Sage Hill and the Stones of Power

Chapter 9

As soon as they left I felt lightheaded and dizzy again, but I hadn't used any of my powers. What was worse was my nose was throbbing from the punch, I lifted my hand to my face, it came away tainted with blood. I recoiled at my own grossness before realizing I had other matters to attend to.

"Are you alright?" Zack asked.

"Gee, well, I just got beat up by a total jerk, attacked by a mountain lion and I think I broke someone's nose, oh, and before all that I was forced out of my home, abandoned by my best friend, and then threatened at knife point by a psycho. And all you can do is ask me if I'm alright?!"

"You know it was really a rhetori-"

"Yeah I got that part. What I don't get is what could possibly make you think that you could just abandon me like that!"

"Well you see I actually-"

"You know what? I don't even want to hear it, I don't care why. The fact is I can think for myself, and if you're going to just run away whenever I have a single independent thought than you are a hundred times more self centered that I could have ever thought possible."

"If you'd just let me explain-"

"No, you don't get to explain, I just went over that! I don't even want to have this conversation with you because it doesn't change anything! 'Why' is completely irrelevant, what you did was inexcusable and I can guarantee that if I were any other type of person I would smack you right now."

"You realize I just saved your-"

"I. DON'T. CARE!" I stormed away, blood boiling. Then of course I realized I really didn't have anywhere to go. "Stupid being in an unfamiliar place." I muttered to myself. I stomped to the edge of the forest and lended up against a tree facing away from the now-in-shambles-camp and, more importantly, away from Zack. A few minutes later Julian came and leaned up against a tree across from me. He was quiet for a minute, some part of me knew I had no right to snap at him, but I was beyond mad, so that part of me just kind of shut down for a minute, well, maybe it was more like a few minutes.

"Is there something you want?" I asked irritably.

"Your friend was making me mad, and I was out of witty comebacks."

"Did you just say 'and'?" I smirked cruelly, "I didn't realize you had a high enough IQ to think of more than one thing at a time. And he is not my friend."

"Seems you haven't used up yours for the day, I guess I deserved it though."

"You think? You only kidnapped me and brought me to an ambush where I could have very well been killed."

"Hey," He said, actually somewhat gently, "I did not mean for you to get hurt,"

"Whatever,"

"So, don't freak out at me or anything, but why are you mad at someone who just saved your life?"

"Because he up and left the second I disagreed with his 'perfect' way of doing things."

"But he came back, so it's all good right?"

"No it is not 'al-" I took a breath, I needed to calm down. Julian was trying to be nice and I didn't deserve it in the slightest, "You wouldn't get it."

"I think I do. I think you're furious at him for abandoning you when you just needed him to trust you. You could've gotten over that but he came back and expected you to need him back, to want him back, and you're too prideful to admit that he's right. You just want him to understand just once that you don't need him, and that you're world doesn't revolve around him or his opinions of what you should do." I looked up and held his gaze, which didn't waver. He didn't think, he knew. I could hear it in his voice, the bitterness of how he pronounced each word.