Ready (1)

Alesia was wearing a pair of white high sole sneakers and white jeans. She tucked her blue and white striped blouse into her pants. Her long dark hair cascaded off her shoulders, down her back to her waist under the black sun hat. To tie the look together, she wore a pair of sunglasses.

They walked down the dirt mountain road in silence, enjoying the scenery.

Darren looked up at the sun suspended in the brilliant blue sky. He took a deep breath, feeling the air rush in his lungs before he expelled the air back into the atmosphere. With his acute senses, he experienced the world much differently than before. His ears picked up the sounds from every critter in their surroundings, from lizards and mammals that roamed on the ground to the birds perched on the trees.

The sound of wood-pecking reached his ears and his eyes caught sight of the bird drilling its beak into the side of a tree. Not far from that, a squirrel was stuffing its cheeks with nuts. A wide variety of bugs moved along the ground and some were munching on the leaves they could find. Anything his ears could hear, his eyes could see even if they were hundreds of meters ahead of him.

Darren looked down at Alesia. "Thanks for suggesting this."

Alesia lifted her head up to see his face from below her wide sun hat. "No problem. As someone who works inside all the time, I try to make time to get some fresh air. It helps me refocus." She turned to look at her surroundings. "I used to come here with my parents when I was a kid. We loved the mountains."

"And your parents…"

"My mother passed away when I was fourteen and my dad died when I was seventeen" Alesia replied.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Darren said. "But if you have so many memories here, why did you turn it into a lab?"

"After my dad died, I had to get out of Meridian. I needed to find myself outside of other people's expectations. The lab could be a retreat where I could not only relax but do my own research and inventions. Not many people know that this place exists."

Darren had no idea that the lab had such sentimental value to her. And yet, he and his friends intruded without any forewarning. "I'm sorry that we intruded on your home," he said.

"Don't mention it." Alesia smiled as she shook her head. "I'm glad to help you."

"You seem to know a lot about Vetus powers. Are you also a…?" He trailed off before finishing. He wanted to know if she was a Vetri, but he restrained himself. He would be wary if someone asked him so he had no right to ask her the same.

"Am I a Vetri?" Alesia finished. "I have no problem telling people I'm a Vetri. It's a part of who I am. My mother was a magician and my father was a Vetri. My uncle, my cousin, and my grandfather are all Vetri." She opened her palm and a flame ignited on command and vanished when she closed her palm. "My boyfriend is a Vetri." She seemed to blush as she brought up her boyfriend. "I help him train sometimes."

"In other words, you're used to this."

Alesia nodded. They were already halfway down the mountain when they paused their conversation. "I noticed something. When we were in the speed lab, your heart rate and breathing were levels, but then it spiked when you were trying to stop. What happened?"

Darren's face hardened and his lips thinned into a straight line. "I thought you'd know. Someone like you must have run a background check on me."

Alesia stopped, grabbed his arms, and looked at him. With a knitted brow, she scolded, "I prefer to know people instead of going through their lives by online transactions and records. I'm not going to dig up someone's secrets and traumas just as I don't want someone to sift through my life. Just as I have not prejudged you, please do not prejudge me based on your own assumptions of who I am."

Darren's chest trembled as he averted his eyes, feeling a twinge of guilt pricked at him. He had prejudged her. She was a genius heiress, so he had conjecture about her character and personality. Alesia was quite different from his expectations, and he was ashamed of himself. Although he only said what he said because he was uncomfortable, he should not have answered her like that. He didn't like judging people and he didn't like people judging him, but he judged her because of her wealth and fame.

How hypocritical of him.

His Adam's apple moved as he swallowed deeply. "Sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

"I don't like it when people make assumptions about me based on what they see on TV or based on their own expectations of who I should be. If you didn't want to answer me, you should've just said so."

"I'm sorry," he said. "And yes, I did make assumptions about you. I thought you would be a bit uptight, secretive, selfish, and untrusting of people. That's why I assumed you'd run a background check on me and my friends before letting us use your multimillion-dollar laboratory. And I'm sorry that I thought that," Darren admitted.

He was wrong and he made a mistake and he acknowledged his blunder without reservation. A man of integrity.

Alesia nodded and smiled before she continued to walk. "You don't have to say anything if you don't want to. This has nothing to do with the tests. I'm just making conversation."

Darren took a deep breath before he opened his mouth. "When I was five my mom died in a car accident. My dad and I were in the car. My dad got hooked on gambling, drugs, and alcohol. He was depressed and he wasn't much of a father after the accident. Two years later, he went missing. That was around the time I met Tora, who had also just recently lost her father."

Darren raised his head high, his chin pointed toward the sky as he tried to keep his voice from trembling. Tora was usually the one telling the story of how they met. He usually told people his mom died and his dad abandoned him and spared the rest of the details. Only Tora, Miriam, his therapist, and a handful of other people knew his story in detail.

Now, he was telling Alesia.

Darren was not the type of person to overshare, as Miriam observed. He preferred having people rely on him, rather than relying on people. His mother's death and his father's abandonment were quite painful and emotional for him. People who did not know him intimately or know him since childhood would not know the baggage that weighed on his shoulders.

Darren did not know why he was telling Alesia so much information but after he opened his mouth, he could not stop. "I searched, I cried, I went to school, and I moved on. I already realized that he wasn't going to come back, and I was fine with that if that lessened his pain. My father never recovered from my mother's death. He was always in pain, constantly having nightmares. I thought that maybe looking at me reminded him of her and that's why he left.

"When I was in school, I was also diagnosed with depression and social anxiety. I was living in an orphanage at that time and the director made me see a therapist. When I went on to college, I continued seeing a therapist. I got a dog, I started dating, and meeting new people in new social situations. I tried everything I could to treat my anxiety. It worked for a while, but it's still here. It's not as bad and crippling as when I was younger, but there are times when some days are worse than others."

"So you had an anxiety attack today during the run," Alesia replied.

"Yeah." His voice dropped to a murmur. "I've been having them since I awoke from my coma."

"That was four days ago. You haven't really had time to come to terms with the fact that you almost died, missed six months of your life, and you now have powers, a whole new set of burdens that you have to carry."

Alesia looked at him with woeful eyes. When Darren looked at her, she almost looked like she was crying. Alesia also lost her mother at a young age. Then she lost her father a few years later. She must have felt so lonely that she needed to escape from home. Perhaps that is why he felt like he could speak without inhibition. He saw himself in her. Their trauma connected them.

"You haven't had time to cope or adjust to anything," Alesia whispered.

Darren sighed. "I wanted to be a superhero when I was little. I yearned for these powers, but now that I have them, I'm scared. I'm scared that I will hurt someone with them. I'm scared that the power will go to my head and I will abuse them."

Darren gasped and almost pulled away when he felt something soft tickle his palm. He looked down at his hand to see that Alesia had placed her small hand in his palm.

"It's okay to be scared. I was scared of my powers when I discovered them. But my family was there for me." She stopped and turned her head up to look at him. "Nathan, Matt, Miriam, and Tora are all here because of you. They care about you or else they wouldn't be going to so much trouble for you. They want you to succeed and achieve whatever goals you want to accomplish with these powers."

She paused to breathe, lowering her head for a moment before she looked back up at him. "I know I'm pretty much a stranger to you, but I want you to know that I'm here, too. I'm here for you. When you're ready, no matter what, I'll still be here."

In his life, many people told Darren that they were there for him. Most of them were simply passersby in his life.

Darren nodded to Alesia, but he did not take her promise to heart.

But, Alesia's voice was full of conviction, and her eyes filled with determination and sincerity. This young woman he recently met, who is a decade younger than him, was telling him that she was not just a passerby. She was telling him that she entered his life and she was here to stay.

Could he really believe that?

Alesia disappeared from the public eye soon after her father's death. She had most likely isolated herself to grieve. He could empathize strongly with that. Many times after his mother's death and his father's disappearance, he would go off by himself to cry.

Alesia came out of hiding to research, to satisfy her curiosity. When she was sated, surely she would leave. But, looking at her, he remembered Tora, who held his hand as they waited every evening for his father to return home. That warm hand that held his was full of warmth and reassurance. Could he trust that feeling?

"Thank you. I tell you when I'm ready."

Alesia turned her head to hide her reddening cheeks with the rim of her hat. A smile formed on her face as they continued on their way.

They turned onto a path off the mountain, with the heart of the city in their sights. Hand in hand, they walked toward the concrete roads as cars passed them on the sidewalk.