Chapter Twelve
I sat, nervously, waiting in the noisy restaurant. Tables of people shouted loudly over the blaring music as waiters clattered china plates together. I sat, by myself, on a table at the back of the large room, in a dark corner. Even though there was a large glass windowed front with a view of the pretty gardens outside to this so-called charming bistro, the staff thought they should push me to one side. Waiters often did that with young people. This is because they don’t think that we will tip well, and so ignore us, placing us out of the way. Out of sight, out of mind. They give more attention to the tables stuffed full of drunken idiots, like the one sitting obnoxiously in the centre of the room. I would know: I am, after all a waitress too. I turned to gaze at a large fat man at one end of the central table. He laughed loudly, his bulging stomach jiggling up and down. A woman with long brown hair and very expensive red high heeled shoes screamed out, slapping the arm of the attractive man sitting opposite her, while simultaneously cramming food into her mouth. There must have been about twelve raucous people in the party, and the waiters doted on them attentively.
I sighed, bringing my handbag to my lap and unhooking the metal clasp to retrieve my mobile phone. I gazed down at the screen. The time read 19:23. He was supposed to be here at seven on the dot. He should have told me that he was going to be late. I didn’t like sitting by myself in an expensive restaurant being judged by the happy couples around me. They watched me, some of them smirking cruelly. They were probably happy that I was being stood up: it made them feel better about themselves. If a beautiful young woman like her could fail in love, then it gives me hope. That’s what they’re thinking, I knew it. Women have always been jealous of me. It’s not my fault that I am seen as attractive. I can’t help it. Perhaps they should stop caring about how I look and start thinking more about how they look. Then they might look as good as me. Well, it would be hard for them to look this nice, but they could at least attempt it.
I sighed again, loudly, and the waiter hurrying past my table continued to ignore me. It had been another difficult year. After failing to get into University the first time, and spending a year working as a waitress while I retook my A-Levels, I was rejected a second time. Apparently, straight As in all three sciences and maths aren’t good enough to get you on a University course. I had my heart set on leaving the city, and starting a new life meeting new people and studying. But it obviously wasn’t meant to be.
Dad said it was probably for the best. So did Sefarina, and Niyol. Even Robin, my boyfriend, thought it might be a good thing, but not for the same reasons as my family.
It had been just over a year since Niyol was told about his powers, and the three of us being the Ventus trio. I had known about it all for about six years now, and it had been a painfully boring wait. Especially since I was eager to hear Niyol decide that we would not go ahead with our training, and become what Grandpa and Sigwald wanted us to be. I wanted no part of running around to save the world and keep the balance of the universe in check. It was ridiculous, and stupid. It sounded like an awful plot to a terrible movie. It was also incredibly selfish for people to just expect me to stop living my life so that I could help fix other people’s lives. Why should I have to give up my dreams, just to allow other people to live theirs? It wasn’t fair.
It also wasn’t fair that Niyol got to be the leader. Not only is he the youngest, and the baby of the family, he’s a boy, and I don’t like boys telling me what to do. Boys are immature, and stupid. I am much more intelligent than Niyol, and so is Sefarina, so why should he be in charge? The Aqua team have a female Primus. And the Ignis is all by herself. Why couldn’t I be the Ignis? Why couldn’t I be by myself? I’m much more productive when I don’t have to look after other people. I’ve spent my whole life looking after everyone else. Cooking, cleaning, washing, buying the groceries. Sure, Dad attempted helping out, but he wasn’t any good at it: he just got in my way, and made everything take longer. I had to run the house and raise the children, and now, when I want to do what I want, I get told that I have to leave London, all my friends and my boyfriend, and begin training to be something that I don’t want to be.
The large glass door at the front of the restaurant opened, and my eyes shot towards it. It wasn’t Robin, it was an elderly couple. I fidgeted anxiously. How dare he stand me up! My face was beginning to glow red in anger, and I knew that I had to be careful to control my feelings. The churning in the pit of my stomach began to swell, and I felt instantly connected to the air hovering around outside the building. Moisture began to mingle into the wind, and the bright evening sky was slowly turning dark. I pulled clouds towards me, dragging them from their hiding places so that they could hover over the restaurant to comfort me. The waves of the breeze began to blow furiously, and the room started to become humid. Moist air molecules stroked my cheeks, and suddenly I began to feel a whole lot better.
Controlling the weather definitely had its perks, especially when I was feeling frustrated. Something about being one with the wind and the air… it made me feel complete. I could feel the space around my body, my table, and the building: every single particle seemed to be within me, or maybe I was within them. Whatever the feeling was, I knew where every single object and entity was inside and outside the building, as I could feel the air particles bend around anything that got in their path. There was a reason why I liked eating at this restaurant, and that was because there were no rats here. I had been in other places where I could feel the vermin scurrying through the kitchen, rushing through my air space as if they were crawling over my arm.
Sefarina and Niyol both said they felt the same thing, but differently. They tried to explain it to me, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I didn’t really care about their powers. As far as I was concerned, I was going to use my gifts to help give me the life that I deserved, and that was that. Over the last year, I had visited Grandpa several times, because he wanted me to get trained while the others were finishing their studies. I didn’t want to do it, but I thought I might as well take the opportunity while it presented itself. I would let Sigwald and his team teach me everything they could, and then I would leave and never return. I would use them, before they could use me.
Niyol and Sefarina were given an extra year to complete school before they were shipped off to Ashbourne. Dad said that Niyol finishing his GCSEs and Sefarina completing her A Levels was important, so that they had a fall back if the Ventus thing fell through. But once again, nobody asked me what I wanted. Did I want to be trained by some science geek in the crappy Midlands? No, but that didn’t matter. Aura doesn’t count, because she’s a failure who can’t even get into University. She has to be part of the Ventus, because she failed at everything else. And in a way, that was true. I really didn’t have anything else. Being a waitress with no real academic qualifications wasn’t the life I wanted. Being taught how to use my powers, powers that could get me what I wanted, was the intelligent thing to do.
Sigwald was nice enough, and his training was invaluable to me. It was great learning how to drag the clouds towards me to make it rain. I love standing in a downpour. It makes me feel at ease. And the wind tunnel taught me how to control the wind speed, and its direction, which comes in handy when you want to teach rude customers valuable lessons in manners. A plate tipping into a snobby person’s lap can be quite hilarious, especially when it is something that stains their clothes. I’ve been able to give just desserts to many of the awful patrons that I’ve had to deal with over the last few months, and it was incredibly satisfying. And with my ability to use the wind to sense things, I would never lose another shoe in my bedroom ever again.
Sure, it was fun to know this stuff, but it was never going to be my career. A rain making wind shifting superhero? That wasn’t a real job, especially when it came with no paycheque, or perks. I wanted to explore the sea as an Oceanographer: that was my real dream. I was going to discover new treasures hiding in the depths of th
e briny deep and live on a tropical island, forever at one with both the wind and the sea, without anyone else to take care of. It was my time to live life the way I wanted to. I didn’t ask for my mother to walk out of me, and nobody asked me to pick up the pieces once she was gone. I didn’t have a choice in anything in my life up until this point, and I wasn’t going to let anyone else make my life decisions for me.
I picked my mobile phone back off of the table and twisted it in my hand. The screen illuminated. 19:47. I was beginning to get really mad now. I checked to see if I had any reception, just to make sure that Robin hadn’t tried to call. He might not have been able to get through. Five bars. Now I was even angrier. Why would he do this to me? Why would he stand me up like this? What was going on? We had been together now for well over three months, and in all that time he had never been late before to a date!
I resisted the urge to begin dialling his number into my mobile. I wasn’t going to beg him to come here and meet me. If he didn’t want to be with me anymore, then that was his loss. But this was a pretty horrible way of going about breaking up with me!
Just before I tossed my phone back into my handbag, I texted Niyol to remind him to take his washing out of the machine and hang it up in the airing cupboard. He always forgot to do that. It was bad enough that he still refused to do his own clothes washing; I wasn’t prepared to do everything for him. He had to have some sort of responsibility.
I glanced around the bustling restaurant for the final time, eventually deciding that it was time to leave. I wasn’t going to wait a minute longer. I had suffered enough, and I was furious.
Just as I was about to get up to make my escape, someone placed their hand onto my shoulder from behind. It was Robin: I could tell from his touch. I spun around, just to make sure. He smiled at me tentatively, expecting the berating that I would surely give him. His dark brown eyes fell against mine; his thick wavy black hair flopped down over his right cheek, and the light brown skin around his lips pursed in anticipation. He moved his face towards mine, expecting a kiss, but I was not going to reward him for mistreating me. I pulled away from him and shrugged his hand from my shoulder, returning to my seat. He exhaled in annoyance, and clattered onto the chair opposite me. He pushed his thin arms onto the table, reaching towards mine. I recoiled. I didn’t want to feel his touch. I was frantic.
“I can see you’re annoyed with me…” he began, his deep croak drilling into my ear drum.
“I’m very annoyed at you!” I exclaimed, trying my best to keep my voice down. “Why were you so late? What the hell happened?”
He pulled his arms back, and placed them on his lap. His eyes rolled in their sockets, and he inhaled, sharply, through his teeth. He stared at me seriously, and I did not like where this conversation was heading.
“I’m sick of this, Aura. I’m sick of you.”
It felt like a trapdoor opened beneath my feet, and I fell, freefalling through the air. My stomach leapt up in horror and anger, and I tried my hardest not to pick up an empty glass and throw it at him. I felt physically sick. He was going to break up with me, right here, right now. But I wasn’t going to let him get away with it.
I sat in silence, the fury pulsing through my veins. My heartbeat thudded in my temples, and my head began to spin. I closed my eyes, and tried to feel calm, but a kaleidoscope of emotions swirled around at the front of my skull. I felt the clouds hovering above, and slapped them as hard as I could. The noise of the rain smacking the pavement outside made people in the restaurant scream out in shock. I opened my eyes, and Robin pulled away in confusion.
“Your eyes…” he mentioned.
“Yeah, they change colour with the weather. Weird, huh?”
“I suppose I never really noticed…”
“Oh course you didn’t,” I cut him off rudely. The large rain droplets slammed against the glass front, and the dark sky turned everything underneath it grey. I twisted my neck, watching as people on the streets ran through my downpour, shrieking and laughing as the heavy rain soaked them.
I sat back, now more prepared than ever to take the impact of what Robin was about to do to me. It was good that I could release my anger through the weather, rather than lob something at someone and get arrested. There were definite benefits to being a Ventus.
“So,” he began again, shifting uneasily in his seat.
“Just say it, Robin. If you have any respect for me at all, you’ll just say it straight.”
He smiled, reassured. I continued. “Actually, if you had any respect for me you wouldn’t have brought me to a restaurant to break up with me. You would have had the decency to do it somewhere less public.”
“So you could scream and shout and swear?” He snapped. I didn’t like his tone. Why was he angry at me? What had I done? If anyone should be angry, it should be me!
“Don’t be nasty,” I started, but he immediately jumped in.
“Oh, I’m sorry, princess; I wouldn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
His cold, dead eyes glared at me. His shoulders pushed forwards aggressively. Why was he attacking me? Usually, I would be the one to start shouting, but this time, I wanted to prove him wrong. I wouldn’t be the emotional wreck he thought I was. I was going to keep my cool, no matter how hard he tried to upset me.
“I don’t get why you’re being such a…”
“A what, Aura, a what? You’ve already called me every name under the sun! Go on, go ahead: do what Aura does best and argue with me.”
I still felt as if I was falling, but now, on top of that I was nauseated. I wanted to burst into tears. Why was everyone constantly attacking me all the time? Why were people always bullying me, criticising me, putting me down? It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t nice. Sure, I’m not perfect, but I don’t deserve someone flinging insults at me for no reason. I clenched my fists, not out of anger, but instead to keep myself composed. I kicked another cloud, and the rain fell harder. Robin shot a look towards it, then peered back at me.
“You’re really upsetting me,” I whispered, struggling not to cry, or punch him.
“Well you’ve really upset me, Aura. I’ve tried my best to be a great boyfriend, but no matter what I do, it’s always wrong.”
“That’s not true…”
“Yes it is! You’re always putting me down, saying I do nothing right, and I don’t want to hear it anymore!”
“Fine,” I uttered weakly. He was right. I did say those things. But what he failed to realise was that I said them because they were true. He didn’t do anything right, and he was, mostly, a bit of a moron, but I still cared about him. I still had feelings for him. But not anymore. It was clearly over. And I wasn’t going to let him break me down and beat me. I was better than that. I was stronger than that.
“Is that all you can say Aura? ‘Fine?’”
I stared at him fiercely, without emotion. “You’ve clearly made up your mind, and I know there’s nothing I can say to change it. Not that I would want to.”
I smirked nastily. He looked as if I had slapped him in the face. Little digs like that were my specialty, not his. His thin face dropped, but he quickly recovered, trying to look as if my words weren’t upsetting him. But I knew they were.
“I guess that’s it then. It’s over.”
“I suppose so,” I replied uninterestedly. He wanted me to plead, to cry, and to beg, but I wasn’t going to. I wasn’t going to let him think that he was still worthy of my affection.
He stood up, hovering over the table and placed his hands onto it so that he could lean towards me menacingly.
“I’m glad it’s over, Aura. I don’t want to be with a stupid, horrible loser like you. You deserved not to get into University, because you’re a failure, and you’re nasty, and I hope that you have an awful life and get exactly what you deserve. Oh, and by the way, I found someone else, and she’s ten times prettier and nicer than you.”
He closed his thin lips, pushing them together tightly as
they twisted into a cheerful snarl. I had stopped breathing. I was just staring; my jaw dropped widely open, not knowing what to say, what to do or what to think. My heart pummelled against my ribs as my chest heaved. Rage exploded through every fibre of my body, and I was suddenly unable to control myself.
Robin turned and began to leave, but I jumped up from my seat, the chair flying loudly to the floor. I raised my right arm and pointed it towards his back, and screamed at the top of my lungs:
“You bastard!”
Just as he turned to look at me, the rain got even heavier, and the wind began to blow loudly. The noise of both the wind and rain together was deafening, but I continued to become one with it: to get lost in it. I pushed with all my might, wringing the rain down harder and making the wind blow heavier. Before I even realised it, the glass front of the restaurant was beginning to crack. Tiny splinters formed in the glass, and people started to scream as the wind threw itself, and the rain, at the window. Robin turned, staring at me in fright, and as soon as his eyes locked onto mine, the glass shattered, and water and wind thrust itself into the restaurant, soaking everyone inside, and knocking people to the floor. Water poured through the empty window frame, filling the restaurant floor, and people jumped up and began running in every direction. I stroked the air, feeling exactly where everyone was in the vicinity. I locked onto Robin. He wasn’t going to escape. I felt his arms fling upwards as he turned to sprint out of the building, but before he could even raise one of his legs, I called the gust towards him. It caught him and lifted him off of his feet, flinging him across the room. He landed heavily into the wall to my left, and I watched as his crumpled body fell onto an empty table. The fat man and his guests rushed out of the shattered glass door, along with the waiters, but the rain storm that greeted them became even stronger.
I suddenly awoke from my trance, realising that I was sopping wet. I usually didn’t mind being wet, but this was a very expensive dress, and I had just ruined it. My shoes were ruined too, since they were standing in a deep pool of water. I looked around, realising that I was completely alone. Everyone had left. I sighed. I felt a lot better now. In fact, I was sure that I wasn’t even angry at Robin anymore. He was probably right for breaking up with me! I know what a bitch I can be, but that doesn’t excuse what he said. I shrugged. Oh well. I can do better next time. I decided to let bygones be bygones. Holding onto grudges and hurt and pain never helped anyone.
I sloshed through the water, towards Robin, who lay sprawled across the table on his back, his arms open wide.
“Hey, Robin, I’m sorry. You’re right, I have been nasty…”
I looked down at him sincerely. It felt so good to apologise. Perhaps Dad had been right all along! I put my hand onto his, and interlocked our fingers, just like we used to.
“I hope you can forgive me, and I hope you and your new…”
I stopped talking. My feet quivered in fear. Why wasn’t Robin moving? Why wasn’t Robin breathing?
My gut wrenched even harder. My head was even lighter. Every molecule in my body tensed. I felt disgusted with myself. What had I done? Without even hesitating, I pulled my mobile out of my handbag, and dialled 999.
“Hello?” I screamed, “I need an ambulance!”