Perception

Part 93

Sang POV

"Aggele, I've got you. Wake up," Silas' rumbling voice breaks me out of whatever heavy dream I was having while his large hand strokes over my hair.

I don't even remember the dream--just the feeling of being weighed down and the inability to escape. I have the impression that it was a nightmare, but the wispy dream fragments fading from my mind are not the things of nightmares. I wasn't kidding when I told Jess that I could make a dream about a turkey sandwich into a nightmare.

"Do you want me to get North?" Victor asks from my other side where he slept last night.

"No. I don't have anything to tell him. I don't remember my dream; I only remember the feeling of oppression," I try to explain.

"You haven't really stopped long enough to process anything lately. Maybe you need to take a moment to figure everything out," Silas tells me.

I close my eyes and think about this past week. So much has happened, yet so little. Those Academy men that got caught following Raven and their subsequent questioning, the fact that those awful Taylor-obsessed girls caused what were probably decent men to act otherwise,  a giant scary-but-not-scary Russian showing up at my house, two of the cats being adopted, my stepmother's death, my father's being the likely culprit in providing what amounts to poison to the healing body of my stepmother, and meeting all those elders.

I've also started my online courses and even made it to the next pottery class where I find Raven is the instructor. Imagine my surprise that his giant hands are capable of creating dainty, fancy china. He promptly disabused me of using that term, saying it should be "Russia" if named after any country. I barely escaped a noogie on my way out of the room when I whispered "china" at him.

That thought makes me smile. There are some excellent parts during the past week that have helped mitigate the garbage that has built up. I still feel hunted. My boys are always so solicitous that I feel bad bringing up anything that I don't feel is right. I've gotten better, but it's still hard to tell them things. They just want to fix it, whereas I would rather find my own solutions. At the very least I like to find my own way of dealing with bad things mentally.

"I just don't know where to start. I don't want to sound wimpy. You've all been through your own struggles," I try to explain why I can't talk about what's bothering me.

"Almost all of us have had each other to lean on since a very young age. Just talk things out. It'll probably make you feel better," Victor urges.

"Well, I don't know how to deal with my stepmother and how she died. I mean, with cancer there is always the possibility of her not surviving. I just thought that since she was done with treatments and at home that she was on the mend. I was hoping she'd finally get to be the mother to Marie that she wasn't able to be for so long. I also wish that I could have done better for Marie. I keep thinking there must have been something I could have done to make things better for her. Maybe if I had been keeping track of things I could have prevented her mom from dying.

"On top of that I don't think I'm even sad that she died. I mean, what does that make me? I feel bad that I don't feel bad. Oh, and this Academy business? Scary. Even when people aren't being scary they're scary, and I have to go to the big meeting thing tonight. Why? I don't get it. Why aren't they waiting until I actually decide to join? This pushiness is really off-putting. Why won't they give me a chance to breathe?

"You heard Mr. Blackbourne and Kota. They aren't going to let me go on my merry way just because I tell them to. Where were they five years ago when I was first kneeling on the hard kitchen floor? Where were their good intentions when I went three days without eating at the age of 9? Now that I'm happy and safe they want to interfere? They'd better not. They just better not or they'll find that I make very bad Academy material after all," I tell them as angry tears leak from my eyes.