Regal Prophecy [rewriting]

THREE: PACING

CHAPTER THREE

PACING

Thud, thud.

All I heard was the sound of Maze's frantic pacing back and forth on the wooden floor. He only got the message yesterday evening after my encounter with Kiel and now all he has done the moment he drove from Crossings to here was to walk around the room in the same routine. Back and forth, back and forth.

I fumbled with the sleeves of my oversized black hoodie waiting for Maze to say something. Anything.

Thud, thud.

This time, his hands swiftly went to his green highlighted hair in infuriation, pulling it tightly as he continued at the same pace with an annoyed look on his face.

"Did he say anything to you? Did he do anything?" He demanded.

I shook my head, not wanting to tell Maze about the feeling of emotional bliss whenever we touch.

Not normal.

At all.

How would one even come about beginning to explain it?

Unable to keep myself quiet any longer and pushing my unanswerable questions aside, curiosity overwhelmed me and I asked, "So, you had a brother and you never told me?"

Maze set his pacing to a complete halt immediately after my question and looked down with his back turned away from me. For a full minute, he just stayed in that position and said nothing.

Breaking the silence, he then said with a strained voice, "Half-brother."

"What?" Being confused didn't cover half of the thoughts running through my head. Half-brother?

My best friend slowly turned to my direction and took slow and careful steps towards me. There was a certain extent of sadness in his eyes that I couldn't explain. A feeling so strong that I felt it myself as I stared into his emerald green eyes. "Kiel is my half-brother," he repeated. Pain. Sorrow. There was only so much that I could see.

He cleared his throat. "The result of an affair long ago."

Family was a touchy subject for the both of us. It was one of the few topics we did not talk about much. For years we avoided talking about things we've talked about once before. Once. How my parents disappeared and never came back for me. How they left me under Hazel and Adam's care without any explanation. How Maze was the only survivor of a fire accident long ago.

I bit my lip, a habit of mine when I didn't know what to do. "Why keep it from me?"

Maze sighed. No words came out of his mouth. Not even one.

I didn't speak either. I waited, and waited, and waited.

It was pure silence again at its finest, until he spoke quietly, "It's complicated. My history is not something that I want you to see. I can't afford to drag you into it." He looked at me sternly and placed both his hands on my shoulders. "I'm screwed all over. I'm a mess." Maze let go of my shoulders and dropped to his knees, looking down as if in defeat.

Seeing him like this made my heart drop. Knowing there was nothing I could do to ease his pain made it worse.

"Maze," I spoke softly. There was no sign of any movement from him.

Carefully, I placed my hands on either side of his face and made him look up at me. After much hesitation, he finally complied.

"Look, alright," I started. "You've been my best friend for eight years and within that time, you have saved me so many times and you've always been there for me. Now, you might think you're like that, but to me you aren't. To others, you aren't. So don't believe you are. You aren't messed up. You're perfect. You're more than I could ever ask for," I said with a small smile hinting on my lips. "You're the best person I know."