It's four in the afternoon
I'm on a flight leaving L.A.
Trying to think about my life
My youth scattered along the highway
[/i]
Ari didn’t tell him. She didn’t know how. She merely set out her clothes and began sifting through them quietly. Ever few moments she’d turn to stare at the picture on her nightstand. The woman stared back at her, captured in a moment of breathless laughter.
In one of these such pauses she walked over and picked up the picture frame. Her pale blue eyes ran back and forth over the image for a long time. She didn’t move or speak… just stood and stared.
“What did you two have?” She finally murmured, setting the picture down and going back to her packing.
Father of mine
Tell me where have you been
You know I just closed my eyes
My whole world disappeared
Father of mine
Take me back to the day
When I was still your golden boy
Back before you went away
James hit the wall as hard as he could, trying to ignore the tears streaming down his face. He didn’t need her to tell him. He figured it out all on his own. It wasn’t like he hadn’t known her for years. She was leaving. His last connection to family was running off and leaving him here. All because he’d told her.
She didn’t understand. She couldn’t understand. Michael was her father in name and blood but he had raised James. He had made James everything he was. He’d given him everything he had. James had loved him. Loved him more than anything else in his life and wanted to be like him more than anything else in the world.
He hit the wall again and again. He couldn’t hear it over the music blaring. He narrowed his eyes and gruffly wiped at his eyes.
It wasn’t fair. He couldn’t lose her too. He just couldn’t.
Fame is filled with spoiled children
We grow fat on fantasy
I guess that's why I'm leaving
I crave reality
[/i]
Ari paused for a moment to gaze in the mirror. She had her mother’s eyes and her mother’s hair. She smiled like her mother. She’d never really looked at the rest of her. She turned her head, taking a long time to stare at the curve of her ear. Had her father given her that? What about her nose and the way it tipped up just a little bit? She moved forward and rested a hand on the polished glass.
She realized numbly that she’d never seen a picture of her father.
“Who are you?” She asked… not really sure who she was aiming the question at.
How had she not known that her father was a Get of Fenris? What else didn’t she know? She’d just moved in this cloud of obsessive self-involvement. She’d bought James’s schtick on heroism and how her father had been out to save the world for years.
Now she wanted to learn the truth.
I remember blue skies
Walking the block
I loved it when you held me high
I loved to hear you talk
You would take me to the movie
You would take me to the beach
You would take me to a place inside
That is so hard to reach
“She’s just like you.” He gazed up with tear streaked cheeks. “Strong-willed and a brat until she gets her own way. But she’s strong. And she’s brave and beautiful… that way her mother was. She smiles just like her you know…”
“I remember… the first time I met you. You were watching her. She never knew you watched her. Even now she doesn’t. My mother had brought me along to pick you up. My whole life changed that day.” His voice trembled.
“I remember all of the places you took me. All the things you taught me. It was always a challenge, always a lesson… But that was okay. I liked the challenge. Like when you brought me to the Beach and made me pick out the three Garou from a distance… and I found all four.” He gets a crooked grin at the memory. “And later that night when no one else was around you let Jamie and I take you out surfing? She laughed so hard the first time you fell.” James’s voice gets desperate almost, as if he’s trying to cling to the memory and the happiness. But it faded quickly, alone with his smile.
“And then you left.”
Growing up is not an absence of dreaming
It's being able to understand the difference between the ones you can hold
And the ones that you've been sold
And Dreaming is a good thing cause it brings new things to life
But pretending is an ending that perpetuates a lie
Forgetting what you are
Seeing through what you've been told
She was doing what she needed to, and that was what mattered. She was scared, terrified. She was leaving her Sept behind, her Pack, her cubs. She was leaving everything she had. But she had to do it. What else was she going to do? Sit around and never know who she was, who she came from? No. Not an option.
She stared at the nearly completed packing and sighed, feeling tears wobble in her eyes.
James was hurt and she knew it but… He had hurt her. He had lied to her to spare her feelings and that wasn’t what she wanted. She didn’t want to be coddled anymore. And she was tired of having to remind people of that. So no. She didn’t forgive him. She couldn’t. Not yet.
She was growing up, and it was time he and everyone else saw that. That’s why she had to leave… She had to figure out her past before she could decide on a future.
Father of mine
Tell me where did you go
You had the world inside your hand
But you did not seem to know
Father of mine
Tell me what do you see
When you look back at your wasted life
And you don’t see me
[/b]
“You son of a bitch!” James yelled, being drowned out easily by the music. “I loved you! I would have given the world for you! But it wasn’t enough! Because I didn’t blood my claws and turn into some monsterous beast I wasn’t enough.” He crumpled to the ground, crying and feeling the anger and grief flood him.
“You could have watched her grow up! You could have stood beside her and helped her! You could have helped me! We could have made a new family!” He pounded his fist against the ground, eyes tightened in an overflow of emotion. “And now she’s leaving! Because you weren’t strong enough to keep on living! Because you couldn’t fight the pain of being left behind! So you left us behind! You left me behind! You selfish bastard!”
He was crying and grieving and spasming, feeling himself fill up with emotions he had bottled since the day he had been by his mentor that hat he would have to go on alone. That Michael was going out and not coming back.
Ohh truth is stranger than fiction
This is my chance to get it right
And life is much better without all of those pretty lies
[/i]
She zipped up the backpack and pulled the drawstrings closed on her shoulder bag. She stared around her room. Things were in disarray, clothes hanging haphazardly off of edges and scattered on the floor. But that was okay. That gave her a reason to come back. She had to clean up the mess. It gave her a reason to-
She looked over her shoulder wildly when the music went off. She saw a red-eyed James looking at her, heartbreak weighing heavily on his eyes and his mouth, making the corners of both tip downwards. His finger still rested near the power button on her stereo. Her eyes hardened even though she kind of didn’t want them to. She narrowed her gaze and shook her head.
“Don’t waste your breath.” She said coldly. “I’m going no matter what you say.” She had to be angry; she had no other choice.
“I know.” His voice sounded so small, so far away. So different from every other time she’d heard him speak since meeting him years ago.
I will never be safe
I will never be sane
I will always be weird inside
I will always be lame
Now I’m a grown man
With a child of my own
And I swear I’m not going to let her know
All the pain I have known
[/b]
“I know.” He forced himself to speak, to reassure her. He understood she had to leave. He wanted to tell her everything. To tell her how much he’d loved her father, everything Michael had meant to him… but he couldn’t. He couldn’t break her heart like that. She felt bad, even if she didn’t want him to know. He knew anyways, how could he not?
“Okay… Good.” She seemed surprised by his reaction and the awkward words hung between them hesitantly, waiting to be accepted by either side. When acceptance didn’t come they just kind floated to the ground and settled like dust particles on the carpet.
“I’m sorry.” He said as quietly as he could. He wanted to say more, to tell her about her father in the most deep details. His hardness, his rage, his persistence… how much she reminded him of her father. And how terrified that made him.
“I know.” The words barely reached his ears and he glanced up at her suddenly. She wasn’t looking at him, instead staring at her mother’s picture.
He wanted to say more. He wanted to.
But he couldn’t.
Ohh So Goodbye Alice in Wonderland
And you can keep your yellow brick road
There is a difference between dreaming and pretending
These are not tears in my eyes
They are only a reflection of my lonely mind finding
They are only a reflection of my lonely mind finding
I found what's missing in my life
[/i]
She stared into the eyes of her mother, because otherwise she would have to look at him and she would break.
“I have to go.” She growled fiercely, as if she expected him to fight her choice.
“I know.” He said again and she could hear him crying. It drove her mad because she
loved James. Didn’t he understand that? How hard it was for her to just leave him? To be so angry at him? Why couldn’t he understand? Why was he making it so hard for her?
Why was she making it so hard for him?
She grabbed her two bags, slinging one up onto her shoulder and grabbing the other by the strap. She went to move past him and he didn’t stop her. She paused and glanced over her shoulder at him.
He was crying openly, tears running down his face.
And she was crying too.
She turned and walked out of the apartment.
Then he walked away
Daddy gave me a name
Then he walked away
My dad gave me a name
Then he walked away
My daddy gave me a name
Then he walked away
My daddy gave me a name
Then he walked away
Then he walked away
Then he walked away
He watched her go and realized numbly that he was crying. He didn’t bother to brush away his tears… There was no one to see him now.
“Please come home to me in one piece, Arianna. Please. Don’t be like your father.” He whispered after her, the sound barely even making it a few inches from his mouth before being swallowed in the almost tangible quiet.
He moved to the window so he could watch her walk down the path. She glanced up once but he ducked out of view. She hadn’t seen him.
His heart raced and he felt the tears running more thickly down his face. The Déjà vu was too great. ‘I’m leaving’. Except he never came back. He’d just up and left because James was not enough.
And there Arianna went, walking alone down the driveway.
He almost ran after her, almost chased her down to give her one final hug.
But in the end he didn’t.
“Please come back to me…” He whispered to the empty air.
She paused and cocked her head as if listening to something. He felt his heart race and his body go rigid. Look back. Show that you heard.
But she didn’t. She just shook her head as if to clear it and continued the long walk away from Soloman Estates and into the horizon line.
Topic: Goodbye Alice in Wonderland [closed] (Read 2749 times)