Zephyr's Promise

18

All three of them are acting weird. Normally our mornings are smooth sailing with updates about what we will be doing that day. Most days some light banter between Ira and Atlas occurs. Well as light as Atlas can ever be. He really never did give the girl a break, he lived to torture her.

This morning though everyone is silent. A pin could drop and we'd all hear it. Usually that's my role to play, the silent observer. Now I feel as though I should force myself to speak as the quiet is no longer as appealing as it seemed to be.

"Did everyone sleep well?" Awkwardly I question, no longer being able to take the silence.

Axel turns bright red to which Atlas rolls his eyes. Meanwhile from her seat Ira sits there as a statue. Almost as though if she were still enough she would be able to disappear.

My eyes dart around the table for help. Someone, anyone please answer my question. If I have to force down this plate of fruit in silence I won't make it.

"Melvina will be here in a few hours." Atlas attempts to break the silence.

Internally I sigh a breath of relief. At least he is trying, which is more than what I could say for those other two. Never did I think that Atlas would be my savior at a time like this. Much like me he prefers to take the role as an observer rather than a participant. The two of us have more in common than what I would have imagined.

Truthfully it makes me uneasy at times, unlike everyone else in my life who looks through rather than at me he doesn't. Some way somehow he sees me, not the shell that I present to others but the deeper parts of me. Layers that I had forgotten even existed he has pulled back and undone.

Letting him see those parts of myself I tucked away brings about a level of anxiety I haven't faced in a while. That feeling is only heightened when I reflect on the little bit that I know about him. Over the course of the time we have spent together I see his own layers peeling. It may not be as many as mine or even at the same pace, still I can tell it is more than what anyone else has ever gotten. That has to count for something.

My relief and gratefulness lasts only momentarily, until I realize what he has said. Melvina's arrival couldn't be the reason everyone suddenly knew zero words in any language.

My eyes narrow in his direction."That can't be what this is about." My hands wave at Ira and Axel. The two usually chatty bunnies are completely quiet, eerily so.

"It is." Ira says for the first time. "I told them that you think she's not fond of you, and that it may cause problems. Remember we talked about that before coming here." Her eyes look everywhere but me...and Axel.

Briefly we discussed mine and Melvina's first encounter. It was awkward and she clearly has her own agenda when it comes to Atlas. At the same time it isn't any of my business what the situation between the two of them is or isn't. I am simply here on a job, anything other than that is a nonfactor. However Ira knows me and her have some sort of truce going. Mentioning this information to them is unnecessary, personally it feels like a cop out in order to avoid the truth.

"Hmm." Is all I respond unconvinced.

If anything I am more annoyed at the likelihood that I am being lied to. Out of the three of them I never expected for her to be the one to lead me on. We were supposed to have each other's back. We promised each other we would stick close and make it out of this together. Now she's lying to me as if our promises and the secrets we shared meant absolutely nothing. There's many things I have been, naive isn't one of them. To think that I may have made the wrong choice when it comes to her is unsettling.

Did I feel so deeply for her that I was blinded to the one I chose? Am I only a pawn in her game?

Two things can be true at once, although I wish neither were. Looking at her colored eyes I see what I refused to when I first met her. She's a selfish woman. It's the reason she even called me that day. Ira was willing to use me and discard me the way her husband had her. Did she know who I was before she showed up to my house or was that a lie too?