Rising Shards

After school, I asked Stella if we could go somewhere. I couldn’t think of a good place to talk, so we ended up at the new apartment. Diast had papers to grade, so it was just us. We went into my new basement den, mostly because the couch was our familiar one for when we had to have deeper talks. Stella hugged a throw pillow and dove right in.

“Zeta, I should have told you. I should have told you everything. I’m sorry. And I understand if you hate me forever.”

“I don’t hate you,” I said.

Stella looked like I didn’t believe her. I suddenly realized a tell that this week had been a lot on us both; we each had our hair lazily tied up in a ponytail when we normally would have put a bit more effort into styling. I decided that I liked that we had the same tell.

“I could never hate you,” I said. “No more secrets about our family though, OK?”

“Deal.” Stella said.

I wished I had a throw pillow of my own, so I rushed into my room and came back with a stuffed animal. Hugging my Tower Buddies Arlit plush made talking easier for some reason.

“Are we really Kathrons?” I asked.

“Yes,” Stella said, her voice carrying the distance of someone letting out things locked away in safes they never thought they’d have to open. “But legally our last name’s Faleur now.  I got it changed officially a bit after I got custody of you.”

“So you officially, legally, like,” I said. “I was gonna say own me, but that’s not right.”

“I’m your official legal guardian, yeah. I didn’t just pretend that.” Stella said. “It was an insane amount of paperwork, I was thorough.”

“Good.” I said.

Stella leaned back. She put her head in her hands. “God, Zeta. I was so scared.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“No, I get it,” Stella said. “You didn’t know, and I didn’t know how far they’d go and how much they’d scheme to try and get you to them. I just…” With the safe containing all the stuff Stella kept hidden finally open, her voice started to sound like her normal tone again. “For all the time I worried about telling you…part of me always thought you’d ask to stay with them if you knew.”

“Reminds me of how I worried about how everyone would take Jeans’ side when she got really bad.” I said. “Which says a lot about our parents, huh?”

Stella laughed bitterly. “Sure does.”

“Did they try to do that beast tendency with you, too?” I asked. “Mom told me this weird story that I think was about her and Dad, and us, and I think I gleamed that they tried to make you all beast tendency-y from it.”

“Yeah, she does that story thing a lot,” Stella said. “And yeah, they did.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “The other thing I think I got from the story…did you break the machine during that void storm?”

Stella thought about her answer for a long time.

“I didn’t break it,” She finally said. “I just made sure it didn’t take you with it. I couldn’t let them do that to…” She couldn’t finish her sentence. But she didn’t need to.

“I know,” I said. “And thank you.”

“But they still found a way to try.” Stella said.

“They’re not going to come after us here, are they?” I asked.

“Knowing them, they probably could, but they’re so selfish they’re going to get wrapped up in a decade’s worth of void traversal before they remember we exist again.” Stella said. “I'm not going to say they're never going to show up again, though. But if they ever try anything…I’ll never let them take you.”

“Thank you.” I said. “The same to you.”

I could see the weight lifted from Stella hearing that. But maybe the weight was lifted already just from me not wanting to run away with our parents instead of staying with her.

“I realized I’m kind of a hypocrite, Stella.” I said.

“You absolutely are not, excuse me?” She said.

“I get on you about family secrets and stuff,” I said. “And I kept a big secret from you for a while.”

“What?” Stella said.

“I didn’t tell you the time I snuck out to see Jeans,” I said. “The last time I saw her. Before Fang Moon Web. When I ended things with her.”

“…what are you talking about?” Stella asked.

“Right after I told you everything Jeans was doing to me, and you told me not to see her…she asked me to see her and I wanted to make things right,” I said. “So I snuck out in the middle of the night. And she showed me the Starlight Despair. I didn’t know what it was at the time. And she had a meltdown and got her bloodsaber out and attacked me. That’s how I got this scar.” I showed an immediately mortified Stella my palm. “And then I took the train back home and snuck back into my room. And I didn’t want to worry you, so I never told you. It was a long time ago, so I was thinking maybe after this thing with our parents it wasn’t as bad, but. It’s still really bad, huh?”

“Zeta…” Stella said. “I’m so sorry, you poor thing. That’s horrible.”

“I’m alright…” I said. “I made it out of this one without scars.” I looked at the top of my hands, where I still had bandages from where Mom stabbed me. “Well. Not yet, I guess. Thinking about that night with Jeans made me realize I didn’t learn anything from it. I did it again. I just sneak off to go to people who hurt me.”

“You don’t,” Stella said. “If I told you about them, I don’t think you would have been as enticed to go.”

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

“That was part of why I was so worried when I found out about how Jeans treated you,” Stella said. “I worried we were just doomed to people like our parents. Like that was imprinted on us.”

“I hope you don’t still feel that way,” I said. “No way Diast is a Jeans. And Oka definitely isn’t.”

“Yeah…” Stella said.

“If it weren’t for Dr. Diast, I don’t know if I’d feel up to talking about this already.” I said. “We had a really good talk and she helped me get my aggressions out against some void monsters."

“She really is amazing.” Stella said.

"Another thing..." I said, feeling that chill like cold water thinking about it again. "Mom and Dad are really bad about...or I figure they are. They didn't react well when I said I was gay."

"Yep." Stella said mournfully. I didn't need to ask anything further there that day, I could practically see memories flashing across Stella's eyes. Even not knowing the specific moments from her past that Stella thought of there, I could guess.

"Thank you for, I mean I know you are too, and we've talked about it, and um." I stumbled over my words. "Just thank you. For letting me be me."

"Of course." Stella said.

Both of us held our respective throw pillow and plush as we mulled everything over.

“So you said our last name is legally Faleur.” I said.

“Uh huh,” Stella said.

“Where’d you come up with it?”

“From an old playwright.” Stella said. “Their work was, and still is, really motivational to me. And their last name was Faleur.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.” I said.

“I don’t know if you have any affinity for the Kathron name now, but…”

“I like Faleur,” I said. “A lot more than Kathron.”

“I do too,” Stella said.

“It’s weird, I’ve been thinking a lot.” I said. I paused, waiting for Stella’s usual big sister kind of joke like ‘Thinking. That’s a new one for you.’ But she wasn’t in the mood for her usual big sister jokes. “And part of me is mad about the secrets, angry at mom and dad, devastated really, but. I can’t help but be kind of proud. Kind of really proud.”

“Of what?” Stella asked.

“Not them, obviously.” I said. “Of you.”

Stella started to object, but I didn’t let her.

“I think…a lot of who I am today is because of you,” I said. “And if I was raised by them, who knows what I’d be like?”

“I think even with them you’d still be the Zeta I know.” Stella said.

“Still.” I said. “It hit me that you were raised by them, but you ended up you. You ended up kind and caring, and you didn’t even have a big sister guiding you there.”

Stella’s face contorted, and I knew she needed more than the throw pillow to hug.

“Usually I get the rock and hum,” I said. “Since this time isn’t normal, do you want me to be the one that rocks you and hums?”

“I’d…I’d like that, Zeta.” Stella said.

I did my best to try and hold Stella, rocking her back and forth like she did for me. I didn’t know the exact song she hummed whenever I needed comfort like this, but I did my best as my humming and our tears did the talking for a bit.

“Oka really was right, you know.” I said.

“About what?” Stella asked.

“Don’t you remember? She said, ‘One Stella is worth a lot of family members.’” I said. “She was right.”

I stroked Stella’s hair as she clung to me, as though I’d slip away from her and back to our parents if she even let go slightly. I held her tightly for the same reason. We stayed like that for a while. All that crying burned up a lot of energy though, and it was dinner time. Stella promised she’d make something really good, but there wasn’t much in the fridge, so we ended up ordering out.

“I feel a lot better already,” I said as we waited in the kitchen for the delivery person to show up with our food.

“Me too,” Stella said.

“I’m sorry I put you through this,” I said.

“And I’m sorry I kept all that from you.” Stella said.

“So…that makes us even?” I said.

“You did serve your grounding time, and your suspension,” Stella calculated. “So yes. I kind of thought you’d do your apology card like normal. But I guess this time isn’t normal.”

I got up and searched through my backpack, handing Stella a homemade card. “I…still made one. It’s basically the stuff I just said though.”

“I’ll have to read it later, I know it’ll make me cry more and my tear ducts have dried out, I think.” Stella said. As she put the card away, a picture I put in it fell out.

“Oh, right,” I said as Stella picked up the photo. “I swiped that from Mom and Dad.”

Stella could only look at it for a split second. She maintained a stone face as she quickly put the picture back in the card. “Like I said, gonna cry more later. Let me recharge my cries.”

Our delivery finally arrived, a hearty serving of burgers and fries.

“We better wait for Dr. Diast before we eat,” I said. “Faleur family tradition, right?”

Stella beamed. “Right.” The food was really tempting though, so I hoped Diast wouldn’t be too long.