Reflection (Book #2)

Chapter Twenty

~ I've officially decided to bridge the 3rd book I had planned into this one so they won't be too short and won't be drawn out with uneccessary nonsense. This is the chapter where that bridge will start to occur. Sorry if it gets confusing. I'll try my best to make it as clear as possible what's going on

~

"What else can we try?" Alex asked.

"Do we have a radio here?" I asked Ben.

"Yeah, I'll go grab it." He walked into the kitchen and returned with the radio in his hand. "You want to listen to music?" He asked, visibly confused.

"I want you to listen to music. The way you hear it now will be very different from how you've always heard it before."

He turned it on with a few button presses, and a voice I couldn't remember was in the middle of a song. Ben started tapping his toe, singing along. "I am beautiful, in every single way."

I giggled at him, and told him, "Focus on the sounds. What do you hear?"

He closed his eyes, still nodding along to the song. "I hear her voice, drums, maybe a piano or keyboard. I hear... a violin. I've never heard all the instruments in it before."

Another song started, and I recognized the best. "Eleanore loved this song," I announced. I mouthed along with the words to Stay by Rhianna as Ben listened for different sounds he'd never been able to pick out when he was Safi. "I want you to stay," I sang when I couldn't contain it any long. "Ooh, the reason I hold on."

Ben smiled down at me. "This is magical, you know? I've always loved music but this is a completely new way to experience it."

"I know. It's pretty cool, huh?"

"You're listenin' to channel 97.3," a male radio-caster's voice shouted.

Ben turned the volume down. "I never thought about this, no matter how much we talked about whether I should or shouldn't become Zuri and all the ways it would change me. I never once thought of how music would sound."

"There are some things that I probably don't remember well enough to mention since I'm so used to my life being this way now," I said.

Alex chimed in, "I've always been this way, so I wouldn't know any different."

The music started again, an Ben turned the radio back up. The voice that came through the speakers sent me into a catatonic state almost immediately. Every muscle in my body tensed kmmediately. "Turn it off," I whispered.

"What's wrong?" Ben asked as he turned the radio off, but the damage was already done. The song bounced around in my head until I couldn't resist its power anymore.

"I guess love just wasn't enough for us to survive," I sang. My eyes were half-closed. "I swear, I swear, I swear I tried. You took the life right out of me. I'm so unlucky I can't breathe. You took the life right out of me, me, me, me, me. I'm longing for your heartbeat, heartbeat, heartbeat."

"What's wrong, Dee?" Ben begged.

"Dion only listened to music by himself," Alex tried to explain, "because he was worried it would remind Mommy of my big sister. He made Mommy get rid of her before she was born. He said that might have been part of the reason that she left, but Dion said the baby wouldn't have survived because Mama was still human when she got pregnant."

Ben's emotions were threatening to break through, but I couldn't feel anything but numbness spreading over my skin.

~

I wake with a gasp, sitting straight up. Ben rubs my back as I look around the brightly lit room.

"You're doing great," a woman says beside me.

I turn to look at her. "What?" I breathe, wiping the tears from my eyes. Oh, that's right. I'm in the Baya station. "Did I do okay?" I ask, looking down at the IV of a sort of truth serum going into my arm.

"You were incredibly forthcoming. Do you feel up to going under again or should we wait until tomorrow?"

"I want to get this over with," I tell her. I want to finish my testimony so we can get back to our lives. "How long was I out?"

"Four hours. A pretty short time really for all we were able to learn."

I nod, trying to drown the emotions I just experienced, reliving my past year with Ben. "What do you want to hear next?"

"We'd like you to tell us about your time with Dionisie, from when you were eighteen to when you left."

I gulp. "Okay. I can do that. I'm ready."

A woman on the other side, wearing a white man coat, injects the serum into my IV line once again, and Ben helps me lean back on the table.

"You're doing great, baby. I'll be right here with you the whole time," Ben says, offering a placating smile.

"I love you," I whisper as my eyes fall closed again.