{Early Evening- Tuesday, 29th June ~ Day 394}
{Crossroads DanceHall}
Tonight I'm gonna have myself a real good time
I feel alive
And the world turning inside out, yeah
And floating around in ecstasy, so
Don't stop me now
Don't stop me
'Cuz I'm having a good time, having a good time
It is finally time to open the doors
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What he says reminds me of Iblis, a little, in a far smaller way. And I won't ever tell anyone what I know about Iblis now, the secret locked in his heart, but: "Should I stop myself loving him - her - then?" I won't say it. I rub the back of my neck a little, and that's not Micah's gesture, and shake my head. He deserves a proper answer, though this is a very strange place to talk about this.
"If I had gone straight to - the tower," I say, "when I -woke - I wouldn't be a person now. Not like I am. I don't know if that would be better or not. "I don't know if I could love like this, if I had. Him, or - other people." I'm not going to claim to love you, Valmont, or Alice. I don't know enough, I think, about the ways that humans love. That people love. Even with all the long memories of being Tez. Loving Genny, loving Syl: the memories are thin, like old cloth. "You gave me that." I look up at him, properly. I can see him twice, the Valmont Tez met drawn over the Valmont Micah knows.
"She can't give me that. Danika. A family, a - home. She will end everything, one day. That," I add, tilting my head a little, "was my task, once. I don't know if it still is. I don't know many things, Valmont, though part of me's existed for - well." Almost a laugh. "Since the beginning of worlds. I'm confused by so much." So much. "But she is so much to me. In everything she is." Everything. Does it shine out of me, that love? I'm so very tired of it all. The music's too loud, and there are too many people, sounds, smells, minds. I want to go home, but I don't have one.
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"She was dead, and then she wasn't, but she was different," I say. "Like you, I suppose." Except she's gone now; that other Marie never was, even if I remember her and that other life with sometimes painful clarity. And he's still here. But he's not the Tez he once was either. I believe that. I just don't know what he is, or what risk he is.
"Should I stop myself loving him - her - then?"
"You can't just turn off feelings," I say. "But that doesn't mean you give in to them either. Even if you love someone, it isn't always a good reason to be with them. Look at Wanda," I add, because now I realise he knows - knew - who her husband was. "I don't know if I could love like this, if I had. Him, or - other people. You gave me that."
There is a little pain in my breast, hearing that.
"Then I am glad," I say softl, and I am.
"She can't give me that. Danika. A family, a - home. She will end everything, one day. That was my task, once. I don't know if it still is. I don't know many things, Valmont, though part of me's existed for - well. Since the beginning of worlds. I'm confused by so much. But she is so much to me. In everything she is."
"You sound different," I say. He does. Not like a lost boy any more. Perhaps this is what it's like for a god to grow up, and the thought makes me smile a little, but sadly. "I knew how to help Micah. Or I thought I knew some ways, at least." I don't think I can help Tez, or this Micah, or whoever he is, and it feels like a loss, somehow. "If you could choose how to be happy now, what would you want?" I don't know why it matters. I think I want to hope that he's not going to just hand himself over to something that exists for despair, and let himself be swallowed up. Even if that's what he wants, or deserves. I don't know.
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"If I could choose?" My mouth twists again, just a little bit. "I'd say to not-be, but that wasn't happiness. It was...." I look for, and find, a word that Micah wouldn't have used. "Cessation. For happiness - to go back. To that other world, when we wished." It's stupid, and - cowardly, I think he would say, and I feel colour flare high on my cheeks. Still a boy, then, in some ways. "It was...simple. Nothing's simple, now." And won't be again.
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"Maybe," I say, "you can have something like that again. I'm sure there are people in town you could... care about. It might be more complicated than before, when you didn't remember all of who you are, but even so. You have the capacity to feel like that about - just a regular person," which is an awkward way to talk about myself, "so you have a choice, I think. I mean, aside from the tower."
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"I have before," I say, quite quiet. "They die, you know. And I don't." And there's Syl, but he doesn't like her, and I got everything wrong there not just once but twice. I'm scared of seeing her, I know.
I don't know what else to say, except: "I'm tired of being, and of things ending and me going on." I wonder how long I can stand it, all of it all over again. And Valmont was angry and now he's being kind, and I want to crawl into bed with him and curl up against him and have him hold me. Not even sex, or anything like it: just hold me. I'm so stupid.
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"Still," I say, "you could have years and years with someone, couldn't you?" I wonder if his body ages, but it doesn't seem like a good idea to ask. "If I knew Hermia was going to die next year, I wouldn't want to stop loving her because of how it would hurt. I know it's not the same." But it's all I have. I feel a little helpless, really. If we weren't here in public I think I might hold him now, so perhaps it's best that we are: I don't know if it would really help him, not when his feelings for me are so confused anyway. You would think learning someone is an ancient god would stop you feeling protective, but oddly it doesn't seem to have done. I don't just think it's his body, that he looks so young. I think some of him is just a child, still, despite everything. A very miserable child, and that in an odd way reminds me of myself, once upon a time, and how very desperately I wanted to be loved. So I move my chair closer to his, and put my arm along the back of his chair, because it's something. Even if it can't be enough.
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I look at him for a long moment when he says that.
"You are growing up," I say quietly, and I smile a little. Micah of a few weeks - days - ago wouldn't have said that, I don't think. Tried to comfort me with something that's not true. "I should talk to Hermia," I say at last. "I'm not throwing you out," I add. "I don't know if you can stay, and I need to discuss it with Hermia, but I'm not going to just turn you out onto the street. You'll come home with us tonight, won't you?"
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Home. There's a moment - just a little one - where I don't know if I can speak. And then I nod, at that and what he says about Hermia. "Don't tell Alice yet," I say. Will he think that's because I want to - deceive her, manipulate her, do something bad? So I explain: "I know she has to know soon. But I want her to - I don't want her to see me differently. Not yet. Please?" He already does, and Hermia will. "Not tonight."
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