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“Honey, I know you think you can see the future,” she said, “but that’s phooey.”
“Okay, but how can you believe in Grandma’s superstitious beliefs and not this?”
My grandmother was supposedly a famous singer, but not one I’d ever met before nor seen online. She used to fill my mom’s head with all kinds of superstitions, like how delivering a baby during the full moon was a bad omen. And guess who was born on a full moon? Yep, me. My mom believed everything the old woman said, so I never understood what made my supernatural beliefs so different from Grandma’s.
“Fine,” Mom grumbled. “If I have to answer you, then my answer is still the same. I’d do nothing. Happy?”
“Could you be more heartless?”
“Here’s the thing—you can’t stop death and you shouldn’t. Like animals, people grow, thrive, and then die. All the time. It’s the cycle of life,” she said as if I didn’t already know. “Kinda like the moon. That poor thing is stuck in a spiral of death. It has bad luck ingrained in it; the same goes with the people in your visions, assuming they’re real. If you try changing their fate, something worse might happen. Maybe instead of losing the moon, we lose the sun! Something orsomeoneelse is bound to take their place and die in their stead.” Mom paused, sliding her eyes from the road to make sure I was listening. “Youcould be that sun, Aera.” She cleared her throat and in a lighter tone said, “Besides, life is too short for you to waste it chasing around these silly dreams.”
“Uh-huh.” I disagreed internally.
What Mom said about the moon was a lie perpetuated by bitter people whose lives used to be complete but were now merely a half-empty cup. Without the sun or the moon, the effect would be irrevocable—no one can truly survive without either. If we lose one, we lose both. The moon didn’t deserve to be called death. It should have beenlife, the sun’s other half. And the sun wants nothing more than to keep the moon safe from anyone who thinks otherwise.
“It happened inThe Flashwhen Barry Allen ran back to the past to save a life, only to return to the present with someone else dying,” Mom pointed out.
“That’s completely unrelated.”
“It’s the same,” she insisted.
“I’m not talking about the shows you watch because of your Barry Allen addiction, Eomma. I’m talking about real life—thepresent.Like rightnow,” I emphasized, fighting the urge to toss my neck pillow at her. “I saw someone die again, and there are two problems. First, I don’t know when it’ll happen. Second, it wasn’t just some stranger. I know the person.”
Mom raised her eyebrows as she drove through the green light. “Who?” she asked as if she’d never overlooked this concern of mine.
I wondered if her shows ever taught her to always consider kids are telling the truth when they say something is wrong with them.
I pouted. “Just … someone.”
“Someone? Is itme?” Her tone was oddly frantic.
“And here I thought you didn’t believe me.” I rolled my eyes. “It’s not you, Eomma. You have a long life ahead of you. I know it.”
“Oh, phew. Well, I don’t know. If you ever see me die, you better tell me how and when so we can prevent it and I can live that long life.” She fanned herself.
“And if it’s someone else?” I arched an eyebrow.
“Honey, you’re still a child. You don’t have to play the hero, and more importantly, you shouldn’t worry about other people, excluding me.”
“Dear me.” I slumped my shoulders in the passenger seat, my panda neck pillow hurting me instead of providing comfort. “Why do I only have to save you?”
“Because I’m your mother. Do you want to be an orphan?” she asked as she made a left turn.
Huffing, I rested my head against the window as we entered Shady Lane. The towering oak trees along each side of the road were the reason for its namesake.
As our car sped under the shadows of the still green leaves, I whispered, “Fair enough.”
* * *
A few hours later,I sat in our World Geography class, observing Cole’s movements—a new addition to my daily routine. With me seated behind him, he blocked the blackboard with his giraffe neck and his perfectly messy, noodle hair.
It was difficult to move on with a smile on my face.
I used to get all giddy by simply staring at his broad shoulders, but this time around, I just wanted to get his hair out of his face so I could read his eyes and ask him if he were theseme (dominant)or theuke (submissive)partner in the perfect gay relationship I imagined him to be in. He’d most likely gape at me with doe eyes, confused by the terms only an avid reader like me would know.
A snore crashed into my train of thought. For a millisecond, this monstrous noise halted the boring lecture of the boring teacher who must have thought his students were boring, considering almost everyone was either asleep or daydreaming.
I tilted my head to the sound and recognized Gray in the last row corner seat, napping with his arms under his chin, snoring like a dragon.
