Eternal: Chapter Nine, Part 3

“How so?” I leaned forward, resting my chin on the heels of my palms. Finally, I would have an answer and, this time, it wasn’t to my own problem. Though I was certain this wasn’t a good thing he was about to tell me, I was grateful for the distraction.

“I remember when Caroline first told me she was a fire elemental, though, then, we didn’t know that was the name for it. It wasn’t long after I came into my own powers; I think we were 13 or 14. But I told her because it was really crazy what had happened—I mean, it wasn’t anything huge or particularly obvious, but suddenly I was hearing conversations and animals and the like when they weren’t even nearby,” he explained, leaning forward on his elbows. “It wasn’t spectacular, but it was like my hearing had improved 10 fold. And she was the first person I told.

“When I did, she told me I shouldn’t tell people about it because it made me look crazy and no one wanted to associate with a loony. So I asked her what right she had to say that, thinking she was just jealous. Then she explained it was what her parents told her.” Shaking his head, he tapped his fingers on the counter top. When he met my gaze again, he continued, “I didn’t believe her at first and then she lit a fire in her palm. Well, lit isn’t the right word, but you understand what I mean.”

I nodded, remembering when she had done the same to me upon our first encounter. That memory brought a smirk to my lips; her little fire didn’t last long after I pulled the air around it away. It was our exchange of secrets and the whole reason she took me on in the first place. “What did you do?”

“I told her we couldn’t both be crazy and then had to go home. When I told my grandmother she explained what was happening and told me it didn’t make me crazy; it just meant I had to be more careful about where and when I did things. She told me I was free to experiment in my room if I kept the curtains and the door closed, but nowhere else. I also asked if she could teach me things, but that’s when I found out it was her mother, not her, who had been an air elemental before me. She told me not even my father had it; she also said it made me special.”

“Well, it does. What about Caroline?”

“When I told her what my grandmother had said, she didn’t believe me. Instead, she put more stock into what her parents had said, fighting me for well over an hour before storming off to go home. The next day she didn’t show up at school, so I went to the soda shop on the square, her favorite one. Sure enough, she was there with a root beer float, crying in a corner. She tried acting like she hadn’t been crying, but she gave up when I sat down and told her I wasn’t leaving. That’s when she told me she had been fighting with her parents the night before about what I’d told her. She admitted she had liked the sound of not being crazy for being different, but her parents insisted whoever had put the thoughts in her head was out of line and she should stay away from him.

“Caroline, being Caroline, told them she wouldn’t listen to them anymore and when they tried to control her—which she didn’t say how—her skin superheated and blistered her father’s hands. She didn’t want to come to me because, she said, that would mean saying I was right;” he chuckled to himself and a smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. “Instead, she waited in her tree house until the soda shop had opened and went there.”

“What happened after that? Did they ever accept that they couldn’t change her?”

His head shook sadly, his lips pressed into a pale line. “We went to see my grandmother, who assured Caroline she wasn’t a freak or crazy or anything else. She stayed with us for the day and then went home that night. After that, she became even more hardheaded, but it was because she was fighting her parents at home almost every night. No one at school knew anything outside she had become a royal pain—well, more of one. But whenever she was too flustered to go home and speak reasonably for even a short period of time, she stayed over with me.

“After about a year, her parents asked me why I was still hanging around her when she was so ‘uncontrollable’ and ‘obviously unwell.’ She never did tell them I’m the one who told her she wasn’t a freak or crazy. When I told them because we were friends and she seemed fine to me, they insisted I either wasn’t well or too good to be true. That’s when, to add insult to injury, they began insisting we date and eventually wed.”

“I bet Caroline didn’t like that.”

“You’ve got that right,” Ian said, his eyes wide as he recalled the blowup that had led to. “About a year after that she came out to her parents. They thought it was to spite them—which it was in a way. She had been interested in only girls for a few years at that point, but she had never told them before. When they wouldn’t take no for answer, she told them and that was just—it just wasn’t good. They were not a happy family by any means. Caroline would use her gifts around the house and started bringing girlfriends home to annoy them. She figured it was only fair because they annoyed her. Really, it was just an ugly circle of events.

“Then when we went to college,” he continued, “she started getting better. She was calmer and typically more open to varying opinions. Then, after hearing everyone else talk about how wonderful a relationship they had with their parents, she decided she wanted that for herself and called home.”

“Not good?” I guessed, grimacing. I could only imagine how it had turned out, and it didn’t look pretty in my mind.

Shaking his head, he elaborated, “The first phone call wasn’t bad. But after that, they started insisting if she wanted to talk, she had to come home. So she did; and when she came back at the end of that weekend, she was worse than she had ever been in high school. It was a constant case of PMS and worsened by the fact she either had to go home semi-regularly or they would begin visiting campus, with the threat of them recommending mental guidance and anger management for her.

“The rest is pretty much downhill from there. They set up a schedule of times she’s required to visit, and then, occasionally, they drop in for a visit—those are typically unannounced. She obliges and the tradeoff is she can live on their dime on her terms.”

“But she still has to listen to their opinions on her life,” I added, having heard that bit before.

“And their complaining about her element.”

I nodded, better understanding her earlier behavior and her motivation to make this work within my timeline. The sooner we were in the open, the sooner she could prove her parents wrong. Though, from the sound of it, they weren’t the type to admit fault. That’s probably where Caroline learned it.

Neither of us said anything for a long time. I didn’t have anything I could say to him without facing some sort of consequence and that was the topic that most interested him.

“Did you want to stay for dinner?” I offered, regardless how random it seemed—I needed to break the silence somehow.

Just as I asked, Nick walked through the door, dinner rolls in hand. He handed them to me, saying to Ian, “You should. We’ll have enough food.”

“Nick, was it?” Ian inquired, not because he didn’t remember but because he was stalling.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” I said, preheating the oven.

“I don’t see why not,” Ian said after a moment. “Caroline shouldn’t need anything tonight.”

“And she can call if she does,” I finished for him, pulling an extra table setting from the cupboard. Drei had bought new dishes and such to replace the ones I’d broken; these were sturdier than the other ones had been—probably in anticipation of another meltdown.

Dinner was fabulous and Ian left contented after Drei and Nick had both assured him I was doing fine. It helped to have two people vouch for me; after he had asked each of them, he let it go.

The next day I spoke with Mikael and Xenia about the website and adding videos. They said it’d be a cinch and would start the formatting for it now while they could work together over the layout; they seemed excited to start when they left. When Nick came home that night, he brought the sketched story board for the next commercial for my approval.

I went with him the next day to give suggestions—all minor because the story board was great when it came to the big ideas—and that was also when Caroline unloaded what seemed like her entire life’s homework and a few flash drives on me. The information was more than welcome as most of it was already targeted against the government, saving me half the leg work. As for how relevant it was to my revolution, I’d find out soon enough. After these commercials were done, Caroline and I would be traveling and speaking publicly, wherever we could to whoever would listen. People would need to put a face with the idea, and that was the best way, in my opinion, to do it.