Galaxy Of Hope

The cold front Andrew had put up over his usual sarcastically funny physique hit me in my gut every time I saw him. We hadn’t really addressed the night we had spent together. He had woken that morning a different Andrew. He had driven me home in silence when all of me was screaming in the inside. Wanting to cuddle and be close to him but I couldn’t.

Not anymore, not ever.

A part of me was incredibly sad that I had lost a good friend. Someone I had considered a confidant, a close ally to me. That Andrew had left the building and had even closed up all of the doors behind him, flicked off all of the lights and dropped a match in the foyer on his way out.

I had tried for several days to get him to open up to me again. But he refused to budge. My friend, who had taken me to see a sunrise at the Grand Canyon mere weeks ago, was just… gone.

I went about my days in a haze. Skylark, Oak and Sebastian had done their best to cheer me up but I had not explained the reasons for my absence at all.

I couldn’t.

How could I explain to all of them that pull I felt with Andrew, when I already had so many romantic relationship clouding my vision. They would think I was crazy.

Andrew walked me to class like each morning. He even still trained me in Verr Boyas after our mostly silent runs we still did. But it was not the same.

It never would be the same again.

I entered the Dija with a stride of purpose, Andrew had driven me to the red building in silence again. I was in my dark blue sportswear and ready to kick everyone’s ass. I needed to release this pent up energy coursing through my veins. Again we’ve had no conversation for the entire thirty minute drive beside the bare necessities.

I dropped my gym back in the left corner of the room as I always did. I could see Jun and Masen sparring at the farthest mat to the back. Chao was sitting on his throne as usual, glancing curiously at me. The feeling he was seeing straight through me flared up again. The words he had whispered at my initiation popping back up in my brain, ‘Dragon fire, that’s what you are Elmrose. Don’t let anyone ever make you think otherwise.’

Someone knocked me over in passing, brushing my shoulder so aggressively I had to hold myself up at one of the dark brown pillars. I didn’t even need to glance to my left to see who had run me over. It was Stone, it always was Stone since that very first day I had kicked his ass ten ways from Sunday. Misogynist assholes who were named after geographical parts never could quite handle it when a girl beat them.

I felt another pair of eyes on me. When I glimpsed to my right I spotted Andrew on the mat, boring holes into Stone’s back. I saw so much anger in that jaw that clenched, his fists that were ready to strike that it baffled me. Andrew’s eyes flicked my way and his entire posture changed in an instant. He was back to his stoic new self in under one split second. Making me wonder if I had imagined all of it.