Chapter 15 - Difficult Realizations and Difficult Choices

Ziri was at the door. The sun was vibrant yellow, and the soft breeze wafted through it, smelled a lot like pancakes. I shut the window

"C'mon I will not bite"

Ziri smiled slowly and sat down at the foot of my bed.

There was a long stretch of silence, these sticky kinds where someone wants to say something but will not.

"We have missed you," she said simply, "it's hot and being in this room cooped up, isn't helping you." She reopened the windows. "So, here are your books and homework from yesterday. Sorry, I could not come earlier."

"Ziri thanks, am I crazy for wanting to go back to my old life?"

"No, but you are crazy for something else."

"What?"

She hesitated a minute thinking, if she should or not say it, and she chose the positive.

"Diana, we have been missing you in school. Your answers, comments, smile, your dancing on the desks by lunch."

I had to crack a smile at that, it was fun.

"What is school without you?"

I waited for her to continue.

"D. you are crazy about staying in a room all day. For not smiling dancing outside and trying so hard to make everyone less afraid of you. You're crazy for not being yourself, and the world is a lot less colorful without you."

"I am being myself."

"Although your hair is super cool, it is not you. Where did the girl who said, 'our pasts do not define us' go?"

"I am right here and will always be."

"Diana, not coming to school for days, crying nights on end. Thinking so much, you have always been more spontaneous, deep, yet decided things on the spur of the moment. Where did you go?"

A lone tear slithered across my cheek. "I am here," I said in an even tinier voice than Carlos had used. "I still believe in what I say and will forever."

"The world has a lot of girls in it of different shapes colors personalities, but the world needs you, the real you."

"Which world?"

"We need you; our world needs you! You need the other world, your world ."

"So, what am I supposed to do?"

"I have no idea, but you need to come out. Stop living like this."

"You will need loads more than hair, and missing school to tell me that my voice is not my voice. My voice will always stay and always cry. I still fight for what I believe in nothing will change that, even a breakup between Carlos and I."

................

I was listening to my music, watching me and Jaden perform. It was the last concert we had before I left.

Left,

Manhattan,

Jaden

My whole life!

Suddenly her eyes seemed to sparkle. "Come home." they seemed to say, "We need you; you need us."

I opened the portal, the light beckoning me to follow.

"Don't do it." Carlos cried, suddenly appeared by my doorway. "If you open it and go through you are unlocking the portal, which would let your mother through."

I ignored him

"Please listen to me."

"Did you listen to me when I begged, when I cried when you took away my sister. You will not take away Manhattan from me ever again!"

I grabbed my backpack and strode into the light

"Never ever again!!"