Chapter twenty one

Have you heard that some say that inside a woman there is a man and vice versa?

It is totally true and Luz; although the only thing she is sure of is that she is unsure of everything, she has no choice but to believe it too. Well, the forest doesn't seem to tell her anything or maybe she is thinking too much about Alexis. She refuses to believe that it was a dream, she can't be so obsessed with him, can she?

No, she had to go on believing that he was there, watching her from some tree and wondering what he was thinking about. She remembered that every five minutes he would ask her, every time Luz became pensive, what was coming to her mind. Luz always lied to him because her father had told her never to trust anyone but him, because that would mean certain betrayal.

Still, sometimes she would forget not to trust or it would be that she had an intense need to socialize with someone other than Shrek, Mackie Mouse or Cinderella.

Luz decided to climb higher, branch after branch, until he was almost at the top of the tree. There she noticed that she was not in the same tree; although they all look the same, you have to be very meticulous to notice the pygmy differences between them.

"The tree I had slept in did not have a trunk as smooth as this one-he strokes the trunk of the tree-how had I not noticed it before? It has to be him, who else would want to watch me? No, no one in my family, not even my father, would dare to set foot in this forest. It was just him and me, so far I haven't seen anyone else, he and I always are."

Luz repaired that this trunk must be in the depths of the forest-"Worse, no one else but him could have brought me here"-an emotion shook her, her heartbeat intensified as she remembered what did happen and it was not a dream, according to her, "Luz, I kissed the chest of a handsome boy and he looked at me, Alexis looked at me".

Somehow the shame has left her and she is determined to surprise Alexis. Luz knows how to know her exact location. However, she had to control her emotions or instead of hearing his, she was going to hear hers rumbling.

She took a deep breath, listened attentively to every bird singing, to every insect buzzing, to the leaves being caressed by the wind and the wind being caressed by the breath of every being existing in this forest so beautiful inside.

Luz wants to find the base note of the nature sounds of this forest, to be able to listen to the one that differs from them. For her this is something simple, because she has spent almost six years here, in the green gold.

A few seconds pass and she hears a note sublime in its simplicity; it must be simple, without affectations, so that all the beings of this forest accept it without any fear. Little by little its power envelops all who believe and have the will to trust what they cannot see with their eyes.

In that trance he listens to an uneasy sound, he seems to want to measure himself but he does not succeed. It is as if someone were trying to move a train without coal. Luz listens to the sky complaining with a low stifled voice.

"A train that pollutes the sky, but the sky insists on chasing it and uses me to get it. I know very well how to act as an object, everything is pragmatic."

Light chases that train sound that flees from the sky. She goes from branch to branch, tree after tree, stretching her muscles, bending, contorting her body as if she were a professional gymnast.

As she follows Alexis' heels, images of him at this very moment flash before her. He's climbing branch after branch, tree after tree so she can't see him. Luz communicates with the wind as she rolls her eyes and lets the wind return the caress she gives him with her voice whenever she returns to the forest.

Alexis' look was a little frightened and anxious, her emotions close to the edge. Sweat beads on her forehead, her Adam's apple moves up and down, her muscles vibrate, her features are contracted with worry; but what fascinates Luz the most is that he has also returned to the forest and has not forgotten about her existence as she makes everyone in the school suppose.

The wind tells her, she has heard his melody, it has to be him or not?

The wind never cheats, or does it?

Neither of these last two questions crosses her mind, Luz really believes it is Alexis.

However, there is another sound that catches her attention and makes her change direction.

"Either it's another melody or Alexis' is entering an internal conflict right now."

She can't see any more of it, the wind has already lost track of her biggest obsession or what else might be going on with Alexis.

"Alexis, come out of wherever you're hiding, I know it's you."

Luz shouts as she tries to find him; no longer just because it feels good to know that someone knows you well enough to know your favorite place, she requires the clue to know what his dream was about, an even deeper obsession.

In the tension she miscalculates and her hand misses the next branch and she falls, descending meters below. Luz can't believe she's going to die without having lived anything at all.

But, well, if I had died I wouldn't have to be here enslaved as a forced narrator, would I?

As you already knew, Luz wears a metal halo over her head and some small tubes of the same metal almost inserted inside her skin. This is her teleportation equipment and of course it is equipped to make her float. You know that with new technologies you have to be very exaggerated in the precautions; for which, one must imagine the most disastrous situations ever. As long as you do not want to be sued for damage to public health or whatever you call circumstances like these.

"This I can call good luck."

Luz says to herself, and tries to go faster now that she's floating in the air, but she only walks slower.

"Can I help you?"

Her voice is like a balance between high-pitched and low-pitched; so it seems unnatural to her even though it shouldn't be, she supposes.

"Has anyone else come to the forest?"

Luz thinks before turning to look at the boy with the mole above his split jaw.

"You should read the manual before using that halo and special metal tubes for teleportation." Luz's expression, his dark circles under his eyes and his tousled hair, denote a clear aversion regarding the said manual; so the mole boy intends to be more pleasant and less demanding. "You know those little tubes change color and each color is a different function." He tries to smile; but it bothers him, for quite personal reasons, the recklessness of people. "That's in the manual but it's a good thing I was here to activate the light blue color with this". He takes out of his backpack something similar to a yellow stone, "This is given to instructors like me, so that if an emergency occurs and the tubes of your equipment need more chemical energy, I am prepared to recharge it. You should have charged it three hours ago, how did it last you so long?" Although he tries to hide his somewhat authoritative attitude, his serious look gives him away and makes him look much older than Luz.

She is not sure who she is dealing with and, as if she is sure that the forest owes her an answer, she looks around searching.... looking for Alexis.

She hadn't even realized that she is on the outskirts of the forest; "He hasn't gone in, I've come out", with this resolution she decides to act as she does in front of everyone else who is not her schoolmates or, at least, until she confirms her conjectures regarding him. "I don't know, uh... You're like the camp lifeguard or something?". Luz bites her lip; for she has never engaged in conversation with a boy other than Alexis or doesn't remember ever having done so in this life.

He laughs at her comment, shakes his head, and places the yellow stone on her palm. "This is your real lifeline, I'm just a robot."

Luz is taken aback by that comment and thinks she has never agreed more with a boy's opinion ever, or at least not in this life.

In short, she should concentrate on that comment before she turns red as a tomato or says something stupid because of her nervous attacks.

His pressure on her hand; never had a boy, not even Alexis, made her feel so secure just by holding his hand.

Maybe she has problems with boys because she doesn't know how to control her emotions. She only feels intensely because she knows that the touch of someone outside her home is a miracle in her life.

She tries to concentrate on the warm stone... that joins her hands with those of the boy with the mole... "damn!".

"You know it's already going to be dawn....

"Yeah right," he removes his hands from hers, but continues to look straight into her eyes, "the stone generated a lot of heat for you didn't it, your cheeks?"

"You want to tell me how to get back to the camp," demands Luz, tired of the same thing always happening with all the young boys that have ever lived in this land.

"Yeah sure, you're right," the polka dot boy instructs her to raise her hand, but is distracted when he sees a dog running directly towards him. "Rocky, finally. You always find me buddy."

However, Luz's eyes widen like saucers when she sees it's her father further her father followed by her mother and younger brother.

"Are they coming here, we have to go." She tries to turn around but the father, who had already seen her a while ago, says her full name: "Lucila Olinda Villarrear Ferry".

Luz turns immediately and greets her father with her hand: "Good morning" and waves.

"And who is your friend?", asks her mother when they surround her and the boy with the mole.

"We're not friends, I'm the teleportation equipment instructor, but nice to meet you." Although he extends his hand, the father doesn't receive it and gives Luz a disapproving look.

"I told you you wouldn't go to any camp this year to avoid trouble..."

"I know pa' but I can't go around hiding. Maybe if Adam had not hidden and faced his mistakes from the beginning, God would have been more contemplative, don't you think?". Polka dot boy backs her up with a yes, as he continues to pet his puppy.

"Don't beat around the bush young lady."

Bastian says in a voice as deep as his father's. Luz thinks, "Lest the next voice change be for the worse." "We're leaving for home," then she looks at Bastian with a frown that makes him look older than he is, "And you, your mother and sister stop hiding things from me. You would have told me that you rescued a dog and I would have put your picture on the back window of my car.

The boy with the mole stood up with a smile, "I really appreciate it sir, thank you very much." The father flashes a satisfied smile. Luz mutters to herself, "Well if he had been told he would have kicked the poor dog out. One more mouth is one more expense and in the 15 or 20 years he has been working he hasn't even saved enough money to buy, without reluctance, a bar of soap. It would be nice if he exaggerated, but he is the one who exaggerates in his stinginess".

As if the father read his mind, he is about to comment something unfortunate but the boy with the mole goes ahead: "I thank his whole family and I will give them a compensation".

The father's eyes light up. Luz imagined dollars there. She just wanted her father to leave her alone, but from her brother she was not going to be spared.

"Let the compensation not be for Luz. She didn't even know about the puppy because she is clueless. If it were up to her, the puppy would have died of neglect." The mother silenced Bastián and tried to make up for her daughter's shame: "As a child she used to get into trouble, which caused her many blows...".

"I understand, gentlemen, would you mind if I first show your daughter how to return to the camp and then we can talk about the compensation".

Luz knows she won't stay like that, Bastian is one of the worst bullies so he wouldn't keep quiet just because his mother told him to. Nobody shuts him up: "But Flavia shouldn't get anything either. At least Luz doesn't care about anyone. On the other hand, Flavia only worries about screwing up our lives".

Luz can't bear the shame any longer and turns all kinds of colors. The boy with the mole notices it and, therefore, pretends not to notice.

"Okay, I'm going to ship it."

They all gladly agreed as they imagine the juicy compensation. Luz heard her father mutter, "That guy's got a good bill, you can see it in that watch, I know how to spot fakes and that's an original one. If I didn't have children what wouldn't I do", he laughs under the shadows, like a coward and Luz holds back the urge to cry because she is supposed to be the protagonist of a paranormal romance. They cry, yes, but not left and right. There must have been evolution in her.

This time she was not going to leave anyone, not even "a boy with a golden mole".