Our Forbidden Love 2

2: Starley

What the hell? I had just begun hearing the thoughts of everyone in the audience, starting with Alex, but I was no Telepath.
I'm so proud of you babygirl.
I can't believe they let her on. She's so young.
Her speech really was amazing, she deserves this.
I tried to shut out the thoughts but I couldn't and they just kept coming into my brain. Then, suddenly, the volume of the thoughts decreases and I can think, until I can't anymore and different thoughts and visions are coming to me. They felt different to the other ones though, more uncertain as if they haven't been thought yet.
Starley Star-Bub, her tail transformed white, just for the occasion. Holding a coral bouquet in hundreds of different colours.
Bubbles Star-Bub, going through the same initiation process that I'd just done.
That's when I realise that none of the visions that I was seeing had happened yet, it was almost like they were from the future. Like I was looking into a glass panel and on the other side there was this uncertainty about which events were to come and which ones weren't. I was reading the future, but my dad was the only Reader in our family.

I'm so confused. How am I using telepathy? How am I looking into the future? I suddenly become aware of nine other voices, so clear in my head and different from the futures and the thoughts of audience members. The nine voices sounded as clear as if they were really talking in real life. The voices sounded the same as their regular voices and there was no questioning who they belonged to. I turn to the nine people I was standing with.
"Don't worry," says Cameron, "we all felt like sh*t after our initiation too."
"Cameron!" Binah scolds.
"Well, we did," he reasons, but Lucas makes him be quiet.
"What is all this?" I ask, gesturing to my head and my internal messed up thoughts.
"You're one of us now," explains Piper, "you can perform all of our talents now. That's what the purple bubble was for during the initiation. It brought your talents into our heads and put ours into yours."
"How are you guys coping so well?" I question.
"We've only had to adjust to add one person's talents into our heads, you've had to add nine," says Whitney.
"Wait, so I'm a Telepath and a Reader and a Teleporter and a Flicker and an Illusionist all on top of my original talents now?"
"Yes, that's correct," answers Hailey, " you also have all of us in your head in you need us." I nod in response.
"But remember, Binah is our leader. She's Government-keeper. She keeps us altogether," Rhylee reminds me.

The thoughts of the audience slowly dissipate as they move away from the ceremony. I sense Alex coming closer to me and I turn around before he can reach me. I throw my arms around his neck and he wraps his around my waist, burying his face in my coconut-scented hair.
"I want to see it!" he exclaims, letting me go and reaching for my left hand. While he looks at my hand, I quickly look at my opposite wrist. The cut that Binah made has completely healed though I don't remember sending energy there to heal it.
I did it, says Lilliana, gratefully I turn to smile at her. I look at the symbol with Alex. A perfect symbol of a bow and arrow, in the centre of the back of my right hand, is etched into my skin in what looks like purple ink, but is actually my blood. It looks wicked. I love it, it's even cooler than a digital screen on the inside of my wrist. Instead, this symbol connects me to what I've been scared of being connected to my whole life. Being on the Government isn't that scary, and I should've told my younger self that it was what I was meant to do. I loved the nine people I was now connected with. They were my family that I wasn't blood related to.
"Can you tell me the thing now?" Alex asks me, bringing me out of my thoughts. "The thing that you've made me wait two months for!"
"Binah wanted to offer you a position as a Student to follow Piper instead of Weedy. Piper needs a successor and she and I thought you could do it."
That's it? The thing I've waited two months for was that?
I try not to look hurt. He doesn't know that I can read his thoughts yet, he still thinks it's private and really it should be. I shouldn't have access to his thoughts unless I probe into his mind. I just only got the talent five minutes ago and I have to get it under control first. I thought he would've loved the opportunity to get to know his birth mother.
"Uhh, Starley, I don't really..." he pauses and takes a deep breath. "Starley, being on the Government is your thing. That's not what I want, I just want to live here with you, not help run it. I wouldn't be good at that anyway, I'm too feisty and I have too much of a temper. Just let someone else do it," he says. I stretch my new Flicker abilities over his statement and don't detect a lie. I hug him again and he hugs me back, just as tight.
"Okay, baby, I'll tell Binah that you don't want the position," I say, understanding.
"Thank you," he responds, grateful.
"Also, are you interested in becoming a full merfolk?"
"If it means I'll live with you forever, then yes." I smile into his neck. He really is my soulmate. He loves me like no one else has ever loved me before.
"Well, looks like we're going to New Zealand at some point," I say.
"Yay!" he says, "I've always wanted to visit there."
"Not yet though," I say, breaking away from our hug, "first I have to start up the Scout School, start teaching there and get my head used to all these new talents."
"Come with me," he says, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and pulling me away from the Government. "I want us to do something together."
"Where are we going?" I ask, willingly allowing him to take me wherever he goes.
"It's a surprise," he says, looking back at me and smiling.
"What about my gifts?"
"Just get Binah to put them in your office. This is more important, Princess."
Can someone please put my gift basket in my office? I ask through my head. I haven't quite worked out how to send a mental message to only one of the Government members and not the whole group.
I did it for you, responds Piper.
Thank you.
Even in the time that I've had the new talents in my head it had gotten a lot more under control. I am no longer hearing thoughts I haven't told my brain to hear. The uncertain, undecided futures aren't coming at me from every direction anymore. All the new talents have just settled down and I can only access them if I need them, which is how talents should be.

Alex leads me out of Government House where the ceremony was held, and out into the evening city. He takes me behind all of the houses and shops and past the records room. We stop outside the new Scout School.
"No-ones in here, are they?" he asks.
"They shouldn't be in there, it doesn't officially open until next week. But I'm allowed in, I have to set everything up," I say.
"Well, if you're allowed in, so am I. I just thought this was a good place," he says, stepping aside from the door and giving me space to open it. I unlock it and the door swings open without a creak. It's dark inside because the lights aren't on, but I like it dark. I swim through the doorway and I feel Alex do the same behind me, closing the door as he does so.
"Why are we here?" I ask him, turning around.
"We're here because no one else will be here," he answers. "We haven't done this in ages," he complains.
I'm about to ask 'done what' but then he answers me by pressing me against the closest wall, one hand on my neck, the other on the side of my face. He leans in and kisses me and I kiss him straight back.