Liberation

Chapter 5

JULIA'S POINT OF VIEW:

I make it back home, white hot anger beginning to make its way back into my system. I slam the door shut and begin pacing back and forth, my fury breaking loose. And when I can stand it no longer, I grab a nearby vase and throw it across the room, shattering it into millions of tiny little shards.

But I don't stop there. I find more and more breakables, shattering them all with gusto. Why Adam? Why do you have to be so frustrating?!

And once I've run out of cases to break, I move on to something different. A particular photo, one of my favorites, graces my living room wall. It's a picture of all of us: Peter, Cassia, Kyle, Susan, Adam, and myself, taken a week after the war was over.

I don't want to break it, but I'm so furious that I can't stop myself from moving closer and closer to it. I gingerly take it off the wall and place it above my head, ready to smash it against the ground. But before I get the chance, I hear the sound of someone opening my door and running towards my location. "Julia?! Julia what's going on?!" The voice asks. Peter.

He makes it to my living room and sees all the glass on the floor, and then looks up to see me with the photo raised above my head. He looks into my eyes, trying understand what's the matter with me, and then his face softens into understanding.

Peter walks over to me and takes the picture out of my hands and places it back on the wall. Then, he gathers me into his arms and carries me over to the couch.

"Explain," he says as he sets me down. "You have the power of evaluation; I shouldn't have to explain anything," I say as I inch away from him. But he grabs my hands and pulls me back to him before I can get far. "Then look at me," he says as he locks his brown eyes with my green.

There's a moment of silence that passes between us. He just looks at me, watching the memory of what caused me to be so upset. And at the same time, I evaluate him.

Peter came here to apologize to me for taking Adam's side in the argument earlier today. I can see he had this whole speech planned out, but that has long left his mind as he nears the end of watching my memory. I can feel his hands, still holding mine, begin to tense with anger.

When he finishes, he drops the gaze as his eyes become hard. "Adam really said that to you?" He says, anger present in his voice. "I can't make up a memory," I say simply.

"He can't honestly hold you responsible for Natalie's death. If anyone's to blame for her, it's me. That rescue mission was for me, so anyone who died was because of me. It's not your fault," he rambles.

"And it's certainty not yours either," I tell him. "I'm mad at Adam, I'll say that much. But even still, I think he just wants someone to blame so he won't have to admit that he feels responsible because he couldn't save her," I say to Peter, my anger finally subsiding enough for me to think clearly.

I can see Peter making sense of my words as his expression softens up a little. "He still had no right to say that to you," Peter admits. "Yes well, it's good for him to get out anything he has against me," I reply. "And why's that?" Peter asks.

I take a deep breath and get out the words that will surely bring up a lot of questions from him. "Because I'm leaving," I say.

Peter looks shocked as he begins to stutter. "W-what do you mean...leaving? What about your friends? Your family?" He asks. "Cassia, Susan, Kyle, and Adam will be just fine without me. And as for my family, I'm 20 now. They've let me go out into the world on my own, so they won't worry," I say simply.

And then, he gets out the question I've been waiting to hear. "What about me?" Peter asks, feeling abandoned.
I reach up and cup his face in my hands, pulling him a few inches closer to me. "Come with me?" I ask him.