Chapter Thirty-Six
Shad wasn’t attending school anymore. I stopped by his house to train with Keil as I usually did on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Keil was in the kitchen, and his glasses were on the counter, his face in his hands.
“Keil?” I asked as I reached him.
“Oh, hello, Emma. Ready for today's lesson?” he asked with no inflection in his tone or voice.
“Where is Shad? Why hasn’t he been at school?” I asked. He looked up at me with eyes full of sorrow and worry.
“I have failed him,” he said.
I wanted to know what had happened since I had last seen Keil in order for him to have lost all hope.
“He is failing, just as the other soulless have failed, the ones we collected and tried to save. He is fading fast, Emma. I am not sure how much time he has left before he is gone forever.”
I felt pains shooting through my entire being. This is not possible, I am not going to let this be possible.
“No, we can still, I still can, try—” I fell silent. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t do anything but look at the ancient warrior, more powerful than all other Terran beings, who was on the verge of tears.
I left him, raced up the stairs, two at a time.
I opened every single door, not sure which bedroom was Shad’s.
I had never been inside his bedroom before.
I opened a door and saw a room painted blue, a light blue, like the sky.
There was a queen-sized bed with navy blue sheets and a machine making noises beside the boy who was in the bed, not moving.
I walked slowly over to him, wondering if my being there might make him even worse in some way.
I watched from a few feet away as the machine echoed his steady pulse and as his chest rose and fell with each breath.
He is just sleeping; he is fine, I tried to tell myself, because, of course, those words sounded so much better than the truth, which I knew.
I took a few moments to look around his room.
There stood a full length mirror in the corner, near a closet.
There was a dresser and a small writing desk, on which I noticed his book, his rose book.
And on top of it, I saw a wilted, pink rose.
I walked over and noticed that it must have been there for a day or two because it was already drying out.
My tears slipped down my cheek, and I wiped them away.
Why is there a pink rose in his room? I had forgotten all about checking on what a pink rose meant.
I touched it and noticed on the corner of his desk, there was a small card from The Rose Village.
I smiled as I picked it up and realized that there were a bunch more of them underneath.
I wondered why he needed so many. Maybe he was the one who had taken the stack I had searched for months earlier—before the cave.
I noticed, then, a circle around the pink rose, drawn with a pen right on the desk.
I picked up the flower and traced the outline, wondering why he had drawn it?
What was he thinking? He was a soulless.
How could he have remembered that? Had he?
I couldn't see his markings any longer because tears were streaming down my face.
I sniffled and touched the pink bloom again.
Happiness, the pink rose is given to signify happiness.
Do I make him happy? Happiness was the farthest thing from my mind at that time.
Nothing was happy about my current life situation. How have I been able to make him happy?
As soon as I gathered myself and my emotions, I placed the flower and the card back on the side of the desk and looked at the book that was there.
It was his rose hobby book, as he called it.
I smiled at the memory of sitting in his house, flipping through its pages.
There were about fifty or so pages bound in the front.
I recalled him explaining to me that they were just journal entries that he had written earlier.
Finally, I sat down at his desk and tried to cut at the strings that bound them.
Once I finally freed the pages, I turned to the first one.
There was just one thing on that page: a sketch of a rose, lightly drawn, and I could tell that it was old.
I flipped the page, and there were words.
Some I understood, and some I didn’t. I turned to the next page, and there was a sketch of my face; it looked just like me, and beside my face and all around it, there was a border of roses, all sketched so beautifully.
At the bottom, it read: “My Darling.” I tried to stop the flow of tears, but I couldn’t.
Page after page, there were words in a language that I didn’t understand, along with some writing that I could read.
I wished that I could have deciphered all of the many pages and pages of words that he had written.
I wanted to know what he had written there, what he had taken the time to record.
The door creaked open before I could finish the book.
I snapped the book shut and waited for Keil to enter.
“Emma, are you alright?” he asked in a whisper.
“I don’t think so, not unless he recovers from this, Keil. If he doesn’t, if I cannot save him, I know I will never be alright ever again for the rest of my life. Everything is so messed up. Just when I think things might turn around, something else comes up and pushes me back down.”
“Emma, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to give you false hope.
I just—well, I had to believe it.” I reached out and hugged him.
He had been the only one who believed me, the only one who tried to have hope.
I was grateful for his hope, I was in such need of it, and I knew I would always be thankful for it, even if I had to live in a world without Shad.
I looked over at Shad one last time and then back at Keil, knowing that while hope did seem gone, I would still try at least one last time.
I would get the crystal from Cade, and I would fix Shad.
There were so many things I didn't know about.
I didn't know Terra, I didn't know my ancient gift, I didn't know much about Ash or Glasson, and I knew barely anything about myself. I didn’t know about the stupid prophecy that Ryker had told me about, or why he always shielded his melody. I didn’t know why I felt pity for Cade, and I didn’t know why all of those things were sitting square on my shoulders, pressing me down.
But the time for feeling sorry for myself was over.
Even though I didn't know much, I did know one thing: I knew that I loved Shad, and I would sacrifice myself if it meant I could save him.
I was done looking for answers, done talking, done acting strong like everything would be okay, somehow.
No, I would solve the problem myself. No one else believed in him.
Everyone else had written Shad off as a lost cause, everyone except Keil and I.
I had the hope that somehow I could save him, that somehow, even if his memories inside of that note inside of me didn't seem useful. I did have a plan.
“I have to go.” I stood up and ran from the room.
Keil called after me. “Emma, don’t go to him. Please, Shad only has a week, at most, left,”
“I have to do this, Keil,” I said, stopping on the sidewalk, out of breath. “I have to do this or else for the rest of my life, I will always wonder, always wish I had done it, and I can not live with that. I have to know that I tried everything possible to save him.”
“You have, Emma. You have given so much, sacrificed so much, and tried so hard.”
“I haven’t tried hard enough. There is still something I can do,” I said as I turned and ran to my house.