Page 2 of Embers in Our Souls
“What brings you out here?” I ask her.
When Indy and I first ran into one another on this bridge years ago, it was when something was bothering her. After we lost touch, I continued my visits to the bridge, sometimes in hopes she’d still come, others because I’ve needed to clear my head.
“I needed to get away,” she sighs, looking down at the ground and kicking a few stones.
“Yeah? Want to talk about it?” I put my hands in my pockets and start walking. It was something we used to do until we could find a comfortable spot to sit.
“You want to hear my problems even after all this time? I mean, we haven’t really been friends for a while.” She shrugs.
“Just because we haven’t spoken doesn’t mean I don’t consider you a friend, Indy. You can talk to me. What’s up?”
Finding a place to sit, she takes a moment, looking around, almost contemplating if she wants to share. At first, I think she’s going to reconsider and keep walking. Then she takes a deep breath and finally relents and takes a seat.
When she pulls her sunglasses off, I realize her eyes are puffy, as if she’s been crying.
“Shit, Indy. You’ve been crying. What happened?” I reach out and touch her cheek.
Her chin quivers and she gives a slight shake of her head. “I feel like my world has just been rocked. I don’t know what to do about it, Ty.”
She looks away again. It’s only then I realize a tear is falling down her cheek.
“Did Derek hurt you?” I feel my molars grind.
Derek was her boyfriend up until a few weeks before graduation. They broke up right before prom. I heard through the gossip mill he started dating one of her close friends and it was a whole thing between the senior class. He was always a dick. But, then again, everyone at the school—Indy aside—was a jerk in my opinion.
“No, it has nothing to do with that. He’s an asshole, but I knew that already. I wasn’t planning on marrying him or anything, even if my parents loved him.” She laughs, but there’s no substance behind it.
“Then what is it?”
“Ugh, this is so hard.” She looks up to the sky and wipes the stray tears that are now falling uncontrollably. “I don’t want to cry, but once I start, I can’t stop.”
“It’s okay to cry. It’s just me,” I tell her. There was a time we used to tell each other everything. She would even pass me notes between classes. I loved those little moments together.
“Well, I’ve been sick. It’s been going on for the last few months. At first, I thought it was nothing. And sorry for the overshare, but it’s been this weird digestive thing. I won’t go into too much detail. But I was sort of ignoring it. You know, thinking it was stress because of exams, and then the whole thing with Derek. Then there was college applications, and getting ready to move into the dorms. The whole nine yards; it was all piling on.” She gestures with her hands in a circular motion.
“Well, this morning, I was nearly toppling over in pain. My stomach was really bad, so my parents got worried and they took me to the emergency room. To give a little backstory. You know my brother, Bryce?”
I nod. I’ve seen him in passing, but he’s four years older than us, so I don’t know him well. He’s in college studying something way too complicated for me to try to understand well.
“Well, he did this complex assignment a while back regarding genetics; he only did it on my parents and himself. Turns out he and my parents are type O blood. Then today, while at the hospital, they did bloodwork on me and once they got those back, I saw I’m type AB.” She swings her gaze at me. “Tyler, if both my parents are type O—there’s no way I can be their child. Not biologically at least. So, I confronted them about it. And it’s true; I’m adopted.”
Right then, two tears escape down her cheek. The look of devastation nearly cripples me. “Oh, Indy. I’m sorry.” I pull her to my chest.
She sobs into me and I rub circles over her back. I kiss the top of her head.
“They’ve lied to me all these years. This whole time, they could've told me and they haven’t. They’ve asked for honesty and respect from me. They’ve asked for so much from me and they couldn’t even give me honesty in return. Why, Tyler? Why couldn’t they just do that much for me?”
Her questions and heartache are valid. I have no answers for her. So, all I do is hold her and continue rubbing reassuring circles as she cries. And she sobs into my chest even harder. I hold her until I feel her breaths even out. I wish I could've held her in my arms forever, the warmth of her body in my arms feels like home to me, something I didn’t realize I was missing after all these years.
She pushes at some strands of hair that have clung to her forehead. “And it’s not that I’m upset that they adopted me because they’ve given me a great life. It’s that they’ve given me such restrictions to my life. They’re so strict. Look how they treated you!” She throws her hands in the air in protest. “I’velived a confined life in many ways. I’ve even been punished when I went outside the lines, but they couldn’t even be straightforward about my own past. How is that fair?”
“Did they give an explanation as to why they made that choice?” I ask her.
“They said they got scared I would leave them or not love them.” She rolls her eyes. “That feels so unfair though. They never gave me a chance to form that opinion. I hate that they did that to me. You know?”
I nod because that’s unfair that they pushed her life into a corner without her knowledge or consent. Especially as she got older.
“I have friends that are adopted, and their parents made their adoption story so positive. It doesn’t have to be a negative thing. I just don’t get it.”
