18. How was I?

"What is it?" I widened my eyes.

"You still love me." He laughed proudly at himself as if he had won something.

"Supposedly, because Franklin told me that only the person who loved me had erased my memory and he could return it to me ?!"

His smile froze and rubbing his head from behind he spoke:

"In this case , I told you that after using a forbidden magic to revive me, you lost your skills, remember?"

"Yes."

"There is something I did not tell you because I did not want you to feel bad about yourself."

"What is it?"

"You were not like before, you started to change, you could not adapt to the fact that you did not have your powers anymore. Then the pressure that I could not die and I would always stay as I was and you would grow old, you would die. We had a strong discussion, you were unsure if I would like you the same, if I would wait for you, if I would find you again and again. During our discussion I said something I should not have said. I told you to better have let me die, so if there was another life we ​​would not remember each other even if we did not meet. Because of you, all the consequences would fall on me."

He lowered his head, placing his hands on his face, then raised his flushed teary eyes. But he did not let the tears fall down. Gide was incredibly proud to be seen when he cried. It seemed to me like a story of someone I did not know, not mine.

"I'm sorry. I should not have said it. After that you disappeared for a few days, I searched for you everywhere. You had left me a message after Merida. To continue my life, to forget you, to no longer love you. So I would not wait for you and I would not search for you, so I would find other love. We did not meet again, I do not know what happened to you."

"Neither do I, because I do not remember. As for the skills part, if I had chosen that other person, would I have had the skills that easily?"

"Not exactly. You would feel more the connection with nature, with the kind of magic that you practiced. You still have this thing, you collect dried rose petals, flower petals, dried leaves. You have them separated in envelopes."

"Yes, I have. I showed them to you that night when you brought me the blue rose."

"You were obsessed with the blue rose and could not find it. What you are doing is not just a collection, it has a meaning that you are supposed to understand."

"I should not have been like that." I lowered my tired head.

"How so?"

"Curious, dreamy. A child who believes in crafts, elves, magicians. I hurt my family because of this. They did not deserve it. I tried to keep them away, not meeting them because I am a coward, I did not want to see how much I had hurt them."

"Don't worry, they do not remember anything."

"How? Franklin erased their memory like he said? They do not remember that they have a daughter?"

"No. I took care of them. After you refused to meet them, I made them think you were in a camp where there is no signal. According to them you work as a teacher in a program, something like that. They occasionally get a message that you are fine and some camp history from someone I paid to do that."

"Uh! I am relieved." I put my hand on my chest as if I had lifted a heavy weight from my back as we sat on the ground facing each other.

"Tara, do not leave me anymore."

"You are the one who ran away. If so, what about now?"

"Now we will follow a path that leads us to where we find your power. Even if you do not remember everything I will help you how to use them."

"What makes you think they will come back to me?"

"Because they are yours. And we suffered the punishment, both of us. Hopefully they will be back, Franklin has found a way."

"What about Hannel? I did not understand who he was. What he wanted with me besides eternity with him. What was he trying to do to me?"

"That parasite is not worth it. Just do not trust anything. Even if you remember any memory with him. Even if you remember any beautiful sensations."

"Beautiful sensations for him?"

"Before we met, you were both very close. You were not in a romantic relationship even though you believed you had fallen in love with him and he made you think you were important to him. He had a selfish and sickly love for you. More like a maniac fixation. He thought that it would be better to kill and bury you with his own hands so that no one else would have you if he did not have you.

"It should have been him in psychiatry apparently in my place. How could I be in love with him?"

"You were not. And you understood it before you knew me when you opposed his thoughts on the eternity. Even though I should say you did not stop being his weak point. He is still obsessed with you. Now that you do not remember, he tried to benefit, stole my necklace."

He touched the sun-shaped necklace he wore around his neck.