Playing with Forever

Chapter 19: Auras

It felt weird to be around regular people after Halloween, to know this secret of the universe that I couldn't share. So much of the world had opened up to me, and I didn't know how to function around those who didn't know. Nate was okay, because he wouldn't understand it anyway, but my friends, Birdie, people at school—it felt odd. I had changed, while the world around me stood unmoved.

Plus, absorbing all of it, all of this new information about immortality, was taking a long time. I had a new question every day that Sam only sometimes explained. He was close-lipped about his past still. He wouldn't tell me how old he was, and I was desperate to know. I'd just have to find out another way.

Sam and I talked every day, hanging out whenever not at school or I was at volleyball. I spent a lot less time with the team, Mina and her friends and the people who had been nice to me ever since I moved in. It was so weird with them, and I couldn't focus on anything but not spilling the beans.

Sam spent a great deal of time with me at home, often helping me make dinner. Birdie and Nate became well acquainted with him. Ever since the arcade trip, Nate worshipped him, and Sam was very good-natured about it.

One thing I got to explore the next few weeks after my honorary initiation to the immortal world were auras—the sort of thin, colored veils that surrounded everyone as individuals. The things that I had previously described as "color-clouds," having lacked a better expression. Sam said it was a perk from being exposed to the immortality water that I could see them.

It was strange at first, but the more I was exposed to it, the more beautiful they became. The world, people, were so full of color. Auras weren't gaudy like I had imagined them to be from fantasy books and new age media and stuff, but light and unobtrusive. They were like the iridescent, faint colors of sunshine on a body of water, soft and sort of changing, depending on how the light struck them.

"They're kind of beautiful, aren't they?" I mused to Sam a few days after I started seeing them.

He looked at the people sitting by us at lunch as if he had to remind himself that auras existed. He was used to them, so he had to remember how to see them they way I did. "Yeah," he finally agreed, sounding sincere. "It's been a long time since I thought about it."

"I need teaching about what they all mean, you know."

"Well, that is one thing I can do," he replied, sounding pleased.

And thus began my education. And I began to learn a lot about people.

Sam and I sat with a basket of fries between us at a table against the window at our local diner, people watching. It was something we had started doing often on the weekends.

A woman walked by with a pale yellow aura. Sam looked at me expectantly.

"Um, she's optimistic, pretty cheerful," I said.

"And if it were brighter?"

"She'd have been really optimistic and cheerful?" I guessed.

Sam smiled. "Good enough. What about the man with the maroon color? Over there by the library."

Maroon. "Passionate, by not as passionate as someone with a brighter red. More grounded, more introspective. More determined."

Sam dipped a fry in ranch dressing. "Red is more than just passion, Abby."

I sighed, my mind feeling exhausted. "There's so much to everything. Why can't it just be like, bam! You're green, you're quirky. You're blue, you're sad. You're purple, you're... I don't know, royal. Why do there have to be tons of shades of everything? And flecks of secondary colors?"

"Because personalities are more than just one trait," he replied, dipping a few more fries into ketchup this time—he liked having a variety of dips and sauces for his food—before popping them in his mouth.

True.

I was getting better at figuring things out after all this study. Sam was trying to be patient with me, even though he struggled sometimes, frustrated, and I could tell. But it gave me a way into the minds of the people around me, and I was captivated by what I learned. And somewhat guilty.

My perspective of people changed with the one instant I touched that bathwater, just because of auras. Suddenly, when I saw a person, I could no longer judge them as I normally would have. A soccer mom pushing a toddler in a jogging stroller suddenly had warmth and fears. The man that smiled while bagging my groceries was struggling and reserved. The quiet girl in my Anatomy class suddenly became brilliantly creative. I saw parts of their personalities that they didn't often let others see but couldn't deny to themselves.

I wished everyone could see this way. It made the world a richer place to live in. For once, I really connected with people on a human level; people weren't just faces in a crowd. They were important and human and worthy of love, one way or another.

But one thing bugged me about auras, ever since the first time I looked in the mirror after Halloween. I had been curious. I wanted to know what color of aura I had, what it felt like, and to see if I could discover something about myself that even I didn't know. I was exhilarated and excited. I wanted to have the beautiful glow of an aura, too. So I was surprised to see that I had none.

"Can I just not see my own? Is that just a quirk or something?" I had asked Sam, feeling distraught the next day.

"No," he explained somewhat hesitantly, "we can see our own. The fact is, Abigail, you do not have an aura."

"What? Why?" I asked, startled. I hadn't seen anybody without an aura. Everyone had one. Everyone.

Sam looked at me a while, his deep, thinking gaze with a frown creasing his brow. He was trying to figure something out, figure me out. "For some reason, you can hide it. I have known a few people before that can do the same, but only a few. It usually comes with secrets and trauma." He gave me a side eyed glance, not wanting to pressure me into spilling my past, but curious nonetheless.

I ignored that last statement. "How do you do it? I mean, how do I do it?"

"I have no idea," he admitted. He was lost, something he never was. Sam knew everything as far as I was aware. When I asked Emile, he was lost, too. The fact that neither of them had any knowledge of my power to suppress my aura worried and confused me.

Often since then, I had stared at myself in the mirror, deep in thought. I could hide it from others, mask my feelings and thoughts and past, but I couldn't hide it from me. Me, myself, and I were all in this together. I would peer deep into the mirror, into my eyes, try different lighting, no light at all, and just stare.

But it never came. I had no aura.