Two Eyes

A Decision

Chapter 4

I park the car a couple blocks away from the house. I walk to my home and unlock the front door. I figured my family would get suspicious if there was a random red convertible out front. I look up from the lock to see Mike.

"H-Hi," I say. Okay, I think, gotta think of something quick before he becomes suspicious! "What are you doing up so late? Or would it be early? Haha ..."

"I could be asking you the same question." His eyes stare at me coldly. I get chills all over from his unblinking stare. I've never seen him this angry before. I don't think I've ever seen him angry at all. I usually do what he tells me even if I don't want to.

"I can ex-"

"Lock the door. Get in the car."

His eyes drop from mine and head towards the back. I do as I am told. He drives to a place we used to go when I was little. It's an abandoned old playground that we should probably be getting tetanus shots for. No one ever has gone there (that we know of) for some weird reason. I sit down on a swing while Mike paces back and forth, hands clutching the back of his head.

"How could you do this?!" he yells. Every now and then he glares at me angrily. "You know why you don't have many friends. You know why you shouldn't hang out with people you barely know. You know what's right and what's wrong and yet you go out anyway!! And you!" He points at me. "You, you, you ...." He takes a deep breath.

I can only imagine how hard it is for him to yell at his little sister. He's taken care of me for as long as I can remember. He's only overprotective because he cares about me--I know that. He doesn't want something bad to happen to me because of who I am. Of what I am. He also knows that no matter how hard he tries he won't always be there to protect me. Sometimes I think of him as a guardian angel--not a knight in shining armor. He protects me even when I don't need it because he loves me that much. I hear a whisper and stop thinking.

"You didn't even wear your contacts." I hang my head. Mike shakes his. "You knew the danger and yet you didn't wear them. Why ...? Why?"

"I'm serious, I can explain," I start.

"Oh you can, now, can you?! Because I'd really like to hear it!!" He yells, making me jump.

"If you could be quiet and listen," I say in a feeble voice, "Then I'll tell you. But only if you calm down." He slowly sinks into a swing. "Good, now I have some news to share." He nods as if he's lost a battle.

I tell him what happened.

"And he said that there's a camp where people learn magic." I rub my arms up and down and look away. "He also said that he came here to invite me to it."

"So let me get this straight," says Mike. His voice makes me look back up. "You're telling me that the guy you did that science project with--"

"Ryan."

"Whatever. You're telling me that he came here to this town to find you; has two different eye colors, also like you; might be able to do magic; and wants you to join this 'camp' he's from?"

I simply nod. He pretty much summed it up. Mike shakes his head. I look up.

"What?" I ask.

"Do you want to?" he says.

"Want to what?"

"Do you want to go to that camp and learn magic?"

I sit up straighter, shocked. Mike's dark puppy dog eyes look into mine. His shaggy brown hair barely falls onto them.

"Will you quit looking at me like that!?" I shout. He laughs. I clear my throat and continue. "I-I don't know. I guess I haven't had time to think about it."

"How long do you have?"

"He didn't say."

"Well you have time to think about it right now."

In essence, he is right. I do have time right now. But do I want to think about it? Pfft, nope. Should I? Oh, probably. I sigh.

Do I want to go? I mean, magic's cool, of course it is, but it can't be real, right? True, he did do that weird thing with the light but he also said that that was an illusion. So does that mean he was playing a mind trick on me? Like, mind control or hypnosis or ESP? That could prove to be useful against certain people ... And maybe that whole eye thing was a lie as well. He could have been wearing contacts. If that's what happened then he knows my secret! He knows for sure that I have two different colored eyes!

I stop my slight swinging and grip the chains hard. My eyes grow wide. No. He can't know. I can't trust him. I only just met him!

He knows my secret.

How could I have let this happen? How could I have let him know? Why did I ever put even my guard down?

"I knew shouldn't have trusted him," I say quietly.

"Oh, really, now?" my brother says. "Because I recall telling you that he shouldn't have come to our house in the first place."

"Oh, shut up."

He laughed quietly.

Ok, I've got to think of a plan. If I go with him, then he could capture me and take me away and sell me somewhere. Of course, I know a little of karate from back when I was a kid. Mike made sure that I knew how to defend myself in case something happened.

On the other hand, if he's telling the truth, I could still go with him, go to this "camp" thing, learn magic and make some potential friends.

But ... I also don't trust easily because of my "visual colors." I mean, if I do tell people, who will believe me? Who will accept me? I'll never fit into normal human society.

If this Ryan kid is telling the truth, then I'll finally be accepted by someone outside of my family.

I stand up.

"You're not going to like this ..." I say. "But I'm going to trust Ryan and go with him to the camp."

He sighs. I knew he wasn't going to like me leaving.

"Well," he says. "I guess you're old enough to make your own decisions now." He laughed. "Like you haven't been doing that most of your life. Anyway, I guess my little girl's growing up."

"You're not my parents, you know," I say with a laugh.

He joins in and tackles me to the ground. We wrestle and eventually stop, laughing our heads off. Mike brings me into an embrace.

"I'm going to miss you."

"I know."

We stay like that for some minutes. Eventually we stand back up and drive home. I was the sun rise through the window. How did so much time pass?

Quietly, we walk into the house. I walk back into my room and crash onto my bed, falling asleep in an instant. I cannot be deprived of my sleep. Just no. Luckily, it's Saturday so I can just stay in bed all day long.

Except my cat Purrty decides to jump onto me and wake me up.

"Purrty," I moan. She meows innocently. I sigh.

We found her in the streets years ago as a kitten. I couldn't let the poor creature die put there so I gave her milk and food every day. Eventually she trusted me enough to come into our house. Mike complained but I kept her anyway.

Part of the reason I like her so much is that she has two different eye colors like me. It used to let me know that I wasn't the only one suffering. In fact (besides the fact that Ryan found out last night) she and Mike were the only ones I ever showed my real eyes to.

But will all of that change now that I'm going this camp?