Fearless The King Series Book One - By Tawdra Kandle Page 0,30
it stamped on my forehead, so my parents didn’t really figure anything out until I was old enough for it to affect my behavior. Although my mom thinks in hindsight there were clues when I was a baby.”
“What kind of clues?”
I stretched out the hand that wasn’t being held and used it to support myself as I leaned back a bit. “I guess, when I would cry, I would quiet down as soon as my mom would get up to get me—before I could even see her, but she was probably thinking about me and somehow I heard that. And also if she woke up in the middle of the night, hoping I would stay asleep, right after she thought about me, I would wake up. My mom figures I could hear her thinking my name and it woke me up.”
He laughed then, delightedly. “Your poor parents. They must have loved that.”
I chuckled too. “Let’s just say they never meant me to be an only child, but my early childhood was such a challenge that they decided I was enough for them.”
“So when did they realize that you were not the average kid?”
I felt the familiar pain from those early years. “It didn’t take too long. I talked really early, probably because I was hearing so many more words than other toddlers. I started to repeat things that my parents had never said to me, and they had no idea where I could’ve picked up the phrasing, the words. And… I was very easily upset. I could pick up all my parents’ thoughts about me and about each other, and believe me, you don’t want to know what parents are thinking all the time. It wasn’t bad, but if they were the least bit impatient or tired or whatever, I knew that, and it upset me, because I didn’t know how to process what I was hearing.
“And then I started having trouble sleeping. My parents would get me to sleep, but I would wake up, screaming, probably because I heard them thinking, or I heard the neighbors thinking or whatever. I didn’t have any way to tune it out. And the lack of sleep, and dealing with what I was hearing all over the place—it didn’t make me a very pleasant toddler. The worse I got, the more my parents worried, and then I picked up on that, too.” I swallowed hard, unable to go on for a moment.
He squeezed my hand for just a second and then raised our joined hands to my face. I was surprised to feel that my face was wet.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “If you want to stop…”
I shook my head. “No, it’s just difficult. These aren’t really my memories, or even totally things my parents told me. They’re more the memories I’ve picked up from them over the years, and they’re kind of painful ones.” I took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m all right. So there I was, a troubled two year old. My parents didn’t know what to do. They took me to doctors, had me tested, and basically, they were told it was either a phase I would grow out of—or it was more serious. One doctor told them that he was sure I was emotionally disturbed, that I would probably end up living in some kind of group home for kids who were violent. That about killed my mom and dad. I think it was then they realized they couldn’t have any more children; some of the doctors were warning them that I might be physically abusive to any siblings.”
He whistled softly under his breath. “That must have been tough on them. What finally clued them in?”
I smiled shakily. “My grandmother figured it out. I spent a lot of time with her. She was the only person my parents would leave me with, and when I stayed there, I could actually sleep. See, she lived out on a farm, pretty far from her nearest neighbors, and she lived alone—my grandfather died before I was born. So it was very peaceful with her. She was a calm and restful person. And because of that, I was a calm and restful child when I was with her.
“She figured out gradually what I could do. She said there were lots of hints, and when she finally accepted that I could hear her thinking, it seemed the most logical answer.”