Part Twenty-One

It took me twenty minutes of searching to finally find Alicia. I’d had to resort to asking people if they’d seen her, which was uncomfortable because everyone seemed to know about my failed attempt to hunt the General. I was getting odd looks everywhere I went and I could hear people talking about me.

Haaaaa, well there goes keeping a low profile. I guess that had never really been in the cards for me. No matter where I’ve gone or what I’ve done, I’ve almost always attracted attention. Sometimes, it was actually for something I’d done.

Whatever, I’m used to people thinking I’m a nut job. If they’ve got nothing better to do than gawk at me, they won’t amount to much. Now, where did she get to? The only place I’ve yet to check is the watchtowers, so I guess that’s where she is.

Sure enough, I found her on top of the southern tower, which was ironically the one closest to the infirmary. I’ll try not to think about all the time I just wasted looking for her.

Alicia was curled up into herself, sobbing quietly. Cameron had told me she’d been nearly hysterical when she found out I was heavily injured. And I why.

She’s never mentioned her grandparents in all the time we’ve known each other. Even though they raised her, she won’t talk about them. Which means they’ve already died and probably before World Decay happened. This probably brought back some kind of trauma.

I sat done beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Sometimes all you could do was to let someone know you were there. I wish I was better with words, but I’m hopeless at that. Otherwise I would’ve patch up my relationship with Rina.

We sat there for ten or fifteen minutes while she cried herself out.

“You good now? Got it all out of your system?”

“Jerk.”

“Sorry. Delicacy isn’t really my strong suit. Or subtlety.”

“Don’t you think I know that? I’ve seen you overkill far too many monsters to ever have doubts about that.”

We had a chuckle about that, then lapsed back into silence. A few moments passed in tense silence before she spoke again.

“Hey, is it alright if I ask something a little personal?”

“Depends. What is it?”

“Did…. Did you hate your parents? Sometimes when you talk about them or when you’re reminded of them, you get this look on your face, like you’re plotting a murder. I just wondered whether you ever missed them.

Do I really!? No one’s ever told me that before! But boy, is that a loaded question! I kinda get where she’s coming from though. I only kind of mentioned that I figured they were dead. I’m pretty sure that’s not normal behavior.

“No, I didn’t really hate them. It was more like I just stopped caring about them and I think they felt the same way for me. Clint used to call it Mutual Indifference. Though he liked to come up with weird names for just about everything.”

I honestly couldn’t tell you when I first noticed that the way they treated me had changed. They never went as far as to abuse me and I always had anything I needed, but there were times where things felt off.

My earliest memories are of them trying to teach me to play instruments. Guitar, piano, violin, even the trumpet at one point. Since I was seven at the time, I never really took to it. I just wanted to get it over so I could go back to reading.

In a last resort, my father tried to teach me songwriting, which went about as you could expect. I hated doing that. I simply had no sense for how the notes should be arraigned and I still don’t. But it did spark one thing inside me: a desire to write.

And that was where it all started. I began to put all my efforts into writing, completely giving up on music, something my parents had disapproved of. As I kept chasing after my own dreams, they began to distance themselves from me. And it escalated from there.

Starting in middle school they showed very little interest in me, choosing to instead champion my sister. She’d begun the same training I’d done and excelled at it. By the age of ten, she could play even complex orchestra pieces, astounding my parents. If anyone should’ve been called a prodigy, it was her.

All throughout our formative years, they ignored my every accomplishment, even when I won first prize in a young writer’s contest. Though I should say that Katrina was extremely supportive of me, as if she was trying to make up for their lackluster parenting.

Now don’t get me wrong, there were times I felt indignant and resentful at my treatment, but I got over it in time. By the time I’d graduated high school, I couldn’t have cared less about how they saw me. I did give them some credit, as they’d never kicked me out of the house even after I graduated.

But as for Alicia’s second question?

“But I also don’t miss them. I just can’t really find it in myself to be that forgiving.”

“I see….”

Looked like my answer had bummed her out. I knew that she had her own problems with her parents, but that her grandparents had been the ones to actually raise her. Maybe she thought that since they raised me, that they might have actually loved me.

I’m not sure that she’s wrong, but I can’t feel what I don’t feel. Even if I want something to be one way, I need to confront reality head-on or I’d just be blinding myself to the truth.

“Alicia, what brought this on? You’ve never broken down like this before, so why now?”

Maybe I was being insensitive, but I had to know. If Alicia had some kind of mental weakness that could break her at any moment, I needed to know about it. I already knew she was fragile, this episode proved it, but I wanted to know the cause of it.

“…”

“Alicia, please. This is important. If you try to hold this in, it’ll just explode in your face later.”

“Hypocrite. As if you don’t do that yourself.”

And now she’s being defensive. Guess I’ll have to take the diplomatic approach to this.

“Okay, okay. I do, do that and I’ll be the first to admit it, but that doesn’t mean I should. Listen, I need someone I can trust in here. A monster that was only the mid-boss nearly killed me. Can you imagine what the actual Boss will be like? If there’s something bothering you, I want to hear about it before then.”

Alicia sat silently for what was probably one of the longest moments in my life. And finally, she spoke in a voice so faint, I could barely hear it.

“I’m…. I’m scared of being alone. When I heard you were horribly injured, I felt so dejected and desperate, but there was nothing I could do and it made me remember what happened to my grandpa.”

Her grandfather? I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

“I said it was my grandparents who raised me, but in truth it was mostly my grandpa. My grandma died before I was born, so I never got the chance to know her.”

“He was… he was really incredible. He had this charisma about him that made you feel at ease. Like you could trust him with anything. You might actually know who he is. He used to be Cavisburgh’s mayor, though that was a long time ago."

Wait, I actually think I know who she’s talking about. And if I’m right, oh boy.

“He did a lot of good for the town, fixed a lot of problems. He spearheaded the rebuilding after hurricane Agnes, got the town back on its feet after it was nearly destroyed by the flooding. And after that, he took off. Ran for positions all across the state. He used to say that he felt like he was doing some real good back then, making real change that helped people.”

Oh my, she is talking about who I think she is. And now I know why she’s so upset.

“And then the cancer hit.”

“So you do know who I’m talking about.”

“I’m sorry I never put it together before now.”

“Don’t be. It’s not really your fault. We’ve kinda been busy surviving this whole time and it helped to keep my mind off it.”

Well now I feel like a sack of shit. How was I to know she was Bill Burrows’ granddaughter?

The man was almost legendary around here. He’d done multiple stints in congress and had been one of the best governors in Pennsylvania history. Like she’d said, he’d really done a lot for people and had improved so many lives. So it had been big news when he passed away a month before World Decay began.

“He was just so vibrant and even though he was over eighty, he was still as amazing as ever. But those last few months he just started to waste away and by the end, he couldn’t even get out of bed.”

And before she could fully mourn for him, this whole mess happened. It must’ve shocked her so badly, that she simply repressed all her grief. At least until now.

My nearly dying must have brought all those painful memories back to her, causing her to have a near breakdown. In a way, this was all my fault. If I hadn’t been so reckless, she wouldn’t be suffering.

“Those couple weeks were the worst. Even though there were people who tried to console me, it always felt hollow. The house felt so empty without him. I just don’t want to experience that again.”

Which resulted in hysteria. So she basically had a massive panic attack. I’m not sure how to handle this without making it worse. Wait. Hah, I’m such an idiot..

“But you’re not alone. You’ve got me and Cameron. And Kalia certainly seems to like you. And I’m certain we’ll find others we can trust and who’ll fight with us.”

“Yeah, but what if-.”

“Don’t talk like that. I for one have absolutely no intentions to die any time soon. I’ll claw and bite my way out of any situation that tries to kill me, so the least you can do is to not fall apart. I’ll say it right now, I need you. We won’t last if we don’t all work together.”

Ugh, why did I choose such a cheesy way to phrase that? I’m going to regret that, I can guarantee it.

“Uh, um. Well, if you put it that way, then I guess I can’t refuse?”

Why was that a question!? And why are you blushing!? Damnit, I knew I was going to regret that. Screw you five-seconds-ago me! Why couldn’t I have picked better wording!?