Academy of Elements: Earth

Chapter 34: The Tree's Tear's Turn to Truth

I leave before she wakes up, getting dressed and heading for the showers. Sorrow fills me, replacing the passion that had once flourished. I loved her so much... But for her good, so she would be safe, I had to... I had to end things. Her father had threatened her with disownment and even death if she didn't leave my side and take a job for Kassadern Darath. I didn't want Nora to have to choose between the two. She loved me, and she would choose me, but what if for whatever reason that came back to haunt her.

It would be better for her to stay in touch and in the good books of her family. They would always be there for her. Her mother was apparently a joy, a small fierce lady who had been arranged to marry Nora's father. Her father was a manipulative and emotionally abusive bastard. He saw Nora as an asset, a tool in his shed.

But her mother and little brother Henry age 2, they loved her, and I wasn't going to take her away from that.

I shower, letting the freezing cold water wash away my tears. I would break her heart and my own so one day she might have a chance at being happy.

I dress in an oversized gray sweater and ripped jeans, tying a charcoal and white flannel around my waist. Nora smiles at me as she heads for the shower and I try to smile. I try so damn hard. My lips curl up barely as I push her love away from me.

I had to hurt her, had to make her hate me so that she would take the job for Kassadern...

Taking a seat at the table I grab my smoothie and take a sip, theflavourr muted on my tongue. I had to do it so she would be safe.

When Nora sits beside me I leave. I leave her to sit at the table alone.

Ella and I workout after school. I had meant it to be a distraction from what I was to do later tonight. I didn't want to have to say the words. Ella knew something was up, I could tell. Ella whips the weighted ropes up and down, sweat coating her brow as her arms soar.

I climb the stair machine, a dull ache slowly flooding into my legs as I increase the speed.

"How's the single life going?" I ask, trying to hide the pain in my voice. I'd be single soon.

"Lonely, but freeing in some ways. I felt like it disconnected me from the group a bit." She sighs. "How are you and Nora doing?"

I meet her eyes a smile sadly.

"I'll tell you afterwords."

I finish my two hour workout and get changed into my clothes meeting Ella outside. We climb the stairs to a tapestry and duck into the dark passage way. Once we sit at the lip of a cave, our feet dangling in the air, the jungle stretching on below us, brightly colored birds with four wings flying from tree to tree, I turn to face my ex-girlfriend.

"She got a note yesterday." I whisper. "Someone broke into her room and wrote on her walls that if she didn't take a job for Kassadern that she would be disowned and that it might cost her, her life."

"Oh Jaxon..." Ella gasps. "Who?"

"I don't know who wrote the message but her father was the one to send it."

"What are you going to do?"

I look at her, a tear sliding down my cheek. "I can't have something happen to her... I can't if I lost her... if she died because of me." I shake my head, no words able to explain the grief I would feel.

I try to imagine life without her. She hadn't even existed in my life seven months ago, but now that she was... Living in a world without her wouldn't be worth the pain...

Ella hugs me and we sit there as I delay the inevitable.