Glow (11 page)

34.

Charlie

Lucy walks into the dark study, her hair wet but wearing clean clothes and a shocked expression on her face.

“Your hair,” I say in surprise. She’s cut it to her chin; she looks like a different person. She runs her hands over the wet strands, but doesn’t say anything, she just shrugs her shoulders.

“Do you know what happened to the power? The electricity was working for hours and now it’s gone. Did the Nobleman turn it off?” Duke asks.

“Lukas, you mean?” Lucy asks, the room filling with her green light. “You don’t have to call him the Nobleman, you know.”

“Yes. I know,
but he is
. The Nobleman. Anyways, do you know what happened?” Duke’s face is cloaked in concern for Lukas. I try not to puke, prophet or not, he’s still my brother. 

“He’s in the shower downstairs. I think the power went out because of all the people using the house today. The power will kick back on by itself, or Lukas can restart it when he’s done.” I know she isn’t telling the whole truth.

“I don’t mind the power being out. It feels cozy, being bundled up in these blankets. You know life used to always be like this. That’s why I’ve never understood the fascination with needing electricity so bad,” Junie says. Duke’s arm is wrapped around her tight while they cuddle on the couch. A pang shoots through me.

I don’t want that. I want that. I wanted that with Lucy. Perfection wanted that for us, too. I remember so many nights after being sent away from The Light thinking of her, my only, friend. Perfection was so different then.

The room suddenly pulses back to life with the generator back in service. The overhead lights turn on and heat pushes through the vents. Lukas walks in the room, and looks right at Lucy. I look away, not wanting to see the details documenting their complicated relationship.

“So, who here is on team technology and who’s on team pioneer?” I ask the room, genuinely curious.

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard Junie talk about wanting to leave it all, the pursuit of electricity, and the way we ran things before the blackout.

“Well, not to disagree, but I kind of am,” Duke says sheepishly. “Honestly, I’m excited about seeing The Light.”

“If I can be at The Light, with the conveniences it affords, without the crazy controlling parts … I’m all in,” Basil says.

“Well, obviously we’re all going to The Light. I was talking in hypotheticals. You know, people lived for millenniums without fire,” Junie adds.

“I think we desire a power source because we know it’s possible. If we didn’t know about how the world was operating before the virus, we wouldn’t want it. But we do,” Lukas says, diplomatically.

“What do you think?” Lucy asks me.

“I think Lukas is right.” As much as I wish I didn’t, I do. “Since you’ve never been to The Light and experienced all the resources, Junie, you’re less interested in what it can do for you to make life easier. Remember how you were so excited tonight about getting a pair of clean socks? That’s life at The Light, times infinity.”

“So you’re going to stay, after we fight and claim it for Lucy and Lukas?” Junie asks me pointedly.

“I….” I don’t finish, not wanting to promise something I’m not sure of. How can I commit to the confines of an island when all I want is to be free?

“There’s fresh cheese at the Refuge, warm showers every day, and laundry machines that wash the clothes,” Timid speaks up, her eyes lit up as she speaks of her home.

“You miss it?” I ask, sitting down on the couch next to Duke.

“So very much,” she says, quietly.

“Man,” I say, stretching my legs out in front of me. “I remember the cheese. And the vegetables. No meat, like the jerky we have now, but fish and yogurt. All the time.” It’s hard to not be nostalgic.

“I can’t wait,” Colton pipes up. “Can you even imagine, Duke? Sleeping in a warm bed, every night, like here?”

“Won’t you miss the trailers, even a little?” Junie asks her brother.

“Maybe a little, but I won’t miss the work. Everything takes so much time. We’ve been breaking our backs just to survive. I want the soaking tubs and clean sheets.” Colton laughs, at the sheer craziness of the concept.

“What are you gonna do in those clean sheets, Colton?” Duke asks, punching him in the arm, jokingly.

“What aren’t I going to do?” Colton keeps laughing. Everyone joins in, but me.

I’m not committed like they are, I never was. I don’t understand Lucy and Lukas’s light or the Rainbow Children philosophy, but I am okay with that. I don’t need to understand everything about the world to understand myself.

I slip quietly from the room and head outside to Lucky. I unroll my sleeping bag and lay it beside my mare, wanting to be under the stars and the limitless possibilities of the sky.

My mind turns to my childhood at The Light, the memories of Perfection and me running through the marble hallway, being scolded for being loud, sneaking in to watch Lukas in the energy room. We’d steal glances at one another as we giggled, conspirators in play. Schemers breaking the rules as we grabbed extra muffins from the kitchen, claiming we were getting them for the Nobleman, and then laughing as we inhaled them on our way to a service.

I fall asleep thinking about the part of my life I most often push away, wrecked over the fact Perfection choose to go back to the place where our memories were formed. I left her there, believing better memories will be made out here, alone. But the truth of it is, my memories with her are the fondest of my life.

35.

Lucy

The morning passes in a blur of activity. Everyone runs around, packing up their gear on the horses, and gathering whatever supplies they think they may need. Lukas presses a tight schedule on us, anxious to return to The Light. Leaving them without power has him worried.

He doesn’t seem to be overwhelmed at the responsibility he’s taking one by one blindly walking into the future, tied to a chair one again. Somehow he’d be able to hold tight to the faith that in the end there will be a divine destiny waiting for us.

I don’t feel the same, that’s why the kiss last night was so terrifying.

It’s all I want, Lukas with me, but I’m so scared about what giving into him means. What it means I’ll have to give up because I’m not ready to forfeit myself any more than I already am by accepting my role as a Rainbow Child - whatever that actually means. I hope Integrity can help us understand.

Until I understand, I’m not ready to give Lukas any more pieces of my heart. I’m scared that I’ve already given away too many.

“Lucy, you ready to go? I think you’re the last one inside,” Charlie says, coming up behind me in the study.

“Everyone else is ready to leave?”

“Yeah, the horses are ready, the whole camp’s broken down. I think it’s time to head out.”

“I guess there’s no reason to stay any longer.” I turn from him, not wanting him to see the tears in the corners of my eyes.

“Saying good-bye is hard.” He tries to reassure me. “Even if we know it is inevitable.”

I know he’s talking about more than the compound. He’s talking about us.

“So you don’t think, in another time … we might have … been…?” I ask, grasping for something I know is already fading away.

“Another time?” Charlie runs a hand over his chin, leaning in the doorway. His dark rumpled hair hiding his eyes. “Yeah, we might have been, Lucy. But we have to live in today. In this moment. And in this moment, you aren’t mine. We both know that.”

“You think I belong with Lukas?” I ask, surprised.

“I didn’t say you belong with anyone. It’s just that when you look at me, you only see the
idea
of me.”

“And what do you want me to see, Charlie?” Looking at him, this boy who seems to have a hold on the wild places of my heart, I bite my lip; already missing things that will never be.

“I want you to see me as the person I am right now. The person who has flaws and is scared of the unknown and just as human as you and Lukas. I might not have a super power, but I’m still a guy. A guy who fell for a girl. A girl who’s in love with something else.”

“I thought you said this wasn’t about Lukas?” I shake my head at him confused, not wanting to argue, simply wanting to understand.

“I’m not talking about Lukas. You’re in love with the idea of
freedom.
Of running away. Of not being tied to anything. Anyone.”

He puts his hands on my shoulders, and once again we are eye-to-eye, nose-to-nose. Last time we stood this way he kissed me and I kissed him back.

“Can you honestly tell me, Lucy, that if I said I was joining The Light, and planned on living there forever, you’d still want to be with me?” he asks.

My throat swells, not wanting to admit the truth.

If being with Charlie meant I would forever be at The Light, I wouldn’t choose him. I’d rather be alone than feel obligated to a life I didn’t want. No man is ever going to change that in me. No matter how tender the kisses or how sweet our hands-held-tight feels. I want to be my own person. I thought Charlie might help me reach my destiny, but if he weren’t able to, he’d be nothing more than a person who meant something to me once.

I don’t say those things aloud. Instead, I shake my head “no.” Because he knows, after all, what I chose the moment I decided not to answer.

“It’s better this way, Lucy. Me telling you there isn’t a possibility of us happening gives you the freedom you’re searching for.”

“When you first came here, looking for me, could you ever imagine a month later that you’d be standing here again?” I laugh softly at the strangeness of this life, these choices. The inexplicable way we found ourselves back where we began. And how it wasn’t meant to be forever, it was a means to an end.

“Never.” Charlie’s eyes are sad, but not wounded like Lukas’s get.

As much as I don’t want to compare these brothers, it is impossible not to. My life started, in different ways, the moment I met them.

“I hope I find what I’m looking for,” I say, my heart is heavy, as Charlie’s eyes search mine.

“The real question, though, is what does freedom
mean
to you? If you don’t know the answer, you might never stop looking because you’ll never know what you’re looking for.” He steps away from me, and the spell cast over my heart, breaks.

I pull him into a hug, and even though we are going to travel back to Headquarters together, this is good-bye. This is enough.

Pulling away, his eyes glisten. I remain composed, bracing myself to be brave. “Tell the others I’ll just be a minute, okay?”

I watch Charlie leave, hear the door shut, before I collapse against the wall, alone in my family’s home for the first time since we’ve gotten here. I’ve been looking for the pieces to myself ever since Mom died in my arms, and I don’t feel any closer to being whole. My chest tightens as I press my palms to my face, stifling the breakdown, pushing back the sobs because people are counting on me, right outside this door. I am to ride with Lukas and charge The Light. I am to help them all stay strong. I am to be there to patch the parts that don’t know how to fix themselves.

I am to be for them what I don’t know how to be for myself.

I walk around my home for one last time. There’s nothing left here that needs me. This bookshelf full of old stories won’t help me in my future. Looking around I wonder what
would
help me. Help me remember the place I come from.

I walk to the table with the chessboard perfectly set. Lukas must have done that. He’s the only one here with the patience to play the game, who knows where the pieces belong.

It’s impossible not to remember my father when I look at this twelve by twelve piece of wood, with little squares meeting up, one right next to the other. I wish my life made as much sense as this board. Symmetry and right angles and everything intent on protecting the pieces around it. It’s nothing like my life.

My father would challenge my choices, my precise movements across the board, because he didn’t like me. He didn’t like me because of what I represented. The past. And since he was big and I was small, he kept me that way, small, insignificant. He kept me that way until he tried to kill me.

I’ll never let anyone do that to me again.

I take a few white pieces from the board, and grab their matches in black. The words from Lukas ring through my ears
, “
Be brave so others can be brave
.”
I tuck them in my pocket, resolving to be as brave as Mom believed I could be.

As brave as I want to be for myself.

36.

Lukas

Lucy and I ride in front of the pack. I push out my light, knowing it calms people, centers them and Lucy strongly pushes out her light too. Her healing energy, combined with mine, helps people move steadily along the road.

My stomach’s in knots over the fact I’m about to arrive at the place they call Headquarters. At the place Integrity wrote on a slip of paper, directing me to my parents’ house.

“Lukas, I hope you’re not angry at me, for the way I left your parents.” Hearing Lucy’s voice surprises me. She hasn’t spoken once in the hours we’ve been riding.

“I’m not angry. I just think there must have been some sort of misunderstanding, more to the story,” I say. I don’t want to consider an alternative.

“Fine, Lukas. Have it your way.” I swear I hear her mumble “mini-Councilman” under her breath. I draw in a short breath, determined to keep my eyes straight ahead, I don’t want to let my anger rise, not now. Not ever. I don’t want to go back to the place where my anger consumes me. Where I draw out the light with my hands. Where her utterances become true, because I’ve sentenced someone to a room filled with darkness before. I am more like the Councilmen than Lucy would want to know.

I hate myself for it.

“Do you know how much longer?” I ask her, trying to shift to solid ground.

“Of course,” she says curtly.

“Alright, would you mind sharing that information with me?”

“We’re fairly close. I’d say another hour, no more. I haven’t come from this direction, last time we hugged the water the whole time we rode, because we were headed towards the bridge. To find you.” Her last sentence hangs in the air.

We keep moving forward, the silence draping over us, but I know we are both focused on the future right now. It feels like my story is about to begin.

Once we make the final turn, Charles and Jax come up to Lucy and me, slowing to a walk.

“Hey, man, I want you to be prepared if they aren’t on board with your plan,” Charles warns.

“And even if they are … just think about their intentions before you agree. They were pretty fired up when I left them.” Jax thinks he knows my family better than I do.

“I’m sure everything will go smoothly.” I’m sick of people trying to talk me down.

I follow Lucy as she turns onto a small, dusty road.

“Last time I was here there were several guys patrolling the area. Protecting the Headquarters,” Lucy tells me.

No one’s here now because everyone followed Jax on the mission to find me. I hope they think it was worth leaving their post.
I know only
one thing
in life was ever worth me leaving my post.

Lucy.

“They really hate me, Lukas. This doesn’t seem like a good idea.” Lucy’s voice shakes, and looking at her hands, I see them jittering as well.

“It will be alright, I’m here and so are your friends.” I try and reassure her, but the truth is I have no idea what to expect. “And regardless of what they do, or say, we’re leaving tomorrow for The Light. Tomorrow we’re going to fight to take back what is destined to be ours.”

I reach my hand out for hers, and she grabs hold of it, tightly. I want to believe it’s out of affection, but I know better than that. She needs to hold on to me in this next part. Life is less scary when you aren’t doing it alone.

We send our light across the path as we saunter up to the homestead. The property is littered with large metal homes, tiny windows cut out of the middle of them. I see the remains of fires and chickens roam freely. A whole life I never was a part of, I will never be a part of. My eyes betray me, and I blink the tears away, not wanting to be emotional right now. I want to be steady, I need to be strong.

“Don’t cry, Lukas. If you want to be the leader, you have to be tougher. Okay?” She squeezes my hand as if she wants me to succeed. Her words soothe my anxious mind; there is no doubt that she truly is a healer.

I see my parents standing on the front porch; it would be hard to miss us. We’re nearly one hundred strong and at least half that many horses in our group. Our noise reaches out to them, and they stand still, not moving towards us.

We pull our horses to a stop, and I help Lucy down. Jax and Charlie follow us as we walk to the porch. Everyone else begins to dismount, but they stay back. I don’t let go of Lucy’s hand. I never want to, but right now it’s not about that. I need my family to see our light ignited as we stand together, how strong we are, that we are the Rainbow Children.

“Lukas!” My mother cries out my name. She looks the same, but so different. I’ve only ever seen her in garments from The Light, long gowns and braided hair, now she’s in coveralls with messy hair piled on her head. Long creases cross her face, signaling the time that’s passed since I last saw her.

“Mother,” I say, in barely a whisper, my heart aching for all the things I lost the night I was told she chose to leave. Thinking, only now, about the things she lost that night too. Her son. I am a selfish person.

“Your Light. The colors….” Father’s voice trails off as her looks at Lucy and me in awe.

I understand. He and mother spent ten years perfecting the Energy Room at the Refuges, and in all that time my light remained a constant bright white. But now, with Lucy’s hand in mine, our souls connected as well as our minds, we fill the space we inhabit in a rainbow of colors.

“You’re all grown up, Lukas,” croaks Mother as she comes down the steps and wraps her arms around me, tentatively at first, but then she squeezes me tight. She pulls back, smiling, “We have so much to discuss. Come inside.”

She hasn’t acknowledged Lucy, or Charles, or Jax. I know they all had a difficult time when they left, but it couldn’t have been that bad.

“Don’t you want to say hello to Lucy?” Manners are a trait I have down pat, and regardless of how they feel about Lucy, she’s my everything. They can’t disrespect her by not acknowledging her presence. She is to be the Noblelady, after all.

“No, we need to speak with you. Alone. Come, meet your grandfather, he’s inside.”

I look at Lucy; her brows are scrunched together, as she accesses the situation. Jax shakes his head and waves Charles back, toward the rest of the travelling group.

“Come on man, this is bullshit. Nothing new.” Jax rolls his eyes.

“Story of my freaking life.” Charlie backs away. Mother doesn’t even look at him.

“Just go, Lukas. It’s what you want. I would to, if my family was here.” Lucy’s words say what I want to hear, but they are just as hollow. But my family, the family I’ve been dreaming of, is right
here
in front of me
.
I have to give them a chance.

She pulls away and as she does our light dissipates, returning us to our green and white glow. She walks toward Junie and Basil, leaving me to what I wanted.

I follow my parents up the stairs into the big white house. The second house I’ve ever entered. The porch creaks as I make my way up the steps. Looking back, over my shoulder, I feel Lucy’s eyes on me; she shakes her head ever so slightly.

I turn away and walk into the front door.