Rising Shards

I felt light as I arrived at the Faleur's backyard. Almost too perfectly, everyone was out playing in the backyard. Zeta had just stumbled attempting a basic move, falling pathetically into some mud, and Stella was looking her over.

"Let me see," Stella said.

"I just have mud on my pants, it's fine," Zeta said.

The others started to notice my presence. Sai pushed through and made one last attempt to stop me.

"I thought you were going home?" Sai asked.

"I can't take it another second," I said.

"Can we help you?" Stella asked. "Who is this?"

Who is this? A crooked grin crossed my face, at odds with the anger building in me seeing the Faleur sisters together in person. She really had no clue.

"It's…her name's P.D." Zeta said. "I dunno why she's…here…"

"Hey, remember what I said—" Sai started.

"Not now, Sai," I said.

I matched Kalei's stare, even if she couldn't tell with my mask. If she wanted another fight in this small yard, I'd win this time.

"I just got the results back, my treatment is finally working the way it's supposed to," I said. "I've been trapped under this thing for far too long, trapped in this, and now, mercifully, I don't have to anymore. And I couldn't make it another minute without saying this to you face to face."

I activated the mechanism to take my mask off. Now I would truly be free of it.

I met Stella's eyes first as soon as my face was visible, my long hair flowing behind me.

"My name is Anastasia Kathron," I said. "Unlike you two, I refuse to reject the Kathron lineage, and with my given name being my mother's middle name, I won't reject her branches of the family line either. I'm not a coward, or a liar, like you two."

I shifted my gaze back and forth between Stella and Zeta now. Both looked confused, Zeta more so.

"What...what do you...?" Zeta could barely say anything.

"I..." Stella, similarly, was tongue tied.

"I want you both to know that there are no two beings I hate more in the entire universe," I said. "And that what you did to fracture the Kathron family will never be forgiven. I won't attack you, not here, as long as you don't strike me first. But I can't hide any longer."

"Alright, OK," Sai again tried to stand in front of me as the others all watched in varying states of confusion. Myles and Ash were with them, standing at my side as though they were going to grab my arms and drag me away.

Dr. Diast approached as well.

"I don't know if this is a prank or something, but you have to go," Diast said.

"It's no prank," I said. This was supposed to be a crowning moment of my life, but something about Diast's tone made me feel like a spoiled child getting scolded, and my cheeks burned. "It's the truth. I have a right to tell my sisters why I hate them."

"Well, you did, so you can go now," Diast said.

I had a lot more prepared to say. Paragraphs of things I'd been waiting to tell the Faleurs. But my mouth went dry, and the stares of my friends told me it was time to go.

Back in the van, no one said anything to me for the entire drive back to school. I didn't reflect on it, just leaned my head against the glass, wishing the cold could take away the burning feeling in my face.

When we returned to our dorm area, the Taramin lab that had been transported onto the Rising Shards campus, Sai, Ash, and Myles practically cornered me.

"I hope you're proud of yourself," Sai said.

"Oh, come on, I wasn't that bad," I said.

"That was pretty bad," Sai said.

"I'd never say that to my sister," Myles said.

"Right?" Ash said. "We were having a good time, could you seriously not cool off?"

I didn't have a good answer. This was supposed to feel better. I kept thinking that as I retreated to my room, slamming the door.

"I screwed something up. Maybe." I texted Nikki, knowing I wouldn't get a response. Sure enough, the message read notification popped up, but nothing else.

After that, I marched right to the log with the picture of the Faleurs taped to it. I didn't know what else I could do, so I stabbed it more and more until it was unrecognizable. Then put another sheet with their pictures on it and did the same to that one, too. It didn't feel righteous like it usually did. It felt pathetic, so I hefted the log and threw it across the room. And threw some other things too and screamed.

I argued with myself internally as I hunched on my bed, practicing bass. More like furiously plucking strings without much care for rhythm or pace, but still.

I had been waiting so long. How dare they all treat my big moment like this? We were friends, shouldn't they have been on my side?

On the other, it did sting to hurt Sai and go back on my word to them. To ruin everyone's day.

But they could have given me something there. Allowed me to enjoy the feeling of my grand reveal before dousing my flames.

Though was that the only reason it was so unsatisfying? I felt the stinging embarrassment of it all before leaving.

Did I make a mistake?

I hissed as I broke a string on my bass the moment the question hit my mind. I put my bass away, deciding to fix that later. For a while, I just stayed in bed, numbness overwhelming all my other feelings, perhaps protecting me from the battle in my mind. But that hurt in its own way, too, and by nightfall I was still reeling, still turning the moment over in my mind, one that I should have been thrilled to look back on.

Sleep was difficult that night. The only reprieve I had from my anxieties about what I'd done were the brief moments I could pull myself away from it, instead thinking about that singer at the concert, the one with the streak of green hair that took me away from all my problems. For brief, flittering moments before sleep, her voice gave me another reprieve from the pain.

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