Daeva: Black Diamond Chrysalis - Danielle Bolger (essential reading txt) 📗

"It was a little sad." Eric ushered me outside and down a quiet backstreet. There he guided me to a bench. "Come, sit here so you don't have to cover that beautiful face."

"It's not beautiful, not when I'm all red and snotty!" I complained.

"Well then, I guess I better fix that up for you." Here Eric pulled out a white handkerchief from his blazer front pocket and gently wiped away my tears.

"You have a hanky? Did you expect me to cry?"

Eric smirked. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't think you were a softie so I thought it couldn't hurt, but also my dad's always been saying that it's a gentleman's duty to carry the a lady's burdens. Whether it be a chill in winter where you give her your coat, or sorrow in summer and there you give her a cloth and your shoulder to cry on. No matter how bad a lady feels it is the gentleman's duty to fix it, no matter the cost because her smile is more precious than any gem in the world."

Meekly I smiled. "Your dad sounds really smooth, Eric. I hope I can meet him one day."

"I hope so too. Next time he's back I'll invite you over for dinner."

"Next time he's back?" I echoed. "Why, where is he now?"

Eric sighed. "He's over in America working on this wondrous new technology that's meant to cure brain degeneration. So far it's only in early test phases and though it's proven to slow its progression it still doesn't stop the process."

"Brain degeneration..." I murmured thoughtfully. "You mean like Alzheimer's and Dementia?"

"That, among other things. All autoimmune diseases that attack the brain cells," he said this with such melancholy that realisation finally hit me.

"He's doing it for your brother! But, I thought Jordan has autism?"

Eric shifted awkwardly next to me. "It looks like that, but really autism is just a broad term to describe a group of people with lower intellectual functioning. What Jordan has, it's not just a lower IQ, it's worse, it's a degrading IQ. And the terrible thing is, he knows it too."

"Oh..." I husked. "I'm sorry, you might think this is really rude but if you don't mind could you please explain it to me? I don't quite understand."

Eric leaned back in the chair, his hand was still in mine but his other one was gripping onto the handkerchief tightly. "My dad's a genius, you know. His IQ, it's like a hundred and sixty something. My mum, she's pretty smart too but I don't know what her score is. When they had me they discovered I was only a tad above average, a disappointment I'm sure to such brilliant parents. Then when they had Jordan he seemed to be so much ahead of me. At two years old he could already spell his name with block letters! He probably only just remembered the pattern, but still, that's crazy for a two year old! Then, when he turned four we started noticing changes in him.

"It started with him forgetting things, like the names of the characters in shows that he loved, and then things that we had talked about, like out of bounds areas or plans for the weekend. Then he started speaking less, which was strange because he was always so chatty! Then one day I found him at his blocks. He hadn't played with them since he was three because he said he was too grown-up for them, but there I saw him frowning as he struggled to spell something out. That's when he told he forgot what his name looked like and even when I put them together for him he shook his head and started crying. Later that week he was diagnosed with a rare degenerative condition that stated his brain function would continue to deteriorate from there on until he was nothing but a vegetable. The favourable prognosis he was given said that he would be severely autistic by the time he was ten."

"But he's not!" I interrupted. "He's sociable and well-mannered and he's happy!"

Eric nodded solemnly. "Yeah, that's right, he's a savant among his affliction and that has to do with two reasons, one is because of my dad. He's a neurologist, figures that a brainiac would choose to study the brain as a career, but when all this happened he poured himself into research for Jordan's condition. Trouble is, there's not a lot going on in Australia when it comes to that. I mean, there is, but it's not exactly world-leading and Dad, well he's pretty brilliant and since it's for his son, he threw himself into the best research team there is which means that he's mostly in the U.S. At one point we were all almost going to move there but because of Jordan's condition, familiarity is best, remembering helps to exercise the brain, so my mum, brother and I stayed here as my dad travels back and forth from practically the furtherest place in the world all in the hope of saving my brother."

"Oh, Eric. I'm so sorry, I had no idea what your family are going through. That must be very painful."

"It is, I love my dad, I aspire to be just like him but when he's gone I feel a little lost as to what to do. Then there's my younger brother who I love too and it's hard, really hard to see him fade away, but that's why my dad's working so endlessly to come up with a drug to stop the process, to save him, but at the moment he's only successful in slowly it down. It works, remarkably well when you consider that Jordan's meant to be a vegetable by now, but I don't think it's just that. There's another part to it that's keeping Jordan's mind here with us. It's his soul, he just wants to stay so much and I know that no matter how much he loses of himself that he will continue fighting, he will never give up."

"Wow... I never realised how strong Jordan is." I appraised.

"It hurts my dad, I know, to be away from us for so long and so often. He very well might be missing out on Jordan's entire existence by throwing himself into this research but I'm so thankful to him because he's proven to me that no matter what anyone says it's never over. People can always fight fate and one day, I know, Dad will do it, he'll come up with the cure and save Jordan. He'll never disappear, not ever."

"It must be hard for Jordan. He must remember, at least some of it, of being smarter. That must be... really sad and scary for him."

"I don't think you're wrong. At first, when Jordan noticed something changing in him, he spoke very little. Soon we discovered that it was associated with his increased difficulty with language but I think it was really due to shame. He was a bright kid after all and he knew it! He knew he was smarter than kids in his playgroup! So it would have been... excruciating to let that intelligence go, but since dad made up new trial drugs and that progression slowed I think, in a small way, that made a positive influence on Jordan. I think he himself noticed the change and with it, it gave him hope. Sure he has this horrible disease but that doesn't mean that he can't live and think of dreams for the future. Our dad decided to fight so then I believe Jordan chose to fight too. We all know that Dad may never get there, he'll be lucky to stop the degeneration let alone restore lost function, but still we hold out hope. It's not over yet so none of us are willing to give up until then."

Slowly I nodded but then increased my speed as something dawned on me. "The movie! It's not hopeless yet, there's still a chance that he's alive!"

Eric raised his eyebrows curiously as if to say go-on.

"It was all in the ending, just those last few frames but it means it all! When the girl went down by the lake and cried after learning that her love died she saw it, the butterfly! But it wasn't just any butterfly, it was the same one that the couple saw at the beginning, the same one she saw when she was back in Australia, then when she returned to the states - they all had that strange love-heart shaped splotch!" Grasping both his hands, hanky in tow, I exclaimed excitedly, "I get it now! The butterfly was their love and since it kept following her and despite the two whole years that passed it never died. That meant that their love hadn't died because he hadn't! Those records were wrong! It makes sense, things like that always have errors when it comes to wars so that means that he's still out there, drifting between countries just as the girl had been but one day he'll return - I know it! The butterfly meant the same thing throughout the whole movie - so long as there's a chance - don't give up hope!"

Though we were sitting in a dimly lit corner my daeva sight showed me the great magnitude of the sparkles within Eric's chestnut eyes. There he slipped a hand free from our intertwined grasp and placed it onto the side of my face. With a warm tingle he firmed his hold before ushering my head forward into his.

Like a marionette I had no control of my movements. My face drifted forwards, my eyes closed before my lips met his and parted just slightly. Warm, happy electricity sprouted from the touch and for many long moments I lingered there, lost in a dizzy, pleasant splendour. I could have been there seconds, minutes or hours, I could not tell as time in that reality lost all meaning, all I knew was that it was perfect and that it was right. So right, unfathomably right, something so grand I knew it was something I never wanted to let go of, ever. It was amazing, it was truth, but still that didn't describe it accurately enough. There was another word, something on the tip of my tingling tongue but had yet to make sense of it.

When Eric pulled back subtly he drew in air before expelling in a soft breeze. "I love you, Abigail."

And that was it, the word that described my feelings towards Eric. So small and yet so grand. Like the man in front of me was still young, still just a high schooler, but the biggest thing in the world to me.

I responded without hesitation, "I love you too, Eric."

Bethanie

"Bethanie, you can't go spending your whole weekend shut in your room like this. With the curtains shut closed and only the light from that damn blinking computer tower light, you're gonna wreak your eyes if nothing else!" Michael pleaded after he sat himself on the edge of my bed without permission.

"I'm not going to spend all weekend here, I just want to sleep in a little longer." I muttered from beneath my bed sheets.

"Bethanie, what's wrong? You haven't