As soon as I finish speaking, I can tell I said too much. Oh, not for my sake. No, every word I spoke about my family was truth, and it settles in my chest and fills up places that have been empty for too long. I don't think I could have said those words if Lieschel wasn't a lost child just like I once was. Lost, that doesn't feel quite true. I was discarded, abandoned, with a nametag sewn onto my soul that said I never was, or at least never should have been.
But she is still a lost girl, sad and lonely, with no one to hold her close and tell her that she is safe and loved and wanted, and that everything is going to be okay. Yes, she understands exactly how blessed I am, but my words must be like daggers to a heart yearning so hard for what I was lucky enough to be given. As soon as they're out, I know she will run.
And so she does. She hides her pain beneath a pasted-on smile, but I know the weight of that fake smile on her lips. I've worn it myself. She pauses just long enough to breathe in the scent of family on my skin, because I've been home long enough now that I carry traces of them with me wherever I go. Then she makes her excuses and bows out, disappearing before I can try to stop her. And what would I have done? Held her tight against me and refused to let go until Offspring and Isle came to find us? I could not have kept her here if I had tried, so I watch her leave, the ache in my chest a sad little echo of the lost boy I used to be.
As the sun begins to set, dimming the entrance to my little cave and casting the world into twilight, I rise and walk toward the edge of the playground in search of the grownups who have taken me into their home and made me theirs. When I find them though, I hesitate, not quite knowing how to ask something so big. “Um...hey, Mom?” I ask, meeting angel eyes that have always only ever looked at me with love. “I...” My voice trails off, my gaze drifting toward the ground as I bite my lip and struggle to ask. But it's not for me. It's for someone I could have been, if I had not been so unbelievably lucky.
“I met a girl,” I go on, my eyes darting to hers again, and to the deep red of Offspring's eyes too before locking on the ground again. “And she's...she's all alone, with nobody to love her. She...she ran away when I told her about my family, but I think I know where to find her.” If I were still a lost boy, and I'd heard the story I told Lieschel, I would curl up beneath those big old trees, the place where the teller had found home, and I would hope against all reason that I would be just as lucky. Even if I knew it was impossible.
And then the words start to spill out in a nervous, hopeful torrent. “I...I know it's big. A lot. More than I should...should ask, but...but she needs somebody to be her home. Could...could maybe we? Be her home, I mean. And if we can't, because I know you already took in me and Mari and that's a lot and you have Argo too and three is already big, but four is only one more which is really not so much bigger, but if four is too big I mean also we could maybe, if you know anyone, at least find her someone that can? But they have to be someone who will love her like...” My eyes find angel eyes again as my lower lip trembles, tears threatening to well up and fall down my cheeks. “Like you love me. Someone who will never let her be lost again.”
I can lead them back to the den, to the neverland where lost boys and girls try so hard to not grow up into lost men and women. Mom will recognize the sprawling old trees, because how could she not? And that's exactly where I know Lieschel will be waiting. Hardly daring to hope, because hoping hurts too much when you have nothing and no one to hold onto. It's okay, Lieschel. We won't let you be lonely for long.
But she is still a lost girl, sad and lonely, with no one to hold her close and tell her that she is safe and loved and wanted, and that everything is going to be okay. Yes, she understands exactly how blessed I am, but my words must be like daggers to a heart yearning so hard for what I was lucky enough to be given. As soon as they're out, I know she will run.
And so she does. She hides her pain beneath a pasted-on smile, but I know the weight of that fake smile on her lips. I've worn it myself. She pauses just long enough to breathe in the scent of family on my skin, because I've been home long enough now that I carry traces of them with me wherever I go. Then she makes her excuses and bows out, disappearing before I can try to stop her. And what would I have done? Held her tight against me and refused to let go until Offspring and Isle came to find us? I could not have kept her here if I had tried, so I watch her leave, the ache in my chest a sad little echo of the lost boy I used to be.
As the sun begins to set, dimming the entrance to my little cave and casting the world into twilight, I rise and walk toward the edge of the playground in search of the grownups who have taken me into their home and made me theirs. When I find them though, I hesitate, not quite knowing how to ask something so big. “Um...hey, Mom?” I ask, meeting angel eyes that have always only ever looked at me with love. “I...” My voice trails off, my gaze drifting toward the ground as I bite my lip and struggle to ask. But it's not for me. It's for someone I could have been, if I had not been so unbelievably lucky.
“I met a girl,” I go on, my eyes darting to hers again, and to the deep red of Offspring's eyes too before locking on the ground again. “And she's...she's all alone, with nobody to love her. She...she ran away when I told her about my family, but I think I know where to find her.” If I were still a lost boy, and I'd heard the story I told Lieschel, I would curl up beneath those big old trees, the place where the teller had found home, and I would hope against all reason that I would be just as lucky. Even if I knew it was impossible.
And then the words start to spill out in a nervous, hopeful torrent. “I...I know it's big. A lot. More than I should...should ask, but...but she needs somebody to be her home. Could...could maybe we? Be her home, I mean. And if we can't, because I know you already took in me and Mari and that's a lot and you have Argo too and three is already big, but four is only one more which is really not so much bigger, but if four is too big I mean also we could maybe, if you know anyone, at least find her someone that can? But they have to be someone who will love her like...” My eyes find angel eyes again as my lower lip trembles, tears threatening to well up and fall down my cheeks. “Like you love me. Someone who will never let her be lost again.”
I can lead them back to the den, to the neverland where lost boys and girls try so hard to not grow up into lost men and women. Mom will recognize the sprawling old trees, because how could she not? And that's exactly where I know Lieschel will be waiting. Hardly daring to hope, because hoping hurts too much when you have nothing and no one to hold onto. It's okay, Lieschel. We won't let you be lonely for long.