Her Eyes

Sixteen

Thank you so much for 500 reads! I didn't think I'd get this far ^^
Enjoy the chapter <3

Esmae's POV

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It was raining again.

My eyes opened to the sight of raindrops falling from the crying clouds, trailing down the window of Niko's room.

It was dark again.

The room always looked dark when it rained, downing my mood for the day.

I didn't like the rain much. It reminded me of the loud thunder and flashing lightning that occasionally accompanied it. In London, it was always thundering.

The good thing is, I knew how to "cope" with the rainy weather. Niko taught me how. He also taught me the word 'cope'; he said it meant to deal with something hard. I don't like coping.

When it was raining, like today, I went to the painting room with the bright flower lights and warm cushions, turning on a Bob Ross video and following along.

I love Bob Ross, not as much as Nikolaos, but Bob Ross was special. He had a nice voice and cool hair.

Niko wasn't at home again, leaving me alone on the large bed. I felt him kiss my forehead when I slept, sparks and tingles tickling my skin. When I woke up, he was gone, but I knew where he went.

He was at college – sometimes he called it university. Niko said the words were interchangeable, so I used college. It had less syllables. On some days, Nikolaos would come home by noon, but on other days, he was gone until the sun decided to sleep.

Luckily, there were days when he didn't have to go to college, so he stayed at home with me for all 24 hours of the day.

I got out of bed, fixed the sheets, and folded the comforter, before grabbing my phone and speeding downstairs.

The phone Nikolaos bought for me was very useful. I could call him whenever I wanted, though I learned to wait for his calls instead. I didn't want to interrupt his lessons.

Besides calling him, I used the phone to study the world and what was happening outside. It was so different from my time as a leaf. Instead of traveling with the wind, heading wherever it blew me, I could look at pictures of different countries and locations through the screen.

Most of the pictures I looked at were of Greece; that's where Niko was born. He sometimes spoke in Greek, mumbling to himself when he worked alone, but I didn't understand it.

I didn't understand many things, which frustrated me. I wanted to know why there were so many languages in the world instead of just one, I wanted to know why people in London had different accents. I listened to them speak on YouTube sometimes, but they often spoke too quickly, or their words were unclear.

I wanted to know why humans held animosity between each other. I watched the news once. It was strange how they fought over what felt simple and easy, going to lengths of war instead of finding a nice compromise.

They all looked so angry and sad. I hated it.

When I was a leaf, I had many siblings, but we never fought. Now knowing the lifespan of a human, I realized that leaves lived very short lives. Through each year I lived with my mother, I had a new set of siblings each spring.

They didn't see me as any different or older than them, rather the same age. I would talk to them sometimes, excited to have new siblings once my previous ones died, but after the tenth year, I was exhausted and stayed silent, only listening to them babble.