Chapter 12 #2
The truck door flings open, and he, reaches his fingers for me to take, “Hurry up! Get in! We don’t have much time.
We have to get you out of here, little fox.
” The name that I’m not sure where it came from calms me.
It’s him. I don’t give a shit if this is real or not, but I’ll take it.
I jump in the cab beside him, and as soon as the door is closed, the truck takes off.
“Wait! What about the other voice? Are you going to leave him behind? He brought me out of there. Where is he?” The words fall from my lips in a rapid firing pattern. I want to save him like he saved me but have no idea where to start.
“Relax, Delayni. He is in the back,” the driver reassures me, and I jump.
Of course someone is driving. I should have noticed him before now, but I was too busy studying the man I have escaped with for as long as I can remember.
Too overwhelmed to finally see his full face to notice anything else around us, I guess.
“Oh.” I don’t correct him by telling him my name is Leila, I’ve heard the name before, but I thought it was a mistake.
What if the name is not the mistake, but it’s me instead?
Could the man have thought I was someone else for all of these years?
My heart physically hurts when I consider this to be true.
If it’s what is going on, I wish they would have left me in the prison cell to rot.
Rotting away to nothing would have been less cruel than finding out I have been rescued on accident.
“You’re not an accident, Delayni…Leila,” the man who brings me comfort says, taking my hand into his.
“Oh, ok.” I robotically answer him, unable to make out the trees as we zip past them well over the speed limit.
“That’s good to know.” Just as I am about to thank him for clearing things up, a thought enters my head.
I didn’t say those things out loud. Did I?
“Wait. I didn’t. You couldn’t know…” My words are coming out in a jumbled mess, so I give up.
“You’re right, you didn’t say them out loud. But I do know, and my name is North.”
“As in the direction? Yeah ok. Sure. And I guess his name must be South.” The man beside me laughs and North’s sides vibrate with silent laughter.
“Actually, it is,” the driver chuckles, his eyes flicking over to me and then back to the road.
“You’re shitting me, right?”
They both shake their heads.
“Then which is the other guy, East or West?”
“Neither. That’s Two Face.”
My eyes blink slowly as I take everything in and try to process it.
This feels like it is real. Very real. I was able to agree with the doctors’ skeptics of whether North existed outside of my mind when he didn’t have a name and I was the only one who had a conversation with him.
But now, either I have lost every ounce of my sanity, or all of this is happening.
“It is real, little fox. All of it. I finally found you,” North admits, bringing my hand to his mouth and kissing the back of my hand.
Confusion wraps around my body, and I cannot shake free from it. Seeing as North seems to know what I am thinking, there’s no point not to voice my concerns. “What do you mean finally found me? Was it not you with me for all of these years?”
“Years?” North and South both cough.
I nod, “Yes, years. At first you terrified me, but after a while, you became my safe space. I never know how I get to you and rarely how I return, only that I’ve been with you…or at least I thought it was you.”
“it was, but it’s complicated,” North explains. “It was me who was there, but unlike you, I didn’t remember being there.”
“But why rescue me if you don’t know me? If you don’t remember, then why rescue me?” The questions pour out of me faster than I can process the. I’m crumbling inside and it is undeniable from the outside. I don’t know where they are taking me or what they have in store for me once we arrive.
“Because, Little Fox, You and I, well, all of us really, have known each other for much longer than the dreams you recall. Before we found each other in our dreams, we found each other over and over again.”
“How do we keep losing each other?” He’s not making any sense. You can’t lose a person as easily as you can a remote. A person is not an object.
“We die and come back to life, but the one who dies forgets the others existence.”
“Hold up. We die?”
He nods as if he has not just told me we’ve both died and come back to life. I gnaw on the inside of my lower lip, not sure how to respond.
North releases my hand and wraps his arm around my shoulders, pulling me closer to him, he guides my head against his chest. “it’s a lot to process, but if you’re willing, I’ll help you understand. It’s going to take time, but right now, you need to rest. You have to be exhausted.”
I am, but I would not dare admit it to anyone.
Maybe if I close my eyes for a quick nap, everything will make sense.
I doubt it, none of these things are topics that can be taken easily in stride or discussed over morning coffee to me.
But judging by how he so easily explained them, they must be normal things to North.
South wasn’t fazed by the information at all, so it must not be anything new to him either.
I nod against his chest, not sure if saying anything else right now would help clear anything up or only muddle them further.