Zodiac Academy

29. Trinket

  Two hours later, everything almost seemed normal. The students who stayed either went back to their dorms or waited for further instruction inside the gymnasium. The Rogue Signs regrouped in the courtyard and tended to the hurt -nobody had gotten wounded more than a burn or a broken bone.

  I found that I had four friends that had stayed behind. Jaxson, Char, Lake, and Cho. Lake had run up to me after Jenny had ripped our friendship to pieces and has been clinging to my side ever since. Char was helping the people with their burns, Jaxson was talking to Adeline, and Cho was in the gym.

  I had been standing in the same spot for fifteen minutes. I didn't know what to do. Was I supposed to go back to my dorm? The gym? I certainly wasn't discussing anything with Adeline while I was still upset about Jenny.

  Leo. I wonder how Jaxson felt. How he really felt. No matter what he said, he had spent years beside his twin brother. Acting the same, talking together, thinking the same way about most things. Just because you knew you stood on different levels didn't make it hurt any less to see your twin turn your back on you.

  Lake snapped her fingers in front of my face. "That woman has been staring at you." She pointed her finger in Adeline's direction.

  Of course she was. I rolled my eyes and sighed heavily. "You might want to be in the gym. They'll probably tell you a lot of stuff."

  "What about you?" She clung onto my arm. "I don't want to leave you out here."

  "I'll be fine. I have someone to talk to."

  She let go slowly. It was as if she was treating me like I was made out of porcelain. I hated it. She slowly made her way to the gym and left me standing in the same spot.

  I didn't move. I had to speak to Adeline. Figure out what her next move was. But for the moment, I had to build up walls. I would feel much better if I just had walls up than to have someone just whisper the wrong thing and I lash out.

  After I felt I had prepared myself enough, I walked over to Adeline and Jaxson with jello for legs. Standing there doing nothing for that long had not been good. Jaxson stood from the picnic bench they were seated at when I approached.

  "I'm going to go inform the student body of our plans," he explained.

  I nodded and he walked around me, squeezing my shoulder as he went past. I faced the woman who claims to be my family. Sitting across from her on the bench, she straightened her spine. "Hello, Aquarius," she said slowly.

  I nodded once again. "Why didn't you write?" I mumbled. The wood of the table became incredibly interesting. The whorls that used to bubble out of what used to be a tree, the dark color, the splinter heaven.

  "What?" She subconsciously leaned forward an inch.

  "Why didn't you write?" I asked louder. I looked up and met her gaze. She was looking at me with deep confusion. It was starting to push me into an irritable mood. I had already been through a lot today; an evasive maneuver was not going to go over well with me.

  "I... what?"

  "Letters!" I shouted, slamming a hand on the wood. I lifted it quickly to avoid getting any splinters. "I didn't get any letters. From anybody."

  Her face softened. "Oh. I wrote letters. Once a week. More if it was a holiday."

  I raised one eyebrow. "Then how come I didn't receive them?"

  "I didn't send them."

  "You what?"

  Did she think I would just throw open my arms and hug her when she "saved" me from the Signs Dance? She is a complete stranger to me! I would be stupid to trust anything she would have said to me. Which is why I never believed her about her being my mother. I still didn't. Not really.

  Sure, she could prove it. Then I would have to deal with her being my biological mother. But that didn't mean I had to get to know her. It didn't mean anything but that she had been the woman to give birth to me.

  I didn't get all the gifts like the other Aquarius kids got. I didn't get the heartfelt letters that told them how proud they would be if they made it to Graduation. I had been abandoned. Practically an orphan in the eyes of the Zodiacs and other Sign children.

  "You didn't send them?" I repeated.

  She nodded. "I couldn't just write the silly nonsense the other parents wrote. I wrote about what I was doing. The Zodiacs go through everything anybody sends. I couldn't just hand them the plans to their own fate."

  What kind of logic was that? She deprived me from having a normal childhood because she couldn't write sweet nothings? That was bullshit.

  "I was bullied," I whispered, "for not receiving any letters or toys. I was pushed around for being named after my own sign. The other students stayed away from me in middle school classes because someone rumored that my mother had gotten rid of me because I had horns when I was born. And all of that happened because you couldn't write a simple letter stating you were there? That I wasn't alone?"

  "Horns?"

  I stood from the table. I remembered something I had almost forgotten completely about. "I got a small trinket in the mail once. Only once. It was a bronze orb. Around the diameter was a fine line that revealed it could be opened. I never opened it because it was stuck and I didn't want to break it. Did you send that?" I asked.

  The orb had been in my nightstand drawer ever since I had gotten it. I didn't want anything to happen to it. There wasn't a letter or a tag attached to it. It was simply in a white box from the mail.

  "It sounds like one of your father's things," she mused.

  "What?" So he could actually send me things and she couldn't? I don't know why I was so surprised. It wasn't like I had ruled out the fact that he could be alive. I guess I was kinda expecting them both to be dead, though.

  Adeline agreed with herself. She looked up at me with a sparkle in her eyes. "Yes, it was one of your father's things. It had gone missing and he never told me what he did with it."

  I remembered the smooth bronze orb between my ten-year-old fingers. It had given me a small hope. A reason to keep coping with the stupid Signs around me. It had made me feel like there really was someone out there watching over me. That feeling died quickly when I realized that was the only thing I was ever going to receive.

  "Is... is he alive?" I asked tentatively.

  Adeline giggled. "Goodness, yes. I'm sure he would have loved to be here. He left weeks ago on a trip. He should be returning soon."

  "How soon?" Suddenly, I felt way more eager to meet my father than I had ever been before.

  The woman shrugged her shoulders. "How would I know? He had just barely let me know he would be gone. He was walking out the door as I was walking in."

  I crossed my arms. That wasn't very helpful.

  "Why don't we go listen in on Jaxson speaking? I'm sure you need to hear some of what he has to say."

  I agreed with her and started to walk away before she could even stand from the bench. I should probably have heard everything he had to say.

^~^
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