Rising Shards

“Do I have to?” I asked for the fifth time as I waited outside the car, with Stella next to me.

“I mean, if you really don’t want to,” Stella said. “But I’d really like you to, and I think it’d be good for you! You’ll have to this eventually, so why not start now?”

In an empty lot, a big lesson awaited me. Stella decided that today would be a good day for me to learn to drive for some reason. I tried to think of some last-minute excuses, but soon found myself behind the wheel.

“Alright…” I said.

“So first you make sure you’re buckled, obviously,” Stella said. “Then make sure your chair is at the ample spot…can you reach both pedals?”

“I uh…” I said, feeling forward with my feet. “Yeah.”

“OK!” Stella said. She showed me the various levers whose functions I immediately forgot.

I had a death grip on the steering wheel as Stella suggested I start the car.

“You gotta let go of the wheel to do that…” Stella said.

“Right, yeah.” I said. I turned the key, yelping as the engine started up. “OK! Alright!”

“Next, put it in drive,” Stella said. “Now it’s gonna have a bit of go, so don’t slam the gas pedal.”

“Which one is which again?”

“Left is the brakes, right is gas.” Stella said.

“OK…” I said, biting my lips with my fangs anxiously.

“Do you remember how to put it in drive?” Stella asked.

“I do, I’m just…envisioning it,” I said. “To, uh, ensure a successful mission here.”

“Right, so let’s do that.” Stella said. She pretty much forced me to put it in drive. The car luched forward too fast immediately so I slammed the brakes. We had made it about maybe half a centimeter forward, but I felt like we had rocketed across the entire lot, so I started screaming.

“Zeta, it was two seconds of driving.” Stella said, trying in vain to calm me down.

“Why are we doing this in winter?” I asked. “The roads could be icy! We could have slipped on the ice!”

“They’re not at all icy, I wouldn’t take you for your first drive on ice,” Stella said. “Do you want to try again?”

“I’m good!” I said. “Can we be good?”

“Mmmh,” Stella groaned, clearly wanting me to get more practice in. “Fine.”

“OK, I’m done!” I said.

“Would you feel better if Evy was here next time?” Stella asked after we swapped seats. “I think she might have more patience here than me.”

“I uh…can you both be there?” I asked. “Both of you would probably help.”

“Deal.” Stella said.

It was another Friday night at the apartment, and after a week of classes following the drama from Sunday, I felt drained finally hitting a point where I felt like I could relax and crashed in bed, falling asleep early.

I dreamt I was on a beach. I was building a sandcastle. In front of me, the old console I saw on the Sharai Daggers trip in the void rose in front of me, but I didn’t get up. I felt like I was just a carefree kid that just wanted this sandcastle to be really cool. Just like he did when we were in the deep levels of some kind of military base, my father appeared. But he wasn’t there to hand the Sharai Daggers to Ovie. He just stared at me.

Someone knelt beside me. It was my mother. I tried not to look at Dad’s gaze from ahead, focusing forward, but now everything I added to the sandcastle made the whole thing fall over.

“It keeps falling,” Mom said. “It keeps falling. It keeps falling.” She kept saying that over and over as I desperately tried to keep it up. Glances to the screen ahead of me showed Jeans as well as my father, and my dread only increased.

“Wouldn’t it have been easier if you just weren’t?” Mom said as.

“It’s easier if we just don’t talk about that,” Jeans said, beside me now. Her words just as clear as when she told me that in the waking world when we dated.

Now I had a toy in front of me, a Raina Starlight figure, that I desperately tried to bury at Jeans and my mother’s urging.

“I don’t really get why you need to make such a big deal out of it.” Jeans said. “I’d prefer if you didn’t talk about it anymore.”

For a second, I was back at my old place in LE, with Jeans next to me.

“But…it’s me, right?” I asked.

“Sure, but I don’t want to hear it,” Jeans said. “I like you better when you don’t talk about it. Most people don’t want to hear about it, even if it’s common. People won’t like it if you talk about it.”

I didn’t answer, and was back at the beach, feeling less and less like myself. I shifted between trying to bury the toy and trying to build the sandcastle again, but the Raina figure wouldn’t stay buried, and the sandcastle wouldn’t stay together.

“Just don’t say anything about it,” Jeans said. “Nothing good will come from it.”

My father knocked on the glass of his screen prison.

“Haven’t things only gotten worse?” Jeans asked. “Didn’t I warn you?”

“It wouldn’t keep falling if you just…” Mom said. She leaned in and whispered something in my ear that made me snap awake.

I immediately felt safer being home, but I still trembled. I felt panic rising, and a need to escape brought me upstairs. Stella was in the living room watching TV by herself. The light in Dr. Diast’s office was on, so she was getting some work done.

“Hey,” Stella said. “Everything alright?”

My desire to flee was met by my need to not make Stella worried, so I muttered something about needing water. By the time I got back, tears welled in my eyes.

“So I’m maybe...not…” I said before bawling.