Four Elements Book 3 - Sacrifice

Part 29

The Davis household was peaceful that evening. Bane was in the living room, finishing an essay he'd been working on and wanted to complete before he forgot how he wanted to do it. He was just putting the final stop when he heard footsteps. He turned around, thinking it was probably his uncle, but it was Zarias.

"Still working?" he asked.

"Hey, Zarias. No, it's not exactly working," Bane said. "We're applying for college."

"What?"

"College. Here, we go to school to learn things like mathematics, history... you probably were taught by Zorak but it's different here. In a few months, we're going to graduate from regular school, but then we need to decide what we want to when we're older. And to do that, we need to go to college."

"I'm not sure I follow..."

"Say you want to run a bookstore like my uncle," Bane explained. "You'd have to learn how to do that. If you want to be a lawyer like Andie's parents, you'd have to learn that, too."

"What are you going to do?" Zarias asked.

"Art school."

He glanced a portrait he'd drawn of his mother from a photo. Zarias must have followed his gaze, because he asked:

"Did you draw that?"

"I did, actually." Bane said.

"It's impressive," Zarias said.

Bane turned to him, blinking in surprise.

"Thanks," he said, trying not to let it sound too obvious.

Zarias seemed lost in thought for a moment, then said:

"Do you think... It would help me?"

Bane didn't follow at once.

"What... go to college?"

Zarias nodded. Bane was so surprised by the question that he didn't know what to answer.

"Well... I... I don't know... in theory, I would say yes, but... the thing is... technically, you don't exist... you have no identification, no social security number... the administration difficulties are too awful to even begin describing them."

Zarias tried to keep a smooth face, Bane could see it. But there was definitely a hint of disappointment in his eyes.

"Not to mention that you never went to school... so jumping to college right away... it would be really complicated. I mean... you could do it, I'm sure... but... I don't really see how."

Zarias shook his head.

"You're probably right... It was stupid of me to bring it up..."

"No, it's not, I just... wasn't expecting it." Bane replied. "Why would you want to go to college, anyway?"

"I just... want to be the human I should have been," Zarias said after a moment. "And it seems like it's part of the process."

"Well... for most of us, it is..." Bane agreed. "But if you're worried about finding a job, I'm sure uncle Rob would let you try out at the store."

"I'll consider it," Zarias said. "If to do something other than sitting in my room all day."

He got to his feet.

"Hey, tell you what," Bane said as Zarias turned to leave. "I'll mention it to the girls, and we'll see what we can do. Okay?"

Zarias blinked.