Adoration

S I X : All Is Well.

While I was changing my clothes I noticed the unmistakable proof that more time had passed than I knew of. My hair was longer, significantly longer. I had cut my hair to about shoulder length 2 months before Elias had found me. Now, it was closer to my bellybutton than my shoulders. Then I saw the scars, scars I had no memory of. I didn't want to know what they were from, fearing that it was something that would make my wall break.

While I was eating, someone had been in the room I slept in. They put dark jeans and a gray knit sweater on my bed next to a heavy coat. I recognized the jeans and top, I almost started crying. I would have to ask him what else he'd gotten from my shitty apartment that I had apparently not seen in a year.

After changing, I crept down the stairs. I had an unusual amount of energy, like I'd taken a long nap, and technically I guess I had. As I approached the bottom of the stairs, he was standing there. He looked rugged, like he'd just been out chopping trees. He wore a flannel, a dark cotton shirt underneath, denim, and work boots similar to the ones my dad wore when he accepted contracting jobs. His face still looked grim, he looked as if he was expecting something terrible to happen, and I wanted to wipe the look away. I knew what he was expecting. I stopped at the last step, pushing slightly on my mental wall to make sure it was securely up. I was getting better at this, I could feel myself getting better at this.

I glanced at the grandfather clock, I somehow knew exactly where to look. "Not somehow, I've been here for a year." I mentally reminded myself again. I wasn't anymore used to just knowing. Understanding of his expression filled me. It was 1:30AM. I had gone upstairs just past midnight and somehow lost over an hour of time, and I knew I hadn't taken that long to change my clothes. I wondered if he had been standing here for the whole hour and a half. I wondered if he was worried, I wondered if he had stood here questioning if I'd come down at all. I felt so guilty it ate at my chest, but as I looked back at him his face relaxed and he smiled. A brilliant smile. A familiar smile. Flashes of that smile above me, below me, beside me, paced through my mind again. I knew, and I shoved them back behind the wall refusing to acknowledge it.

"You're doing better than you've ever done." He noted, affirming the thoughts I had moments before. I sensed that pride again, the pride I saw on his face at the table an hour and a half before. I sensed that he wanted to reach out to me, so badly that it felt like he would burst into flames if he didn't. I sensed that he was keeping a tight rein on his desires.

I had a question, but I couldn't put it into words. Instead I looked at him, eyebrows raised and tilted my head, knowing he knew.

"You want to know what I can read from you," He was speaking with his voice, something I knew was intentional, something I knew was for my benefit. "I can't describe it really. I've known the inside of your mind for a very long time, Daria, but it's not like it was."

His words confused me, they brought up feelings I wasn't sure about, feelings I couldn't quite place. I didn't linger on them. I didn't want to see his face in pain as he realized I had forgotten it all yet again, even if I wouldn't remember remembering. We walked toward the magical double doors and stepped into the cool air. It had to have been October, maybe November. I didn't know where we were so I couldn't pinpoint a season.

"I see the memories we have," He started again. "I see them, and I know they're there. But it's like..." We walked at a slow pace and I wondered if he saw them the way I saw them.

"Yes and no." He answered out loud. "My theory is that I see them clearer than you do because I wasn't wiped. I still have them in my head, but when I reach for them in yours, they're slippery. I'll grab one end of a memory and it slithers away, dissolves."