memories, and I was missing huge parts of my life, including the marriage of my wife and I. Luckily, I still remembered Elizabet, my dearest one. But with my rage issues, my wife became frightened of me, she stuck with me for as long as she could—a year, and then took our daughter.
I was left alone. All my happiness was gone because I chose to love someone who quite possibly could not love back. But, the saddest part was, like my family, I still loved him. I spent the rest of that life completely miserable. Every now and again, I had a memory of me and my family together—happy as could be, and it was those moments that were the hardest—those moments that caused me to weep angry tears and wreck my own house. Unhappiness shot me like an arrow in the back, and I wondered, as I always did, just why I was made to suffer.
It was something I never wanted to remember, and never would have if Micah had not coincidentally entered my life again. What were the odds? Why was fate playing tricks on me?
But maybe… maybe fate wanted me to help this boy. Maybe we were thrown together because I was the only one who could. And even now…
Even now I still loved him. He was wrong, people did not change. He was no exception. He was still an ugly, lying little monster who cared about his own happiness and no one else’s. He didn’t care if he ruined my life or his own; he just wanted to be loved, and he would do anything to reach that end.
But maybe he had changed. He wanted to leave earlier but I kept showering him with love, and he could not. He wanted to choose my happiness over his own. At least, this time, he had not injured me. This time around, he seemed sadder—more knowledgeable—more empathetic.
But all those manipulative lies he had told were truly disturbing. I at least wanted to know if it were his plan from the beginning to manipulate me like that. I had to know whether he had ever cared, whether he was a monster, or just downtrodden with sadness. I had to know.
I began heading down the mountain. He may have already left town, so I had to move fast to catch him. I dashed downwards, sweating despite the cold weather.
As I dashed, I heard someone crying. I looked around the snowy mountaintop, looking to my left and right. Not seeing anyone, I moved a little bit further down.
Then I saw him at the edge of the mountain.
My heart was seized with sick worry. I hurried over to him, but he saw me coming. He faced me fearlessly. “I’m… sorry for everything.”
“Whatever you did Micah, it isn’t worth killing yourself over…”
He wiped his tears away with the back of a hand, sniffed audibly, and said, “I wanted to be like you… but I never have been able to—I’m too selfish and conceited—no matter what, none of my lives ever seem to be happy. But I never wanted to make your lives miserable as well. It doesn’t matter if I die… I’ll just be reborn and live the same miserable life over and over, with no one to love, and no one to love me back. No matter what, I just can’t change, and I alienate everyone I love.”
Part of me wanted him to be gone—wanted him to be out of my life forever—but fate had thrown us together again, and I had to believe there was a reason why. “If you jump off that ledge, you will have failed at life again. I may not love you anymore Micah, or even like you, but it doesn’t matter. If you want change, you have to decide right now to change that part in your mind that is always telling you to give up. Love starts and ends with you, and if you can’t learn to love yourself, no one else can.”
He stared for a moment, cold tears running down his cheeks. Then he sniffed audibly, wiped his tears again and nodded. He took a step towards me, but the snow caved beneath his feet and dragged him off the cliff. He barely grabbed onto the exposed rock face with a scream.
I rushed over to him and grabbed his hand, snow sliding beneath my own feet as I did so. I was panting, and he looked up at me—resigned. It only made me want to save him more. With a grunt, I managed to pull him back up the mountain, snow almost taking us both down as I did so.
He collapsed on top of me, and I didn’t know what came over me, but I held his face in my hands and threw my arms around him. Sometimes, love came from knowing someone well, sometimes it came from passion, and sometimes, it came from nothing at all. This was one of those times. I felt tears running down my cheeks.
I missed him. He was not mine by blood, but to have someone I loved back from one of my past lives was a bliss. I didn’t want to lose him again, I wanted to have a piece of that life that I loved—I wanted to have the second chance to rescue the person I loved. But I couldn’t forgive him for what happened; I knew I couldn’t stand to live around him.
I released him and we walked away from the ledge. I turned to face him, about to ask him the question on my mind.
He stopped me, holding up a hand. He knew what I wanted to ask. The wind blew his hair, and he looked down at his feet. “When I first came up here… I only knew what people in the town below told me about you. I didn’t know you were Syli. I have no parents… I’ve been on my own since I was eight. I was willing to stay with anyone until I could find something to do with this life, and so I told you a story to accommodate my wishes…” He shook his head with tears in his eyes. “I never imagined, not in a million years, that I would ever see you again. But I knew, the moment I saw that your Blue was… I knew you were…” He smiled and laughed bitterly. “I found out, that despite what I’d done to you, you were still the same person. Even with that thudding in your head, you showed me kindness no one else did—you let me stay—but I was selfish… I knew you would do the right thing, and I knew, no matter what, there was no way my visit would end happily. And then, when you remembered Elizabet… I knew it was wrong to use her memory, evil even. But I never got to say sorry or goodbye and I was too...”
“Then why didn’t you just tell me the truth? Why manipulate me and my feelings? Pretending to be my beloved daughter who died? Singing that damned song when you knew it would hurt me. I just have one more question for you—why did you take my compass?”
He wasn’t looking at me as I yelled at him; he was looking down—ashamed. Now, he looked at me with wide eyes.. “I went back to your house a few years after what happened. I wanted to see you—to apologize—to tell you that my life… that my life was wrecked to make you feel better. But you were gone…. I cried until I had no tears left. Because I would have to live so many more lifetimes… just regretting what I did to you. But I thought, if I ever met you again, I wanted to say I was sorry, and bring you proof of who I was. So I took that compass from your house, and when I died, I buried it somewhere I could reclaim it. It was funny… I thought I might be able to eventually move on and forget about that past… I thought I would forget about the compass. I never could. Because you were my dad. And when I met you again, all I wanted was more time with you, and I buried that compass instead of giving it back to you. That was when I knew I could never change. That compass was supposed to be my redemption, but I buried it for my own selfish desires. It was pathetic…”
He shook his head at himself, and then he looked at me lovingly. He smiled then and began walking away, hands in his pockets.
I watched him go. I hated him. I hated him because he knew what he was doing was wrong but he did it anyway; I hated him for what he did to me, I hated him because I still loved him despite all that, and I hated him because after all this time, my love was made void because he had not changed.
But what was change? His personality was still the same, his habits were the same, and even his soul which seemed to be housed in the depths of his familiar eyes was the same. But if that were the case, I had not changed either. Some would argue that I did not need to change, but that was a lie. Because my memories were back. All of them. And they were the other reason why I felt so miserable.
And I remembered now, that my relationship between me and family was not as I remembered it. There was love, but there were also nonstop flights between me and my wife. She was unhappy, because I was always working and had no
time for her and my daughter. I was only able to come home late at night, when Gabriel was there. I knew him better than my own daughter. It was my fault she died alone and unhappy. If I could only meet her again, I would tell her just how much I loved her and how sorry I was for being a poor father.
I had not changed. I still preferred isolation over people, and it wasn’t just because of Blue. I had always been like that. Even with my parents in this life, I wished I could have been closer to them. I had learned now, that you only had one family, and to keep them in your life and happy was imperative to your own happiness. Change was not the act of becoming difference all at once; it was the act of acknowledging something that was wrong with oneself, and taking steps to change it. Change is so very hard though, because when you have acted the same way all your life, or many lives, it sometimes becomes so ingrained that it isn’t possible.
But if you didn’t try, you would always remain the same. I wanted to be happy, and if being happy meant changing, I wanted it to start right here.
Micah had at least tried to change, even if he messed it up in the end. He took the first step in the right direction, but I was still stuck where I was.
I closed my eyes
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