I stare up at Jason. He’s looking at me too now.
“No one knows, really, why the brain makes these visions. It wants to see something. All these beautiful things came out of the blue,” he says. “And out of the black. The same way you did. Your country in the sky is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I believe you. I saw it. I see it now, little bits.” He points up. There’s a small sailing vessel, no threat, moving fast across the sky.
“Even people who’ve never seen a miracle can believe in miracles, Aza. Even people who’ve never seen the light, people who’ve been kept in the dark, people who’ve gone snow-blind, or sky-blind? Even those people can imagine fantastic things. I believe you. Your family’s going to believe you too.”
“But I’m not me,” I tell him.
“You ARE you.” We pause. “Also, Aza, I’m scared too.”
“You are?” This makes me feel weirdly better.
“Yeah,” he says. “But at least we’re not scared of each other.”
I look at him.
“Are you sure?”
He hesitates for a little too long. “Nope. I mean, I’m not unscary. Maybe you’re scared of me.”
I smile at him. “I am deeply, deeply scared of you.”
We go up the walk to my house.
I think about the day I don’t remember, the day I came here fifteen years ago, newborn and no one, tucked into a bed not mine, in a body not mine, meant to die, and living because of these people who kept me safe without even knowing what I was. Who worked so hard to keep something broken going. Who loved me.
I think about my mom, apparently coming into my bedroom with a needle full of her serum, or so Jason tells me, and what was she then? Scared, and clueless. She thought I was human. She thought I was dying of something no one would understand. So she taught herself to understand it. She made me medicine. She put it into my bloodstream and hoped. When no one else could help me, she gave me everything she had.
Because of her, I’m here.
I can feel my chest rattling.
Being home is better than breathing, I tell myself.
I ring the doorbell. And they’re coming down the hall. I can hear them, my dad, footsteps, shoes on even though they shouldn’t be, my mom murmuring to him.
Jason’s kind of bouncing in place, like he might take off running, like we’re some other kind of couple on the way to the prom.
I suddenly think nothing bad can ever happen again, which is not smart, Aza, not smart, but I don’t care.
The door opens.
It’s my parents. Them. Really.
I have to fight really hard not to freak them out by crying, this stranger bursting into tears. But I sure as hell make some kind of noise. And they’re {???} and I’m {&,&,&} and they look at me like they don’t know me, which makes sense but feels like everything wrong ever and so I say “Mom?”
She doesn’t know me. I look completely different. I knew this would happen, but I’m not ready. It hurts.
“What?” she says. “What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
I discover I’m ready to reverse course and run from this, some kind of total coward. No one will know me down here. Not my parents. No one.
I start to stutter, start to stammer, and Jason steps forward.
“Hey, guys,” he says. “This is going to be weird, but hear me out.”
“Hi, Jason,” my mom says. “Are you okay? You seem not so hot. Should I call Carol? I heard about what happened.”
“Lightning,” Jason says. “I don’t recommend it. I’m mostly fine.”
I feel a pounding in my chest. Caru, above me, in a tree opening his wings. I hear a song inside me, Caru singing comfort.
“Jason,” says my dad, and I can see he’s trying to smile, but he’s startled to see Jason with someone who isn’t me. “Who’s this?”
“This is—”
I put my hand up to touch my hair. I don’t look the way I looked. They can’t possibly know.
“Hi,” I manage, whispering. “It’s good to see you.”
Eli runs down the stairs behind my parents, and stops in her tracks.
“Whoa,” she says. “I heard your voice, and for a second, I—” She looks closer. Her brow furrows. Confusion. “Jason?”
My parents are looking hard at me now. It’s the voice. I forgot. It’s the same. My voice belongs to me.
“Who are you?” my dad says. “I don’t think I—”
“I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know—” says my mom, her voice getting higher and higher.
“This isn’t funny,” says my dad.
“No,” says Jason. “I’m not trying to be funny. She has to show you something, okay?”
My mom stares hard at me. My dad is crying. I can almost not stand it.
Jason hands me a piece of paper and a pen. “Right?” he says. “This is what you do. You know what to do.”
“This is an apology list,” I say, louder than is strictly necessary. I put the paper against the wall and start writing. I know whose handwriting I’m writing in. It hasn’t changed. There are all these things that don’t change, ever, no matter what.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “For not knowing what you were. All the times we did normal things. All the times you came into my room when I was scared and you told me you loved me.”