Alas! The sick one updates! I am close to a breakthrough in my health, so yay for me! I was bored so I decided I would just write like I do just about every night. Yes, Erik knows. He's a dad, and dad's know everything, I know from experience. But Amile also hasn't seen Erik's face, and Lord only knows how that's going to go. Well I guess you'll just have to find out then!
Chapter 24: Not A Nightmare
Amile looked straight at her father. He looked very serious. She stuttered, "But, h-how did you know?" He rolled his eyes.
"Old thing I learned a long time ago, in Persia. If a person looks to the right, they're remembering, if they look to the left, they're lying. Your eyes were at the left."
She was shocked. Was it really that easy? He sighed and looked back at her. "What are you lying about then?" Now she was desperate. Everything seemed to be bearing down on her. There was still the question of what would he do if he found out. Her face paled. "I, I can see again." A shocked look came over him. "You can? But how?"
"I hit the back of my neck again, on accident." Her voice was reduced to a whisper. He looked at her, then the floor, then her again. Then he walked back to his chair and leaned his head back, closing his eyes. "I've been waiting for this to happen for years." Then he sat up and looked at her. "I can't hide from you forever. I already figured that out." She didn't understand. In an answer, he took off his mask very slowly, in almost a shameful motion.
She gasped, her stomach tightening. He brought his golden green eyes to look at her. "This is the nightmare you have been living with." he said. His right eye was sunken in and his nose was swollen in some places, pushed down in others. There were unnatural bumps and scratches all over that side of his face. Some of his hair was missing and was replaced by more bumps. It was sickening to her. This was what she had been living with. This horrible nightmare that she called her father. Then she looked longer and something changed her mind. His eyes were sad and gentle. Years of ridicule and hate reflected in them. She felt as if her heart was lead. Gently, she touched the disfigured part and smiled weakly. "This is no nightmare." she whispered. Then she wrapped her arms around her father. "This is what I love, more than anything in the world. This is my father." That brought tears to his eyes. He wrapped his arms around her too and cried on her shoulder.
They stayed like that for about an hour. He couldn't stop crying. He felt every bit of hate and shame for himself disappear. He thought about what he had thought many years ago when Amile suggested he should be Christine's angel. He had laughed about the thought of being God's creation. That is, until he thought about what God may have done for him. He had given him Amile. And now Erik believed it as he held her. The hate and shame was taken away by the love his daughter had for him. She had loved him for as long as they had known eachother. And he had sometimes treated her horribly. Slowly, he let Amile go and stood up. She gazed up at him with those beautiful turquoise eyes, glittering with light. A smile came on her face, a true smile. He smiled back at her. Now he felt as if a weight had been lifted from him. The idea that she would hate him or fear him if she saw. But then again, she thought he would hate her if she could see again. It was laughable.
Amile fell asleep on her bed that night, her father watching her sleep. A peaceful look on her face. Her pale lips still smiling. He sat and looked at her. She seemed so innocent. But then again, with one movement, she could destroy so much. She reminded him of a rose sometimes. Beautiful, yet dangerous. He stood up and stretched, the weight of the day bearing down on him. With one last look at his sleeping daughter, he went off to bed.
