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He turned her around to face him. “Then it’s time.”
She rubbed her arms and stared at his chest, not meaning to speak. But it all vomited out like a noxious poison. “My parents believed me to have...issues. My classmates thought the same thing, too. I was always different, always had my head in the clouds. But when I was thirteen, I made the mistake of telling a so-called friend about my visions and dreams and of seeing your celebration in the clearing. By the end of the day, she’d spread the whole story around the school. The principal and my teacher got involved and called my parents.”
Her voice broke. “Do you know how mean kids can be? Heck, how mean even adults can be? Talking down to me as if I weren’t in my right mind? My parents only desired the best for me, but even they wanted me doped up on medication to control my ‘hallucinations.’”
When she finally looked up, she found no satisfaction in the pain that lined his face as she once might’ve. “Nobody believed me, so I started to deny it after a while. Still, I spent years in therapy, along with being on medications I didn’t want or need. Once you have that stigma attached to you, it’s very hard to shake it. For a few years, I almost convinced myself I’d merely imagined everything. It didn’t matter that I still suffered from the dreams and visions. I shrugged them off and tried to ignore them. But the damage was already done. People no longer looked at me the same way, not even my parents. We actually moved to another town so I could start afresh at a new school. That’s where I later met Maggie when she moved to my town our senior year. Things were much better there, practically normal. We graduated, went to college...” She faltered to a stop.
He finished her sentence, his voice subdued. “Where your dreams and visions became worse until the veil brought you here.”
“Yes, and now here I am.” She gestured around her. “In a supposed make-believe place that I was crazy for even imagining.”
His guarded gaze quickly concealed a flicker of worry. “You still hold resentment, and you should. The very existence of my world shaped your life. Your suffering—it saddens me. But I can’t change it, no matter how I wish otherwise.”
She sighed. Blaming him wouldn’t be right, though letting go of the past was no small thing. “I know, Relian. Believe me, that’s a conversation I’ve had with myself many times since coming here. I can’t blame you. I can’t even really blame the veil after what you’ve told me. Yes, my life wasn’t ideal, but neither my childhood nor teenage years were the horror story some people live with.” Her lips twitched. “I think I’ve turned out remarkably normal, considering everything. It’s the circumstances around me that are insanely weird.”
His hands slid down her arms. “Does that mean you can move on from the past without it defining your future?”
“That’s what I’m attempting to do. I won’t ever forget the past, but I no longer want to place blame.”
His arms went around her, anchoring her against him, and he rested his chin on her head. “That’s all I can ask.”
Telling him had lifted a weight she hadn’t realized had been so heavy. Too bad it’d been replaced with having the weight of two worlds supposedly on her shoulders. But it was also on his, so she wasn’t alone.
