Of Monsters and Humanity: The Genesis

Chapter 24 - Terra

Fifty-one days before....

I somehow made it home alive.

I wanted to leave immediately after Xander was shot. I wanted to run upstairs and out of the house and out of earshot of the entire building so I could scream.

But Agent Byligan made me stay. I was allowed one minute to catch my breath after I saw what I did. That would have killed a normal man. In fact, I thought he was dead, but Byligan assured me that it happened all the time and that he would wake up within the next few hours.

But I stayed. We debriefed what happened and what could have triggered such an episode. I almost didn't talk the whole time, because I was without words. I kept dodging my gaze from my notes to Xander's limp body laying a few feet away from the glass. I expected him to stand up, look at me like that, and continue, but he didn't.

I'm not sure that he could find anything worse to continue with, though.

After Agent Byligan saw that I wasn't coming up with any tangible conclusions, he sent me home early. I didn't ask questions. I thanked him and left. I wouldn't get paid for the rest and I wouldn't see Damian after it was over and I wouldn't get to learn anything else, but I didn't care. I ran to my car just as the sky opened and rained large, heavy water droplets on me.

As soon as I got in the car, my eyes became the sky and they began to rain. And rain.

I had to sit in the parking lot for a few minutes to process what I saw. I wish I looked away. I wish I hadn't seen any of it, and most of all, I wish I hadn't met him in the first place.

I wish Damian never invited me to the gala. I wish I never said yes to the internship.

Of course Xander was wrong. I never fucked Damian, or Balcom, for that matter. I never fucked anyone. I'm not spoiled, and I didn't cry my way to get the internship. Sure, I was without a clue as to why I was selected for it, but that doesn't mean that I did any of those things to get it in the first place.

But was he right about Damian having a girlfriend? Or, more importantly, was he right about me wearing my hair differently for him?

Logically, I would deny the fact that I took time out of my day to do my hair for a boy, but as I continued to ponder the thought, it became less and less seemingly preposterous.

Maybe I did do my hair for him. Maybe there was some subconscious part of me that thought that he would like me better if I did my hair differently.

No, no. That couldn't be it.

But that didn't answer the question of him having a girlfriend or not.

We never really talked about dating, and if the topic came up, it was most of the time dropped because of the tension we had between us. We ignored a lot of topics, and all of them related to our weird relationship and dating. It just didn't happen. Sure, we fakely flirted sometimes (him more than me, I swear), but it never got to a point where we sat down and talked about our feelings. Damian really wasn't that kind of guy.

Or was he?

I wouldn't know, I only saw him a few hours out of every day. It would be so easy for him to have a girlfriend. I knew almost no one at the school other than him and I never ask.

Ugh, I'm so dumb! Of course he has a girlfriend!

He's charming and attractive and funny and smart and charismatic. How could he not have a girlfriend?

I'm shy and weird and stubborn and difficult and don't talk to anyone or about my feelings or let anyone in or let them know that I'm Abigail Egan. That's how I don't have a boyfriend, and that's how Damian isn't mine.

Maybe Xander was right.

Maybe not quite so much about the things that he was wrong about, but in the general gist of things.... Maybe he was right about me being a bad person.

My head pounded and I couldn't think straight as I walked into my house without paying either of my grandparents any mind.

I was so thankful that I didn't have to go back tomorrow. I didn't know if I even wanted to go to school.

I decided, as I finished my homework like an emotionless machine, that I hated Xander.