first floor.
I swim laps for half an hour, and then amuse myself by diving to bottom retrieving a spare hair-tie. When this amusement wears thin, I let myself float on my stomach, bobbing with water lapping gently at my sides, watching water ripple on the pool bottom.
The indoor pool is nice, but I miss home. I miss home. HOME. I flip to lie on my back, and stare at the ceiling. I have a home! When... when did Austin become home? Despite the rentals, despite the mistakes, despite it starting off as any other city, beautiful desolate divided happy weird city, it’s my home.
C’mon, it’s because Don wants to stay too, I think. No. That’s not the reason either. I lie in the pool, I’m trembling with excitement. My mind is racing. Austin is in my bones. I feel it, calling to me, urging me back.
I leave the pool in a rush. A fire is burning within, and for a change it’s not one of anger. It burns out the lingering stains I continued to carry, like a fever. I’m flying up the stairs, and I burst into Granny’s. Don jumps, drops a bowl of cereal on the floor, it clatters, spins, and splashes.
“Are you ok?”
It’s hard to find the words. I start slowly, and I feel the flames carry them high. “Life hasn’t been easy, for either of us. Leaving my aunt was a big step, and a small one at the same time. Amber didn’t make it, I had no anchor. I was ashamed, scared, lonely, and angry. I had this great hole inside my heart that I didn’t understand. I didn’t know... that I had already died. That when I left I wasn’t just escaping an evil aunt, I was escaping hell, and my soul...it was shattered, lost to me. It was lost...so far away...and could only come to me piece by piece. Only when I was ready to remember, ready to be, to be...whole again.”
He smiles and the blaze inside me settles, settling in ropes around my body. I feel the branches flowing back to my heart, the root of the flame. I smile back and walk up to him. He sits and hugs me gently against him, his chin on my crown.
He speaks, and I feel the sound going through me.
“I’ve been waiting.”
“You knew.”
“There were signs.”
“I didn’t know.”
“It’s hard to realize, it hurts to think that you might not be fully free. We used to be ghosts; ghosts don’t know how to be alive. When we do get the chance, we are lost. It takes time, like you said, ‘to be’, time, kindness, love.”
“Do you think Rebecca and her kids...?”
“EXCOR will help them, just like it helped us. For as long as they need it.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For waiting for me.”
“I don’t think I can be thanked that. You can thank me for being good looking.”
“I don’t think you can be thanked for that either.”
“Are you sure?”
“You’re terribly conceited.”
“Isn’t that why you love me?”
“Please, I love you because you feed me.”
“Now who’s terrible?”
“Fine, we are both terribly awesome.”
FIN
A Brief Note
Thank you for reading my first completed novella. I hope that you enjoyed WUTBG as much as I did writing it, if not more. If you have any questions, please feel free to get in contact with me.
You can contact me through the following:
Twitter
Tumblr
Facebook
I will be releasing more stories soon. In the meantime~
Be Good!
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends