you work in your office while we-"
I flipped my laptop back open and blocked my view of his face. This was the one way I could think of to flip him off without actually giving him the birdie. CO was my case...well, to me. He had assigned me a stack of photos to analyze when I was pestering him for a position in the Unit, I gave him back my first analysis, and next thing I knew I was emailed more work and unbeknown to me, designated as one of the top three analysts in Headquarters. Rumor has it I was number two.
So when OCO (Overseeing Commanding Officer) emailed me two autumns ago detailing CO's death, I went to work analyzing every last inch of information so we could at least have the right trail to his killer. OCO ruled it as a tragic accident. I knew immediately, and told her, that he was murdered by the front end of a very large vehicle. This contradicted her version of him being accidentally backed into by a truck, and after I clearly stated in my last email that in no way shape or form was he in a "tragic accident", she never contacted me again. Figures.
Tristan didn't understand why I was upset. And in a moment, I really wasn't upset. "So why did you punch him?" I asked.
"He hit me first!" Tristan rubbed his nose gingerly with a pout. "We just wanted to ask him questions about what he knew and I was really nice to him, but he freaking hit me! I even said, 'Alan, we're not here to hurt you'-"
"Whoa whoa whoa. Wait." My lungs forgot how to function for a moment. "Alan what?"
"I don't know."
"What did he look like?"
Tristan leaned back and thought a moment. "Tall, thin-"
"What color hair? Did he wear glasses?"
"I don't know, he wore a hat. Brown, I think. Dark brown. And I don't know, maybe, maybe he had contacts."
"Were his lips kind of full? Like yours?"
"He had a wide mouth."
Crap. "Would you say he was around 25? 21?"
"About my age. Maybe a year older than you."
Double crap. "Okay. Now I am officially pissed at you."
Tristan blinked at me. "What? Why? What the hell for?"
I took a deep breath so the following words would be spoken instead of screamed. "Not only did you not tell me you were questioning someone about CO's death, I could have gotten you valuable information with....my skills."
"Uh huh." He rubbed his brow and sighed. "And what skills are these?"
Back up went the laptop. "Just forget it."
"See? You wouldn't make a difference at all-"
Down went the laptop and my patience. "There's a reason Jake didn't notify the government of every single thing I can do, okay? Only him and CO knew. And one of them is....well...." I closed my eyes for a moment because I knew it would sound ridiculous. "I don't know how it works or why it works, and it usually only works on males, but I can look someone in the eye and get information out of them just by staring."
"It doesn't work on me," Tristan said proudly.
"Well yeah it doesn't work on you because we're of the same species. It does work on...how do I say this....well, second humans like Alan. Plus with our romantic history he'd be much more vulnerable to my-"
"Hold up." Now it was Tristan's turn to interrogate me. "Romantic history? You KNOW him? And you have a romantic history with him?"
"Not like-"
"I thought Jake was the only one you dated before me, or was this.....oh, this was just a one-way crush, huh?"
I narrowed my eyes at him and made a mental note of his body language between revelations. Tristan Keller would go to his grave declaring he had zero feelings for me. I am not one to ruin his beliefs by pointing out his rather obvious displays of territorial claiming, from telling his guy friends that he's the only one who can tease my hormones to jumping on me about possible having a "romantic history" with Alan to relaxing when he realized it was mostly just a crush from afar. Telling Tristan how everything about his behavior contradicted his firm statements of stoicism would just ruin the fun.
"For your information, Alan happened to be the one that got away. Everyone and their mother, including his girlfriend, was convinced he was in love with me. He and I were actually close friends, we adopted each other as brother/sister; I had no male to protect me and he wanted someone to protect. I was 14 and noticed one day that he was really cute, and developed feelings for him. Then when he had the chance, he ditched me." I grit my teeth at the memory. "He promised he'd never forget me. Then one day he forgot my name. Next thing I knew he was moving to California and he cut off all ties, well, as far as anyone I knew goes. But the last I saw him before he left, the night before he left actually, he looked at me in a way that had me puzzled to this day." I shrugged it off, shaking my head to dust away the memory of those eyes piercing into mine with such sadness and resolve. Alan never spoke, but he didn't have to. I knew what he was saying.
Tristan didn't respond. Then he smiled gently and started gathering his dishes. "Hey, I had a couple ideas for you earlier that I think you should do."
Uh-oh. I was wary of where this was going, since it usually had something to do with how out of shape I am or how pathetic my social life is. "What?"
"You should start a blog. Write about how your roommate is a secret agent. Tell the world the truth, just not in a way that can be traced to you." His smile grew and he glanced at me over his shoulder. "Maybe write another one about how your roommate is an alien."
I smiled and bit my tongue before reminding him I was also both those things. Sort of. "I think I'll do that right now, actually. Good idea!"
"Just don't use your pen name."
Frack. I'd overused it enough for it to be traceable to me without problems. This was going to be a tough one, but I always love a challenge. "Okay, okay, I'll figure something out. I'm still pissed at you, though."
The smile dropped from his face and he rolled his eyes. "Ugh, fine then. Whatever. I'm going to bed."
As he put his trash away and turned out the lights, I began brainstorming a good pen name for a blog that would inform the wonderful world wide web of virtually every secret we have been forced to keep since birth, every piece of information we have hidden from our own families. I liked the name Mira, which was the name of the main character in a play I wrote that was produced and sold out its first (and only) night. And Willis, that was my mother's birth-name. It is the surname for a family living on an island in the Pacific, cut off from traditional rights as a tribe because of their blood. Because of their origins, or lack thereof.
Because they're like me, they're my relatives, and we're all just....something not quite human.
I should go to bed soon. Tristan is hopefully asleep. I like to think he has progressed from constant night terrors that he would get if he slept alone to being able to sleep normally no matter what the circumstance. We both know people think we have sex, but after the first clarification of the arrangements we just don't bother trying to correct them. He prefers guys, and I'm a virgin. We just happen to sleep better next to each other; he heats up the room like a space heater and my presence calms his mind.
I ignore my observations of how handsome he is. I shove aside any thoughts of what could have been and focus on what is. If I don't, I will go insane with the heart-ripping pain the entertainment of such thoughts brings. It took me three years to numb my heart enough to endure everything about him with a cold, objective eye and not the warmth of love I have felt for him for just as long. Jake had feared I would fall in love with him, and now I know why.
But when Tristan is the only man I know who not only understands what I can do, but knows why and what I am, and is of my kind, everything becomes so much harder. I lived my childhood thinking everyone could hear conversations about people who weren't in the room, or have dreams about what would happen the next day, or know who a person was and what they were going to become with a single thought. I went through adolescence learning I was, in fact, very much alone. My mother and sister are the only other ones I know, but my sister Raye did not get the training our mother provided me. She was swept up into "reality" by her abusive father, who as my adoptive father not only successfully hid me from those who wanted me eliminated but provided himself as a practice target for defensive skills. Raye hid from her nightmares within herself. I ran to Mom and instead of telling me there was nothing to be afraid of because nothing existed, she taught me how to fight. By the time I entered college, I knew 100% no one else was like us.
And then I met Tristan, and he changed everything.
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