Born Wicked

XI

I sit on the hard floor, my butt cheeks numb. My heart numb. My mind numb. Gran removes the tray from the table and takes it into the kitchen. I sit, motionless, while she putters around the kitchen. I hear her rinse the dishes and put them away. I hear the pans on the stove as she prepares to cook dinner. I stay very still, very empty, and very silent.

"Jay-Lynn?" she calls me from the kitchen.

Stiffly, I lift myself from the floor, my knees popping. I limp through the swinging door, propping it open against my shoulder. "Yes, Gran?"

She's again seated at the table. When I peer around the door she looks at me, tears in her pale blue eyes. "They loved you. They loved each other, without question. But don't you for one second think they d-didn't love you," she sobs and adds, "I love you. No matter what."

The ice encasing me, numbing me from everything David Cross said to me, melts. I rush into the room and wrap my arms around my grandmother's shoulders and cry.

"I love you too, Gran," I mumble into her shoulder.

That night, I lay in my bed staring at my ceiling. In one day, my status quo has changed. I know better. Without training, I can't control this power, I can't train without getting myself killed –and whoever teaches me, and without control I am dangerous. I have to let Ethan go.

Most of my time and energy is spent on isolating myself. Do you know what it's like when I close my eyes? I see the vortex of fire that engulfed the kitchen that night. I see myself, at twelve, crawling across the tile floor and pulling myself out the back door into the yard. I see the explosions. I felt the fire calling me, the oxygen fuelling the flames, and liking it. The energy absolutely lethal. There is no evil in fire; there's no evil in any element. Evil lives in the hearts of men. So, what does it say when you manipulate a power and the natural happenstance is the it obliterates your parents?

I roll over onto my side. Does that mean there's evil at the root of my heart? Gran says no. I've asked her, many times, each time she says the same thing. She says I suffer from survivor's guilt. I'd love to believe that's all it is, but if I'd just stayed in bed... I feel the tears, hot and salty, running down the bridge of my nose and onto my pillow.

I cry for my parents.

My mother, Mattie –short for Mathilda, blond like Gran with big, blue doe eyes. She was short and sweet and so utterly beautiful, with her effervescent, free-spirited personality. She was one of those naturally happy people –you know the type, always smiling, always laughing, always loving.

My father, John, raven haired, handsome, and studious. The absolute opposite of my mother. She made him happy. She made him laugh. He always said she made him a better man.

I cry for myself, which of course makes me feel selfish. I shouldn't feel sorry for myself, everything I have I've created for myself. I cry for Gran, in her sixties, forced to care for the girl who killed her daughter. I try not to think that way, but it's impossible not to when it's the truth.

I cry for Ethan. Has he forgotten me yet? Yes, of course. Mr. Cross went over to his house as soon as he and Julian left earlier. I know that. I replay the moment he kissed me. A bitter smile curves my lips and my toes curl a little. How silly. I'll never forget my first kiss. Ethan will never remember it. He won't remember me.

And that's it, isn't it? The tragedy of it all. In the morning I'll get up, I'll shower and dress and get ready for school, I'll have to wear a hoodie under my jean jacket, because my wool coat is at school. I'll think of him.