The Revealing

I woke up in the ambulance. My arm was still in pain. Damian and Willow were sitting beside me. They didn’t notice that I was awake. They were talking.

“I didn’t mean it. You know that.”

“Of course you didn’t mean it, but we could have figured something out. Now we have all those witnesses to worry about.”

My brain was still fuzzy from passing out. I didn’t realize that it actually wasn’t Willow in the ambulance but Mrs. Aubrey.

“Willow can handle them. Don’t worry. I’m just worried she won’t forgive me when she finds out.”

“She will, Damian. You are a hero. You may not act like one, but you are, and soon she will see it too. I heard that you went after her during your first-period class.”

I thought Mrs. Aubrey didn’t like Damian. Well, I am going to have to reprioritize my favourite teachers.

Damian snorted. “It was my job to take care of her, and now look at her.”

I closed my eyes before they could see I was awake.

“Damian, I can see that you care about her. Willow sees it. I know that Car sees it; he just doesn’t want to admit it. Why do you hide it? Don’t you want to be with her?”

He sighed, and then I felt someone touch my head.

“Show her that you can be the hero. To be honest, I think she prefers you.”

I almost laughed. Car was chivalrous and kind, smiled at me and didn’t insult me. Damian constantly insulted me and was always getting on my nerves. How could Mrs. Aubrey think I would prefer Damian?

“You were always there for her. Forget about your mother,” said Mrs. Aubrey.

What did any of this have to do with his mother?

“It doesn’t matter. Nothing is going to help her remember. She would have to trust me, and after we tell her what happened, I don’t see that happening anytime soon.” He sighed again.

I started to grow tired. They were silent for the rest of the ride to the hospital, and the silence made me drowsy. I fell asleep before we made it there.

The hospital was a blur. I remembered them giving me shots to take away the pain, and then I remembered the doctors exclaiming that I had a very high fever. They gave me pills for the pain and pills to sleep. After that, I got to go home, when the fever went down. It was hectic, and I didn’t remember anything else.

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

I woke up in my bed at home. There was no pain in my arm. I was healed, and any sign of a lingering fever was gone. I felt perfectly fine. I guessed that meant Mason was back in town. However, my arm was still in a cast. Mason was asleep on my desk chair but woke up at the sound of me moving around. I looked over at him. “What’s this for?”

He raised an eyebrow as I waved around my arm, hoping that maybe the cast would slip off. Unfortunately, whoever had put this cast on me knew what he or she was doing.

“You broke your arm. I wasn’t there to heal it, so Willow did what any normal human would do in this situation.” His tone was matter-of-fact.

“But my arm is fine now, right? You’re here, so you obviously healed it. Why the cast?”

He rolled his eyes. “Obviously, you’re a bit slow today.”

I swung my casted arm at him, but it was heavy, and I was slow, so he dodged it easily.

“Anyway, Willow can’t make people forget what they saw; she can just convince them that what they saw wasn’t what they thought they saw. All of them saw you break your arm; you couldn’t just play it off, because the bone split, and most of them heard the crack.”

I winced at that. Thank goodness I had been out of it and hadn’t heard the break. He continued, “So they will be expecting you to come back to school with a cast.”

I exhaled heavily. “Why couldn’t Damian just have healed me before they saw anything? They probably could tell there was something wrong by the way I was acting.”

He groaned and leaned forward. “You really don’t know what happened, do you? Damian is not your guardian. You should never let anyone heal you unless that person is me. Well, if it’s a shape-shifter, good luck.”

I raised my eyebrows in question. He sighed and said, “Damian was the one who broke your arm.”

There it was—the thing they’d been hiding from me. “What?”

Mason’s voice took on a cautionary tone. “It was the only way to get you out of, well, whatever kind of trance you were in. When you came back into reality, you were screaming because your arm had just been broken. But he didn’t technically do it on purpose.”

He searched my face. I was positive he only saw anger there. Shockingly, I felt sadness along with the anger, growing inside me like an unwanted weed. “Is anyone ever going to tell me what actually happened exactly?”

The door opened to my room with an unwelcome creak. Damian peeked his head inside and spoke. “I can answer that.”

My body didn’t move. I wanted to jump on him and punch him until he bruised. Because of him, I was going to be wearing this stupid cast for who knew how long. But I couldn’t move. I was frozen. His expression was full of regret, and that regret made me want to hit myself for being angry with him. He was worried. Even though he tried to hide his worry and regret, I could see the emotions in his eyes. I also saw fear. What was he afraid of?

“Go ahead.” I tried to keep my voice as steady as possible. He sat on my bed, and Mason got up and left the room, closing the door behind him. We sat in silence for a while. The whole time, I avoided making eye contact. For the first time since the kiss, we were alone, and I couldn’t look at him. He waited and then spoke with a patient nature.

“Glad to see you up and kicking, my little bunny.” He reached over and touched my cheek. My heart skipped a beat. I exhaled and looked up at him as he added, “Ah, there are those chocolate eyes I love.”

He smiled, and my heart stuttered. It was impossible to be angry with him when he was like this. I pulled away because I couldn’t think anything coherent when he was that close, let alone say anything. I looked at my feet and said, “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

His face hardened. Any sign of affection toward me turned to regret for what he had done. “All right.” He exhaled as if this were a chore. The Damian who’d tripped me in the classroom had replaced the Damian who’d kissed me in the tree. “Well, class started off pretty weird with you finding out about Shannon and all.”

He looked at me. I saw in the corner of my eye, because I didn’t want to look at him.

“Anyway, so class started, and you started to paint your space picture. You were going into so much detail, looking so closely at the canvas, that I thought you would get paint on your nose.”

He smiled, and so did I because he reached over and poked the tip of my nose. “You were so into it. It’s sort of adorable how you get so into it that you forget everything else. But I guess that is your gift. Then something changed. You seemed different—odd. You stopped painting the canvas and kind of stood there. You shook your head as if trying to get rid of a thought. You started to paint again. At this point, I was paying close attention because I felt like something bad was going to happen. Right when I turned to look at you, your body went rigid, like every muscle was tightened.”

I closed my eyes, trying to remember. I gathered myself, and he continued. “Are you okay?”

I nodded. “Yeah, just keep going.”

He inhaled deeply and then exhaled, and I could have sworn he moved closer to where I was sitting, because the mattress beside me dipped a little.

“Well, you were straight as a pole, and that’s when things went downhill. Your whole body pushed into the canvas, and it went flying, and you screamed at the top of your lungs, ‘Stop!’”

I looked at him. Now he was the one not looking, but not out of fear or shame like me. He didn’t want me to see his eyes because they were glowing. He was agitated, and it was starting to show.

“I jumped out of my seat and grabbed you. Your eyes were glowing, like big time. I tried to hug you closer to me or at least block your face from the others. Yet your stubborn little butt wriggled free, and you grabbed a can of paint and started painting literally at the speed of light. It was weird to watch. One second, the floor was clean, and the next, there was an entire painting. You were using your powers too openly, and I had to stop you. There could have been a spy or an elder in disguise or something. So I grabbed your arm. I thought that maybe if I held on to you, you would stop, but you kept running around. Well, your body kept going, and your arm stayed with me. There was a loud crack, and then you screamed.”

I swallowed because I remembered the pain of the break. “Why was I covered in paint?”

He smiled a little. “Let’s just say I tried to wake you up in more than one way.”

My jaw dropped. “And you chose red paint to throw at me?”

“Why are you mad? I tried to find another way other than dropping you from an impressive height to get you out of that trance.”

I rolled my eyes and sighed, relieved I would not be covered in blood anytime soon. I leaned on his shoulder without even realizing what I was doing. He was a lot closer than I remembered.

“You do realize that whatever I paint comes true, right? Awaking and not remembering what I did or didn’t do, with my clothes soaked in red paint, would scare the crap out of me because what colour is blood again? Oh yeah, red!”

The side of his mouth tipped up into an inviting, crooked smile I had never seen him wear before. “My bad, Bunny.”

I was still resting my head on his shoulder. He put his arm around my shoulders. I liked him like this. If he were always like this, maybe Mrs. Aubrey would have a point. But he wasn’t. I needed to remind myself of this.

“So that picture you painted—what was the blurred image in the corner?”

I stiffened. There went the mood. He tightened his arm around me, pulling me closer, promising protection from whatever I was afraid of.

“It was Peridot.”

His eyes widened. “But why was she blurred out when everything else was clear?”

I shrugged. Then I snapped out of whatever daze I was in and jumped off the bed. The added weight on my right arm made me topple a little, but Damian stood up and steadied me.

“When I was painting everything, I was there—in the picture. It was like everything was happening in front of me but not exactly.”

“What do you mean ‘not exactly’?”

I sighed, not able to focus while looking into his green eyes. He snapped his fingers in front of my face. “Hello?”

I shook my head and then looked back at the ground and continued. “Well, everything was muffled and blurred out—literally everything. I thought I was blind or something.”

He nodded. “It was probably your body getting used to the new gift, because your eyes were actually bright.”

I blushed. I didn’t know why that would make me blush, but the way he’d said it, it felt like a genuine compliment, as if he were in awe.

“But you don’t get it. Damian, I saw her. She was crystal clear! It was as if we were in the same place.”

Damian looked interested. “Go on.” He poked my shoulder.

“When I noticed the difference, she looked up at me. Damian, she saw me!”

“So what do you think that means?”

“I don’t know, but I have a theory. You can’t physically make something into nothing and bring it back. It’s not scientifically possible, so—”

“Neither is this.” He lifted me into the air with one hand as if I were a bag of chips. It made me gasp. He put me down immediately.

“Damian! Don’t do that! Just hear me out for a second!”

He put his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay, continue about your eureka moment.”

He smirked at me, but I ignored it. “What if Lisa doesn’t make things disappear? What if she puts things somewhere—like in, let’s say, a blurry world?”

He cocked a brow. “You’re talking about another dimension, right?”

“I’m not stupid, Damian. I know it sounds weird, but what if Peri is gone because Lisa is trying to help the boy in chains? What if they took him as a hostage to get her to take Peri?”

Damian finally came around and realized that what I was saying was possible. He grabbed my free hand, the one he hadn’t broken, and then yanked me to him and kissed my cheek. I blushed big time, and he didn’t let go of my hand as he turned to leave the room, pulling me to follow. I did, still as red as a tomato.

We walked out of the room to an audience: Mason, Car, Willow and a bunch of girls who ran away giggling. Rose was there too. Willow’s eyes instantly went straight to Damian’s hand in mine, even though he skillfully hid my hand and me behind him without making anything obvious. But Willow saw the colour of my cheeks, and she wasn’t dumb. It was not hard to figure out.

“I’m guessing you guys heard all of that courtesy of Penelope,” said Damian stiffly.

My cheeks burned. I’d heard about Penelope, the girl who could hear like a dog. She was always talking in a whisper. I figured that if I could hear through walls, I wouldn’t speak loudly either. Damian squeezed my hand. My heart jumped. Willow’s eyes widened in surprise as she watched Damian, specifically looking for things I wasn’t aware of. Mason looked at the floor, and Car looked at me.

“Yeah, we heard everything,” Car said.

“Wait—how did you hear it? Wasn’t it Penelope who heard it?” I spoke from behind Damian. The big lug wouldn’t move out of my way. When I tried to take my hand away, he squeezed it tighter. I sighed as I waited for an answer. Car leaned back and stretched.

“Penelope!” he called to her.

A little 12-year-old girl with a braid going down her back came hopping over—in a bunny suit. How ironic. Damian squeezed my hand again. I guessed he made the same connection.

“Show the new girl your little trick,” Car said. He leaned down and whispered something in her ear.

She then tilted her head back, touched her nose and opened her mouth. Car’s voice came out of her mouth, saying, “Hey there, pretty lady.”

He winked at me, which was an odd gesture coming from Car, mostly because that was something Damian would do. Damian decided to stand even more in front of me, disrupting everyone’s view of me. Jerk. It seemed that because his brother was showing a tiny amount of affection, he decided to “claim” me.

I pulled my hand free with some effort. He had quite a grip on me. I walked around him and stood in front of him. He took a step forward and made some kind of contact with my back. Boy, was he being protective. Car stood up straighter, smiled at me and offered me his arm. I was about to take it, when Willow got there first. Both Car and I were surprised.

“Car, my dear little brother, let us guide the company down these halls to the kitchen living room, where we will have a lovely discussion about what we just heard.” She yanked him to turn around.

He did as he was told. Damian came over and offered me his arm. I glared at him. “What’s your problem?” I said.

Mason ran ahead and caught up to Willow.

“Nothing,” Damian said.

I took his arm. After about two minutes of silence, he said, “I know he is my brother, but you are my bunny.”

I looked up at him, and he smiled. A grin spread across my face, one that I couldn’t hide. I had never been anyone’s anything, except Mason’s assignment. He leaned down and kissed the top of my head.

“I’m your bunny,” I whispered. Damian sighed as we walked together, following the others. I leaned into his arm and finally gave in to the need for Damian, which my disdain for him had hidden. I had been lying to myself. I only realized that when I overanalyzed my feelings for him. I didn’t hate Damian at all. In fact, I really did like him despite everything I had said.