Book One In The Ahh-Ness Of Things Series: April & Donnie were once inseparable, but now almost six years have passed since she left NYC. What if April O'Neil could set the record straight, once & for all! The only girl down enough to chill with the...
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He was stretched across his bed with the covers up around his shoulders. His face blank in sleep & I only allowed a moment to contemplate how I would handle it if he woke up. I counted my breaths ; one, two three, four & made a picture of a perfect square in my mind, as Master Splinter had taught me. Retreating into the "grey brain" behind my eyes, I formed a grid in the box & counted to four again, slowing my heart rate. I opened my eyes & drew the sign for water in the air in front of me. I let my consciousness wisp away from the depths of my linear thoughts, out into the space of the room until they were like fingers tips swirling water in the air above his resting body. I could see the smoke like energy seeping into his motionless form, lulling him into dreams. I would pull memories from him. I wouldn't be proud of this & if he woke, I would risk his trust further.
Almost as soon as I felt my mind was slipping into his, I realized he wasn't asleep. He was just laying there with his eyes closed! He couldn't rest at all, his mind was racing & he was able to practically force me out like slamming a door. So much anxiety was buzzing around in his head & he had been trying to calm himself when I had reached into it. His eyes snapped open.
"Don't do that." he spoke flatly. We were eye to eye. I didn't know what to do, I just stood in the center of his bedroom staring, not sure what to say. His eyes shut tight again & he looked like he was somewhere between sleep or maybe a sneeze. In the glow of the christmas lights & paper lanterns, the cold stone walls of this room seemed warm & comforting, though I knew they were crumbling & full of a lifetime of secrets.
It felt like my place more so than any other room in the whole train station. This room was where my life had begun. This was where I had woken up to the monster watching me from the foot of the bed. This was where I held his hand; a very human hand & watched with him as claws had formed once again & his skin had turned from creamy porcelain to tea green. Was this what we were meant to be to each other, was this what it was to grow up? Crying at every rejection & pretending to sleep so we didn't have to speak to the other. I couldn't go back now, here we were & I was stranded in the waves of ridicule washing over me. Damn we were more like selfish children now then we had ever been.
The only memory I had retracted from him was the very mirror of where we had come to now. In that long past moment; instead of letting me intrude into his room, he had looked back to how he had let me leave. He could see me walking out of it. Of course he couldn't trust me, I had left him just like this, left this room with him pretending to sleep, knowing he wasn't, his eyes shut tight as the were now. I had closed the door without looking back, I couldn't say goodbye. I known he would tell me to go ahead, he'd see me soon, but the fear in his eyes would have made me stay & I never would have pursued anything more than the Hamato clan.
