Chapter 16
Delayni
My eyelashes bat as I try to figure out if I’m ready to be awake or not.
I scrub my fingers over my face and sit up, feeling like I slept better last night than I have in years.
My eyes scan around a room I have no memory of entering.
This definitely isn’t my cell or even the bunk I had in the infirmary.
This is not Shady Holler. It’s someone’s room.
I have to figure out where I am and whose bed I’m in fast. Tears threaten to fall from my eyes, collecting behind my lower lids, but I fight them.
Now isn’t the time to sit and cry. It is time for taking action, and the first task on the top of the list is my priority right now.
I look for clues, anything that could help me find the answers I need. An oversized black t-shirt slips off my shoulder and grabs my attention. It’s North’s. The memories starting flooding into my head at such a fast speed I am barely able to keep up with all of it.
We were forbidden.
We fell in love.
They murdered me and our child.
He was labeled as a cast out and sent to earth to carry out the rest of his days.
We’ve lost and found each other in every life, and I understand why North keeps being born again, but not myself.
The best answer we came up with over the years is although the others stole our baby’s life, we think maybe he left the ability of rebirth behind.
But none of us have any real idea how it is possible.
It could be part of our punishment, to never know peace, and to always wander the earth looking for the missing part of our soul. Who knows? Not me that is for sure.
The door opens and I pull the covers tightly over my arms out of reflex.
My attention is on North’s face, and I smile.
That sense of unexplained peace I felt without even knowing who he was to me makes sense now.
He is my home. For me, home isn’t a place it is a feeling.
North is it for me. I now understand how I found an escape within the arms of a complete stranger.
He was no strange at all, I wonder if somewhere in the back of my subconscious I never forget him.
I guess it doesn’t matter because we are together now.
We have a lot to figure out. I’m sure by now my face is plastered all over the local news channels with the headlines along the lines of prisoner at large.
Honestly, I am too exhausted to worry about it right now, but will have to deal with it as soon as possible.
I don’t know how to prove my innocence or stay out of jail while doing it, but I am determined. I’m not going back to that hell hole.
“Good erm…afternoon?” North greets me, his body bends as if he wants to sit, but then he awkwardly straightens his back as if he’s not sure what to do.
He doesn’t know that I remember anything.
I want to find the right words to tell him, but is thee really a bad way to tell the love of your life that you remember who they are?
I don’t think so, but I guess I could be wrong about that assumption.
“Are you hungry?”
“I could eat.”
“How does pancakes sound to you?”
“They sound absolutely amazing!” My response is a bit over the top, but after eating prison food for so long, he probably could have offered me a steal granola bar and I would have reacted about the same, honestly.
Everyone jokes about stuff tasting like prison food, but until they actually eat it, don’t understand how truly nasty it can be.
But, controversially, not all of it tastes like shit.
Some of the food is that they cooked was phenomenal.
“Do you want to get changed and we’ll go out for breakfast?”
I sigh, kicking the covers off my legs and pull my knees up to my chest, securing my arms around them, suddenly self-conscious about having a rap sheet. “That would be wonderful, but I don’t feel like anymore drama right now.”
“Why would pancakes equal drama?”
“Because I just broke out of prison…or you all just broke me out of prison. I don’t know how to describe it.
” I wave my hand in the air. “However it happened, you were there. I do not want to deal with any of it right now. Right now, I just want to feed my face and talk in between bites. If that’s ok with you? ”
“I didn’t think about that. I’m sorry. I should have thought about that.” He rubs his hand over the back of his neck and stares at the ceiling.
“Don’t be sorry. It’s not your job to think of everything, North. Not everything is on your shoulders. I’m a big girl, I can take care of somethings myself. I promise.”
“You shouldn’t have to, though. That’s what I’m for.”
I glare at him. This is how he has always been, ready to put everyone before himself.
Even on the first day I died, he offered himself to save me, but I did the same for him.
I knew if I kept pressing the buttons of the others, that they would want to kill me, but prayed for a miracle that they would spare all of us.
I did not find a miracle that day as I had hoped, or at least I didn’t think I had.
And yet, here I am living my seventh life, and that in itself is a miracle.
“Ok. Ok. I’m going to get pancakes. You’ll be safe here; the guys will see to it. Are you good with that?”
“One-hundred percent. I’ll be fine. Go.” I wave my hands in his direction, shooing him toward the door.