The Tracker Hive Academy Year One - Avery Song Page 0,76
anything to do with you taking meds?"
"I don't know." I trailed my finger along his left pec as a distraction. "People look at you differently when you take meds to control your level of crazy."
"Having hallucinations doesn't make you crazy. Nor am I one of the 'people' who would judge you for wanting to control what may affect you negatively."
"At the party. I saw someone...a person from my past. I'm not sure if it was an illusion or not. He...haunts my dreams a lot. I stopped my meds a while ago...but I may go back on them. I just..."
"Don't want us judging you?"
I bit the side of my lip and nodded. "I hate being judged. Not in the way where people judge my personality, which I can control. I despise when they judge something I have no control over. That I can't change with the snap of my fingers."
Glancing up to him, I noticed the calm in his expression, almost like he was mimicking Zion's normal behavior.
"Does this have to do with when you were homeless?" he asked.
"I hated when people called me dirty. Said that I should kill myself for taking space. A full year of constant ridicule." I poked his chest lightly at first, getting lost in the memories of all those horrible words and actions.
"Waste of space. Get a job. Go to a shelter. Trouble child. Pathetic. Useless. Jump off a bridge. Drug addict. Runaway. The list was endless. Rain or shine, it didn't matter. There was far more hate than there was kindness and sorrow. I wasn't homeless by choice. I never wanted to live on the streets. Every day was a battle to escape the people who wanted me for my power. From the man who haunts me in my dreams and follows me when I don't take my meds."
I paused in poking him, realizing I was doing it far too hard and making his skin flush red. "Sorry."
"You're not dirty." His soft tone had me looking back into his eyes. "They didn’t know what you'd gone through. Your whys or hows. They knew nothing and had no right to say such bullshit."
I blinked, noticing that his anger reminded me of Zeus. "Seeing you with different emotions like your brothers is intriguing," I muttered before moving closer to him.
He sighed and wrapped an arm around me, pulling me into a hug while his hand trailed up and down my back, soothingly.
"Jade," he whispered in my ear. "I'm serious."
"It's hard not to believe them," I mumbled.
It wasn't like I was intentionally trying to move away from the topic, but it wasn't something anyone ever wanted to talk about or dive further into.
Anything negative was like that. Something no one wanted to tackle and get to the bottom of, because it left them feeling uncomfortable. Even psychologists had struggled with my attempts to understand my feelings and what I'd been through.
Why would Zeke want to dive into those topics headfirst? There was nothing in it for him.
"Everyone always says that time heals and you'll eventually forget and move on. But the bad memories never leave. The good ones do, but the ones that hurt you most cling to every bit of your memory bank. Not to merely torment you for years to come, but to remind you that this world isn't butterflies and rainbows. Being good and following the rules doesn't achieve anything. But being bad or causing a ruckus? That gets all the attention you can ask for. Good and nasty. Fight the system of being told what to do and see how fast people will try to figure out what makes you do what you do. What makes you tick and tock, because you aren't normal otherwise. They'll give you all the meds and basic needs, but if you’re good? If you follow the rules and ask for help? All that leads you to is bribery, homelessness, and the world judging you for trying to find an option not tied to someone else's bank account."
I wasn't even sure I was making sense anymore. I just let the words pour out. It didn't matter if Zeke couldn't decipher them. I didn't expect him to be able to.
"This world isn't for us," he whispered. I leaned back to peer into his eyes, but he turned us over so I was now lying on top of him. He let go of my waist and moved his hand through my hair.