Greys III - Revelations

Chapter 25 - The Next Right Thing

We left Abraham and Ailech to discuss ways of controlling Malachi. Nevaeh and Kael were shown to their rooms, just down the hall from Jordan and mine to rest after the mad dash of the past two days. And then I was alone with my Pair.

She had hardly looked at me since we severed Malachi from my father's eyes. And when she went directly to her room, I followed. I was so tired, so worn thin, I didn't want to have the conversation we were about to. But Jordan was worth it, she deserved it. And I was trying to be different, more, for her.

"What is this?" I motioned to her, and how she was still avoiding my eyes, as I closed the door behind me. "What did I do?"

I genuinely didn't know, and though I normally would have just waited for it to pass, I didn't want to with Jordan, with the connection we had. And if hard conversations I'd rather not have were the price, it was a price worth paying.

She looked up briefly before making herself suspiciously busy unpacking her bag.

"I saw...it's hard to look at you without...it's hard to have him here."

"You mean it's hard to be confronted with the evidence of what I've done? Not just have a vague idea, the knowledge, but actually see the direct result of my past actions? Trust me, I know. That's been my entire life, always seeing the destruction I caused. Even when I try to do the right thing, like with Kael, he still looks at me differently, knowing about Ambriel. Even Nevaeh, knowing what I am, there's something different in their eyes."

I paused as I decided how far I wanted to go, how far I was willing to open myself. But then Jordan's storm cloud eyes found mine, reminding me that I could tell her, that I had to trust her.

"I can't have you look at me like that too. Tell me, anything, what do I have to do to fix this?"

Her shoulders dropped as she sat on her bed, twisting the small ring on her finger, and I knew I wouldn't like her answer.

"You can't do anything about this. Neither of us can take back what we've done to people. And saving one life doesn't bring another back that we've taken. Good and evil don't work that way, one doesn't erase the other, or even lessen the other. We've both done terrible things. And we can't undo them, we can't give people their lives back, take their pain back. We can just do the next right thing, and the next. And, when we get the chance, apologize for what we've done, who we've hurt. I know that's what you're doing with Malachi, I get it, but it'll still always be hard to know what you were, what you did to him. It will always be a part of you. Of me too. The things I did when I was with Jevin..."

"You didn't have a choice," I interjected.

"There will always be an excuse. You had a harder choice under your father, but that doesn't clean us of guilt either. Nothing can take that, can erase it."

"What did Malachi show you?" I asked quietly, not wanting to know, but needing to.

"Pain. Just snippets of it, from Grayson, your father after you left, but mainly - from you. You tortured him for years, but he admired you, he looked up to you. And then you left. I...I don't blame him for hating you."

Her words struck me harder than expected, but she was right. No matter what I did, how good I tried to be, it wouldn't take away the evil I had done, that's not how life works, how choices work. They aren't paint you mix together, hoping to end with a lighter color, they are individual stones, light or dark, and having a thousand light ones won't bleach the dark ones. They will always still be there.

I didn't blame Malachi for hating me either. Maybe if he had seen any of my good, any of my changes, but he had only ever gotten one thing from me. Pain. And maybe it didn't matter what he saw in me now because he was a Half and didn't have anything inside, anything salvageable at least. But for some reason I didn't believe that. He had been so rare when we were young, so different. He had a heart, he always had. I just hoped it was still there.