In My True Element

Chapter 3

If I thought her screaming at me was bad, the quiet and disapproving voice is so much worse.

Apparently my agony is reflected on my face because Water finally offers me an echo of a smile and says, "Don't worry, she'll come around. Your departure was hard on her."

"Hard?" I repeat, failing to fully comprehend his words. Fire has never been the touchy-feely one. If anything, I was sure that she wouldn't even notice my departure.

"Yes." For a second, Water closes his eyes as if debating whether he should continue talking or keep the information to himself: finally he decides to go with the former. "She went looking for you. And I mean really looking. She was turning every stone over, thinking, no, hoping you'd be there. After a while Earth and I stopped and told her to do the same, but she wouldn't hear of it. She keeps it quiet but I think that even three hundred years later she was going on searching missions once every decade."

Deadly silence hangs in the air and I have no idea what to say or do next. The memory of the unshed tear in Fire's eyes flows back to my mind and everything inside of me twists into knots.

"I had no idea." I can feel my hands violently shake and my whisper is colored by the tones of shock and deepest regret.

"She loves you, Air. She just doesn't always know how to show it."

"You think I should go and talk to her?"

"You have to."

Very slowly I walk into the room Fire has disappeared into and find myself in her bedroom.

Suddenly the memories of our last conversation before I ran away float back to me. That day I had missed the weekly meeting with my family and Fire was stomping from one end of the two-story library of our family mansion to the other. Annoyed by her attitude, I took off my tailored-black waistcoat, hurled it on a chair and sent my hand through my neatly trimmed hair.

"How can you be so self-centered?" She continued her tirade that she'd started about thirty minutes ago. "Don't you realize we need your help? Don't you realize that you have responsibilities?"

"Why can't you all just leave me alone? I never asked for this power and these responsibilities!" My anger was matching hers. Standing in front of the only open window in the library I was blocking the sunshine, making the room appear almost sinisterly dark. It gave me comfort because it reflected the state of my mind at that moment. "I want to be able to do what I want without having to think of what my family expects from me! I am so tired of all this." I turned my head to the sides pointing at the library, and everything that it represented: duties to my family, restrictions imposed on me since my birth, the constant fight for the greater good.

"Oh, you're tired?! Poor little brother!" She threw her mocking words in my face and laughed with her head tossed back. "Your responsibilities intervene with your fun-time?" She became serious again. "Have you ever stopped to think of how Mother and Father feel when you don't come? You're one of the elements. You have to protect the balance of the universe! Our parents trust you with it!" She was screaming now at the top of her lungs.

I put both of my hands to the sides of my head and rubbed it annoyed that I couldn't make her understand me. "Don't you see it, I never asked for their trust. I never wanted any of it. Why can't I live among humans just like one of them? Look at all the witches; they do it all the time and they're happy. I want to be happy too."

"Oh, you vain, selfish, ungrateful little parasite!" A ball of fire formed on the palm of her hand and she was ready to throw it at me when our mother opened the door.

"That's enough." Her voice, soft but strict had us frozen in our spots. Never in my life had I heard her scream; she didn't need to do that to get what she wanted. "Fire, let him be."

"But he has no respect for – "

"Enough." That one word said with so much authority quieted Fire and made me feel much worse than all the screaming. "Air, if you want your freedom, you have it."

"What?"

Her loving eyes filled with disappointment weren't blinking. She was standing at the door tall and confident, handing me exactly what I wanted yet, a little voice in my head told me that I wasn't the one who'd won.

"You have one year for yourself. You can go anywhere you want and do whatever makes you happy. In a year you will come back and let us know if you want to be a part of this family." She looked calm, but the tension in her hand that was gripping the door handle betrayed her emotions.

"Of course I want to be a part of this family. That has never been a question." Devastated by her suggestion that I didn't love them, I darted forward to explain just that. She shook her head stopping me mid-step.

"You have exactly one year." With that, she closed the door, leaving me and Fire behind.

After that fight I went to Paris. It was the last time I saw my parents. It was the last time I saw my sister... that is, until today.

Today Fire is sitting in her room on the edge of her king-size bed with her slouched back turned to me. Suddenly she looks so small and vulnerable, and all I want to do is fall at her feet and beg for forgiveness.

"You have to believe me, I had no idea," I say in hoarse whisper sitting next to her.
She lifts her head up and I see tear trails on her cheeks. Cursing myself, I scoot a bit closer and carefully, as if afraid of breaking it, cover her soft pale hand with my callused palm.

"You had no idea we loved you? No idea we'd go crazy worrying about you? You're my little brother, and I thought you were dead."

"But you used to tell me that I was intolerable, that you didn't want me in your life. That I wasn't bringing anything but troubles."

"Those were just words. You are family and we love you. Don't you get it? You're a part of us." She exhales loudly, closing her eyes. "Yes, you were careless and yes, we used to give you a hard time because of that... but we still didn't deserve you disappearing on us like that. For crying out loud, I thought that my little brother was dead." While her face is stripped of any emotions, her voice is filled with the kind of pain that can crush the strongest spirit.

I squeeze her hand tighter. "But you must have known I was alive. We always feel when one of us is in pain or on the threshold of death. Like now, I know that Earth is hurting but that it's not too bad. Since they took him in they haven't tortured him or beaten him up. They'll keep him safe to make sure I come for him."

"Yes, I feel it now, too. Just like before your arrival I knew that something was wrong with him... but without the powers the connection is not that strong. I remember feeling your agonizing pain three hundred years ago, like you were on the threshold of death. I remember how scared it made me feel. And then it was gone. Just like that. We knew you didn't die, but we didn't feel that you got better either. It was all so confusing." Fire looks at me, waiting, hoping I'll explain it, but I don't want to remember that day, so I say nothing. Disappointedly she bobbles her head up and down and continues. "Not feeling anything from you for three hundred years, not knowing if I could trust my senses, I started second-guessing them." She looks so fragile that a strong desire to kick myself takes root in my heart. Suddenly the punches she has given me today seem not to be enough.

"I am a total jerk face."

I give her a light push with my shoulder, which she returns. A small smile finds its way to the corners of her lips. "You totally are." Suddenly she becomes very serious again. "Promise you'll never do it again. If you have to leave, you'll say a goodbye first."

All these years I was so consumed with my own self-pity, my own pain, that in my exile not even once did I stop to really think of my family. I will never be able to make up for all the trouble I've caused them.

"I promise," I say, intending to die before I break the promise. Fire believes me. She cups my bruised jaw and gives me a welcoming kiss on the cheek.

"Welcome back, Air. I love you. Now we need to talk about Earth."