The Freedom

The stillness of the water gave me an uneasy feeling as I looked across the unbroken blue glass. I didn't know why it was so still, nor why I felt almost nervous about what I saw before me. If I hadn't been such a logical person, I would have taken my most inner feelings as an ill omen.

As it were, though, I disregarded the thoughts as my over tired mind trying to exaggerate an oddness into a fear. 

Yet, as I continued to watch the early morning begin to take shape in double, once on the horizon, once again in it's reflection, I couldn't stop worries from slowly invading my mind. Addressing them would give me peace, I knew, but pushing them aside was the easier, less painful route. I would deal with my problems later, I decided as I looked out one last time on the water, the sea, the subject of my most recent torment.

Turning back towards the path that would bring me back to the city I noticed that I was not alone. The figure of a girl who so wanted to be a woman stood facing me, her long, loose, golden hair and cool gray eyes giving her the appearance of one much older than her years. Seeing her almost made me smile, but I caught myself in time, so as not to give her any ideas or flicker of hope. I knew it was cold, but she was the last person, the last thing, that I need on my mind right now.

We looked at each other, silent, not for lack of things to say, but for no way to say them. I had no problem looking her in the eyes and remaining speechless, but I wondered, if I let it go on, how long we would remain standing on the sea-bound path. 

"I thought I might have found you here," she said, only seconds before I planned to speak. Her words and the fact that she had spoken them set me off balance, and although I had an answer on my lips, it took me a moment to get it out. 

"It's not a difficult thing to know. I come down here often." I said without emotion, and I turned once again to gaze upon the water, where I was chilled again by the erie stillness.

"Every morning," she corrected automatically, and I turned back to face her, expecting to see her face enflamed with embarrassment for having known a most person detail about myself, but all I saw in the flawless face looking back into mine was an expression of expectance.

"Yes, every morning," I repeated her words, and I began to wonder where this conversation, so careful planned out by her, was going. 

"You want to know why I've come to find you," she said, almost as if she had read my mind, which was a silly thought for me to have, because I knew that it was impossible for anyone to read somebody else's mind. One could guess thoughts by observation, but this girl, with her big gray eyes and questioning voice, had never known me enough to be able to guess my thoughts. Uncanny coincidence was the only logical explanation.

"If you would like to tell me what you have come to say, then by all means..." I gestured with my hands for her to continue. 

She smiled coyly, like she was keeping a secret about me to herself. Maybe she was, although, again, that was not possible. I prided myself on how I guarded myself, keeping anything even resembling a secret closed and quiet. "What fun would that be?" She asked, keeping the same smile on her lips as she spoke, "I can't just tell you. What fun is it to know all by oneself and then share? No, you must walk with me if you want to know."

How I wished she annoyed me, how I wanted to not care about the words she spoke. A weakness it was not, at least if I continued to remain careful, but it was still a flaw about myself I hadn't been able to shake or figure out.

Since I had met her, I had always felt compelled to listen, to obey, even if not outwardly. She never asked much, never tricked or manipulate the situation, and perhaps thats why I couldn't understand why she was able to get what she wanted. Because she always did, even if it took time, she always achieved what she wanted.

Which, in a way, was why I began to follow her. But after two steps I stopped and resisted. "What if I don't come with you?" I challenged.

"I won't tell you what I came to say," she said simply, the smile gone from her face. "and its really not a big deal, honest. I just thought we could talk for a while."

And, although I didn't understand it, I knew that somehow, somewhere between me challenging her offer and her replacing the smile with the nonchalant look of rejection on her face I had crumbled, if only a little, and decided it wouldn't kill me to walk with her and listen to what she had to say.  
Besides, I knew her well enough to know that when she said it wasn't a big deal, she really meant that there was something important just beneath the surface, waiting to bubble up.

We continued up the path, not saying anything at first. It always seemed like she weighed every word before it came out, before it hit an ear and made damage. 

Her only problem was, she never weighed them well enough.

"Hard to believe that it's going to rain later, isn't it?" she remarked, making me wonder what prompted that random comment.

"How can you tell?" I replied, while thinking how one could possibly respond to such a comment. I should have ignored it, I thought, let her weigh some more words.

Too late, "The water told me."

"What?"

"You asked how I could tell, and I told you," she turned her head ever so slightly, just enough so I could see her face out of the corner of my eye. "The water told me." she repeated. 

"How?" I asked, sure she knew the depth of the question. How had the water spoken to her? How did she think she knew the weather? How could she communicate with the water while it still remained silent to me. 

She ignored my question though, just as I should have ignored her comment in the first place. "Thats why the sea is so calm this morning. It knows, it feels the change. Soon, or maybe not as soon as it thinks, it will be raging again, with waves as high as mountains."

"I see," I said, thinking that her voice had stayed surprisingly calm during her description of the storm that supposedly was coming. "is that what you wanted to tell me?"
 
"Oh, no," she assured me, although I didn't feel more at ease. "I just thought I let you know. Did the sea speak to you today?"

The question wasn't meant to be hurtful, nor did she mean to brag. Neither of those facts made the words sting any less, but because I new she hadn't said them to be hurtful, I just brushed them aside, not unlike the way I had swept up my worries just what seemed like minutes before, and began on a new subject.

"what did you want to tell me?"

"I'm leaving," she said, and at first I didn't understand. 

"What do you mean you're leaving?"

"I mean I'm leaving the for the Wyldwood," she stopped walking and turned to totally face me. "it's calling me, the voices get stronger each day."

"it's nothing," I told her, feeling as though it were the hundredth time I had tell her this. "those voices, they mean nothing, they are nothing."

If I had expected her to be angry, or at least deeply offend, I would have been disappointed. But as it was, I hadn't been expecting any particular reaction,  so when she only shrugged to roll away my disbelief, I wasn't surprised. 

"I have to leave," her gaze extend beyond where the tops of the city's buildings could be seen. "there is nothing for me if I remain here, but everything if I choose to leave."

It was true, the words she spoke, at least the bit about there being nothing for her in our quaint little city that stood as a border between the edges of rationality and insanity. Not even I, who never intend to give her anything or make a promise, was enough to make her stay. And I understood.
 
While at the same time, I could not.

"You realize you don't know what is beyond? That you do not even know if you can survive?" I asked, concerned, hoping that my unsaid feelings of worry would be communicated to her.

"It does not matter. I will find away." she replied, utterly determined.
"I don't need to remind you that no one that leaves for way of the Wyldwood ever comes back, do I? Anyone who has ever dared to travel along that way is never seen again."

"I know." She said confidently. 

We had arrived on the edge of the city, the path behind us holding recent memories of a life changing   conversation. Not for her, for her mind and path were already decided when she had come to speak with me that morning. 
For me, it was not life changing either, not really, not then. Later, yes, I would look upon those words and pause and wonder why I hadn't  seen, why I hadn't stopped and changed the corse of our futures. But, while in the now, the chapter closed silently with no second thoughts about what had just been said.

For, as we stood on the edge of the empty street, somewhere on the line of letting go and loving a girl who I didn't want, I asked a question I really didn't care to know the answer too. "When are you leaving?"

"As soon as the rain stops," and then, as she let go of her last word, she let her hand, as if it were completely detached and working on it's own accord, reach up and touch my face. I didn't flinch at her touch, in fact it felt natural, like her hand had always belonged on my cheek. 

Then the moment was gone, and I shuddered when she moved away. I watched as she walked away, her face no longer facing my own, her eyes never turning back for reassurance.

I myself could not move. How had this happened so quickly, and why was I so damned upset about it? She meant nothing to me, it was illogical that I should be concerned. 

But I was, and it made me sick with the realization that continued to loop in my mind.

'You care about her, but not enough to make her stay,' my mind told me, my own voice with it's unspoken words haunting, like a ghost that never leaves, 'I hope you can live with that.'