Zodiac High-The Series

B2 26

It was like someone had set fire to the ocean.

I had never seen Pisces this angry, this enraged, before. His movements were rough, ragged around the edges, almost haphazard, his voice resembling the rhythm of the turbulent sea behind us, so imperfectly syncopated in its own rebelliously irregular sound. His soft blue beauty seemed to sharpen, spasm in volatile shades of deep red, rich purple, emerald green. I had never seen Pisces in this element. Never seen him hit his breaking point. Something about it scared me, but something about it made me wonder what it really took to push a person like Pisces over the edge. 

"Pisces, I didn't know who I really was-"

"You didn't know? That's the best you could come up with? You didn't know you survived a 40-foot drop in a motorcycle accident? You didn't know the heart surgery worked? You didn't know that we were all waiting for you on the other side, that they told us you'd died?" Pisces turned toward Libra. "You. You must've known, You were the one who got the news. You lied to us-"

"ENOUGH!" Gemini yelled, placing herself between Libra and Pisces. "If he says he didn't know, he didn't know." Pisces' expression softened and he turned toward Cancer. "Wi-Cancer, go on. We're listening."

"The last thing I remember from around a year is driving right into a boulder. I remember falling uncontrollably with no way to stop myself. I remember accepting death was imminent, I remember closing my eyes, I remember hitting the water. I don't remember anything after that. When I regained consciousness, I couldn't remember anything, not even my own name. I was in a hospital room, painted blue and white. 

"Every day, a man would come in. Father. At least that was what he made me call him. He'd give me milk and rice for every meal, disgusting white food three times a day, and he'd inject me with this blue gel. I lost track of time. Lost touch with my humanity. The only colour in my life came in the form of a dream about a boy with black hair and blue eyes and this girl who was always with him." Cancer looked up toward Scorpio and Libra. "It was them. I dreamt of them every night, the same dream every night, ending in me falling into the ocean. 

"I began to draw out my dream with a scalpel someone had dropped by my door. I drew it under my bed, drew out the faces, the moments, the story. I added words to my images. I pieced together this story I convinced myself was some tangent of a thought, since it was far too... irrational to be the truth. But I invested myself in it. Convinced myself it was a link to my escape from that horrid place. I wrote and drew and made notes and eventually, it came. The whole thing, the whole dream, sharp around the edges, painfully and tangibly real. 

"That was when I realised I had to escape. That there was something out there for me, that there were people who knew me, maybe even remembered me. So I did. 

"Next thing I know, I wake up in a new hospital room and the first person I see is Scorpio."

Silence engulfed the group as everyone struggled to process, to understand, what Cancer had just said. A sob broke the dam of silence and Pisces began to cry, head in his hands as he wept. Immediately, I closed the space between us, holding him, comforting him, when even I knew such a situation couldn't be sugarcoated. Pisces had mourned Cancer for weeks. Hadn't eaten or spoken until a good week following Cancer's passing. Had hit his lowest point as a human being, as a friend, a student, an athlete. Had turned away from everyone, including me. 

I'd brought him back from the edge, because I knew the Pisces I loved just needed to feel safe enough to come back out. I'd held him while he cried, driven him to Cancer's favourite places, helped him write those letters he left on Cancer's tombstone every day, bandaged his bloodied knuckles after he punched that tombstone, knowing his friend wasn't even buried under it. I'd watched him recover. I helped him get back in the pool and I cheered the loudest when he won his first race since the incident. I went with him to buy a motorbike just like Cancer's, helped him paint it and write Cancer's name in varsity print on it. 

I'd laughed with him as he remembered the memories Cancer had left him with.

And now here we were.

Back to square one again. 

"Pisces, we can talk about this-" I mumbled.

"Please, just... tell him to go away." Pisces buried his head in my shoulder and I wrapped my arms around him, gently stroking his hair. 

"He'll talk to you later," I said to Cancer. "I'll take him home."

"Alright," Cancer nodded, and for the first time, I noticed the tears beginning to form in his eyes. 

Cancer's return hadn't just broken Pisces' heart.

It had broken his too.