The Newest Normal

Chapter Seven-Morgan

"What were you thinking?!" Cody screams at me. "Next time, we are listening to my ideas, and my ideas only."

I wince. "I thought it would be faster that way."

"Well, we should have at least made a Plan B! Or even a C!"

I wince again. Cody finally looks at me. His gaze drops straight to my arm, and his expression softens. "Your arm is bleeding."

I nods and lift my arm up. It didn't hurt at the time, but it did now. "Probably happened when I attacked my attacker."

"Here," Cody hands me some pieces of cloth from his bag and wraps it around my arm, being very delicate and cautious while doing it. He seems to realize that this is not the time to be scolding me when we have a bigger issue at hand.

"You know first aid?" I ask.

He snorts. "I would hardly call wrapping a bandage around somebody's arm first aid. Putting pressure on it and all that- similar to helping a wounded animal."

A smile tugs at my mouth. "I was getting worried when you started acting so nice."

He snorts again. "If you can come to that conclusion, you're probably fine."

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"Here," He says, once we've reached our surprise destination. "Open your eyes."

I open my eyes. In front of me was a meadow. Simple, yet beautiful. There are lavender plants growing everywhere with a few dandelions here and there. There's so much of them that I can barely see the grass. Around the plants, in a circle, are trees growing, strong and steady. Above the trees, like a blanket covering the earth, was the dark blue sky. I walk in to hear the wind howling in the night and trees that open up their arms in greeting.

"This is... breathtaking." I finally remember how to speak.

He shrugs. "I come here often. The moonbeams usually come out around midnight, if you want to collect them."

"You come here to... hunt?"

He jerks away. "No."

I know I shouldn't push him any more, but my curiosity wins over.

"You come here to... gather herbs?"

He freezes even more. "No."

"You come here to.... What does a hunter's son do except those things?!"

"I come here to escape my dad!" He finally snaps.

"Your dad?" I question. "Why your dad?'

He takes a long, deep breath. "Everyone thinks that just because I'm the hunter's son I have to do whatever he does, and that when I grow up, I'll be a hunter too. I don't want to. I want to impress my dad, but I don't want to be like him. I want to be an explorer when I grow up. I'm not even good at archery, shooting, hunting.. Etc."

I shake my head in confusion. "Then how did you win that archery contest at our school?"

He runs a hand through his hair. "I made myself win, no matter the consequences, so I could impress my dad. He was watching."

I still can't quite process or understand all this. Cody isn't at all what I thought he was. This was bad.. Because it's a surprise. And I hate surprises.

"This is a surprise." Is all I can say.

"You seem to dislike surprises. And all the other family words of surprise." He smirks at the last one. "And me being right."

"Well, I do! No, I don't just dislike surprises! I hate them! They make everything abnormal, chaotic and one hundred percent crazy."

He shakes his head. "No, normal is boring. Average. Typical."

I shake my head. "No, normal is calm, set, established."

A tense silence falls between us. To lighten it up, I bring up something else. "I even have a checklist of all the normal things I have to accomplish."

He shakes his head in disbelief. "Seriously?"

I nod. "Let's see... some of the things on it were to sleep late, have a cellphone, having some sort of social media account..."

"Would dying be on your list?" He interrupts.

I blink. "What?"

"When you got attacked, the normal thing would have been to die. It wasn't some fantasy book."

I say nothing, because I, myself had thought of this. Another tense silence falls between us.

I notice the sunset falling over the trees and point it out. "Look at that sunset." The sunset made the sky an array of pink, orange and yellow, casting its rays upon the clouds of billowing smoke. I watch the sunset, finding myself looking for best view.

He looks and some of the anger leaves his face, eyes steady on the horizon. "Wow." He says.

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I don't realize I'd fallen asleep until I wake up to the sound of Cody shaking my shoulder.

"What is it?" I say sleepily, rubbing at my eyes.

He motions to the clearing. A pale, clear, glittering, silvery-white moonbeam shines.

I frown and notice the drool at my mouth. Embarrassed, I wipe it off.

Cody reaches up a hand as if to touch the moonbeam, his gaze dreamy. "I got it."

I don't know how you're suppose to catch a moonbeam, but Cody takes a bowl-like shaped cloth to catch and contain it. It seems to glow brighter than before around the cloth, rays of moonbeams shining in all directions. He closes the cloth and throws the gold band inside it. When he takes it out, a white globe has formed on top of the gold band, acting like the top of the scepter. I clap my hands.

He shrugs. "I told you this wasn't a joke."