Elemental: Chapter Two, Part 9

That week I hated myself. I had blown off Drei, literally, and hadn’t trusted him because he told me the truth. How screwed up was I that I couldn’t stand the truth? What did that say about me? Or anyone around me, for that matter?

After the bounty hunter had left, I felt hollow, wondering how much more of what Drei had said was true. It would certainly explain what I had avoided thinking about but I still couldn’t imagine what my mother’s response would be if I asked. Deep down, I didn’t want it to be true; it would mean I still had some inkling of what was happening in my own life if it wasn’t. I didn’t want to find out everything was a lie. Something I didn’t know.

Curiosity won out soon enough, demanding I learn the truth before I dismissed everything. Yet I was still hesitant. It wasn’t a subject I really wanted to go into. Not with her. She was always so temperamental and dismissive. Guess that’s where I learned it.

“Mother?” I called meekly from the doorway of her study.

The study was a large room, half library, half home office. The half as a library sported floor-to-ceiling bookshelves with every craft, self-help, and romance book she deemed worthy. Amidst the shelves was a cozy sitting area with old leather armchairs and dim Tiffany lamps. The half as an office bore a large wrap-around mahogany desk with a sleek laptop and a red leather chair. Along one wall was a bookcase of binders concealing different files and patterns she occasionally used when she sewed—which had been increasingly less often over the past years. In the far corner was an antique sewing table, renovated and shiny, the cherry wood giving a sense of peace to the stiff setting.

She sat elegantly in one of the chairs of the half library, her reading glasses resting on the tip of her nose as she pored over a volume of by the latest over-hyped psychologist.

“Yes?” she replied distantly, a bookmark hovering just above the page as she read to the end of the paragraph.

“May we speak?”

“Of course, darling.” She closed her book with a soft snap as I sat demurely at her feet. “What do you want to speak of? Is it about a boy?”

I hesitated, not certain it was such a great idea any more. “Sort of,” I replied.

“Is he nice?” Trust her to make this out to be something it wasn't.

“I’m not so sure,” I responded honestly. “He said I was adopted,” I added quickly before she could conjure another question.

Her face concealed something beneath the sympathy she portrayed. “Oh, honey,” she cooed, pulling me up to sit on the arm of her chair. “Don’t listen to such inanity. He’s just trying to bother you.”

I let her stroke my hair and hold me like she used to when I’d had a nightmare and was younger. She babbled to me some more, but I felt numb. Her words felt fake and syrupy, as if they were meant to reassure me secrets could be kept with calm and coaxing. Perhaps it was better to hear a lie and believe I still had some control over my life than it was to hear the truth when so much had made me feel fragile already.