Pulse of Heroes (35 page)

“What?” Michelle asked, feeling that Rion was
measuring her in some way.

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” he said to her,
clearing his mind of the not so G-rated image he had in his head.
“I was just wondering what you meant by saying that he told you
enough.” Michelle tried to fill Rion in about what she knew.

“That’s it?” Rion asked.

“Should there be more?” Michelle asked back,
as confused as ever.

“No, not really,” Rion lied. He guessed that
if Elliot hadn’t told her about what had happened in China and why
he had been forced to leave, then it was obvious that he shouldn’t
mention it either.

“You still didn’t tell me where Elliot
is?”

“Elliot and Devin flew to Asia. China to be
precise.”

“China!” Michelle yelled, “and you don’t know
when he’s coming back?” Rion apologized.

“None of us do. Elliot had to take care of
certain things. And to be honest, he could be gone a week or a
month, or even years. I’m sure by now you understand that time
passes differently for us.” Michelle was crushed. She swallowed
hard and apologized to Rion for coming there in the first place.
Rion felt really bad for Michelle, but he also knew that Elliot
always acted with reason, so who was he to pass judgment on him for
not telling the girl that he was leaving.

Michelle shut the door behind her as quietly
as possible. She didn’t realize that she had been at the school
long enough for it to turn dark. But she thought that it was better
that way; no one would see her crying while she walked home. How
could Elliot be so cold, she thought? And what was she supposed to
do? Wait for him when he might not come back for years, if at all?
Michelle hugged herself while walking. The evening breeze was
chilly and she hadn’t brought a sweater. In a most bizarre manner
the light breeze began picking up speed and it became windy. A
small tornado of dust and leaves began spinning in front of her
legs and Michelle stopped to stare at the rotating dust with
concern. She then felt a presence behind her.

“A rather small thrill, I know, but I didn’t
want to alarm the neighbors with a real tornado,” Rion said
smiling.

“What do you want?’ Michelle asked, hoping
that the dark concealed her tears. Rion told her that he didn’t
think she should be walking alone at night.

“But there are streetlights on the main road.
I’ve lived on this street since I was born; it’s very safe.”
Michelle resumed walking. But Rion kept up with her anyway, telling
her that he didn’t mean to sound so callous at the school, but that
he thought telling her the truth was better than circumventing it,
even slightly. Michelle told him that she appreciated that because
the last thing she wanted to do was play the fool.

“Listen, Elliot is not a bad guy. He’s got a
good heart. I mean, we are family, him and I, by marriage at
least…”

“He’s married???” Michelle asked, stopping in
her tracks. Now Rion could tell for certain that she had her heart
set on Elliot. And that he had obviously failed to discuss any of
his previous relationships with her.

“No, he’s not married anymore,” Rion said,
assuring her with a kind smile. “But at one point in our lengthy
journey he was married to one of my great grandchildren, wait, no,
my great great grandchild. But that was a long time ago.” Michelle
hated the image of Elliot with another woman so she didn’t say
anything. After a few moments of walking quietly, Michelle asked
Rion what she was like. Rion wasn’t sure that it was a good idea
for them to be discussing Leta, but Michelle kept insisting,
promising up and down that she was aware that Elliot had been
married before, and she was just curious.

“Was she very pretty?” Michelle asked even
though she knew the answer.

“Yes, of course she was. She was my blood,”
Rion said proudly, after which his mood changed. He told her that
Elliot’s marriage to Leta ended up in a horrible tragedy, one that
sent Elliot into a deep despair. “Leta died at a young age,” he
added, looking at Michelle seriously.

“I didn’t see Elliot for almost 1500 years
after that, and that’s a lot even by our time frame.” Michelle
sensed Rion’s sadness, and despite feeling jealous she felt bad for
bringing up the subject. She apologized for asking, but Rion wasn’t
listening, and continued telling her that once he and Elliot
reconnected he found out that Elliot had not remarried in all those
missing years. “Not until recently, when he married Xander’s
grandmother. Elliot is still carrying around a lot of pain. He has
many issues,” he warned Michelle. “We used to be close but we don’t
talk much anymore. I have no idea really how he’s doing, and that’s
one of the reasons that it didn’t surprise me that he didn’t tell
you he was leaving. He is very conflicted about relationships.”
Michelle became visibly upset once more and Rion decided that he
had said enough. Once the light coming out from her parents’
bedroom window was visible, she thanked Rion for walking her home
and convinced him to let her know if he heard anything from Elliot.
Rion responded to her in perfect Italian and Michelle turned around
in complete surprise. “I said, if you need, I can help you prepare
for your Italian test. Anyone at the school could; we all speak
Italian fluently.” Michelle smiled at Rion’s generosity and told
him that that would be great, but only if he really didn’t mind.
She didn’t want him to pity her.

Once in bed, Michelle lay awake thinking
about the things that Rion had told her. She had so many questions
in her mind. Could Elliot really be that damaged, emotionally out
of reach because of something that happened over a thousand years
ago? Michelle wondered about Leta… what did she look like? Why did
she die at a young age? Michelle found herself feeling jealous of
the effect that this Leta’s death had on Elliot’s heart, even
though she knew that she was being silly and childish to feel
jealous over a poor woman who died so many years ago. Another
question that swirled in her head was whether Elliot could love
anyone the way he loved Leta, or if that kind of love only happened
once in a lifetime. But what if that life goes on forever, is it
still the same? She wondered where Elliot went after Leta passed
away and what did he do during all those years? It was obvious that
Rion knew Elliot well, and perhaps spending time with him was not
that bad of an idea. After all, he did leave the door open for her
to come back. He told her to call the school and leave him a
message if she needed help in her studies, and that was exactly
what she needed to do. She must. Michelle felt a terrible hunger
for any information about Elliot; she wanted to know everything
there was to know. This dedicated determination was something new
to her. She had never felt like that before and was aware that she
was changing. She was thinking about the world differently and her
entire concept of the people in her life was changing. They were
still out there, but she, although still in their world, was living
on the edge between two different worlds that were related to one
another and even interacted, but were at odds on the concept of
time.

The anticipation of summer vacation was
infecting everyone in school, everyone except Michelle. The arrival
of May was just another marker, an additional point of reference to
Elliot’s long absence. By this time Michelle had made peace with
the fact that Elliot left because of something very serious, but
deep inside she feared that he hadn’t come back because of her.
Nothing took the sting away from feeling irrelevant. She missed him
and thought about him more and more. When she told Samantha that
Elliot had left the country and no one knew when he’d be back, Sam
wasn’t impressed at all, and told Michelle that she needed to
forget him. The upcoming Junior Prom was another situation that
Michelle refused to think about, even though Samantha kept
insisting that Michelle would regret it if she didn’t go.

“Tim has been hinting about asking you to be
his date, even as friends. He just wants you to give him a chance.
I know it,” Samantha said, almost begging. Michelle told her that
she did care about Tim, and that was precisely why she thought it
wouldn’t be fair to go with him just as friends when he had
feelings for her and she was pining over another guy.

“But Elliot isn’t here! Are you going to skip
on everything in your life?” Samantha asked in frustration.
Michelle didn’t know what to say. She wanted out, to leave the
scene. She refused to be confronted by her own weaknesses. So she
told Samantha that she just couldn’t think about the Prom at that
moment because she was still failing Italian. Michelle walked away,
leaving Samantha standing in the school’s main hallway.

That afternoon Rion told the guys that
Michelle would be coming over to study, and although no one seemed
to find anything wrong in that, there was still the hovering
question if doing so was proper. But at the same time, all Elliot
did was to take her on a nice drive or two, nothing more. When
Michelle showed up at
Hekademos
Kahl greeted her warmly,
telling her he was very happy to see her. He put his hands on her
shoulders and gave her a small squeeze, saying that it had been too
long since they all had dinner together.

“What dinner?” Haneul asked.

“When Ando cooked the abalones. Oh, that’s
right, you guys weren’t around that night,” Kahl answered. Both
Rion and Haneul looked at Ando, who looked up from the magazine he
was reading and shrugged.

“What? It was really good. Especially the
chowder! Ask her,” he said, looking at Michelle. Haneul looked at
Kahl with disappointment.

“
Jeonbok
, and you didn’t even think to
tell me?” Kahl laughed and told Haneul that he needed to take that
up with Elliot because he was the one that fetched the shells from
up north. As soon as Elliot’s name was mentioned, everyone became
very quiet and all attention focused on Michelle, who had no
intention of being at the center of things.

“Well, should we go study?” Michelle hoped
that Rion would notice her expression of alarm and get her the hell
out of there. Rion was no fool and he told everyone that they would
have to continue that conversation later because he and Michelle
were going into the classroom to get some peace and quiet.

Once in the classroom Michelle looked at Rion
and just shook her head. “You guys argue like a bunch of little
kids. I thought you were all supposed to be old and wise.”

“We’re not old really,” he said, trying to
hide his bruised ego. “If you think about it, we’re just not on the
same schedule as you humans are, and anyway I’ve seen plenty of old
people argue. Haneul happens to really love fresh abalones. It’s
like hamburgers or pizza for Koreans.” Michelle didn’t understand
the big deal since it was still open season and Haneul could just
go up the coast and get some himself.

“Can’t you guys breath underwater? It would
be totally easy,” she asked Rion excitedly.

“I am not aware that we possess any secret
gills anywhere,” Rion said, amused that Michelle would think such a
thing. “What else did Elliot tell you, that we have tails too?”
Michelle told him that she just assumed that because Elliot was
able to stay underwater for such a long time. Rion corrected her,
telling her that they could just hold their breath for longer
periods. He then told her that once he dove into a lake and
searched for almost an hour for a ring that his wife had hurled
into the murky depths.

“She thought I had been unfaithful to her. I
found the ring, eventually, but she left me anyway.”

“Were you?” Michelle asked in a charged
voice. But Rion asked her what she considered to be unfaithful,
especially because as king it was customary to have more than one
wife. Rion laughed when he saw Michelle’s face at his mention of
being a king, and then proudly stated to her that he was a true
romantic and it didn’t matter how many women he was married to.

“I don’t want to hear any more stories like
this.” Michelle put her hands over her ears. “I’ve had enough with
you people and your fairytales. Next you’re going to tell me that
Elliot was a king too but somehow forgot to mention it?”

“Only two times that I know of.” Rion enjoyed
getting a rise out of Michelle; it brought out different aspects of
her character and it made Elliot’s relationship with her less of an
enigma to him. Michelle felt uncomfortable. She couldn’t tell if
Rion was teasing her just to see her reaction and she definitely
wasn’t sure why he was telling her how romantic he was. She was by
no means interested in him, even though he was unquestionably very
handsome, tall and masculine. And he didn’t exhibit any of that
apprehensiveness that Elliot did while he was around her. Michelle
concluded that Rion, although a trickster, was definitely more
mature.

They sat down at the large table and Rion
leafed through Michelle’s schoolbooks, asking her where she and
Elliot had left off. Elliot's name always seemed to bring Michelle
to a standstill, so Rion decided that from then on he just wouldn’t
mention it. They studied and practiced for almost two hours
straight, and although Rion was being very patient he remembered
all over again why he hadn’t wanted any children in a very long
time. It was a kind of an oxymoron that he thought he possessed
neither the time nor the patience to raise them and guide them when
in fact he had all the time he could ever want. During a break they
decided to order pizza, from Little Napoli of course, and luckily
they both agreed on the toppings. She heard Rion order two extra
large pies and asked him if he didn’t think that most of it would
go to waste because she could only eat three slices at most.
Covering the receiver with his hand, he assured her with a wink
that he knew what he was doing.