Forget Me Not

X

I dropped the hot drink I had been holding in my hand, and it clattered on the ground, spilling about my feet. I cried out, not realizing I had until Maleah burst through the door, armed. She put her weapon away as she saw the hot liquid I was standing in. She didn't know I had yelled not at the splashing of the heated liquid on my feet, but at the memory that had hit me quite violently.

"Dumb girl! You are burning yourself! Step out of it!" Maleah came over and took a hold of me and moved me to sit on the bed, which was probably the best place for me at the moment. Maleah called out to some maids passing by and they came back with cloth to clean up the mess. They helped clean my feet and Maleah sighed with relief as the maids left the room.

"Doesn't look like you got any burns, thank goodness." She stood up from where she had just been kneeling in front of me. She caught me looking at her with surprise at the relieved and concerned tone that she had used. She looked away, her body tense and awkward. "Be more careful next time. I don't want to hear Erik complain about you getting hurt."

"Thank you, Maleah," I told her, my voice was just above a whisper.

"Yeah," she said quietly as she turned away to leave again. She stopped and turned back to me with an almost ashamed look in her eyes. "Okay, I'm not repeating this again, so listen up... I want to apologize for being so rude to you. I didn't trust you, and didn't give you a chance to prove otherwise. It was nothing against you, it's just... hard to trust anyone anymore. I have to keep my friends--my family--safe."

Her voice broke on the word "safe" and I watched her as her brown eyes started to glisten and a single tear rolled down her cheek. She violently blinked her tears away and wiped violently at her face. She straightened up and cleared her throat.

"Anyway... I just wanted to say thank you. You've saved Geneth's life, and pursued the monster that took away Flyn's. You risked your life for people you have known only for a short while, though you didn't have to." I shook my head at her.

"Yes, I did. You have all done so much for me and I..." I trailed off, not wanting to admit what I knew was the truth. But it was too late to not be attached now. "I know it's only been a little while but--"

"You don't have to explain yourself to me. I know," Maleah waved her hands as if trying to swat the words I said away from her. She gave me the first smile, a real smile, since I had come here, and I realized this was what everyone else has saw when they looked at her, the true Maleah. And she was letting me see too. "We all feel the same way."

I felt horrible for some reason, and my heart ached, as if I betrayed them somehow. Would they all still feel the same if they knew what I had done? If they knew who I was?

"I'll get out of your hair now. Get some rest, Misty, it's late." Maleah said softly before she exited and shut the door behind her.

I buried my face in my hands, taking shaking breaths. I was angry, confused, and sad. I still didn't know where Gil was. And the more of my past that surfaced, the less I wish I had remembered at all.

I felt like a dagger was being poked repeatedly at my heart when I thought of the group. At Erik specifically, imagining his face, broken with disbelief, anger, or sadness. Or maybe all of the above. How could I muster the strength to tell them?

I let out an angry, exasperated noise through my clenched teeth and almost stomped to the window. I leaned out, letting the breeze catch in my hair. I watched as the waves licked at the shore of the beach, before receding and then returning, as if teasing the sand. Moonlight shone down from a clear, dark sky, shimmering and dancing on the surface of the water.

It was beautiful and calming, and I felt guilty that I was even enjoying this experience. I knew this wasn't a view that you could easily get in Qleph. How many lives who wished for this, a new and better life, did I take away?

If I didn't have to disturb Verity or Maleah, and at such a late hour, I would have asked to walk the beach and wade in the water. I clenched the window sill so hard my knuckles turned white. I wished I could erase everything and live here peacefully. Start a brand new life, instead of having to fight between two of them, as if it were a constant game of tug of war.

I yearned to stay here, the only place I had probably experienced this much happiness other than by Gils side, but how could I now? And what if Gil was still in Qleph? I couldn't stay somewhere he wasn't. I would walk through flames and live in that hell again if it meant I could feel the comfort of his presence once more.

I took a deep breath and let it out and closed my eyes, tilting my head back away from the window. Soon, Gil, I'm coming. I'll find you.