Overlap

Chapter 114: Eternal Animosity

<02/14/2017 - 16:21 | Link Street, Marietta, GA, USA>

Walking around the streets I grew up on, I had plenty to keep me occupied, my company two instead of one. After all this time, I didn't think she and I would go so far back to old memories. I underestimated how long an eternal animosity could last.

"That's not what I'm saying Lumina. How I feel on the subject doesn't affect how I feel about you."

"You keep saying that like it's supposed to make everything okay."

"And how would anything make any of this okay?" I kept my walking pace firm with my voice, caring not for who might overhear my tongue given the ear buds masking an unusual appearance of conversation. Still, I wondered how I could get Lumina to see things my way. "I know you remember as far back as I do. That day, in the gym, you wanted so desperately for me to understand your hatred, to understand your malice. I never forgot about it even a little."

"Do you understand how I feel Reed? How every single time I look at a heathen through your eyes, it makes me want to jump out of my skin and cut them into tiny pieces, all because of what they did to us, for what they to the Unity, to my mother, to our sisters?!" Even though Lumina felt the need to explain her emotions, I could already feel them overflowing from her mind, splashing onto me.

"Lumina? I never faulted you for feeling that way. After everything you've shown me, after everything you've been through, you have all the right in the world to hate every heathen in the universe. I can't stand in the way of how you feel when you see a masculine idiot walk down our path."

"Then why don't you ever feel or react the same way? How come I can never feel the malice coming from you the way I used to?"

"Because I'm not you!" My immediate response seemed to shut her up for the moment, which I used to explain this to her. "You think I just go around getting all buddy-buddy with the enemy? Of course I don't. But you and I already agreed that we weren't going to freak out about the presence of heathens, until they literally threaten our very way of life, our very future. Peterson is a dick as well, and I hate his guts. He doesn't do or say anything that deserves a shred of respect. But at the end of the day, he's just a stick in the sand. He can be as evil as he wants, because despite what everything thinks, he isn't a part of my life anymore. If ever he dared to harm me, or somehow interfere with the future I want to have with you, I promise, you'll see this side of yourself come alive in me again. Getting all worked up over heathens isn't something I'm going to do at random though."

"I know."

Following her silence, I grew curious enough to understand what she meant. "Then why are you so worked up?"

"I'm not..."

Could have fooled me.

"It's just, back then, when we used to get so mad about the horrible things men in your world have done, you used to be right there with me, feeling the same thing at the same time."

So that's what this is about. I worried that Lumina was bringing me back to square one, on the matter that - because she violently hates most masculine men or general assholes, I too should echo at the same volume. Back then, she only wanted me to see the world through her eyes, but right now, I think she just wants us both to agree on something. "Lumina, listen. I do feel the same way you do. The way people are, the person inside the bodies we look at are not as easy to see as we once thought. There are times in my life when I get to see or even meet a total douchebag, and when I do, all of those feelings I locked away come crashing out again. But what you and the Altiri are doing, justified or not, is prejudging people before you could ever get to know them. I'm not even telling you to give everyone a chance Lumina. I'm only saying that you should target the heart of the issue; the very behavior that defines a heathen out of a person, be it strong masculinity or something else."