#37 – Shooting Star
Rachel
I'd told my mom that I was going to Cassie's and that I might stay the night. I had every intention of going over there…but once I had wings, they took me in a different direction.
I just needed to get away, and I wanted to be alone. I knew of one place I could go where I was sure not to be interrupted, so I went there. I landed on top of the water tower on the edge of town and demorphed.
Once human, I belly-crawled to the edge and looked down. I felt the edge of not-quite-fear – the same thrill a normal kid probably gets on a roller coaster. I was almost two hundred feet in the air as a human. Too high to survive a fall, but not high enough to have the safety net of morphing to save me. If I slipped, the best I'd be able to manage would be to smash into the ground as a half-morphed creature.
I smiled. The feeling of being a normal girl in this situation was great. The fact that morphing couldn't save my life was comforting. Weird, I know…but still, it made the rush real somehow.
When I got over the thrill of being so close to the edge, I crawled back to the middle of the water tower's curved roof and lay on my back. Out here, I was high enough and far enough from the city lights to actually see the stars.
I started thinking about the reason I'd had to get away. It was something stupid, really. This boy in my biology class, Matt, had caught up to me after the bell and asked me if I wanted to go see a movie with him.
I'd turned him down, of course. But it had started me thinking. In a normal world, I probably would have said yes. I probably would have been flattered that he asked me; Matt was a popular lacrosse player, and handsome, too. I probably would have had a good time. I might have let him kiss me after he dropped me off, and I might have called Cassie right away to talk about it.
That stuff just didn't interest me anymore, and it made me a little sad. Maybe the Yeerks had something to do with my attitude change, but more than anything, it was Tobias.
How to know how to feel about that kid? I loved him – that much I knew. But my dad told me when I was young that people always seem to love things that are wrong for them. Was I doing that?
No. I didn't really believe that. There were a million reasons to care about Tobias, and I couldn't think of any not to. On the surface, maybe…I mean, we're not even the same species, anymore. But that's complicated, too – he could be human, if he wanted to. No, that wasn't right, either. He did want to, I was sure. His sense of duty was too strong to leave us without his help. To leave me without it.
I sighed. Was nothing easy? Was everything shades of gray?
"I wish somebody would just tell me what to do. I don't want these decisions," I said out loud.
Not two seconds after I said that, a meteor shot across the sky, so bright that even after it was gone, I could still see it. I'm not a big believer in signs; we've seen things that make you have to question God's existence.
But as I started to morph with the streak of the shooting star still in my vision, I couldn't help but smile and feel a little better. Even in an ugly world, there was still simple beauty to be found, if you knew where to look.