Paradise

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-One

Darkness crept across the land, encasing it in shadows. The sky opened up with numberless stars; it was like looking at a multitude of yellow-white pin-pricks on a stretch of black fabric. We'd changed locations, a thumbnail print of moon guiding us away from the lake and up a hill. Soren had carried Robert on a stretcher made entirely of water.

I hadn't been able to hold back my enthusiasm. Those water-tricks really got me. They were just so neat.

The evening temperature was surprisingly cool. Soren started a fire for me with some sticks and twigs. The irony was unavoidable. I caught the giggles watching his white-blue, water-shaping hands make fire. I just couldn't stop. It was too funny.

He plopped down on the other side of the fire and grinned at me. "You seem a lot more comfortable," he said. "I'm glad."

I held my hands over the fire, feeling the heat soaking into my skin. "It takes me a while, but I will eventually warm up to someone, if given adequate time."

"Most people don't give you adequate time?" he asked.

I shrugged. "Most people don't give me the chance. I don't have a lot of friends. Everyone is always so impatient. They expect you to just open up immediately. If you don't, you're some kind of weirdo. But ... and this is the sad part ... if you open up a little too quickly or eagerly you're suddenly this weirdo stalker or something. You just can't win."

He tilted his head. "Weirdo and stalker are bad?"

"Weirdo is, like, awkward or eccentric. They're different from everyone else. They stand out, but not in a good way." I paused to laugh. "And a stalker is someone obsessed with someone else. They follow them around and spy on them. It sometimes turns ugly."

"Ugly, how?" he asked.

"Well, some stalkers end up hurting others. They become too obsessive and don't want anyone else to get near the person, so to prevent it ... they sometimes go to extreme measures."

"That does sound bad," he said, though he sounded somewhat unsure. "But what about weirdo? Those things didn't sound that bad."

"Well, they're not always bad. But some people can try to read too deeply into a person's awkwardness and eccentricities, and think the person is bad when they're just, well, weird. They could be harmless, but they're just not good around other people, or something, so people think there's something mentally wrong with them, and that they might end up hurting them when that's totally not the case."

"Your people sound unaccepting of others," Soren said.

"Oh, they can be," I agreed. "They'll say they're not too, but then they'll go right ahead and judge everyone else ... like they're so much better."

"It sounds like this is a personal issue for you," he observed.

I looked into the fire, watching the flames lashing at the open air. I frowned. "It is. I'm judged so much at school. It's so stressful even going at all."

"School is?--"

"Oh, school is a place to study things and learn. It sets us up for adulthood, so we can be competent enough to work and support ourselves."

"As in having food and shelter?" he asked.

I nodded. "Yeah, the jobs are to pay for all that."

"You mean to say ... you cannot just go out in the wild and find a nice dwelling place or create one for yourself?"

"Nope, it has to be purchased."

"Purchased?"

"We—uh--exchange currency for those sorts of things, but some stuff like a house--uh--shelter requires a lot more than other things like food and clothing. Some people can't afford it and have to live outside in the elements."