Chapter 8
I’ve been walking aimlessly around the woods when I finally find him. He’s sitting on an old fallen tree by the river. I watch as he fails at attempting to skip rocks with one hand while the other holds his head. I picture a hand full of rocks lifting into the air. They more or so just bobble around in the air and I try to skip them down the river. Most just sink, but a couple of the rocks make two or three hops on the brown creek water.
Alexander turns and looks up at me, but doesn’t offer a smile. His eyes are puffy and red. The tears have stopped coming, but only because he has no more left to cry. I step over the log and take a seat next to him. I lift a rock and try to skip it without using my gift, but it immediately sinks.
“You know, without my gift I’m nothing,” I look at him, and then back down before I add, “Even with my gift I’m nothing. I don’t know how to use it.” I pause and he doesn’t say anything so I keep talking, “I didn’t have the right to speak to you that way. I’m truly sorry for what I said back there, Alexander. I didn’t mean any of it.” He still refuses to look at me and I don’t blame him. I take out my mother’s journal, I don’t have a use for it anymore anyway, and I put it on the ground by his feet.
We are silent for a second until Alexander says with a broken voice, “Just go away.”
“I’m not going anywhere Alexander,” I say but he cuts me off.
“I said go away,” he repeats harsher, but there is no hatred in his voice.
“What if I don’t want to?” I struggle to say back to him, my voice growing and beginning to shake.
“Adaline it doesn’t matter if you want to or not. I need time to myself. Whether you meant what you said back there or not, the fact is you’re not who I thought you were,” he says, and his words pierce my heart, leaving my chest aching.
“Alexander, I’m still that girl you knew. I’m the same girl that went on all those crazy adventures with you, running through the woods and the city.” My voice is so weak I can barely make my words audible. I don’t believe the words I say and neither does Alexander. I’m not the same girl and he knows that now.
“The Adaline I knew would never have kept something like her gift a secret from me,” he says coldly and I know he’s right.
“Alexander,” I start again, but he stops me.
“You put my life in danger Adaline. I not only helped a prisoner escape and defied my oath to the King, but I helped a gifted escape,” he says, shaking his hanging head.
“So you’re saying if you knew I was a gifted you would have turned me in?” I ask shocked at what I am hearing.
“No, of course not,” he says, his eyes meeting mine for the first time, “But I should have known what I was getting myself into. Do you realize how much of a fool I look like to Paylon now? I didn’t even know the girl I have been best friends with my whole life has the gift. She didn’t even trust me enough to mention it,” he says under his voice, more to himself.
“How do you think I feel?” I say softly. “You didn’t trust me either.”
Alexander doesn’t respond so I stop fighting him. I’m about to get up and leave when I see Alexander toss the journal back by my feet. I bend over and pick it up. I try and open the journal by lifting the cover and find it magically unlocked.
“Leave and get to freedom, you have what you wanted,” he shoots.
“But what about you? Where will you go?” I say.
“Back to the castle I suppose,” he mumbles.
“Alexander, are you crazy? If you return you’ll be killed!” my panicked voice says.
“Adaline you have what you want, now just leave!” he shouts back at me. He’s trying to sound forceful, but I can hear the shakiness of his voice.
“But you’re wrong. I don’t have what I want,” I say in a small voice.
“Then what could you possibly want?” He shouts and turns to face me.
“I want you, Alexander. I need you.” My grip tightens on the journal as I get up to leave, not wanting to hear what more he has to say because I know it’s nothing that will make this any better.
I make it back to the clearing and into the bunker, my eyes full of tears but not letting any go. I sit down on my bed and open the journal, the only thing I have left to turn to. On the first old tan page is one sentence in bold letters. I can’t believe what it says. I wipe my eyes clear of tears as I reread my mother’s handwriting.
If I could only tell you one thing it would be: Never Let Alexander Go.
I turn to the next page in the journal. “Why can I never let Alexander go?” I think to myself.
