Between Shadows

by Joanne Durann

  Jared’s brutal honestly hit home, her mother was reduced to tears, “Just because she caught you in a lie doesn’t mean you have to continue to torture her. You know where to find us.” And with that sentence he left and he hoped they would come to see Miranda.

  Her mother stared out the window, “I guess we were hard on her. It is my fault she didn’t know Gage, I should have told her years ago. What do we do now?” She looked at her husband, and they just held onto each other not knowing if Miranda would ever see them again, let alone speak to them.

  Jared got back quickly and never mentioned where he was to anyone, he left word for Gage that Miranda’s mother found out everything, and she was in a bad mood. He asked that Gage stay away for a while until she could get herself together. Over the next week the house was finished and people came and went, Miranda left whenever the house was being was shown, she just wanted it over with. She went into her work with Jared, told them she was leaving to get married and wished everyone well. Not because she wanted to, but that was the human thing to do, she knew they didn’t care about her so she didn’t think much about them. She was different inside, she was very cold, her parents had broken her spirit. She was really having a hard time and Jared wasn’t sure she would ever come back from that.

  Gage showed up, he knew things were bad, but for Miranda he pretended not to know anything. She was smiling but he could see she was just going through the motions.

  He finally went outside with Jared, “I am going to see them, they need to do something, she’s dyeing inside! Jared I can’t bear to see her like this anymore, and I can’t image what it’s doing to you.” Gage left, and went to see the two people he know for only one moment in time, the ones who gave him Miranda.

  Ringing a doorbell was not Gage’s style; he walked right in, and sat down. “We need to talk.” The power on the TV went out and he smiled at the two fools before him, “How are the two of you going to make this right? I won’t have Miranda like this anymore, it’s like she’s not even there. Do you realize that you have done more in one hour than a world of evil could do to her in two death attempts? You were so worried the day I came to take her. You told me she would be hurt, that she wouldn’t be able to live through it, and yet you kill her yourself? Explain again why you didn’t give her me back then? Because I’m having a problem right now, you have thrown her under the bus, and now you are walking away. I don’t understand how you can’t see the amazing, beautiful woman that she has become. How can you just sit in your house and pretend it didn’t happen! If I knew it would help, I would kill you both right now, but Miranda would be devastated. She loves you more then you have ever earned.”

  Gage got up and walked out. He left knowing that if he stayed he would kill them, he would make it look like a robbery gone bad, but Miranda would always knew the truth.

  Jared and Miranda went to bed, she was not herself and Jared wondered if he would ever get his wife to be back, “Miranda how can we change this? I can’t stand seeing you like this, what can I do?”

  “It’s not your fault, it’s me, I need to go and make peace with them. If they decide they don’t care for me anymore, it’s ok, but I need to show them that I do care about them. No matter what happens, all the lies, I need them to know I understand. Can you be ok with that?”

  Miranda knew if she was going to move on she needed closure and she was going to have to go to them to get it. “I was happy until they showed up and I am going to be happy again. They aren’t getting in my way, like they’ve done it all my life, and I won’t let them ruin us.” She kissed Jared and led him up to the bedroom as the phone rang.

  Carma answered it, “Yes, she here. Great! Okay, I’ll tell her.” When Carma got off the phone she wasn’t sure how Miranda would take the news, “The house is sold and they want to settle right away. Full asking price, they already have a loan and are willing to settle in one week, your agent will be by tomorrow to sign the papers. Apparently they had a house they wanted and a week before settlement something happened and it fell through!”

  “Good, one less thing for me to worry about, we can leave in one week. Jared with or without my parents I’m leaving, nothing here was ever right, everyone lied to me and called me names. The only place I ever felt safe is in our world with you, my friends and my real dad. It wasn’t supposed to be this way, but they never gave me much choice, and to be honest I’m just tired of trying. There’s only so much I can do, the rest will always be up to them, I wanted it to be okay but they didn’t. That’s way it is and, I guess, that’s the way it’s meant to be.” She walked upstairs and went to bed.

  Over the next few days everything went to way it should, but her parents never called, and Miranda refused to call them. She knew settlement was around the corner. When Sahen and Jared had made the final trips back to the cottage she asked Jared what he felt she should do, “I wanted things to end better but I’m not sure going there is going to help, what do you think?”

  “I think you need to see them one more time. You need to make sure you gave every effort to help them understand, after that, it’s all on them. Miranda tomorrow is settlement, after that we are going to their house; if they don’t accept you for who and what you are that’s their problem. You need to finish this on your terms.”

  She finally agreed and they all went to bed, Jared and Miranda would stay for the settlement and Carma and Sahen would leave in the morning.

  It didn’t take long, Miranda walked the house one last time with Jared, she cried because she was leaving for good. She would never see the human world again, and doubted that her parents would even see her tonight; she knew it was all over. They stopped at the cemetery to see her family’s graves and then made the long track to her parent’s house for the last time.

  It was a long ride from her house to the place where her parents lived, but she wasn’t alone, because Jared had come with her, although she felt alone inside. Jared promised he would stay by her side. He would stay quiet unless she was in trouble or she said she needed him. He knew the link between their minds was far stronger than any blood relationship she had with her parents.

  Miranda wasn’t sure how this night was going to work out. She knew she needed to be truthful because her parents never were. She had come to the conclusion that they had only lied to her because they were trying to protect her. Her mother never wanted her to know the other world that made up half of her body, and forced her to look different, even crazy in some people’s eyes. Her father didn’t want someone else to be her father, he want all along for it to be him, and he had a very hard time knowing it wasn’t

  They had an even harder time when she was growing up and had questions about her powers, powers they had no idea even existed until she spoke about them. They didn’t know what to tell her, and Gage had never come around to help after they refused to let him take her away because he had abandon Miranda in a way they never would. It just made life very hard when they couldn’t help her with the right answers, so they tried to make her stop, by whatever means necessary.

  She had already made peace in her own mind with how her life had been in the human world, and now she really needed to end it the right way. She needed her parent to understand, maybe not be happy for her, but to be able to let her move on with her new life. It was where she needed to be, and it was where she was finally happy.

  The house was sold and the estate sale for the furniture and other things went well. There was very little that she needed to take from the human world as she left for the last time. Jared had already taken everything that she wanted from the house to the cottage. In the end when the sales were final, and the bills were paid, she was ready to give everything left over to her parents. She had closed all of her accounts and had a cashier’s check for her mother and father. She had decided that they could do whatever they wanted with the money, she didn’t care if they threw it in the lake.

  Miranda wondered how she was going to start this conversation with th
em. The words said before were in anger and she wanted to change everything about that day. The road was long and dark, the only comfort she had was that Jared was next to her; he had been and would be there for their whole journey. From start to finish Jared was the one constant in her life that was truthful and honest. It was a forty-five minute drive from Miranda’s house to her parent’s and she still wasn’t sure what to do.

  “Why don’t we just go in and see how things go and take it from there?”

  Jared was great at calming her down; he had been there through everything. He was the only person who could stop her rage. “You don’t have to tell them everything. Just give them what they want to hear.”

  His smile was contagious and all he wanted was for Miranda to get through this and be happy again, for them to be together forever, and for her to be in his arms for all eternity. Jared knew she just wasn’t going to do it, but he needed to try anyway, she needed to know there was a easy way out even if she would never use it.