Undefined - The Zephyr Book 1 ? (completed)(#Wattys2016)

Chapter 2 - Syianne

2 - Syianne

I'm a Jewel.

There is a barrier between me and the rest of the world. I can't allow myself to love others wholeheartedly, I can't allow myself to live as a child, I can't allow myself to feel sorry for myself.

Very soon, like every Jewel that ever was, I'm going to disappear. Very soon, everyone, except my parents who raised me, will forget I ever existed.

I sit with my legs folded and my skirt tucked between my knees on the high metal crate at the edge of the football field and watch. I'm still as a statue, my back straight, everything about me unmoving except my long brown hair that gets caught in the occasional breeze. I like to pretend that I'm not even really there, that I'm a thing rather than a person. That's how others came to treat me and I'm fond of that.

But I'm still very much alive. Alive, and watching.

I don't watch any of the others, only him. He's the only one that exists for me, that's how it always was. The other boys had tried, and failed, to speak with me, the girls too, but I wouldn't let them in. I was allowed only one mistake, one attachment. Only one person to leave behind, I had chosen Artus, he is more than enough.

He kicks the ball into the goal ripping off his shirt and before his teammates are upon him, he smiles right at me. I watch his smile, how it glows on his face, glorious and precious, tugging on the strings of my heart - but I don't smile back - I never have. I don't participate when others are around, I only watch over him.

I want to smile, and wave too. I want to return every ounce of affection he bestows upon me. I want to go to the café with my classmates after school to joke around and gossip. I want to be stupid and careless, to speak their names aloud and not just in my mind, to have them say my name, even the bad ones, even the dumb ones, I want them as part of my life.

I can't. Not in this life, not in this world, they're not for me; I'll never be able to belong among them. Funny how I've learned so soon that the world isn't fair, the cake of life isn't cut into even pieces. I have to make do with what I've been served, it's sad and maddening how such a small difference between me and them can be so important.

I've cried my tears over it, into my pillow in my room at night, I've kicked and screamed and cursed the universe. But now I'm fine. I made my rules and I've constructed my methods. If you're like me, you have to harden your heart, wrap it in layer after layer of protection until everything that comes your way automatically slips off.

Otherwise, I'll simply fall apart. Even though I was born like this - a Jewel - in the end, I'm still human and forever sad, forever caught, bound and captive.

You see, all this time, all I wanted was to somehow hold it together. That's how I became how I am - dry, like a barren land, all my emotions fossilised within the stone coating of my coldly beating heart. They all like it that way, I'm easy to understand, steady as a mountain, calm as an isolated lake; my chill waters can make even the biggest problems distant.

Only Artus and my dad see right through me, right to all the pain I'm hiding.

When my resolve began to take hold of my life, Dad was always trying to make me laugh or even smile. He'd try making jokes and funny faces as if I was an infant, but eventually he'd shrug his shoulders and say: "You're a hard lemon, Syianne, but you'll ripen with time." He'd pat my head, "You'll see, my girl, one day you'll be a grand provider of the sweetest lemonade."

Always the same words, in exactly the same tone, accompanied by the same expressions and motions. They were recorded into my soul, and while I never smiled with my mouth, they always made my eyes smile - for dad, that was enough.