let it grow > once-ler

4. multifaceted

Ever 

I'm sitting in my room, slightly afraid to leave my bed. I can hear him shuffling around. I shouldn't have brought him back here, to my house, I shouldn't have kept on kissing him in the first place. This is all very bad.

I slide my legs over the edge of my bed and shiver when my feet make contact with the floor. I open my wardrobe, taking a deep breath. I reach into the wardrobe and pull out a white skirt dotted with pink roses in clusters. I look up into the closet and a sweater of an identical shade of pink catches my eye. I yank it off of the hanger and hold the two items next to each other. I get dressed quickly, stuffing my feet into my brown leather boots, the only pair of shoes I own.

I begin braiding and unbraiding my hair in procrastination. Lacing up my boots, tying and re-tying them. Why am I so nervous? What's the worst that could happen? I begin to realize I should have never asked myself this question. Different bad scenarios play one after another in my mind like an infinite nightmare.   

I leave the safety of my room after several minutes of pep-talks, heavy breathing, and hesitation. I'm not even out of the door when I'm met with those clear blue eyes. As if he isn't close enough, I have to step closer to completely shut the door behind me.

"You," I begin - breathlessly, to my dismay, "Are evil." I try to add a little more strength to my tone. It's more malicious than I expected it would be. I force past him and begin marching out of the cottage - my cottage. As expected, The Once-ler comes out after me. 

"What do you mean, 'I'm evil'? Last night-"

"Last night is a prime example of your evil." It's venomous. Even I feel the sting as it leaves my mouth. I turn abruptly, heading for his side of the valley, where I will leave him and hopefully where he will stay. 

"What? I'm evil because you kissed me?" 

I stop suddenly, turning around with an accusing finger wagging, "You're evil because you made me kiss you. I'm not sure how you did it, but you tricked me. Now," I say, whipping around again, "I'm going to lead you back home, where you will stay, and where I will never have to see you again." 

I can hear him laughing, but I pretend not to. He can think this is funny all he wants, it won't end well for him. 

"What about your guitar lessons?" He asks, traces of laughter still lingering in his voice. 

"Not worth it." I hiss in reply. A lightning bolt splits the sky open as I speak. Clouds form in the distance, an ominous, gray blur on the horizon. I have to learn to keep my emotions in check, or the entire valley will fall apart due to a somewhat natural disaster. 

"Did you do that?" His voice is filled with wonder yet sprinkled with fear. My stomach turns as the wind starts racing, carrying the screaming voices of the trees. Think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts. I knew this was a bad idea. 

"Are you doing this?" The Once-ler yells over the raging winds. He isn't helping the situation. The truffula trees are bending, almost completely, towards the ground, creating large arches with their trunks. I'm scared they'll snap. The earth is in a disarray. Lightning and thunder ravage the valley.

I sit down in place, folding my legs and taking perfectly timed breaths to bring peace to the valley. I clutch the grass in my fists. I feel him sit down behind me, his arms snaking around my waist. He whispers calm, soft things in my ear. 

If this doesn't stop soon, The Once-ler will get that meeting with The Lorax. This has only ever happened a few times before, when I was a child, before I could control my emotions.

"Calm down," Whispers the Once-ler, I push him off of me and scramble to my feet.

"Calm down? You're the reason this is happening!" I scream at him. The clouds release a groan of thunder and rain starts falling, the drops of water coming down like bullets on my shoulders.

"You have to calm down or you'll tear this valley apart!" The Once-ler booms, towering over me like an ominous black truffula tree.

For a moment, everything is calm. The rain slows to a drizzle, the fists of lightning stop punching the earth, the voice of thunder silences. The wind slows to a breeze. Everything balances once more as I register his words.

Then the trees begin to screech. I must look insane as I clutch either side of my skull with my hands, trying to sheild my eardrums from the noise. The truffulas cry so loudly and on such a high frequency I can hardly understand what they are saying.

"THE ONCE-LER, THE ONCE-LER"
"I NEED TO ASK YOU A QUESTION!" I yell over the voices he can't hear, "WHO IS THE ONCE-LER?"

The truffulas fall silent again. When I open my eyes, I see the sun is showering the earth with her rays once more.

The Once-ler's crystalline blue eyes are overflowing with confusion.

"Beware the Once-ler"

Foolishly, I turn in the direction of the voice. It's futile, of course, the voice could have come from anywhere in the valley. However, it was so disinct and oddly unfamiliar. I've never heard this tree before.

"I'm The Once-ler." He responds.

"Are there more?" I ask. If the truffulas speak of only one Once-ler, then the truffulas are extremely confused. If there happen to be two Once-lers - well that just wouldn't make sense.

"No," He says, eyeing me like I'm a rabid dog that could attack at any moment. I find that humorous. I'm not very scary, but he looks at me like I might be, like I have it in me. Perhaps that's how I look at him. Perhaps that's how everyone looks at everyone. "Not that I know of."

He folds his lanky arms over his chest. He is quite thin. It should make him less intimidating, but he only looks more sinister because of it. He creeps me out. He should smile more.

"That doesn't make any sense," I say, looking around as if a second once-ler might come jumping out from behind a truffula tree. Nothing comes. I cross my arms, too. I'm scared and confused. The trees have never shrieked like that before. "The trees, they-"

"You speak for the trees?" He asks, the right corner of his mouth twitching upwards. "You really do know the lorax, don't you?"

I ignore him, "The trees talk of a Once-ler, using two different tones and several different adjectives, as if they were talking of two different people." I try my best to look like I'm 'onto him'. Maybe he'll spill if I look like I know what I'm talking about. I see something in his eyes. I see it go off big and bright and die out like sparks.

"Two people," He says. He's expressionless."One Once-ler."

I'm still confused. I don't know what that means. He can tell. I can see my confusion reflected in his eyes, the way it splashes across my features and changes them.

"I don't understand," I admit.

"Humans are multifaceted creatures," He replies, turning away and walking in the wrong direction, "We have many sides, and names, and faces. Many vices and virtues, many things that make us who we are and aren't and many versions of who that person is."

He's talking in riddles. I still don't understand. Maybe he's trying to confuse me on purpose. Maybe he thinks I'm naive.

"I know what humans do," I reply, following after him. The grass is tall and wet. It's cool against my shins, which are bruised and scarred from all my adventuring, "I know what you did."

He stops in his tracks, "You have no idea what I've done."

"No," I say. He turns ever so slightly, watching me from his periphery, "You have no idea what you've done."