The Mystical Knights: The Sword of Dreams (26 page)

              “What do you mean?” Nia’s face twisted unnaturally as she spoke.  She felt her stuttering heart drop into the place where her stomach used to be and she pressed her lips firmly together in an attempt to stop them from quivering.  She was hit with such raw emotion, and the hurt she was feeling wasn't coming from Rowan.  Nia swallowed, her throat suddenly parched and burning with unshed tears.  “What have you done?  What ever it is, we can fix it.  You're my friend, Rowan.  Please let me help you...” She could feel his soul pulling away from hers as she spoke.  That peacefulness and serenity that had always been with them was slowly shattering into hundreds of tiny pieces; her chest made a strange wheezing noise that she had never heard before.

              “I can't be fixed.”  Rowan said quietly.  "I just...I need to be honest with you before things go too far...before I can't fix
us
."

              Nia frowned, bewildered.  What was happening?  What was Rowan trying to tell her?  “Then be honest with me.” Nia said, her voice cracking shrilly through the trees like ice.  “I don't understand why you're being so cryptic right now—”

              She stopped.  A sudden kind of calm washed over Rowan; his usually smoldering sapphire eyes were hollow and dark and the color of his skin became very white.  He looked up, finally meeting her eyes.  “I’m
gay
, Nia.”

              Nia's ears were ringing; she could feel her chest tighten as she stood, rooted to the forest floor, her brain trying to process what he was telling her.  Her body had become very cold, almost numb.  She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out.  Rowan's voice resounded over and over again in her mind, the memory of him kissing her at the gazebo.  Holding her hand...all of those times they had just sat and talked...  She finally looked at him, and knew without a shadow of doubt that he had known who he was then.  He had known and he had lead her on anyways.

              "Why?" she croaked.  "Why did you lie to me?  Why didn't you tell me?"               

              “Because I don't want to be,” Rowan stammered, his voice cracking.  His hands trembled in front of him and the tears that had been pooling up behind his eyes spilled over one at a time.  “I thought...I thought that maybe if I found the right person, then I would feel different.  And you make me feel
normal
Nia.  We're...connected somehow-I know you feel that too.”  His voice was breathy, his chest was rising and falling as if he were about to plunge off of a ten-foot cliff. 

              Nia nodded.  He was right; there had been something between the two of them.  He felt comfortable, their souls were old and right with one another.  But now, she felt broken.  What had been between them, now lay cold and broken at their feet. 

              “I was afraid,” he abruptly whispered.  "No one will ever accept me like this.  Not my aunt and uncle...not my parents...not my friends..."  Rowan trembled and looked down at his feet.  “Please...please don’t hate me...
please.
”

              Nia opened her mouth again, blinking back more tears that threatened to pool over.  As hurt and used as she felt, she hurt for him too.  “I could never hate you,” she said.  "Your friends could never hate you.  Your
family
could never hate you."

              Rowan wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands and twisted the sleeves of his blue shirt.  "I just couldn't lie any more.  Kenzie said that I needed to be honest with you and she was right-"

              "Kenzie?"  The hurt that Nia had felt for Rowan had disappeared.  A vicious anger bubbled like hot water through her veins as she stared at him incredulously.  "You lied to Kenzie too?"

              "I-I did," Rowan said.  He twisted his hands together, wringing his fingers tightly.  "I did, and I feel terribly about it.  I ended it with her-I told her-"

              "You ended things with her after you met me," Nia remembered, shaking now, her body trembling with unseen rage.  "You-you did her worse, Rowan!  You actually
dated
her for well over a year!"  Now Nia understood Kenzie's harsh behavior and actions; she hadn't been jealous.  She had been  heartbroken, used, and tossed aside.  Her eyes narrowed dangerously as she glared at him, her head spinning.  "If you knew then, why even try and bother with me?  Why hurt me?"

              "I didn't want to hurt anyone," Rowan said, his voice terse with emotion.  "I-I didn't want to be this way.  I wanted-"

              "But you
are
," Nia bit out through gritted teeth.  "You may have wanted to change, but somewhere deep down you must have known that it was just wishful thinking..."  Rowan looked away from her.  His hands were balled into clenched fists at his sides.  Nia took a deep breath and continued to speak.  "You were selfish to do what you did Rowan.  And awful to just toss Kenzie and her feelings away."

              "I know," Rowan whispered, his eyes still averted downwards.  "I know, and I'm sorry. I-I just didn't know...I just wanted to be..." his voice trailed off into silence.  His brilliant blue eyes slowly flickered into hers, searching her face anxiously.  “Can we still be friends?” he asked, a hint of urgency ringing in his somber voice.  “Please—please say we can still be friends?”

              Nia swallowed, not wanting to speak.  She could feel something dark and bitter stirring deep within her as she stood, but she shrugged it aside and looked just beyond the trees where the sun was slowly sinking behind them.  “I have to go home,” she spoke thickly, her eyes unfocused and dizzy.  Nia awkwardly turned towards the break in the trees, curling her fingers into her palms.

              “Please Nia, let me walk you home.”  Rowan was at her side at once, grabbing at her elbow.  His eyes were ablaze with worry, and it
angered
her to see the stains his tears had left on his cheekbones.  Nia urged her heavy feet to shuffle faster.  “Nia,
please.
  Let me walk you home.  I want to make sure you’re okay. 
Please.
”

              Slowly, as though she had a kink in her neck, Nia turned to look at Rowan.  She yanked her arm out of his strong grasp and wrapped it firmly around her middle, trembling.  “Let me go, Rowan.”  It literally stung her throat to echo his name.  “I don’t want you to.”

              “As your
friend
,” Rowan begged, looking ready to drop to his knees and grovel, “please let me walk you home?”

              Nia stared at him without really seeing him.  Her vision seemed to blur for the umpteenth time in seconds and for the first time, Nia found herself unable to process what was happening.  The blackness she had felt moments earlier was sucking her down into nothing.  “I don’t think I can
be
your friend right now...” 

Rowan didn't speak, nor did he rush to be at her side again as she walked away from him.  The forest had become remarkably quiet; even the wind ceased to blow as Nia fumbled through the broken trees and brush that winter had left behind.  The woods had been bright with green and full of life before and now it seemed gray and empty.... She felt empty as she walked, her thoughts still racing, her heart still pounding.  The blackness she had felt was gone, and she had to wonder if she had imagined it out of anger...

              The solid ground suddenly vanished beneath her feet.  Without a moment to cry out, she plunged forcefully into a water pocket.  Nia had thought that she was cold before, but the icy swamp water burned her legs, her arms, her waist, her chest, making it impossible to breathe.  She tried to take a deep breath as she sank lower, but her waterlogged clothes pulled her down quickly and the dirty water chugged down her throat instead of clean air.  The silence she remembered hearing before was loud compared to the uneven sound of the sloshing water.  She watched as the bubbles floated high to the surface, not even attempting to fight...

              As Nia sank deeper and deeper, she looked up; above her, shimmering like the moon was this pale light.  It rippled strangely against the water, illuminating the bits of leaves and twigs that floated by.  Everything was done, over with.  Mesmerizing arrays of bright colors gave a pulsating flash as Nia’s eyelids began to droop.  The burning cold of the frigid water prickled dully now and Nia raised a heavy, lead-like hand towards the surface...her chest burned in protest as she tried to keep what little oxygen she had left while she drowned from the inside out.  Her head was pounding with clarity—
I’m about to die
—and she felt apathetic and cozy as she floated safely in her waterlogged grave.... Death was easier than falling asleep.

Nia faintly felt her amulet quiver just above the place where her heart still beat...

* * *

The moon was cradled high within the branches of the old maple tree when Nia finally arrived home.  She couldn’t quite remember how she had come to climb out of the water pocket, but assumed that her mind had went on autopilot when her body failed to act accordingly.  She was shivering, but she no longer felt cold.  She stared up at the house with an empty gaze.  She should have felt concerned, questioning how she had come to be standing at her front porch when she should have been at the bottom of a pocket of water.  Nia bemusedly pulled her sopping wet jacket around her body, as though it could somehow warm her through, and rigidly shuffled up to the house.

              The house was dark and quiet; it could have been as if someone were sleeping.  Nia cracked open the door and silently slipped inside like a ghost.  As the door clicked shut behind her, she reached out to her left and flicked on the dining room light.  The bleak lamp light flooded the room; it stung Nia's eyes, and she squinted hard as her vision slowly adjusted from the familiar darkness.  Breathing thickly, and peeking through her dark eye lashes, Nia began to move towards the bathroom, walking with her knees bent and slightly apart.  Nia could feel her hair hanging around her face in wet tendrils, she knew that tear stains were clearly visible along her cheekbones...her eyes felt puffy and swollen and her fingertips felt pruned and rough as she rubbed them together absently.

              As though in a trance, she sat on the edge of the tub and began to fill the bath with water.  Water bubbled and frothed as it made its way from the faucet and into the tub.  The room became steamy and humid in minutes, but Nia didn't once reach in to test the water temperature.  As the tub filled high, Nia slowly peeled off her wet and mucky clothes, indifferently tossing them to the floor.  Her phone fell out of her jacket pocket, clattering lifelessly to the floor as any electronic device would after being submerged in water.  As she bent over to pull off her shoes, she was only mildly astonished to find that only one shoe had remained on her foot.  Nia pulled off her one shoe and her mud-caked socks, strenuously flexing her toes as if that would help bring back some feeling into her cold body.  The muggy air did nothing but amplify the putrid smell of swamp.  Once she was left in just her underwear and bra, Nia balanced herself over the tub and carefully eased herself into the warm water.

              Why did she feel so numb?  Nia sank deeper into the water until it was level with her chin. She used her foot to shut off the tap and looked aimlessly up at the ceiling.  She'd better understand if Rowan had been more than just a friend, someone she'd known since childhood.  But they'd only known each other a mere matter of months, and yet she felt so drawn to him as though they had known one another forever.  She wasn't even aware she had felt anything romantic for him, until recently. 

             
He used you
, her mind hissed venomously. 
If he had cared for you at all, he would have never attempted to lead you on.  He would have been honest from the beginning.  He'd never had kissed-

              "Stop it!" Nia cried before sinking below the water line, squeezing her eyes closed.  It was quiet there; the whooshing sound of the bath water was delicate and peaceful.  She didn't want peace though, not where everything felt like it was buckling and crumbling to the ground around her.  Nia opened her mouth and screamed a scream that was silent to everyone but her.  The surrounding water muffled the silent cry and it sounded eerily distorted to her ears.  She screamed and she screamed until her chest felt like it was caving into her.  She became aware of it then-the darkness from before.  It loomed over her like a black, unforgiving cloud before wrapping her up tight, breathing her in, suffocating her...she thrashed her legs as she tried to sit up, but the pressure on her chest intensified.  Nia's eyes popped open as she struggled, but was surprised to see nothing holding her down. 

              The shock seemed to rattle away the presence.  Nia came up from underneath the water with a sharp gasp, her hair whipping around wildly as she sat up, wiping the water droplets away from her face.  Her heart pounded hard against her heavy chest as she looked around the bathroom with perturbed eyes.  Drops of water were rhythmically dripping into the bath from the tap, but aside from that, all was silent.  Breathing hard,  Nia looked down at her hands and stood up.  She grabbed the towel nearest to her on the rack and wrapped it around her body as she stepped out of the tub and crossed the room to look at her frightened reflection in the mirror.

              Her skin was pale, her hair limp and scraggily.  There were large, black and purple circles ringing around her eyes.  Her cheeks looked hollowed and not as full.  As she brought her long fingers to her face to softly brush her cheeks she saw something dance across her eyes.  Blinking, she leaned into the mirror to inspect her eyes, but it must of have the trick of the light.  Her eyes were just how they'd always been; colored purple and vibrant despite everything.  The lion amulet that sat on her breast bone quivered against her skin and she looked down at it in surprise.  It's normally amethyst stone eyes were no longer that.  They were obsidian, glinting dangerously back at her.  Nia gasped, blinking furiously fast and lifted the amulet  so that it dangled just in front of her eyes.  It's usual amethyst eyes twinkled back at her, as though amused.  Frowning, Nia looked back up into the mirror, staring at her reflection and that of her amulet.  Her stomach sank like a rock, despite her mind's soothing thoughts. 
You're seeing things.  You need to rest. Gemstones don't just change color.