Jenga

Chapter Twenty-Four- Porcelain ~Julia~

*JULIA'S PERSPECTIVE*

They made quite a scene back there. I can't quite understand why I let her go to him. Why I kind of told her to. Maybe because . . . I allowed myself to let go of him.

Whatever, who cares, blah blah blah. It's not really my problem. It's theirs. And if they come to me asking for help, I won't help them. If Charlie breaks up with Noa and comes rushing over to me, I will strongly, but politely reject him.

"You know that won't happen, right?"

I turn around and face his brother. I don't need him to tell me that. I must've given him a strange look because he continues, "You were talking to yourself."

I roll my eyes and cross my arms. "Yeah, I know that won't happen. It can't. They're ties are too strong for the negativity of the outside world."

"Do you want me to tell you how many times I've heard you talk about the world before?"

"It's a habit."

"Do you want to become an astronomer? Discover space?"

"Are we really going to have this conversation?"

"Only if you want to."

From behind me, I feel footsteps. Being the careful person I am, I wait until they beome their loudest to turn around. When I do, I feel pretty dumb.

"Why do you seem scared?" Reynie asks me. Where has he been? I thought he was a theif or something, for crying out loud.

But I can't tell him I was scared. "I'm not scared. I'm alert. Cautious. I always am."

"Your expression tells me otherwise," he says cleverly, then walks away with a yellow file folder in his hand. The folder has papers in it, so as he is my butler, I deserve to know what it is. What if he is a theif?

I want to ask, but the farther he gets from me, the safer I feel, but the more my confidence of asking decreases.

That's how I am. I become interested in the things most people would find irrelevant. Like space.

Suddenly, to my dismay, Cyan takes a hold of my wrist and takes me upstairs. I look down at my feet the entire time. My heart goes from a moderato to an allegro tempo. I feel a bead of water travel slowly down my back. What is this? It better not be what I think it is. Now I feel the same thing happen on my forehead. My heart's beating isn't getting any better, either.

I'm sweating! Sweating! I never sweat! I might as well die today, I shout in my mind. I'm not joking, though.

I want to pull my arm away from Cyan, but it seems that my body does not obey my mind, as it should.

But more to my dismay, how does Wisty say nothing, when Cyan is dragging me around in her house? Why am I not stopping him? I usually hate it when people touch me. Maybe I let go of that, too.

Our walking comes to an abrupt halt. Without saying a word, Cyan covers my eyes with his other hand. Knowing that I am about to scream at him for taking me here, he says, "Just trust me." I guess I have no choice but to do so.

When he uncovers my eyes I feel as if I killed myself from sweating. Not that I know what death feels like. I look down, and cover my mouth.

Cyan waves his arms around in a cowardly manner. "Don't tell me you have acrophobia."

I turn around and take a deep breath. "Fear of heights, right? Yeah, I do. Are you trying to kill me?!"

"Why do you sound so vicious? A minute ago you looked like you wanted to die from two beads of sweat!"

"I was only half-serious! I also have achluphobia, alliumphobia, epistaxiophobia, insectophobia--"

"OK. You lost me at epi-whatever-phobia. What are all of those phobias?" Cyan sits me against the door of the entrance to this roof. He's being abnormally kind, yet it doesn't bother me at all. It probably is normal, but I'm just not used to it.

"Fear of darkness, fear of garlic, fear of nosebleeds, and fear of insects. That's all that I named. I have plenty more."

"You have all of these phobias, but you want to be an astronomer? You're willing to risk your life to go up into space?" I wonder why he's asking me this. Why does he bother dealing with someone like me?

"I am. Not because it was my mother's profession, and my grandmother's, but because it fascinates me. I want to learn more about the Big Bang, and the universe altogether. This may sound peculiar, but I want to know if aliens exist." I catch myself blabbing away and take a peek at Cyan's face, just to see if I got him weirded out. But he's smiling at me.

I take a deep breath and look up at the stars, trying to avoid this perfect mood going on between us. I'm waiting for him to laugh at me. He's not supposed to continue to smile as if we're a married couple and I tell him I'm pregnant.

Suddenly, as abrupt as abrupt can be, a blue flash of light appears before us. I think I'm going crazy. The light disappears and now, before us is a woman with long blonde hair and a young boy with the same.

"Before you say anything, let me explain. I'm not supposed to be here, really, but Julian was playing with his father's time machine," the woman says, exhausted. Then she looks at us closely, then the space around us. "I remember this."

"You're Julia?" Cyan asks, not as surprised as me in the least. But, why would that be me?

The woman turns to him and nods. "And the father is you." So she is me. The future me. Oh, Lord, I'm having a mental breakdown.

"Well, it was nice to stop by. I'll see you later!" With that, the future me and my son leave, with Cyan and I sitting there, dumbfounded. I can tell he's trying to hide his shock.

"Are you trying to act stronger than your brother?" I don't know where that came from. This is my bad habit. I will speak out of line anytime, any place, just to get some answers.

Cyan looks down. "It's embarrassing when your father says your younger brother is stronger than you."

"Oh, really? I didn't think such a thing would affect you. If it were the other way around, Charlie wouldn't be as discouraged as you."

"Don't compare me to him. That's what I go through, everyday."

"Then stop acting like a wuss, and do something older-brotherly!"

"What am I supposed to do? He even has a girlfriend."

I hesitate to reply to him. I want to say something, but the words won't come out. My heart races again. There are words my heart is telling me to say, but they won't come out. I take another very deep breath and ask, "Do you love me, Cyan?"

Cyan raises his head slowly and, for the first time, I see him with a surprised face. "I do."

I tighten my lips and clench my fists. I lean over to him and kiss him on his cheek. Why am I doing this? Is my body moving on its own, again? "Now you do."

Cyan cocks his head, and I feel dead once more. Again, not that I know what death feels like. "Now I do what?"

I get up an open the door. He's dense, like his brother. "Forget it."

"No, tell me!" Cyan gets up and follows me out. I turn aroung to look back at him, and he's smiling at me for like the third time. "I got what you said, I just wanted to hear it again." He holds his hand out at me and I reluctantly take it.

"Let's keep it all a secret, OK?" I ask. If he says no, I will punch him.

But he nods. "I was thinking the same thing."