Legends of Mirandis Academy

Chapter 43: Green is Your Color

"I thought you said Kelam was going out with her."

"Guess not. Shit, they're not afraid at all."

"Honestly? Good for them."

It was a tough pill to swallow.

"They're actually so cute, oh my god."

"I know, right? Damn, wish I had that." Giggles from the conversation participants burst behind him.

Kelam was bitter, and he hated it. A part of him wanted to go up to Iridia right now and demand answers: Why didn't he tell her? That would have made so much of this easier, and he could have pulled himself back before any of those feelings got a chance to start. Wasn't he owed some sort of answer? He wanted an explanation, closure, anything he could get other than what he felt on that stupid Thursday morning. What he'd been feeling.

But it still hurt. Despite it all, seeing her beautiful smile as she gazed at Brielle, while Brielle did the same right back sent an aching pain in his heart. Even with his bitterness, even with his anger, even with the cold mourning that resided within his chest... a part of him still wished he was in Brielle's place. Holding her cheeks while pulling her into a kiss, wrapping his arms around her, having her smile at him the way she was now. All he'd wanted was Iridia, and he could never have her.

His stomach wrenched as they kissed again, this time in the hallway with plenty of people around. It was evident Iridia didn't really want to let go, and they were both laughing as Brielle tried to push her arms away, insisting she'd be late to class if she wasn't released. Kelam could see Iridia's mouth move as she repeatedly said, "Okay, okay, just one more!"

That could have been him. That should have been him.

"Iri, come on," Brielle laughed. Iridia was slowly laying up, submitting to the might of the bell schedule. "I'm actually going to be late. So are you!"

"Okay, last one, I promise." Iridia cupped her cheek and tenderly kissed her for the thousandth time, leaving Brielle smiling the whole way through. Brielle pulled back to the face she never wanted to stop seeing.

"I'll see you at lunch, okay?"

Iridia looked simply lovesick, and Brielle imagined she looked the same. "Okay." Brielle turned to leave, but Iridia grabbed her waist one last time and pulled her back for one more stolen kiss.

"You said that was the last one!"

"I lied!" Brielle smacked her hand, playfully scolding. "Okay, okay, I forfeit. I'll see you at lunch, Bri."

Brielle finally split from Iridia, leaving for her next class; her chest felt lighter than air. Luna had told her once how liberating allowing emotions could be. Brielle would have never thought she would be so right.

Luna had plenty of words to describe how she was feeling. It was an eclipse in the afternoon, a torment in a sunlit room. The sensation of sitting, warm, and yet becoming spiritually divided; one half walking in winter, breath icing over, beneath a broad patch of stars; one half walking in the desert, burning, no shade in sight. Miles and miles of walking, without any rest.

It was a spindly table and a house of cards, trembling at the slightest breeze, without any place to collapse. It was the spark in the eyes of a caged animal. Luna had been in the cage before. She had no conception of when she might be free.

Luna knew how to describe it, a thousand times over. But she didn't know how to make it go away.

All she had was instinct, the behaviors of survival, which were difficult to explain. Luna didn't know what within her made the decisions: to leave class, to go to the nurse, to pocket the box of pills from the shelf when Midas wasn't looking. Luna wandered the halls in the same way that a salmon might venture upstream, back to its birthplace, prepared to spawn and then die.