Ascension

Chapter 7

It is routine that wakes me, and routine that gives me pause, as always focusing on the sliver of grey between a part in the blinds that never fully closes. 

This small freedom, this small defiance. 'This' is the moment I have relished in all my days, and it is this moment I focus on with clarity, the Holy Water absent- maybe not fully from my veins, but from my mind. 

I feel guilt at my willingness to fall so deeply into the call of Holy Water yesterday. I struggle to recall the events as the fog had enveloped me in a soothing embrace, taking the fear and pain and dulling it out. 

This is what addiction could do to you, my mother and aunt had warned me, and warned me they had over and over again at dependance. If I allowed that fall once, all the easier still would it be to fall again and again, until there was the loss of purpose and self. 

The knowledge of this grips me in a silent fear that joins in with guilt. How could I have conducted myself so poorly?

Recollections of yesterdays prayers, or walking with Falak and Lael, of meal with the both of them walking the streets of Heaven, of Lael pausing outside our complex's, separated by swaths of color and written paths we each must take. 

He had looked at me, and it was this moment of any yesterday I had allowed my fogged mind to clear somewhat, to count those 32 freckles, to watch the two that lay next to his eye remain smooth. 

"I am here with you Ayira," he had said, squeezing my hand, as if pulling me back to him though physically I never left," Please don't forget that. I am 'here'.  "

The evening bells had long ago signaled our return to our rooms. I had stared at him another moment, looking to those chocolate eyes as they returned my gaze unwavering.  They where desperately on me, a sort of silent plea he was trying to convey deep within them.

"I-I am with you Lael," my tongue felt heavy, and my heart squeezed. For a day, I had not been. For a day I had been elsewhere. I had not fully been with him- instead I had relished Holy Waters ensnarement.

Guilt shouted in the back of my mind I never should have been so weak.

At my practiced waking, of coming to my senses and fighting the drug that always weaker at the end of the day than that of my initial dose, the image of Sister Murry shot through my mind and I tensed, my heart rabbiting as if I had just ran. 

Before I could think or do anything else, Lael had swiped his thumb over my fist, pulling at my attention and slowing my heart.

"I am here, Ayira," he repeated," I am here, and I will be here for as long as you need me."

The memory of the hug that was returned still warmed me. We had pulled apart, following the last of the Angels in our respective sectors before the doors closed and locked. 

I pull myself from the memory as blinds open and begin to show the early morning green skies and shining white rooftops. I rise with the three clear chimes, still shaking slightly as the memory of a door shutting echoed into my mind. Though it may be my yearning for my daily injection that causes my hands to be unsteady just as much as the horrible memory.

But I kept those words close to my mind as the thought of Holy Water drifted tauntingly," I am here, Ayira."

Lael was always so dependable, so sure footed in the life we walked parallel to one another. 

If only I had not been raised to succeed in this mission, to uphold a families duty. 

A promise that was greater than myself and my own wishes- I had to remember that.