“Hello, Fallyn. This is Adam.”
Adam…
Of the Northern Pack.
The leader of the Northern Pack.
He called my phone?!
“Hello… sir.”
There was a chuckle at the other end of the line as I moved to dry off a little from my shower that just got cut short.
“I’d like to ask if you’d be willing to help me with something.”
“What is it?”
“A greenhouse.”
I froze at the words for a few seconds, the line going silent in that time. A greenhouse… Greenhouse… Plants.
There was a bright smile that appeared in my mind at the thought. A bright smile with crinkled eyes and flowers practically appearing out of his palms. With that image, there was an ache in my chest.
I swallowed hard, my voice tighter than normal.
Plants weren’t my specialty… not that I really had one, except for flying.
“Ah, well… I’m not sure if I’d be any good at–”
He cut me off.
“Don’t get me wrong, it’s not to plant anything. I need you to help me make it.”
“Make it?”
My brows furrowed at that. Make a greenhouse? For someone else? I wouldn’t have to deal with the dirt or the plants, just construct it?
“Put it together, in a way. I need an extra hand. It’s going to be built on the top of one of the towers in the castle, above Elizabeth’s room, to be exact.”
My heart started pounding in my chest. Was it fear? Worry? Excitement? I wasn’t sure if I could really tell at all.
It was going to be happening near Elizabeth.
I was to see her again?
In person?
“It’s going to be her birthday present.”
“I see…” I breathed the two words out carefully, unsure of what else I was supposed to say.
“If you can’t help, that’s alright. I thought I’d just ask.”
“No, no… I’ll come help.”
What am I doing? I asked that question to myself, over and over in my mind as he talked. There was a happier tone to his voice as we ironed out the details of my arrival.
I couldn’t back down out of this now.
And by the time I’d hung up, I was staring down at my phone in shock. I just…
That happened, just now. Didn’t it?
I know Elizabeth would love to see you again.
That phrase popped into my head. No matter how I tried to brush it off, it just seemed to come back stronger, begging me to entertain that thought. I muttered a few curses under my breath.
Adam never said that, I thought bitterly to myself, he didn’t say those words.
Stop thinking about it.
Stop thinking about her, for once in your sorry life, stop it.
Even as I scolded myself for thinking it, I saw the way her eyes seemed to shine as she smiled. The fierce determination that I’d seen from her, accompanying the blind faith that I’d catch her as she leapt at me.
I shook my head as I walked back into my room, towel wrapped around my waist, phone in hand. I tossed the latter over onto my bed where it bounced a little as it landed.
It’s been years.
Does she even remember me?
Surely, I wasn’t that important to her, right? It was probably like a childhood memory for her. It wasn’t anything big or drastic.
I found my gaze wandering over to the mirror on the wall in my room. I stared into my own eyes, trying to find some kind of familiarity about my own expression, my own face.
It’s been upwards of… what? Was it nine years, now?
I probably looked different, not that I’d be able to tell unless I looked back to the pictures from that time. As we grow, we don’t really notice the changes we have ourselves. But, we see it in others after it’s been long enough. If I hadn’t looked in a mirror for nine years, I’d probably be shocked too, even if I wasn’t now.
And Elizabeth… she was all grown up now.
She’d look… different too.
Nine years.
She’d be around twenty now…
I shook my head. Why was I getting worked up about this? It wasn’t like we were close… It wasn’t. We weren't.
And maybe that was the problem. Was I going to expect something to be there when there wasn’t? I remembered her because she’d made a huge impact on my life… and she – she didn’t even know it.
I was hoping she’d remember me, wasn’t I?
I wanted her to.
Sighing heavily, I shook my head.
It wasn’t as if anything could happen between us. Sure, I listened to every word of the stories people told me about her. About trips to the lake. About how she’d gotten Josephine hooked on a book series that wasn’t finished yet. About how she was put in charge of organizing the old records in the castle…
Avid reader.
Great listener.
Oh, so easily distracted.
I listened to it all.
What else could I do?
I couldn’t go up there and talk to her.
I wasn’t about to ask anyone for her phone number.
There was no point, because then I’d have to actually find words to say to her, and all of my thoughts were already a jumbled mess when it came to her.
And then there was this. I turned and looked over my shoulder at my reflection again, brushing my fingers over the dark marks there. I was once reduced to a number. They didn’t care about my name. They didn’t care about me.
But maybe the worst of it was that if it hadn’t been for my brother… I might’ve fallen into their trap, of being only a number, of being a slave, of being a lab rat. If they hadn't kept us together for that short time...
And I couldn’t even save him.
I ran my fingers through my damp hair with a sigh. It was exhausting to even think about it all. It was hard to remember how we’d been separated… and it was after he’d lost his voice too, even his memories were fuzzy about it.
Sometimes I gazed into the mirror and pretended I was talking with him. We’d looked alike… identical. It was ridiculous. He was probably dead. And here I was, enjoying the good free life, right? The life of a free twin who’d once been trapped.
There was a knock on my door.
“Hey Fallyn?”
It was Henry’s voice.
“Yeah, dad?”
“Dinner’s ready, and I didn’t hold back. There’s a feast waiting.”
I chuckled a bit.
“Roger that. I’ll be out in a bit.”
I heard his faint footsteps as he walked off.
Dad, huh?
I thought back. It hadn’t always been my response, but it was normal now. It felt right. It was hard to say when it started. Five years ago? Or even ten?
They’d been patient with me, not forcing me to do anything, but eat and sleep and stay hydrated. Henry had even gone as far as to tell me that he wasn’t my biological parent and I didn’t owe him anything. I lived in his house. I ate the food he made. I was given time and space.
And they firmly believed that I didn’t owe them anything. They belived it so much that I began to believe it too.
I slipped a shirt over my head and reached into the drawer to grab my boxers and sweatpants to put on.
Henry and James…
Though I never knew who my real father was, and my mother died immediately after we were captured, they’d become my family. There was a silent support and gentleness that they had and it always put me at ease. And no, it wasn’t Henry’s powers, though I knew what those felt like too.
He was a twin like me, and had an ability to calm people with a touch. In the early days… after adopting me, he’d had to use it, when I wasn't looking.
In fact, maybe the reason I felt comfortable around them was for that same reason. They were twins too. Like me, they were twins. They had abilities, like me. And not one of them were like the others.
But we were all in the same boat together.
We’d all had to fight, in a sense, for our survival.
James knew what it was like, he understood my fears of certain noises and movements, more than the average person. Because he’d been in a prison too. He had nightmares too. He sometimes woke up with a shout or cry.
It put things into perspective.
I wasn’t alone.
What I went through wasn’t solely mine. Sure, we had different experiences, different situations, we were different ages and in there for different times… but he knew what it was like to be trapped, to feel responsible for someone other than himself.
He was lucky, I supposed, in a way.
He got to save his brother.
I walked down the hallway, hearing light laughter. As I peeked around the corner, I couldn’t help but smile a little.
James was pouting, his face red.
“Henry…”
The man in question laughed harder.
“I couldn’t help it, okay?”
James rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, sure you couldn’t.”
My smile grew as I stepped closer. The table was full of food, various kinds, deserts and main courses, and sides.
“What’s going on out here?” I jokingly asked.
Henry beamed at me as James immediately pointed a finger at him.
“Don’t you dare try and loop him into this!”
“Oh, come on, he’s going to agree with me!”
I sat down and found the tension was falling from my shoulders as they playfully argued with one another. Apparently, James had helped with making a soup tonight, among other things, and it reminded Henry of a time back when the can opener had broken. James, reverting back to his own childhood ways, had taken a knife to the top to open it.
It was pretty funny. He’d just gone straight for a knife, like there wasn’t anything else we could do.
But, in the end, it worked.
And it surprised the heck out of Henry and I.
Time passed and it made it a cherished memory of mine. We smiled and laughed about it now. Of course, James also knew how to work a can opener, and he used it quite frequently… since we got a new one.
At this point in my life, not everything in the past was bad.
Half of it.
Over half of it was good.
And that was thanks to Henry and James. My dads.
And…
It was also, I started to think, it was also because of...
I shook off that thought as I listened to them talk about their days at work. I, myself, had gone over to a nearby back to help with the design of a new house. Construction plans. That’s what I did for work – the planning and the constructing, so it wasn’t really a surprise that Adam asked for my help on building a greenhouse. After all, I could fly, and I could build. I was the perfect person to ask.
It wasn’t the construction I was thinking about though.
My mind was elsewhere.
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