Chapter 11 Kaira #2
"I know you don't really know me and I don't know you, but when I read her journal, when I realized she had a sister, I knew I had to find you.
I knew I had to find this place no matter how weird everything seemed.
" My feet had a mind of their own, dragging me closer to Alyana.
"It's been almost a year since they died and the only memory I keep replaying was the last time I spoke with her, when we argued, when I told her I wouldn't be going on our annual family trip this year.
When she called me selfish and that this wasn't how she raised me.
When she told me there were things I didn't know, things she needed to tell me, show me.
When I yelled at her, telling her she knew nothing about me or my life and that I never wanted to be anything like her.
" My body was shaking now, sobs wreaking havoc on my nervous system, but I had to let it out.
I needed to let it all out, because I couldn't keep on going with this anger toward myself.
Toward the words I allowed myself to tell her. The words that never should've been spoken.
"I told her it was the last time she would see me, Alyana.
Just before we entered that car, I told her it would be the last time she would ever see me and I wish every single day that I could go back in the past and redo everything.
I wish I had agreed on that stupid trip we took every single year instead of telling her she was too controlling, too obsessed with our safety.
" Warm arms wrapped around me for the second time in one day and I let myself fall apart.
I let myself feel everything.
My insides screamed at me, begging me to stop, but this pain was a part of my life now. This pain, these regrets, these memories I would never be able to escape were a part of who I was. Who I would always be.
"I was a terrible daughter." I sobbed in her arms, letting her guide me toward one of the chairs in the dining area, letting me sit down as she pulled another chair and sat right in front of me. "I was a terrible sister."
"Shhh," she crooned, holding my hands between her own. "I'm sure that's not true."
"It is," I argued. "It is true, trust me.
I was too cold. Too obsessed with my life, my pleasure to see her pain.
I never even asked her why she rarely spoke of her home.
I never asked her if she had a sister. I didn't ask," I murmured in the end.
"I didn't care. Deep down I couldn't find it in me to care because I always thought she was too controlling.
I always thought she was too worried about things that made no sense to me, pushing me to do all these sports, martial arts, and she never shared her reasons.
I still don't understand them, but God," I wailed.
"Why did I have to fight her on everything so much? "
Alyana kept quiet as I went on and on, crying to a woman that had lost people maybe even more times than I did, and she did it with a calm face and steady hands, comforting me, an actual stranger.
"Kaira," she mumbled, her thumb dragging over the top of my hand.
"You mom loved you. If there's one thing I know about my sister, it's that she loved you even before you were born.
Even when everything looked so uncertain, scary, she loved you more than she had ever loved anything.
Your father loved you—both of them," she added.
"I loved you from the moment I knew you existed. I still do."
I looked at her, seeing the tears on her own cheeks.
"You're not alone, Kaira, and I'm sorry for the less-than-warm welcome this morning, but the moment I knew you were arriving I also got the confirmation I've been dreading, because I knew she never would've allowed you to come here alone. She never would've wanted you to come here at all."
"You knew I was coming?" I frowned. "How?" And then it dawned on me. "Was it Mrs. Macy?"
She chuckled, straightening in her chair. "Maybe, maybe not."
"That isn't an answer."
"That's the only one you'll get for now." I could feel my eyes rolling even as she smacked me on the knee, but that one small gesture reminded me once again of my mother and the tears I had thought had stopped, started again.
"I'm sorry," I mumbled, rubbing against my cheeks, forcing my body to cooperate. "I don't even know why I'm crying anymore. I've been crying on the ferry and I cried when you approached me and I'm crying now… I usually don't cry this much."
"You need to let it all out to be able to start again," she simply said, patting my knee. "And it's the island's effect on you."
"What do you mean?" She stood up and headed toward the kitchen, leaving me behind. "Alyana?" I followed after her, rubbing my eyes and begging the tears to stop from falling. "What do you mean by that?"
I found her placing my omelet on a plate. "Your mother truly never told you about this place?"
"No, never. I only found out after reading her journal from 1996.
" Which I wasn't sure was the best idea.
"That's when I also found out that Benjamin wasn't my father, which you obviously already knew.
All I know is that she's mentioned someone called Atos.
" Her head swiveled toward me, her eyes holding a mixture of grief and fear.
"You shouldn't have read that," Alyana said. "I wish you never had to read it. I wish you never had to come here, Kaira. I stay by what I said—you never should've stepped foot on this island. Daniela left for a reason—"
"But what is this fucking reason!?" I bellowed, my nerves frayed by all the tiptoeing around the topic.
"I understand that there was a reason, but I wish for once, just once, that people would tell me straight what those reasons were.
What was the reason for Mom's constant checkups and the need for me to be a modern-day Spartan?
What was the reason for her leaving? Why did she leave my biological father behind? Was he abusive?"
"No."
"Did he not love her?"
"He loved her more than life itself."
"Then what was the fucking reason?" My chest rose and fell, my lungs pulling in more and more oxygen as my nerves skyrocketed, but I just wanted answers.
"I came here because I thought there would be answers—straight answers.
I don't understand what is going on, Alyana.
I don't even understand how I am alive."
She finished prepping her own omelet quietly, as if I hadn't just erupted on her with all my emotions, pretty much spewing them all out with no care in the world.
"Tell me," I begged, following her as she gathered our plates and exited the kitchen.
"Please." She placed the plates on top of the table, arranging our cutlery slowly, almost too precisely, ignoring me.
"Alyana," I wrapped my fingers around her upper arm, turning her slowly toward me.
"Please. I'm begging you. Just tell me what this big secret is.
What was she so afraid of? Why did she leave this place, her family, the man she loved? Why did she lie to me?"
She was looking anywhere but at my face, chewing her bottom lip as she wrapped her arms around her.
"Please," I whispered, my voice breaking on the last syllable, letting my emotions bleed through. "I just need the truth and if you want to, you don't ever have to see me again."
Her head snapped up, her eyes blazing with a fire I haven't seen before.
"You think I wouldn't want to see you again? You think I had spent the last twenty-nine years praying for you, begging the Gods to keep you safe just so I wouldn't see you ever again?"
"Well, I—"
"I told her to leave," Alyana said. "I begged her to run from here when she said she was thinking of staying, because I knew the fate awaiting both of you here was much worse than what could happen on the mainland."
"I still don't understand why—"
"Because we were terrified!" Alyana bellowed, her eyes wild. "Because we were terrified of what would happen. Because there are things on this island that want you dead!"
My blood turned to ice the moment the words spilled over her lips, making me stumble backwards. The strings tethering me to Earth's gravitational field snapped, and the air around us became suffocating. As if we ended up in a vacuum.
Alyana looked through the small window above the sink, her eyebrows pinched together.
She took a deep breath, lowering her voice, and walked toward the same chair she'd been occupying earlier.
"Your mother should've told you about the island.
She should've prepared you. She should've listened to me when I warned her, when I told her that destiny can't be outrun.
It can be delayed, it can be fooled for a moment in time, but it cannot be escaped.
" She sounded like Macy, but where Macy delivered her speech in a calm and steady manner, my aunt spoke of destiny as something that was to be feared. As something my mother feared.
Slowly approaching her, I took the seat next to her once more, both of us ignoring the omelets getting cold in front of us.
"Nevermere Island isn't what you think it is, Kaira." Her sharp eyes cut through my skin as she looked at me. "It isn't just the place where your mother and I grew up. It's more, so much more, and I'm afraid with you being here now we won’t be able to stop things from unraveling."
"What are you talking about? What things?"
"Gods," she groaned, dragging her hand over her face.
"She should've prepared you for this day, for this place.
And I guess she did with all those training sessions and all those talks, but she didn't tell you the reality.
She didn't tell you what I told her." Alyana grabbed my hands, her eyes connecting with mine.
A knock sounded at the front door, and before I could even look in that direction, Alyana was up on her feet, her eyes wide and filled with trepidation.
"Stay here," she instructed, already moving away from the dining area. "And do not make a single sound," she added as she turned around, looking at me. "I beg of you, Kaira. Just stay here."
There was real fear living underneath those words. Fear that was slowly slithering up my legs, over my arms, and straight into my heart, poisoning the air around me, making it so much harder to breathe.
But a fear of what?