Chapter Two
I buried myself in the soft material of the cashmere sweater my father had fished out of my suitcase for me. It was piled up on the desk, a mountain of off-white fluff, and all I could do was try to bundle myself tighter. My Father was racing around the house, searching through his notebooks, clicking through computer files, trying to find any information, anything at all he might have come across in is studies to suggest a 'cure' for my current predicament. I watched through glazed eyes as his efforts turned up fruitless, and heaved a heavy sigh. My tears had run out long ago, and my cheeks were sticky and salty from the trails left by my outburst. My eyes felt puffy, and no doubt looked red. A pile of messy hair atop my head just completed the picture.
I knew he wouldn't find anything. Science nor magic could come up with an answer. I was stuck, and while my brain hadn't yet come to terms with the fact, I knew it would soon need to. There was no point in being upset forever, though being upset for the rest of the day seemed reasonable enough. My twenty four hours of misery were cut short, however, when a small knocking came at the workshop window the next afternoon.
After a near full day of moping and feeling miserable for myself, I was just about to set into another bought of inconsolable silent-crying, when something caught my attention, providing a momentary distraction. My dad didn't hear it, but I did, and he eventually noticed me unbundle myself and walk over to the edge of the table. Turning, he squinted, and then shot me a worried look. On the other side of the window pane stood Nod, pressing his hands to the glass.
"Would you like me to-" my dad started to say, but seeing as his words were far too slow for me, and I already knew what he was getting at, I cut him off by shaking my head, and jumping over to the window sill.
"It's fine, Dad," I said, knowing that his headset would translate my words to a frequency compatible with his ears. Rubbing my nose on my sleeve, I walked right up to the glass. Nod wasn't really who I particularly wanted to see right now, nor did I want to cry in front of him again. But he was here, and Lord knew he wouldn't leave until I talked to him. And, since I wasn't scheduled to cry uncontrollably for another forty minutes, I figured it would be fine. Though I was still embarrassed about my outburst the night before, I decided to suck it up. "What are you doing here?" I asked through the glass.
"I'm sorry, I was worried about you," he replied, his voice muffled and quiet through the transparent barrier between us. "Worried that you might, you know, not come back." I was slightly offended that he would suggest that I was selfish enough to hole up in my father's house forever, so absorbed in my own sadness that I'd refuse to function…but wasn't that what I was doing right now? I had told myself that it would just be today, and after, I'd force myself to reassimilate. But I was never the type to stick to my resolutions with that much conviction. Hell, I couldn't even keep my New Year's resolutions! Who was to say I would have extended my little pity party to tomorrow, and then the next day, and the next…
"No. I'm coming back, I just need to, I dunno, defrag." I crossed my eyes to stare at an errant piece of hair hanging in my face, and blew on it to get it out of my field of vision, to no avail. Nod merely held my gaze, hands still planted firmly against the glass.
"Prove it." This surprised me, and I looked up from where my gaze had fallen to my feet, and I couldn't help but raise my eyebrows in surprise. Prove what? That I wasn't going to just sink back into my little swamp of misery? Why was he doubting me? Seeing my hesitation of response, he stepped away from the glass and ran a hand through his hair. "Just come out here, come back! I just want to know that we're not gonna lose you. …That I'M not gonna lose you."
"Nod, I'm not one of you," I sighed, crossing my arms and hunching ever so slightly. "I don't belong with the Leafmen."
"Yes you do! What are you afraid of? They already love you! You sacrificed everything for us, MK, if you think they'd be so petty as to think, just because you were born different-"
"No! Of course not! It's just-" I was having trouble finding words to describe what was going through my head, and I could feel my eyes tearing up again.
"What, then? Look," pressing a hand once again against the glass, his voice softened from the yell it had risen to. "I know you're scared, and I know you feel like you've lost everything. But, you haven't lost anything! You're just, you know, smaller."
"He's right," I turned as my father spoke, though when I did he instantly looked embarrassed and turned to leave. In his haste, though, he ended up overturning several canisters holding various pens and tools, and when he tried to catch them, he ended up causing the contents to clatter to the ground, spread out around the room. "Sorry! I'll just be going now!" Watching the things he knocked over fall in slow motion did put a small smile back on my face. Even though he and I had absolved our problems, he was still the goofy, clumsy guy who would trip over his own shadow if you were to give him the chance. But watching him stagger out, in exaggerated slowmo only served as another reminder that, even though I was still physically there, I would never again be a real part of my father's world. I would always be the fast moving little cricket-girl, and he would be the loud, blundering, slow-moving behemoth. Turning my watering eyes back to Nod, I slowly put my hand up to his, spreading my fingers against the cool glass.
"It's not the same," was all I could say, before biting my lip to hold back a sob. As my forehead bonked against the glass, Nod's free hand pressed against where my cheek would have been, had there not been the invisible barrier between us. "I'll never be the same again!"
I stayed like that for a long time, until the silent tears had stopped. I was still for so long, in fact, that at some point (the passage of time meant hardly anything to me) Nod had mumbled something about coming back for me, and left. And when I was alone, I slumped down to curl up on the window sill, and fell asleep there. I woke up sometime later to the sound of my father, typing away on his computer. Looking around, it occurred to me that I was tucked into the sweater I'd taken shelter in earlier, and it wasn't that hard to guess who had put me there.
