Recover: Book 2 of the Magic Mutations Series | ✓

4: Sea of Agony

January 2017

The fireworks exploded in the park across the street as the clock struck midnight. My friends cheered downstairs, clinking their glasses of champagne against each others' as they shouted 'Happy New Year'. The music resumed once more, thumping its way through the house. And then the door to Ben's room opened, his footsteps echoing down the hallway before a light knock sounded on mine.

"Come in," I barely made audible, listening to him gently close the door behind him as he padded across my room, falling onto the bed beside me.

"They're so noisy," he mumbled as he slumped into the mattress.

"You could be down there socialising with them," I said, not even looking at him as I kept my gaze fixated to the ceiling. A small part of me wanted him gone so that I could continue to stew in my misery and remind myself how all of this was my fault.

"You know it's not my thing," he replied.

But I had nothing to say back to that, so I let the silence overwhelm us, the only disruptors being our breaths, heartbeats, the popping of fireworks outside, and the residual music and chatter that creeped its way into my room.

"I'm worried about you," he whispered after an immeasurable amount of time passed. Yet when I still didn't respond, he said, "It's been two months and all you do is sit in this room. You haven't even gone back to university. That's my thing, not yours," he tried to joke.

"She's everywhere," I finally replied. "In the hallways, in the living room, in my classes... Always staring at me with those remorseful eyes. Sometimes she looks at me like she hates me because I pushed her away. Then other times it's like she can't stand herself for leaping at it too soon. But I can't make it better. And I can't feel anything for her anymore."

"You could at least tell her why you couldn't accept her... you could tell her what holds you back from committing to anyone," Ben whispered back, though the hesitancy to his tone suggested he knew it was a useless comment. Nonetheless, my brain started to spiral.

Tell her?

How could I ever tell her that as she pressed her lips against mine, all I saw was the look of fear in Anja's eyes just before my uncle ploughed the cleaver through her neck like it was butter?

How could I tell her that instead of focussing on the emotions she was sending my way, I remembered Anja's head rolling across the cold stone floor until it stopped at my feet?

How could I tell her that instead of kissing her back, I was too caught up thinking about Anja's lifeless eyes looking up at me, her decapitated head slowly transforming into Erica's as though it were a message of what would come if I bonded to her?

But because Ben didn't know anything about my past, because I knew no one would look at me the same if they knew what I did back then, I responded with, "She was in the process of breaking up with me anyway."

"Okay... you could at least tell anyone. Like me?"

I lolled my head to the side, meeting his iridescent blue gaze. When I looked at Ben, and the way his eyes twinkled in the night, and his curls he was growing out brushed at his cheekbones, I wondered if his mum had traces of mutant in her. Because there was something about looking at him that really drew you into him, and it wasn't just me who felt that. The oceanic nature of his eyes almost called you into their depths, and at times I felt like he was looking at the parts of me I didn't want anyone to see. But the problem with Ben was, once he saw those parts, he seemed to embody them within himself, only swimming deeper into the abyss of sorrow he constantly drowned himself in.